Rough idea for a pirate campaign, I need help.

[Thinyser]

So I had this idea of running a pirate campaign and the idea of it sounded fun at first then I thought about the mechanics of it and decided that 20-30+ sailors versus 40-50+ pirates is a lot of combat to accout for.

Secondly if there is mass combat and you only tell the stories of the few characters it would get rather boring and the outcome would not really be based on the character's actions... "your ship overtakes the merchent ship, grapnels are tossed, boarding planks set, (run combat for the 4-5 characters) due to your overwhelming numbers you take the ship capture X number of survivors and divvy up the booty.

Anybody have a good solution to this issue?

I've thought of making the PCs more powerfull in comparison to the merchant crew (as they are usually just normal fighters with a mage or priest thowen in to the mix) so they could take on entire crews by themselves. Say starting out at 5-6th level, with some tweeks, like allowing one to be a godling out of Pantheons with the dual warlock option taken twice, one being a T-archer, one being a were-beast of some sort (bat or bird or seal most likely) one a mindmelter. This still leaves the running of the ship though and that means highering a crew not to fight and who would get no cut of the booty but would still require food water and wages to be considered. I thought of overcoming this by having the captain be a non-canon necromancer/dark priest of some sort and having a litteral "skeleton crew" run the ship.

[Probitas]

Have them belong to a Western Empire Demon Black Ship. No problems with crew then, the demons take care of themselves.

Or, let them create their own ship, using create zombie/skeleton spells to crew it, though this pretty much limits them to a galley, as undead aren't smart enough to swab decks and go aloft to reef sails. Undead can follow 'simple' commands, and 'go aloft and pull the yards in a bit' is way beyond them. Fight, guard, stay, row, stop, come. And that's about it. And forget having undead man ballista and other ship to ship/shore/crew weapons. Working knowledge of these requires training, and I don't think summoned/created simple undead come complete with a skill set. (Though maybe if they were created from dead sailors?) They can wield hand held weapons only (medieval) and shields, perhaps even wear armor, but the understanding of the windlass and the ability to aim and lead targets that aren't standing within melee range is right out.

Of course, this means the players will have to run things personally, such as steering, look out, weaponry, and cargo loading/unloading. Supervise is the key, and watch where you go, some ports might not like the idea of an undead crew.

[Entiago]

Part of me kinda regrets mentioning this BUT....for a good idea on a possible Piratey adventures, take a look at Pirates of the Caribbean. now imagine each of the main characters (Jack, Barbbossa, Will, Elizabeth, Gibbs, and Morty -even the pirate duo) is a player.
There was more than just ship to ship combat, but when it did take place, not everyone shared in the spotlight.


A way I was once handeling ship-to ship combat was for NPC rolls 1 roll=5 men. most of the background NPCs were just numbers or "red shirts" but a few stood out (and still live today), overall durning StS combat, I focused on the players and their actions, give basic discriptions of what went down that round, giving them ideas on what went down, or what could go down.

Although StS combat can get, or seem, boring- try to keep it spicy and exciting...if it goes on for longer than you like- you can always have the opposing side surrender, or your players crew can surrender for a twist!

[Thinyser]

Have them belong to a Western Empire Demon Black Ship. No problems with crew then, the demons take care of themselves.

Or, let them create their own ship, using create zombie/skeleton spells to crew it, though this pretty much limits them to a galley, as undead aren't smart enough to swab decks and go aloft to reef sails. Undead can follow 'simple' commands, and 'go aloft and pull the yards in a bit' is way beyond them. Fight, guard, stay, row, stop, come. And that's about it. And forget having undead man ballista and other ship to ship/shore/crew weapons. Working knowledge of these requires training, and I don't think summoned/created simple undead come complete with a skill set. (Though maybe if they were created from dead sailors?) They can wield hand held weapons only (medieval) and shields, perhaps even wear armor, but the understanding of the windlass and the ability to aim and lead targets that aren't standing within melee range is right out.

While you are correct that undead are not the smartest things I've always played them as just a bit on the brighter side.

As an example if you tell your undead henchmen to bring you some water they will know enough to find a container, fill it with water, and bring it back. IMO this could easily be extended to sailing commands. For example if you tell a group of undead to "raise the main sail" they will know what knots need to be untied to loosen the sail and what knots to tie to keep it up once it is up. Also they can work as a group to achieve this goal. Now where they are really lacking IMO is speed. Where a human crew would get this done in quick order the undead crew would take 3-4 times as long as they are not nealy as physically coordinated as they living counterparts nor could they work as efficiently as the living as they lack communication skills so while they can work in groups to achieve a goal its far more cumbersome a process than a human crew. This would make "quick" manuvering with a strictly undead crew out of the question. Which would be fine with me because this would then force the characters to be the ones to devise ways to immobilize the other ship without sinking her and loosing the potential booty.

Of course, this means the players will have to run things personally, such as steering, look out, weaponry, and cargo loading/unloading. Supervise is the key, and watch where you go, some ports might not like the idea of an undead crew.

Hmm I didn't think of the ports not liking the idea of an undead crew... maybe a combination of PC's to handle the combat and order giving, a few living NPC deckhands that participate only in ranged combat but are there really there to do the sailing skills that need to be done fast and efficently, but mostly undead deckhands that perform the grunt work of sailing the ship. This would also allow the undead crew to hide below deck when appoaching port leaving a small crew of PCs and NPCs to keep up appearances.

Ok so Im thinking:
-1 9th level NPC homebrew necromancer Captain who owns the ship
-4 or 5 5th or 6th level yet "high powered" PCs
-6 2nd level NPC sailors that all do double duty as some form of craftsman i.e. repairing sails, rigging, carpentry, cooking etc, are proficient with the long bow and are able to man a ballista as needed
-30 undead crew perform the manual labor of hoisting sail, stowing sail, swabing the deck, as well as storming the deck of the other ship once its brought close enought to be boarded for melee combat.

Now I need to determing the division of booty.

I would say 60% to the captain out of which he pays the NPC crew and pays for the needed ship's supplies and 40% to the PC's with the PC's getting any magical items that don't have to do with necromancy. Does this seem fair?

[Thinyser]

Part of me kinda regrets mentioning this BUT....for a good idea on a possible Piratey adventures, take a look at Pirates of the Caribbean. now imagine each of the main characters (Jack, Barbbossa, Will, Elizabeth, Gibbs, and Morty -even the pirate duo) is a player.
There was more than just ship to ship combat, but when it did take place, not everyone shared in the spotlight.

Oh there will be plenty for them to roleplay and many "we need food and water. Lets stop at that island and go hunting while the crew gather's fresh water from that stream" type excursions that will lead to island based encounters where they are alone to deal with it.

A way I was once handeling ship-to ship combat was for NPC rolls 1 roll=5 men. most of the background NPCs were just numbers or "red shirts" but a few stood out (and still live today), overall durning StS combat, I focused on the players and their actions, give basic discriptions of what went down that round, giving them ideas on what went down, or what could go down.

Yeah but even that seems a bit cumbersome when you have to roll for 30+NPCs on each side. Thats 60+ men to account for, or on your scale 12 extra rolls per melee round, on top of the individual actions of the Characters themselves. (IMO palladium combat already takes a long time, I shudder to even think what this would do to it!)

Although StS combat can get, or seem, boring- try to keep it spicy and exciting...if it goes on for longer than you like- you can always have the opposing side surrender, or your players crew can surrender for a twist!

Yes, and no doubt as their repuataion spreads more and more crews will surrender to them without much resistance... however as a pirate if you surrender you are looking at either death or long term imprisonment/slavery so I'm thinking most pirates will fight to the death rather than surrender.

Thanks for the input, keep it coming!

[Probitas]

While I can agree that you may be able to explain get me a bucket of water by having them first get a bucket then filling it with water, the idea they could be taught how to tie knots is a bit much. Some live people have trouble with that. We aren't talking simple crossover and tie downs, there are a LOT of knots for running a ship with more than a single mast, and even one mast can be troublesome if you don't know what you are doing. Particularly if you attempt to come about or just trying to erk more speed from the sails. Plus, skeletons and zombies are not the most dextrous, and I bet they have plenty of trouble climbing the yards and maneuvering on the arms.

I think you are assuming that undead have the ability to form memories, and I don't believe that is the case with simple mindless undead, cause if that were true then skeletons and zombies would be the preferred form of slave labor in any game world, cause you could teach them anything and they would remember it (it also means they could become free willed and independent, but I think that's a whole other campaign (even game) idea, a right nasty one if they somehow learned how to create more of themselves using spell magic or other tool), but IMO mindless undead are unteachable, as it requires the formation of memories and the ability to intuit instructions. See the PF Scarecrow for this kind of free willed undead, but thank the stars they can't make more of themselves, or can they ....

I might be over thinking it, but I don't think Kevin S would disagree with me. But, it is your game, run it how you see fit. Just please don't have them behave like the skeletons in Army of Darkness, those were camp movie skeletons, not fantasy world skeletons.

Mass combat can be easily handled my assessing each crew and assigning them a modifier based on certain combat values each piece of the ship and crew brings into combat. Say one crew has no fire capability, but the other has ranged fire spells or Greek fire, that ship would get a bonus. If one crew outnumbers the other, that also should be a bonus, but only in a boarding situation, numbers mean little at range unless everyone can fire arrows. Also, undead vs live crew should be another bonus, live people get hurt and stop fighting, undead go until they drop. Also, take into account weapons being used, armor worn, and the fact that blades don't do much vs skeletons, but blunt works on everyone.

[Probitas]

I was also thinking, what would your players do if someone got tired of their rampaging, brought a couple of sailor priests on board, and they turned your undead? This is your players' Achilles Heel. Once turned or destroyed, undead stay dead, no more raising is possible on that corpse. Without the undead crew, are there enough live people left to flee combat and limp into a safe harbor?

Shares are also usually simple. Just divide up the amount of booty into a value. Coin is easy, it can be counted and divided, and large amounts exchanged for smaller coinage. Other types of booty are a ***** though; until sold, how do you divide up a cargo of leather skins, or even something so grand as gold statuaries? These things need to find a buyer, and then you divvy up that amount. Captains of course got the lions share, unless the ship had a patron, then the patron got the most. Owner operators are always more lucrative. I don't think 60% is unfair, but a lot depends on how much you get and how many crew you need pay. It was normal for a bounty to be divvied up once the ship returned to port, as some crew would leave, others would join. Your ship is unique, as most are dead and don't need coin. But buying them weapons and armor is also important, so you have to consider the undead crew a tool and make sure they are alloted a value amount to provide maintenance.

[Entiago]

I just thought of this for an optional way to handel combat: in Rifter #22 there is an article by Dan Felkins for PFRPG called Medieval Army Combat Rules, it may help for your situation.

Bassically it shows how one can put an army (or any size force really) into a grouping as such that they can be "counted" as 1 NPC for stats and attacks, which would knock down combat dramatically. It is a good article that I unfortunatly never got to use, but have often looked into- just never made it that far in the one group.

[Probitas]

Adventure on the High Seas 2nd Edition has ship to ship combat rules. Pg 190. I should have checked there first.

[Thinyser]

Adventure on the High Seas 2nd Edition has ship to ship combat rules. Pg 190. I should have checked there first.

I dont have 2nd edition of that but I do have the 1st edition which has StS combat rules on p.202 (it says 200 in the contents but its actually 202).

The rules for missle combat, fire attack defense, ramming and magical are all covered pretty well but for actually boarding the other boat they basically want you to go into melee combat and roll for each attacker and defender as they give no alternative method. In the end they all basically boil down to if you inflict large amounts of casualties to the other side and/or capture or kill their captain, mate, and any magic users onboard and/or cause enough damage to sink their ship they are very likely to surrender.

Does the 2nd edition changes this at all?

[Probitas]

The 2nd Ed High Seas does have a quick resolution to the onboard combat, which boils down to basically this:

Players fight the leaders. Crew fights crew. Boarded ship takes damage as fight progresses (20 minutes and ship likely sinks, burns up, explodes, whatever). If players manage to kill leaders, the chance for surrender increases (before the 20 minutes would be nice or there's a good chance everyone dies, so the faster the better). Out numbered crew generally can cause more damage to both ship and other crew because there are more of them, and the presence of magic or other combat adds can also tip the scales slightly. I'm not sure if I can say more, without violating the copyright.

[Thinyser]

The 2nd Ed High Seas does have a quick resolution to the onboard combat, which boils down to basically this:

Players fight the leaders. Crew fights crew. Boarded ship takes damage as fight progresses (20 minutes and ship likely sinks, burns up, explodes, whatever). If players manage to kill leaders, the chance for surrender increases (before the 20 minutes would be nice or there's a good chance everyone dies, so the faster the better). Out numbered crew generally can cause more damage to both ship and other crew because there are more of them, and the presence of magic or other combat adds can also tip the scales slightly. I'm not sure if I can say more, without violating the copyright.

Does the book state that the crew fighting crew is handeled with a single combat roll, one roll for a group of say 5 vs 5 combatants, or something else to speed things along? And why would onboard melee combat (which is generally not done with fire) have any risk of sinking the ship? We are talking swords, knives, axes, clubs, etc being used against the crew of the boarded ship not on the ship itself... only an idiot would attack the ship itself if he is trying to capture it and its loot.

Besides that only ramming and fire based attacks are the only real threats to a ship's sea worthyness hacking at the railing with your sword or even felling the mast with your axe will not make the ship sink. Fire can be used relitivly safely if directed at only the sails but ramming is strictly for sinking the ship in warfare and would be counter productive for pirating as a sunken ship is not likely to yield much of value without some sort of salvage diving opperation which is too much effort for most pirates to undertake.

[Probitas]

Some people, when seeing the end approach, would rather doom everyone than have someone take what they have away. SO some victims of a boarding attack will fire their own ship, fire yours, scuttle to save cargo, you name it. Also, accidents happen. Someone can panic and cut loose with an attack form that has consequences that are damaging to the ship. Say one of the combatants has a flaming sword, and misses, hitting something flammble like a pile of canvas or just a very dry mast. Even the deck can catch fire, if someone spilled pitch or oil onto it.

Attackers boarding have initiative (since they always start the ball rolling, and the defenders are essentially holding their actions). I would use land combat rules to determine onboard combat, as the deck is just constricted space but may as well be land. As to speeding it up, if both crews are made up of similar style fighters (armor/weaponry) then it's just numbers. Treat each side as one combat, if one is outnumbered, give them an extra guy. Total SDC and HP, then flail away each round the players fight, as you have to let that happen anyway, no player will allow speeding something up if it kills them. So you at least must roll dice for player combat rounds, just use that time for a quick combat round to round resolution, so by the time the players win (is their any real doubt they won't?) you know if they have to fight enemy crew or not, or just take prisoners.

[dragon_blaze_99]

Just a heads up but of a little extra pirate info see Rifter 2

[Thinyser]

So far my two "really excited to play" players have started on an Asgardian Dwarf and a Great Horned Dragon Hatchling. I'm hoping to have two more players that I can talk into playing a "double-double" warlock Godling and a T-man of some kind preferably a T-archer since these two didnt want to be the mindmelter or the were-beast.

[verdilak]

So I had this idea of running a pirate campaign and the idea of it sounded fun at first then I thought about the mechanics of it and decided that 20-30+ sailors versus 40-50+ pirates is a lot of combat to accout for.

Secondly if there is mass combat and you only tell the stories of the few characters it would get rather boring and the outcome would not really be based on the character's actions... "your ship overtakes the merchent ship, grapnels are tossed, boarding planks set, (run combat for the 4-5 characters) due to your overwhelming numbers you take the ship capture X number of survivors and divvy up the booty.

Anybody have a good solution to this issue?

I've thought of making the PCs more powerfull in comparison to the merchant crew (as they are usually just normal fighters with a mage or priest thowen in to the mix) so they could take on entire crews by themselves. Say starting out at 5-6th level, with some tweeks, like allowing one to be a godling out of Pantheons with the dual warlock option taken twice, one being a T-archer, one being a were-beast of some sort (bat or bird or seal most likely) one a mindmelter. This still leaves the running of the ship though and that means highering a crew not to fight and who would get no cut of the booty but would still require food water and wages to be considered. I thought of overcoming this by having the captain be a non-canon necromancer/dark priest of some sort and having a litteral "skeleton crew" run the ship.

My wife is running a PF Pirate game as a PbP, which seems like it will alleviate many of your concerns/problems. The game is on the forum in my sig, if you are curious.

[Veknironth]

Well, I have a couple of thoughts on this. First, with that group, ONLY a Demon Black Ship is going to stand up to them. So, it doesn't matter much. I'm not even sure why they would bother with simple ship plunder. It would be so easy for them!

However, here's what I recommend. Go more or less with what Probitas cited from the book. Let the PC's take on the interesting characters, unless they need the numerous clowns to be murdered to make them feel more powerful. AS for the NPC vs NPC combat, who cares? Do any of them even have names? Why bother to figure out who is being hit and who isn't? Consider the various shipmates as being relatively equal in combat ability in general and whoever has the greater numbers will win. The more lopsided the numbers, the more lopsided the fight. Or, more likely, the more likely a surrender. This can be mitigated by one side being more seasoned, etc. BUt basically, just figure out a couple of things.

1. WIll the PC's boat be able to just overwhelm the other boat? IF so, just say they do it and save time. The best is to just let the other boat surrender.

2. Will the other boat be able to overwhelm the PC's boat? IF so, let the PC's know the odds and see if they can be convinced by their crew to surrender. Or, maybe they can convince their crew to die with them. The question is, do you kill your PC's now for being stubborn?

3. IF it's relatively easy, what actions do the PC's take that make the difference? Let them do something heroic or bone-headed that swings the battle.

Basically, don't let random dice rolls for the NPC's make the difference. Use them as background and to allow for a probable lack of nautical knowledge by the group. Who cares about how the ship is sailing? The nameless, faceless crew can handle that. Let the PC's deal with things that move along the plot.

Oh, and a crew of zombies? Um, just where did you expect them to dock or sell their booty, or possibly interact with anyone?

-Vek
"Avast ye?"

[The Beast]

I just thought of this for an optional way to handel combat: in Rifter #22 there is an article by Dan Felkins for PFRPG called Medieval Army Combat Rules, it may help for your situation.

Bassically it shows how one can put an army (or any size force really) into a grouping as such that they can be "counted" as 1 NPC for stats and attacks, which would knock down combat dramatically. It is a good article that I unfortunatly never got to use, but have often looked into- just never made it that far in the one group.

I'd only do that for the final battle. Any other battle I'd either let the PCs win or lose, depending on how well their rolls are going, the planning they put into it, and so forth, just to keep the story moving along.

[The Oh So Amazing Nate]

Thanks to the OP and all posters for this. I'm getting ready to take part in a AtB2 pirate/seafaring game. A lot of this info is VERY helpful. I'm sure the GM will be glad to see/consider it.

[Goliath Strongarm]

On my phone so typing a lot would be difficult. I've run pirate campaigns, and when I get on laptop tonight, will make a full post about how I've handledit so it wasn't boggy.

[kiralon]

For the mass combat onboard ship you can try
http://www.farlandworld.com/program.html

For actual ship to ship combat i use slighty modified battletech rules for the ship to ship combat, can make for some very exciting chases.

the rpg 7th sea has a lot of good stuff you can convert over.

some decks to fight on http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mw/20050830a
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php? ... 25834&it=1
http://d20pirates.blogspot.com.au/
get an Iron and some gridded paper and trace the iron, theres the start of a ship.

The pirates of the carribean soundtracks are also good to play in the background, but you can also find the odd sea shanty here and there.

[The Oh So Amazing Nate]

you mean like this? Sea Shanty's

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... GUBBbGEITE

[Goliath Strongarm]

OK, so I wanted to do this last night, but got sidetracked...

Some of the things I've done for "pirate" style games-

Give the players small ships that don't really have a whole lot of extra crew, and can't hold them either- it's them, plus just enough people to keep the ship going. But give them reason to keep THAT ship. They don't want to trade it in (mystic bond, heirloom, etc). That way, they don't have a whole bunch of people that can fight. This also keeps them going after smaller ships, so they won't get that HUGE treasure in one battle.

Ghost Crew- someone mentioned using zombies/skeletons. I like ghosts. They are connected to the ship, and crew it, but they can't affect anything on any other vessel. This keeps the PCs ship crewed appropriately, but, doesn't give them a raiding party. The other side of this is that not many people are going to sign on to be a raiding crew on board a ship crewed by ghosts. Pirates are notoriously superstitious. This limits the raiding crew to the PCs, (maybe a couple of NPCs, if you're generous), and gives you the same ship raiding limit above. Also, if someone DOES attack, gives the PCs a nice defense even if they are doing something else.

Have the PCs ship be small, but magical. No crew, but doesn't need one. Magically controlled. Only enough space for the PCs plus a few more people, unless you're going to convert the cargo area into crew quarters.

----------------------------------------------------------
Some of the things I always reminded them when they talked about adding more people than the "standard" crew compliment... adding more people means losing cargo space to make crew space. And losing more cargo space because you have to carry more food and water and mead/ale/etc. And that's another person getting a portion of the loot. So, really, for every 2 people you want to add on, you're going to lose 3 peoples worth of space in the cargo hold (being generous). And then those portions of loot as well. Sooo.... how many extra people do you want to pick up?

[The Dark Elf]

Well, I have a couple of thoughts on this. First, with that group, ONLY a Demon Black Ship is going to stand up to them. So, it doesn't matter much. I'm not even sure why they would bother with simple ship plunder. It would be so easy for them!

However, here's what I recommend. Go more or less with what Probitas cited from the book. Let the PC's take on the interesting characters, unless they need the numerous clowns to be murdered to make them feel more powerful. AS for the NPC vs NPC combat, who cares? Do any of them even have names? Why bother to figure out who is being hit and who isn't? Consider the various shipmates as being relatively equal in combat ability in general and whoever has the greater numbers will win. The more lopsided the numbers, the more lopsided the fight. Or, more likely, the more likely a surrender. This can be mitigated by one side being more seasoned, etc. BUt basically, just figure out a couple of things.

1. WIll the PC's boat be able to just overwhelm the other boat? IF so, just say they do it and save time. The best is to just let the other boat surrender.

2. Will the other boat be able to overwhelm the PC's boat? IF so, let the PC's know the odds and see if they can be convinced by their crew to surrender. Or, maybe they can convince their crew to die with them. The question is, do you kill your PC's now for being stubborn?

3. IF it's relatively easy, what actions do the PC's take that make the difference? Let them do something heroic or bone-headed that swings the battle.

Basically, don't let random dice rolls for the NPC's make the difference. Use them as background and to allow for a probable lack of nautical knowledge by the group. Who cares about how the ship is sailing? The nameless, faceless crew can handle that. Let the PC's deal with things that move along the plot.

Oh, and a crew of zombies? Um, just where did you expect them to dock or sell their booty, or possibly interact with anyone?

-Vek
"Avast ye?"

Agree with Vek.

NPC fights go exactly the way you want them to. No randomness, think story driven.