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I recently picked up the first three books of Skull & Shackles and have been skimming through the first book, and I have to wonder if anybody has felt the need or desire to change the make-up of the NPCs, or add new ones.
Two NPC ideas I've had include a fellow that challenges the PCs to various gambling games (Wisdom and Intelligence checks to beat), and is something of a sore winner, shoving it in their faces.
Another NPC is one that teaches PCs that befriend them various tricks to help beat the gambling NPC. For this NPC I want to go to an old tried-and-true trope, the girl posing as a boy on the ship to keep out of trouble.
Alternatively, to change things up a bit, the character is actually a a boy who poses as a girl because "The crew's rough, but none of 'em want a bed 'warmer that hasn't bled yet, but boys? They'd get their fun in beating me to a bloody pulp when Kroop and Harrigan let them have a double ration 'o rye."
So, what NPCs have you added/replaced as staples of the Wormwood, as friends or foes?
I've made a couple npcs to flesh out my ships since I usually have more than Four people on my crew. My favorite is a gun scavenger tengu who looks for new bits of metal he can use with his gun.
A few other characters I've added that have been rather fun are a Drow ninja with eyes all over the ship that doesn't speak common, a Chelaxian noble girl who was accidentally press ganged in Oyster Cay with aspirations of becoming captain, and a Kitsune bard masquerading as a Tien man who tells stories about his travels while strumming his shamisen.
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I made an entire crew of NPCs.
Any notable ones that your players attached to rather closely? Or that you were particularly pleased with personally?
I've made a couple npcs to flesh out my ships since I usually have more than Four people on my crew. My favorite is a gun scavenger tengu who looks for new bits of metal he can use with his gun.
A few other characters I've added that have been rather fun are a Drow ninja with eyes all over the ship that doesn't speak common, a Chelaxian noble girl who was accidentally press ganged in Oyster Cay with aspirations of becoming captain, and a Kitsune bard masquerading as a Tien man who tells stories about his travels while strumming his shamisen.
I like the idea of a crew member that doesn't speak common, and a noble-gone-pirate sounds like something fun to have around, though I think I'll go for a Taldan with a chip on his shoulder.
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During the Day 2 fight with the four hostiles Fipps Chumlett landed every punch like a god and crit twice. It inspired me to rebuild him as a Brawler, and then I proceeded to rebuild the entire Wormwood crew, each with their own classes (the only overlap was Tilly Bracket, who became a swash, and Slippery Syl Loneghan, who I made a Flying Blade, but the base class and archetype play very differently). I also played around with characterization a bit, since I hate having flat characters, so the entire crew gained their own personalities, weaknesses, etc. It got to the point where when Conchobar and Barefoot died during the mutiny the players were actually upset. It also let me make the mutiny itself a lot more challenging, since the most hostile characters (who the players managed to make permanently hostile, I should add) were the strongest, including a Warpriest of Deskari and an Antipaladin.
Now that they're in charge and are going to be cycling crew much more often (I'm going to roll to determine how many crew die during combat and are replaced, and which ones do die) I'm not gonna do full builds, but I am going to randomly generate race and class.
Oh, also, I made Sandara Quinn 13, because it made her more interesting as a character than "sexy helper Cleric chick."
13 years old?
Yes. I may have fudged the Young Character rules. Like, a lot.
Going into the final battle of the first book, the only crew that were completely against the PCs are Jape, Badger and Shivekah, so I gave them full write-ups as fighters and rogues. I kept Scourge pretty much the same, except a gave him a 20-point stat buy and swapped out whip mastery and weapon focus (whip) for his Iron Will and Intimidating Prowess.
I completely re-did Plugg as a Ranger with the Skirmisher and Freebooter archetypes. With his Freebooter's Bane and Freebooter's Bond, it will give him the appearance of a Captain commanding his crew to attack, but will give them all huge bonuses to flank and to attack a given PC. I gave him the Defensive Bow Stance at 5th level as a Skirmisher to let him attack with his whip without provoking.
The fight hasn't occurred yet (should be next session), but as long as the PC's don't sneak attack Plugg with a Balista (that's their plan), it should be a good fight.
Plugg works well as a Swashbuckler, and Scourge as a Slayer. If I find the need to do so, I'll do Peppery up as an Arcanist.
I originally rebuilt Harrigan as a Cavalier/Figher/Rogue but I'm thinking I might replace the rogue levels with slayer levels.
I haven't messed with Sandara from a mechanical standpoint (I've expanded her characterization quite a bit) because I expect that one or another player may likely want to take her as a cohort at some point and I want to let him/her do it from scratch.
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I made an entire crew of NPCs.Any notable ones that your players attached to rather closely? Or that you were particularly pleased with personally?
I like the idea of a crew member that doesn't speak common, and a noble-gone-pirate sounds like something fun to have around, though I think I'll go for a Taldan with a chip on his shoulder.I've made a couple npcs to flesh out my ships since I usually have more than Four people on my crew. My favorite is a gun scavenger tengu who looks for new bits of metal he can use with his gun.
A few other characters I've added that have been rather fun are a Drow ninja with eyes all over the ship that doesn't speak common, a Chelaxian noble girl who was accidentally press ganged in Oyster Cay with aspirations of becoming captain, and a Kitsune bard masquerading as a Tien man who tells stories about his travels while strumming his shamisen.
I'm making firearms a lot more common in the game, and so I've remade Harrigan as a Mysterious Stranger Gunslinger. I've also changed his characterization a bit to make him less of a cut and dry "here's a cruel evil villain." Essentially, instead of the basic "cruel and merciless pirate," I'm playing him as cold, ruthless, and harboring no fools, but overall fair and aloof.
During the Day 2 fight with the four hostiles Fipps Chumlett landed every punch like a god and crit twice. It inspired me to rebuild him as a Brawler, and then I proceeded to rebuild the entire Wormwood crew, each with their own classes (the only overlap was Tilly Bracket, who became a swash, and Slippery Syl Loneghan, who I made a Flying Blade, but the base class and archetype play very differently). I also played around with characterization a bit, since I hate having flat characters, so the entire crew gained their own personalities, weaknesses, etc. It got to the point where when Conchobar and Barefoot died during the mutiny the players were actually upset. It also let me make the mutiny itself a lot more challenging, since the most hostile characters (who the players managed to make permanently hostile, I should add) were the strongest, including a Warpriest of Deskari and an Antipaladin.
Now that they're in charge and are going to be cycling crew much more often (I'm going to roll to determine how many crew die during combat and are replaced, and which ones do die) I'm not gonna do full builds, but I am going to randomly generate race and class.
Oh, also, I made Sandara Quinn 13, because it made her more interesting as a character than "sexy helper Cleric chick."
I did a similar thing with my wormwood crew giving them each a single level in a PC class instead of keeping them with the base profile. I gave Tam "Narwhal" Tate an extra class level and made him the supervisor of the riggers.
Having Sandara at 13 is a pretty neat choice too. If I run the AP again I might use that idea.
I turned Fipps (who the party completely became obsessed with as a villain) into a boss fight during the mutiny. He drank some unknown alchemical concoction which made him large size and gave him two slam attacks. They murdered almost everyone else, but spared Fipps, and marooned him on Bonewrack Isle (they named it "Grapple Island" because frikkin' everything there grapples you" - but the grapple-specialist brawler loved it).
So he's coming back later in the campaign, right?
Oh hell yes. He's gonna be a big (pun intended) surprise boss that pops out when they least expect it later on.
I might make him some kind of giant bloated ghoul.
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For context: I ran S&S over Skype, and for various reasons the game petered out halfway into Book 2, but I had plans for how to handle things up to and including Book 3. Looking over the AP again made me want to share some of them.
When I was looking over the NPCs, I couldn't help but notice that Tessa Fairwind and Sandara Quinn were almost identical, both in personality (Pretty Girl Who Thinks You're Cool) and appearance (Skinny Pale Redhead in a "Sexy Pirate" Costume). In-game, I used the Besmaran Priest from Isles of the Shackles for Sandara's character portrait. Personality-wise I focused on the fact that she's a devotee of the pirate goddess who's new to actual piracy; enthusiastic but out of her element, acting on holy teachings instead of practical experience. She ended up in a casual romance with the party's captain, a female (but very androgynous) half-elf barbarian who she saw as embodying the true pirate spirit.
As for Tessa, I decided to play up the traits described in her NPC Gallery entry and present her as comically decadent. Not Caligula decadent, just Oscar Wilde decadent. She almost always has someone on hand with a platter of fruit and drinks. She reflexively lounges whenever she sits down, even at important meetings. She flirts with everyone to the point where other Free Captains just block it out. She gambles with those lucky dice of hers, often for small and petty stakes. She says "yes" like "mmmmyeees" for some reason. To her, piracy isn't about fame, fortune, or power, though those certainly help achieve the real goal: doing whatever she wants whenever she wants, and never doing anything that isn't fun if she can help it.
I detailed every single "Named" pirate that started on the Wormwood. Altered a few races, added ethnicities, swapped a few sexs, added classes/lvs. Gave everyone a detailed backstory .
The only two characters that I added actually hail from a previous PF fame we played about 2 years ago. A buddy played an aged Orc pirate named Cheefy who had a peg-leg (bitten off by a giant gar), a hook hand, & a smart-ass parrot. He always claimed to have been a pirate captain. And his favorite food was Gnome. Well, the group knows how his story ended....
So the party meets a much younger Cheefy during book 1, right after he's lost his hand. And they get to see him lose his leg. And they got to be responsible for him becoming an ex-pirate captain. (Upon successfully mutiny Cheefy briefly seized the captaincy, led a few bad raids, & ate Concobar the gnome. This last offense got him, his nasty parrot, & the other 1/2 orcs in the crew marooned on a beach). They'll show up later. ;)
The other thing I greatly altered was the REASON the PCs are taken aboard the Wormwood. And the reason for the mutiny. Sandara, following a vision from her goddes, convinces Harrigan to sail off to the edge of the map. So by the time the ship gets to the PCs? It's been at sea, sailing into the unknown, for over a month. Losing crew/friends along the way to various hazards. No shoreleave & no plunder. Plus putting up with Scourge & Plug (and Kroops cooking). What do they find at the end of this cruise? An elven Witch and a human Bard - who have absolutely nothing of value on them. But Sandara insists that these two are the reason they've sailed all the way out here. That these two are of great importance to the future of the Shackles.... To top it all off? These two don't know a damped thing about a boat.
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I turned Barefoot Samms Topins in to Topless Topins. Her combat tactic is to remove her top before boarding as she finds it distracts others. I thought the name sounded better and it really made her more memorable. My players follow her around and make sure she's safe.
Well I tried to keep the personalities of the Wormwood interesting. I fleshed out the crew. The first few times they tried to recruit noobs I would send them canidates named NPCs with a blurb of personality and word on the street about them.
Prior to the mutiny the break out star NPC was Slippery Sil Lonagan. She was a real thorn in the side. I was just trying to make her smart. I improved some shenanigans and she turned into a clever enemy. She started shacking up with Plug. I think she ended up overshadowing Scourge and making him seem not that bright.
I added several side quests. Notably part of the book 1 of Savage Tide. I made Inkskin Locke more of a charmer and introduced her early as a rich girl from Taldas Isle early as Latvena Vanderboren. The ran around Little Opparra for her making enemies with a sect of the Red Mantis assassins.