A few of us recently picked up Skulls & Shackles & have been having a blast. There are a couple of things we're currently unsure of though so if anyone can help clear things up that would be awesome & really appreciated.
1 - Playing spells outside of combat. Is this applicable to reset your hand step only? For instance you can't play a spell at the start of your turn.
2 - Plunder. We have a feeling we're doing something wrong it's super rare that at the end of any scenario we have more than the one starting plunder. :( When should we be adding plunder? Is plunder just difficult to obtain?
3 - Ahoy .. ships! When a scenario does not have the ship anchored to a location do we assign a ship captain and he/she has the ship or are we all considered to be on the ship on our turn (even if we're scattered in different locations) & should someone be at the same location person who's turn it is the other person can then move with them (if able)?
4 - Ship combat, we think we get this but we want to make sure. If a ship takes any damage that is not negated it becomes wrecked. If more structural damage occurs whilst in a wrecked state blessings are lost from the blessings deck equal to the value of structural damage.
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You can generally play a spell at any time (even not on your turn), as long as it is applicable to the situation. If you're in an encounter, then your options are more limited - partly because of the nature of the situation ("for your combat check" only happens when you have a combat check to make), partly because of the rules: e.g., you can't cast Cure in the middle of of an encounter.
Plunder can be obtained from defeating enemy ships, among other things...have you been defeating ships and rolling for plunder as you do so? Some scenario cards tell you to add it upon doing certain things.
There are lots of threads around here about ship movement / anchorage, who's on them...for example: this one right here. Hope that helps.
You can also "pay" for ship damage by having characters take damage themselves. Plunder can be used to pay for damage. The blessings being lost is kind of a last resort. Pages 17-18 in the manual specify how this works pretty clearly...and for edge cases (e.g., how the Frostbite spell interacts with structural damage), there's always this forum.
To piggyback on what my good friend Calthaer has said
1. You can play a card any time the card and situation allow it. If a card doesn't say "on your turn" you can play it on any turn. If a card says "add 2 dice to a Charisma check" you can only play it when someone is making a Charisma check. During any turn, the first thing you do is flip the blessing, then you apply "start of the turn effects" (aka things that say "At the start of your turn..."). From then on you go through the steps of the turn. There are "pauses" in between the steps where you can play cards before moving on to the next step. The special rules limiting what cards you can play are:
A. During an encounter, you can only play a card that applies to what is happening in the encounter.
B. Once you get to "End your turn" (formerly Reset Your Hand) you can only play cards that relate to applying end of the turn effects (or that apply to things related to applying end of the turn effects).
C. You can never play a card to defeat, evade, or succeed at something for another player unless the card instructs you to choose a character. (i.e. You can't play Thieves' Tools for another character, but you can play Potion of Glibness.)
2. What Calthaer said. You get one plunder at the start of every scenario. Any time you defeat a ship, you get a plunder. Other than that, you also get plunder if something tells you to get plunder.
3. You don't choose a captain at the start of a scenario. Your characters take turns commanding the ship during the scenario. If the ship isn't anchored, you are commanding the ship when it is your turn. If the ship is anchored, you are commanding the ship when it is your turn and you are at the location where the ship is anchored.
For more, see this post.
4. Correct. Also note that at the end of any turn, if the ship is wrecked you banish 1 plunder card from beneath it.
