Help turning my idea, into a campaign

[TitaniumStar]

Hello everyone,
It's about 3am and I'm up thinking of pathfinder. I had this idea awhile ago, but it just now occurred to me to ask for some help from other pathfinder lovers to flesh out the idea.
So here is what I have so far:

- A pirate captain was overthrown by his/her crew. The captain goes to the pathfinder society and requests help. Even though they are notorious, they strike a deal with the society saying the society can have the artifact of an old map the captain had gotten (but now the crew has it in their possessions) as long as the captain gets their ship back.

-The pirate captain knows where the ship and crew are docked. And had heard rumors the new captain was looking for crew members.

-Whether you pass as a crew member, or steal the map somehow, you have to cross the ocean to a small, undiscovered island.

-During the ocean sailing you come across some sort of sea beast.

-When you reach the island, the map has two different ways to go. If you do some checks you can find the right way to go. If you are with the captain and his crew, they will split the group with the new captain going the other way.

-As you travel through the forest you fight ...something. Cannibals, Gaint Spider, ..creature of sorts.

-Then you find an area with ruined stone buildings. A tribe of kind Vanara live here and possible protect the treasure the society wants. The crew wants to kill the Vanaras. You could kill the Vanara, or work with them the kill the crew.

-Not sure if the treasure should be something that keeps a great evil at bay. Maybe for a part 2?

-Once you have the treasure and try to leave, the captain and the rest of the crew find you and it will be the final fight.

-Then, well go home happy of course!

So, what do you think of the idea? It has a lot of holes, but I would love to work with people to make it actually work so I could use it with my players.

[Snowblind]

What level are you looking at running this at? Also, do you have a party makeup in mind?

I ask this, because at certain levels things can crop up which seriously change how you will need to run the adventure. A first level party whose best campaign breaking tool is Charm person is going to play completely different to a party that can Charm, Dominate or just execute the entire ship's leadership from the get-go or just trail the ship on the back of the Lesser-Cloak-Of-Displacement'd Druid in the form of a Huge pterodactyl with a +30 to their Stealth check not including opposed distance penalties.

Here is one of the problems I can see immediately. If the party has the ability to stand off from the pirates and stay undetected, what is to stop them letting the pirates take the treasure and then hopping on board in the middle of the night and doing horrible things to the ship's crew(the Vanaras aren't an issue since the party doesn't know about them). What's to stop them sticking with the crew through the entire island and doing the exact same thing (this would require them to be ok with killing the Vanaras).

The gist of what I can see is that you are giving the entire party a lot of room to jump the rails. Which isn't a bad thing, but you have to be prepared for it. If the plot can't survive the party doing something like infecting the pirate food supplies with Zombie Rot(which they don't care about because rings of sustenance or a backup food supply in extradimensional storage) or stealing the map and then flying far ahead of the ship to acquire the treasure and rig an ambush for the pirates, then you could very well have a bad time unless you know the party is the kind that passively follows along and stays on the rails.

[TitaniumStar]

Hmm... I was thinking a low level like 1-2. Even though a NPC pirate captain is CR 11, I would just rework things. Maybe since he was just a first mate, or a regular crew member before taking over, that could explain why he is weaker.

I agree that I give a lot of leeway. I would like it to be more tight, but I haven't settled on how to do that. When I first thought of this, my original plan was to play it with my usual group, and have the new captain look like one of my PCs, but with an evil mustache. And have his first mate be not the best at seeing, and see the PCs in the street and talk to him as if he was the captain and lead him to the ship to deal with some of the mates.... I was told that was an awful idea. xDDDD

How do I make becoming an fake pirate more appealing then just killing them there? :/

Maybe I need a different beginning? Like "Get a boat of your own and follow that ship" or "Kidnap the only pirate who can read the map and have him/her guide you there"?