Quandary! Can I do a “Pirate” campaign with 4th Ed as it is?

[Klaus]

Guns: use crossbows. If you want, make pistols and rifles work like crossbows with the High Crit keyword and increase the reload by one step (free to minor, minor to move).

Heavy Armor: that is automatically balanced by the fact that you can add Dex or Int to AC with light armor and not with heavy. Granted, you'll see much more agile and/or savvy characters, but that works for the setting.

For the average pirate character, you'll see lots of rogues and rangers, with some warlords thrown in. Almost everyone will be trained in Acrobatics and the use of the Acrobatic Stunt action should be encouraged.

There's no skill dealing with navigating and sailing ships. You could turn the sailing of a ship into a Skill Challenge, using Nature (knowledge of stars, winds and currents), Perception (noticing brewing storms and hidden reefs), Streetwise (using information gathered from other sailors in the last tavern) and History (the skill most likely to cover information on geography and stories about islands and naval battles).

Adding such a skill challenge, you can allow the captain of the ship (a PC) to grant bonus to allies or to damage opponents through his Skill Challenge.

 

[Sunglar]

Claudio thanks for the input! (Love your art by the way, but I think I’ve said that before!)

I REALLY like the idea of navigating the ship being a Skill Challenge! See I put down the mechanic and you give me a prefect idea of how to integrate it into the type of action I want to encourage.

Any pirate counters coming down the line?

 

[Milambus]

For the skill challenges take a look at the Obsidian skill challenge system. I haven't used it yet, but it seems to take the concept of the skill challenge and refine it to a perfect implementation.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan...llenge-system-update-version-1-1-now-pdf.html

There was a demo for a two-weapon fighter build (alternative to the two-hander and 1-hander and shield options in the PHB) in a recent Dragon article. That build received bonuses from using light armors. The Tempest Fighter found here:
Ampersand: Fun with Pigs and Other Stories

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

For Armor: I remember that there is some note in either the PHB or the DMG (probably the latter) that briefly goes into this - the gist is - rename the armor. Instead of Plate armor, the Paladin is wearing Breast Plate. Same rules and statistics, but flavorwise, it fits better into the setting.

You could also give these classes a small inherent bonus to AC and take away their armor proficiencies.

 

[Klaus]

Claudio thanks for the input! (Love your art by the way, but I think I’ve said that before!)

I REALLY like the idea of navigating the ship being a Skill Challenge! See I put down the mechanic and you give me a prefect idea of how to integrate it into the type of action I want to encourage.

Any pirate counters coming down the line?

Arr! Before I dive into pirate-infested waters, I must sail through the task of finishing the current MM.

There are some piratey action going on in the Iron Heroes adventure "Dark Harbor", available at drivethrurpg.

 

[Roger]

But here is the thing, what about taking away heavy armor from the classes that depend on it. I can’t see a full plate wearing, sword wielding, shield using fighter swinging from one ship to another, or trekking through the jungle, not in that getup.

I'd recommend you use "4th Ed as it is".

The penalty to swimming and Endurance while wearing plate is -2. Full stop.

If you're going to start house-ruling things to make heavy armors worse than the rules-as-written, of course there are going to be problems. Don't do that.

Use "4th Ed as it is." You'll be fine.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[VenezuelanWiz]

Sunglar: glad to be able to help. My only comment about just making everyone use more Int / Dex characters for the defenders is that Paladins already suffer from MAD, and adding one of their two dump stats to the mix will cause them problems.

On the Vzla question. I grew up there but am currently living in the US.

Cheers,

 

[Sunglar]

Arr mateys! I'm at work but I logged in to see the thread. I'll reply later, but remember have fun on Speak like a Pirate Day or I'll make you walk the plank you scurvy dogs! Que viva la momoria del Pirata Cofresi...

 

[BASHMAN]

Well my first advice would be to use another game system entirely, there are many that can do what you want far better than 4e D&D.

However, if you must force a square peg-leg into a round hole, I would recommend that your party consist mostly of Rangers and Rogues. Rangers make good pirates because any of that "sea knowlege" would likely come down to Nature checks. They can also fight well with paired rapiers, or pistols if you make them available. To add to this, make bastard swords unavailable as weapons (since if a ranger were to blow a feat for weapon prof. they'd be a fool not to pick bastard sword if it were an available choice.)

Or a better option, make rapier a Military weapon instead of Superior-- then you will have lots of people using rapiers instead of longwords or bastard swords, without having to just say they don't exist.

Rogues make pretty natural pirates, no need to change them at all.

Fighters could also be good, but lack of heavy armor may be a problem (hide should be the heaviest armor available). Make up for this by giving fighters a bonus feat (just like in the good old days).

As for "sailing skill" I would just say that it is a skill that all PC have trained that they all get for free, and it is based on Wisdom.

For firearms, I would make them work as follows:

Pistol (military ranged weapon) +3 hit, 2d6 dmg, Brutal 1, Range 10/20
Musket (military ranged wapon) +3 hit, 2d8 dmg, Brutal 2, Range 20/40

The +3 to hit is because, while these weapons were innaccurate, they were also great at punching through armor and coparatively easier to use than a bow-- since hitting is a factor of both those things-- I gave it the +3. Yes, they are much better weapons than bows. If you are asking "why would anyone use a bow" the answer should be "they wouldn't", but also the reload time.

These weapons take 1 minute to reload, and reloading can be done as part of a 5 minute rest (i.e. not possible in combat). If you want to make them more useful (but less realistic) you could make reload be a standard action (and move + standard for the musket).

They are not "superior weapons"-- firearms would be much easier to use and common than something like a great-bow or a repeating crossbow.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Ultimately, the armor check penalties and speed decreases are not as devastating as they were in 3.5, so heavier armor isn't as big of an issue from that perspective.

For aesthetics, you can rename/reflavor the armors.

You may want to wait for the martial powers book as there will be some more options for the martial classes that can be interesting in this kind of campaign. The swordmage might be the defender of choice for this kind of setting, while a tactical warlord can similarly be lightly armored [although, the difference between swimming in chainmail vs. swimming in hide armor is negligible. And it's apparently easier to swim in scale armor vs. hide armor ... so it might not be so bad for the heavier armored classes, as long as they forgo plate and heavy sheilds].

As for the guns, making anything that is exceptionally more powerful than other items will upset the game balance, so know that ahead of time. It's having to balance the "reality" of guns vs. game balance. The idea of making the guns take longer to load than a crossbow [handheld goes from free to minor, twohanded goes from minor to move] and in turn increase their damage. For the benefit of rogues, having the hand weapon count as a crossbow for his various effects is necessary. One property could be brutal, which increases the minimum damage from a hit with the weapon. If the weapon attacks reflex, it would require (a) losing the proficiency bonus and (b) it would either not work with class/etc powers, or it changes those attacks from AC to reflex.