Pathfinder 1E Skull and Shackles

sheadunne · Mar 24, 2013

I'm thinking about running Skulls and Shackles, any suggestions or things I should be aware of for the AP? I'm putting together a group of players now. I've run APs with anywhere betewen 4-6 players, anyone run Skulls and Shackles with 6?

Anyway, any advice you can give on this specific AP would be great.

billd91 · Mar 24, 2013

I'm playing in the AP now. We're in the second chapter, so not all that far in. From my perspective as a player, the AP is fairly skill-heavy so far. Low skill point characters will probably feel the pinch, I certainly am with my PC - a half-orc summoner with a 14 Intelligence. You might want to make sure the players know this and hint at some of the skills that will be useful again and again and again (profession (sailor), climb, swim, profession (cook), diplomacy, perception, stealth, know (local), know (geography), and intimidation).

This is not a good AP for dumping Intelligence.

sheadunne · Mar 25, 2013

That's good to know. Would an increase in the starting number of "traits" help to alleviate some of the lack of skill point characters? I would probably limit the traits to those pertaining to the AP or that provide skills that are used heavily in the AP?

billd91 · Mar 25, 2013

sheadunne said:
That's good to know. Would an increase in the starting number of "traits" help to alleviate some of the lack of skill point characters? I would probably limit the traits to those pertaining to the AP or that provide skills that are used heavily in the AP?

I suppose more traits could help but you might also end up with too many traits to track effectively if there are other conditional benefits. That's typically my biggest challenge with traits.

sheadunne · Mar 25, 2013

billd91 said:
I suppose more traits could help but you might also end up with too many traits to track effectively if there are other conditional benefits. That's typically my biggest challenge with traits.

True. I'd probably keep the list pretty small. Maybe just have them choose one based on the type of pirate/ship role they would want to play.

Traveon Wyvernspur · Mar 25, 2013

I think you mean "Skull and Shackles." Sorry a bit of a pet peeve of mine, anyhow to answer your question. AP's are written with 4 players in mind with point buys of 15. So if you run 6 players then keep in mind that they will probably blow through the encounters that are pre-written and you'll have to add a little more oomph to keep the CR's up to par with the party. The is even more difficult if you allow a higher point buy or rolls which can sometimes equate up into the 35-40 points if bought.

As far as advice with this particular AP, make sure to have your players read the free player's guide and come prepared with traits/feats/character builds that will help them on a ship (i.e. not smart to have a cavalier who is mounted on a horse and uses a lance to charge his enemies, smarter if they play a swashbuckler, etc.). If I was running it I'd require that one of their two traits was campaign specific from the Adventure Path, this gives them a tie-in to the start of the adventure and helps them out by also giving them something that's useful for them.

Super Pony · Mar 25, 2013

The AP reaches a pretty significant climax at part 5. Part 6 is then the "heavy lies the crown" adventure instead of a reveal for any REAL BIGGER MORE BADDERER foe. They've put down the Hurricane King (whom they should just fething hate by this point), and now they get to show the rest of the pirates of the Shackles why they wear the daddy pants.

There is much more of a gray morality to this AP. It's not out and out rape-n-pillage (though it could be), but character archetypes that are too rigid in their righteousness might feel out of place. Then again, any AP can feature characters that stick out like sore thumbs so it'll all come down to making sure character desire lines up with the AP's character direction.

Part 1 is the trickiest to pull off, imo. It requires a GM to be on the nut in terms of presentation and bringing things to life beyond simple read n roll. There is a real chance to throw some skin and meat and tattoos across the bones here. Wishy-washy "role a ______ check" mechanical rote GM'ing could kill you in the crib unless you have dedicated buccaneers. Obviously everyone's mileage will vary.

The ship combat rules aren't bad...they just aren't fun, to me.

sheadunne · Mar 25, 2013

Traveon Wyvernspur said:
I think you mean "Skulls and Shackles." Sorry a bit of a pet peeve of mine, anyhow to answer your question. AP's are written with 4 players in mind with point buys of 15. So if you run 6 players then keep in mind that they will probably blow through the encounters that are pre-written and you'll have to add a little more oomph to keep the CR's up to par with the party. The is even more difficult if you allow a higher point buy or rolls which can sometimes equate up into the 35-40 points if bought.

As far as advice with this particular AP, make sure to have your players read the free player's guide and come prepared with traits/feats/character builds that will help them on a ship (i.e. not smart to have a cavalier who is mounted on a horse and uses a lance to charge his enemies, smarter if they play a swashbuckler, etc.). If I was running it I'd require that one of their two traits was campaign specific from the Adventure Path, this gives them a tie-in to the start of the adventure and helps them out by also giving them something that's useful for them.

Thanks for the "c" and the no "s" at the end of skull!

I've run several other APs at 6 with a high point buy since several of the MAD classes aren't able to be on equal footing with the SAD classes unless there's a higher point buy. I can usually adjust to it for combat purposes but if it's a skill heavy game I'll need to figure out how to handle 6 players differently if that's what I go with, which I'm not sure I will. I'm thinking 4 at 20 but need to prepare for the possibility of more (no more than 6 though). I'd rather not drop the point by down unless none of the players want to play a MAD class. I can adjust encounters easy enough, but I'm still worried about the non-combat aspects of the game. If there's more of it than combat encounters, I'd rather have a smaller number of players.

sheadunne · Mar 26, 2013

Super Pony said:
The AP reaches a pretty significant climax at part 5. Part 6 is then the "heavy lies the crown" adventure instead of a reveal for any REAL BIGGER MORE BADDERER foe. They've put down the Hurricane King (whom they should just fething hate by this point), and now they get to show the rest of the pirates of the Shackles why they wear the daddy pants.

There is much more of a gray morality to this AP. It's not out and out rape-n-pillage (though it could be), but character archetypes that are too rigid in their righteousness might feel out of place. Then again, any AP can feature characters that stick out like sore thumbs so it'll all come down to making sure character desire lines up with the AP's character direction.

Part 1 is the trickiest to pull off, imo. It requires a GM to be on the nut in terms of presentation and bringing things to life beyond simple read n roll. There is a real chance to throw some skin and meat and tattoos across the bones here. Wishy-washy "role a ______ check" mechanical rote GM'ing could kill you in the crib unless you have dedicated buccaneers. Obviously everyone's mileage will vary.

The ship combat rules aren't bad...they just aren't fun, to me.

Good to know. I was planning on "banning" a few of the classes but I hate to do it until I've chatted with the players. Are there any that are a problem for the AP?

Mad Hamish · Mar 26, 2013

I've only done most of the first module as a player but from what I've seen
it depends on a lot of things.
Wizards could have problems early in the adventure with keeping spellbooks (You might be able to get around that with spell mastery or there might be instructions for what to do that I'm unaware of)
Any low int, low skill class will have some problems keeping normal adventuring skills and being able to do your shipboard duties (I'm running a sorcerer and struggling with that)

Paladins are right out, various other classes and archetypes might cause problems, I doubt you want any actually good characters in the group as they'll probably have issues with what they're forced to do.
Anything depending on mounted combat is probably out (I suppose it might be possible that later in the AP you could pick up an aquatic mount...)
Alchemists will probably find things tough as they won't have access to supplies but you can possibly work around that.