Alchemical exploding tips for the Harpoons.
Preferably something clever to keep the corpse from sinking as well.
Dead and heading to the ocean floor is of no use to you.
Drop a sack of potatoes into its blowhole....
You know what happens to a whale who gets a potato dropped into its blowhole? The same thing that happens to everything else...
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Mrs. Reblade and I just watched In The Heart of the Sea over the weekend, and I found myself thinking about this very topic. Surely there's some method that can approximate what 18/19th century whalers were capable of, no?
4th level slayer / 2nd level alchemist
studied target
sneak attack +2d6
bleeding attack
sniper's eye (for targeting under the water.)
poison use
poison use
Is poison really going to help that much against a target with a +17 Fort save?
Is poison going to negatively affect the ambergris and whale oil?
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You want to kill a whale, cut off his line of credit at the casino.
Is poison really going to help that much against a target with a +17 Fort save?poison use
Did not think about the fort save; drop alchemist levels. I was trying to think of ways to get a touch attack on a weapon (High natural AC), but that only comes with high levels for weapons like a harpoon.
Its not that hard for a crew of 30+ 1st level sailors and a relatively skilled captain. Each sailor uses a pair of javelins tipped with bone, and takes the feat Splintering Weapon. The first sailor that gets their nat 20 lands a hit and splinters his weapon to apply the bleed. The skilled captain keeps the boat's CMD vs capsize high and the Sailing Ship has a speed of 60ft, exceeding the whale's swim speed of 40ft (the group can get away while the whale bleeds).
Whales obviously have no access to magical healing and presumably can't improvise a way to apply first aid to themselves (flippers don't manipulate bandages well). So with enough time it'll just bleed out.
TL;DR: Whales are weak CR10 enemies.
Slayer 4th/ Wizard 2nd/ Arcane Archer 6th
Could kill a whale without breaking a sweat, but this is a lot of levels to be a murderhobo.
First level human commoner. Feats improved Unarmed strike and Belier's Bite. They can punch the whale and it will bleed to death.
Now that is a low level murder-hobo.
I had to look up where Belier's Bite came from. Cheliax: Empire of Devils had a lot of stuff in it that was game changers.
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First level human commoner. Feats improved Unarmed strike and Belier's Bite. They can punch the whale and it will bleed to death.
It's got the wisdom score to make that dc 15 heal check...
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This thread is how you get Moby Lich.
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This thread is how you get Moby Lich.Imagine a Killer Whale with the Vampire template.
Nosfershamu?
This thread is how you get Moby Lich.Imagine a Killer Whale with the Vampire template.
Awakened Animals with class levels/other templates are no Joke. Everyone thought taking down the level 20 Antipaladin as the final boss was tough enough before the real threat was revealed to be his level 20 antipaladin awakened horse.
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Awakened Animals with class levels/other templates are no Joke. Everyone thought taking down the level 20 Antipaladin as the final boss was tough enough before the real threat was revealed to be his level 20 antipaladin awakened horse.This thread is how you get Moby Lich.Imagine a Killer Whale with the Vampire template.
"I am Mister Dead."
But does it have the limbs necessary to perform first aid?First level human commoner. Feats improved Unarmed strike and Belier's Bite. They can punch the whale and it will bleed to death.It's got the wisdom score to make that dc 15 heal check...
I believe Moby Dick made itself a bandage out of a corpse... so there's precedent.
Splintering Weapon...
Brass Harpoons or Javelins
Argh. People at work are going to start looking at me funny if you keep making me laugh.
*fist pumps*
Yessss! Another successful day of bringing down the system from the inside!
Mrs. Reblade and I just watched In The Heart of the Sea over the weekend, and I found myself thinking about this very topic. Surely there's some method that can approximate what 18/19th century whalers were capable of, no?
That involved a ship and it's WHOLE crew, along with specialized equipment and whaling boats with crews to make the kill.
When was the last time you saw a crew of a whaling ship go dungeoneering?
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Our very first campaign consisted of a free roam homebrew adventure. What did our PCs decide to do? We went whaling upon the high seas! Had many a grand adventure whilst trying to strike it rich we did!
I remember one such beast at would have made Moby Dick look like a tadpole. She was thrice the size of our ol' ship. Our resident savage leapt from our crow's nest, greataxe in hand, and slipped down the beast's rubbery hide like a skilled swashbuckler does a pirate sail, leaving a gaping bloody wound in his wake.
By the time the dying beast had torn the heart from our vessel, our sorcerer had burned its face and tail, and our captain had made it atop the monster himself, just past its bloody blowhole. He stabbed her a hunnerd' times e're he became tangled in the trailing harpoon ropes and loose rigging.
Finally, the creature fled, taking our brave captain with it. To his last he never stopped thrusting his blades into the creature's skull.
An hour later, the remains of our crew drifted past the floating corpse of a whale three times the size of what used to be our ship.
There lay our captain, still tangled, barely alive, forever a hero among men.
I'm sure somewhere there's a party consisting of a Pathfinderized Ahab, Ishmael, Stubb, and their gnome mascot...When was the last time you saw a crew of a whaling ship go dungeoneering?
The only time I ever saw an Ishmael in a roleplaying context was in a session of the old Brit-made Judge Dredd RPG.
That involved a ship and it's WHOLE crew, along with specialized equipment and whaling boats with crews to make the kill.
When was the last time you saw a crew of a whaling ship go dungeoneering?
Hmm, well that would explain all the oar-clutching corpses we saw two levels up... :)
It's entriely possible I'm not asking the same question as the OP. I'm trying to figure if there's a way that a ship crew (assumed to mostly be low-level NPC-types) could, in game terms, kill a whale in such a way that they could retrieve a usable corpse.
Which of course raises another question: why would you want to? I mean, what use would that much whale oil have on Golarion?
Just thinking out loud in the late afternoon.
That involved a ship and it's WHOLE crew, along with specialized equipment and whaling boats with crews to make the kill.
When was the last time you saw a crew of a whaling ship go dungeoneering?
Hmm, well that would explain all the oar-clutching corpses we saw two levels up... :)
It's entriely possible I'm not asking the same question as the OP. I'm trying to figure if there's a way that a ship crew (assumed to mostly be low-level NPC-types) could, in game terms, kill a whale in such a way that they could retrieve a usable corpse.
Which of course raises another question: why would you want to? I mean, what use would that much whale oil have on Golarion?
Just thinking out loud in the late afternoon.
Presumably the same uses that were found in Earth in the same period.. including lantern oil... and don't forget ambergris a key element in perfume. the most valuable substance you can get from whales.
My friends in grad school studied tropical whalers near Flores, Indonesia. Lamelara, I think.
They had boats with one or two dozen rowers and a harpoonist. He would stand on the prow, looking for whales, and then he would jump off the boat, use his body weight to penetrate into the sperm whale, and then land in the water with the sperm whale he just stabbed.
So that's how they do it in real life.
They would then tie the whale to the side of the boat, row home, and the kids would run into the surf and drag the sharks that followed the boat home out of the water by their tails.
My friends in grad school studied tropical whalers near Flores, Indonesia. Lamelara, I think.
They had boats with one or two dozen rowers and a harpoonist. He would stand on the prow, looking for whales, and then he would jump off the boat, use his body weight to penetrate into the sperm whale, and then land in the water with the sperm whale he just stabbed.
So that's how they do it in real life.
They would then tie the whale to the side of the boat, row home, and the kids would run into the surf and drag the sharks that followed the boat home out of the water by their tails.
I would imagine that he's dressed in nothing more than swim trunks.
Maybe a t-shirt. The sun is HOT on the equator!
Other tactics used were similar to the way they were trying to kill Jaws with Harpoons tied to floating devices with rope. It would work better on a whale because as it gets exhausted it cant hold it's breath anymore and would sit at the surface sucking air. The whale's options at that point are drown or get stabbed to death.
Another tactic that was used was many boats chasing a whale toward the shore and forcing it to beach itself... easy kill from there. Not sure how they chased them though... maybe dropping explosives in the water?
As I mentioned before, the Splintering Weapon feat and fragile Harpoons or Javelins (Brass) could bleed it out eventually.
Benefit: Whenever you use a melee or thrown weapon with the fragile weapon feature or similar quality and hit an opponent, you can give your weapon the broken condition to deal that opponent 1d4 points of bleed damage.
Ironically, you don't do it in boats with Harpoons.
Targets in water have improved cover against targets not in water. So, you'll be throwing a lot of harpoons before you hit a whale. Harpoons have a 5% chance to give a character a free ranged grapple attempt, so you'll be throwing 20x that number of harpoons before you have a chance to snag one. Then, if, by some miracle, you manage to beat a whale's CMD, the grapple rules state that a creature grappled at range is moved adjacent to the grappler. So, the whale is instantly on your boat, (which probably immediately capsizes).
Then, the whale, now grappled and anchored to the boat initiates a Drag maneuver straight down. Whale hunt is promptly over, as is your boat.
It's only improved cover if they are treading water. If the creature is fully submerged, then it has total cover from anything not in the water. It's a big part of what makes the kraken so dangerous. It can pluck crew members right off the deck of the ship with impunity thanks to its extreme reach (remember, without the Strike Back feat, you can't even attack the tentacles since you can't reach the kraken's "space").
Ironically, you don't do it in boats with Harpoons.
Targets in water have improved cover against targets not in water.
That's generally why you try to 'poon them on the surface. Whales are big creatures, big enough to have a substantial presence above the waterline when surfaced so that modifier doesn't come into play.
Herman Melville wrote that whales are great at bleeding to death when you puncture them, which is great for them I suppose, but Pathfinder whales have no such weakness.
Unless they have ranks on the Heal skill and the ways to treat the wounds, or they have access to healing spells, i would say that pathfinder whales are good at bleeding to death aswell.
This is one of those reasons that I feel Pathfinder really needs rules for creatures which count as both encounters and hazardous terrain.
I would love to grapple a bleeding whale with a sharp stick and have it drag me around. That sounds like an amazing idea. What would you say is the minimum +CMB bonus you'd need to reliably (~75%) hit that CMD of 37?
There are entire economies based on that.