So my pirate PC just made an engine for thier boat.

[Vincent Takeda]

I agree. I'd allow it.

[Mathius]

What are the dragging rules?

Even at 1.5 times max load a weight for a boat then it can still carry a fully loaded one on land.(once we get items).

I am going to allow the always run thing for undead but I need to know at what tonnages it will slowed to x3 and not able to run at all.

Ships will be able to outrun them if they can flee directly downwind but since they can come upwind at them then this is not an issue. I think that this guy will make catching enemy ships trivial but other issues will remain.

It will not help with boarding.
Sea monster will not like it.
Hurricane king will sea them a true threat early on and start undermining them.
Barnabas will have and easy time tracking them.
See monster will be a much bigger thing but at least the croc can help fight those. (Need a list.)
Higher port fees.
Guy with command undead.
The will need to rig up a control system to drive the thing or have it on the surface towing.
Smiters will want to take this thing out.

I think at the next major port they dock in I will have low level caster try and jack the beast and ransom it back to them. It will go poorly for him but no one said he had a good wis.

Would Besmera be upset about this thing? If so what do should they have to do to please her and be allowed to keep it. That is a nice hook. Also they did murder the helpful cleric in book 1.

[GM DarkLightHitomi]

Simple, Besmera doesn't intend to let them keep it, however that doesn't mean she is going to go full deity rage on them either. Instead make some folks constantly hunting them on Besmera's behalf, perhaps a priest trying to earn a higher position or trying to make up for a mistake, either way this could be a good motivation for a secondary antagonist who might remain unknown at first and maybe the PCs don't even realize they have two major enemies at first (which might be fun if they notice significant differences between groups of enemies but ned to figure out what those differences mean.)

Of course, I've never played or read S&S so maybe this modified, but I still think it would be most interesting to have mercs hunting the PCs as well as the standard mooks.

[Mathius]

SnS is quite sandboxy and as long as they remain pirates in that part of the world then I can use most of it. I already make everything harder since they optimize a fair bit and have 5 PCs. Adding in stuff just means modifying stuff elsewhere.

[Mergy]

GM DarkLightHitomi wrote:

Simple, Besmera doesn't intend to let them keep it, however that doesn't mean she is going to go full deity rage on them either. Instead make some folks constantly hunting them on Besmera's behalf, perhaps a priest trying to earn a higher position or trying to make up for a mistake, either way this could be a good motivation for a secondary antagonist who might remain unknown at first and maybe the PCs don't even realize they have two major enemies at first (which might be fun if they notice significant differences between groups of enemies but ned to figure out what those differences mean.)

Of course, I've never played or read S&S so maybe this modified, but I still think it would be most interesting to have mercs hunting the PCs as well as the standard mooks.

Why would Besmara care about this? Besmara doesn't give a lick about her followers, and mostly teaches that people have two hands so they can grab whatever isn't nailed down.

[Mathius]

She might care that others are trying to tame sea monsters and that is something only she gets to do.

[TimD]

FuelDrop wrote:

What was that other idea? Oh yeah, a jet engine made with a magically heated ring and a decanter of endless water.

Have some other pirates in a jet powered pirate ship pull up beside them and challenge them to a race.

I almost suggested having another group of pirates come by in a modified hydrofoil from multiple decanters of endless water all keyed to the same "geyser" command word to say "nice effort chaps, you'll get there eventually!" but decided it might seem a bit too over the top.

I see I was mistaken. :)
I sometimes forget it is rare to find "too over the top" when it comes to pirating.

-TimD

[Movin]

Lifting and Dragging: A character can lift as much as his maximum load over his head. A character's maximum load is the highest amount of weight listed for a character's Strength in the heavy load column of Table: Carrying Capacity.

A character can lift as much as double his maximum load off the ground, but he or she can only stagger around with it. While overloaded in this way, the character loses any Dexterity bonus to AC and can move only 5 feet per round (as a full-round action).

A character can generally push or drag along the ground as much as five times his maximum load. Favorable conditions can double these numbers, and bad circumstances can reduce them by half or more.

Carry cap with all the trimmings (spells and magic item) would be fairly easy if you are using U.S. tons. with a capacity of 599000ish is basically would mean 100 tons is its light, 200 its medium and a little under 300 is its heavy/max.

Using the drag rules anything under 500 tons would be a light load.

It would be good to mention that the hurricane king is rather like Robert Baratheon in his method of leadership. He won the crown and spends his days drinking and wenching to his hearts content. He could give less of two damns about some group of scrubs with a big lizard.
Heck he hardly cares much for his Nation at all.
His adviser the Master of storms however would have a difference of opinion on that should he have reason to hear of the PC's. With the work load that guy has I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't for some time unless the PC's feel like showing off somewhere big.
Like if they were to bring such a beast to the Regatta later on in the books (an excellent way to keep that portion of the book as it was designed.)

Besmara would have an issue because one of her divine domains is Sea Monsters, something that the crocodile was not previously but now that it is in Her ocean beating up Her sea monsters she might take issue. I mean unless there was a tribute of gold tossed her way.
Mob boss of pirates after all.
Though it would be fair to say that would likely only start happening once the group actually got enough gold to be worth hr effort in shaking down.

Most of these consequences come down to how your group chooses to use the creature.
If they have it act as a simple outboard motor and don't reveal its presence to people then "the ship with the shadow" would likely be famous for being haunted and being capable of impossible maneuvers.
If they use their giant combat monster for evil purposes then people start realzing the threat it presents and when they attack them will plan accordingly (EX low level wizard with a scroll of command undead. Trouble is if the crocodile stays under water IE does not participate in combat then the wizard is unable to target the croc.

[boring7]

Mathius wrote:

What are the dragging rules?

From the Carrying capacity section: "A character can generally push or drag along the ground as much as five times his maximum load. Favorable conditions can double these numbers, and bad circumstances can reduce them by half or more."

Water probably counts as "favorable". Nothing in speed limit so presumably you just count as moving at heavy load when dragging a ship. Dragging on land is a bad idea overall because it tears up the hull and if there's a keel it gets bad.

Mathius wrote:

Even at 1.5 times max load a weight for a boat then it can still carry a fully loaded one on land.(once we get items).

Should be fine then. You might need to look at some images of what their boat (I still don't know what type of boat it is) looks like and how best it could be strapped onto the crocodile. Remember that hollowing out parts of walking corpses is not technically a problem but most people feel weird about removing the spine and still having it "work". It's all up to your own rulings though.

Mathius wrote:

I am going to allow the always run thing for undead but I need to know at what tonnages it will slowed to x3 and not able to run at all.

Carrying capacity is on the chart in the CRB, 12x for a quadruped that is gargantuan and it's starting strength is 39. I don't know the boat so I don't know when it hits medium load (moves slower) or heavy load (moves slower and x3 max)

Mathius wrote:

Ships will be able to outrun them if they can flee directly downwind but since they can come upwind at them then this is not an issue. I think that this guy will make catching enemy ships trivial but other issues will remain.

I never really learned the piloting/pursuit rules.

Mathius wrote:

The will need to rig up a control system to drive the thing or have it on the surface towing.

That is a fair question, and as far as I know it's pure DM fiat. Maybe they can get a helm of telepathy or something.

Mathius wrote:

I think at the next major port they dock in I will have low level caster try and jack the beast and ransom it back to them. It will go poorly for him but no one said he had a good wis.

Would Besmera be upset about this thing? If so what do should they have to do to please her and be allowed to keep it. That is a nice hook. Also they did murder the helpful cleric in book 1.

Caster should be good for a laugh. Besmara don't care as long as you're creating chaos through piracy. If she does anything she'll send more pirates their way for a little bit of amusing Darwinian struggle. Before S&S she apparently had a thing for controlling Sea Monsters (retcon) but the croc's probably a freshwater beastie anyway.

On the other hand, you are ALL the gods, so if someone's knowledge religion check says they should toss a larger sacrifice of plunder and treasure into the deep to appease her, it wouldn't be a problem. She's a crazy b@#~~ anyway, so worship is less about earning her favor as it is paying protection money.

[Mystic_Snowfang]

The rotting can be taken care of with a daily casting of gentle repose. Maybe get a wand of it or something?

[Mathius]

So what are some ways that PCs could increase their croc's swim speed?

I can think of slip stream and haste but is there and hours per level boost?

[GM DarkLightHitomi]

Invent a new item, or at least give the players in-game information for the making of an item of speed, that they could adapt the design, or hire a crafter to adapt and make for their croc.

[BigDTBone]

Mathius wrote:

So what are some ways that PCs could increase their croc's swim speed?

I can think of slip stream and haste but is there and hours per level boost?

Aquatic version of boots of striding and springing.

Fin flippers of diving and swimming?

[pezlerpolychromatic]

1) It disturbs me that as soon as the OP posted his idea, others were already thinking of ways to take it away from him. Some are seeing it as wrongbadfun. I personally think it's an ingenious idea and should be rewarded accordingly. Doesn't mean that the zombie crocodile will be around forever, but there's nothing wrong with having a character have an advantage for awhile.

2) The negative energy coursing throughout a zombie keeps the flesh intact, otherwise all that were centuries old would just become skeletons. I would also think that such a taint also keeps natural creatures away from consuming the flesh, seeing that bacteria does nothing to it.

3)While this ship would most certainly be turned away or fired upon in civilized ports, there's one thing that we've forgotten: pirate. Most likely they would be away from normal ports and would be docking in pirate coves and other friendly ports. Such people who go there have done much worse than raise a zombie and would only be surprised to see a ship pulled by a zombie croc, and maybe a little impressed that someone had thought of doing such a thing. Of course, pirates don't like someone else having an advantage, so while there may be respect for such an idea, I'm sure there would also be schemes to steal it for themselves or otherwise unburden the character of his bounty.