Pirate crews

[Clueless]

The reason I ask about the player's tendencies (not the characters) is cause it will influence what suggestions we give you. Games tend to go better if you play your player first *then* play your player's characters after you've figured out what makes your player tick.

So if she's the plotting strategic sort - I would set up a ranged running battle through sandbars - where it could be a long chase IC (not nearly that long in OOC real-time) setting up the opponents ship to take just that wrong turn that'll ground him and make him a sitting duck. It turns the naval battle into something more like chess. Which as far as I know, reflects more closely how real naval battles went, given how hard it can be to turn a sailing vessel mid run. Then it becomes a matter of bribery and negotiation to lay claim to the other vessel.

If they're open sea, she'll want to be careful not to scuttle the ship - so careful with the canon. If you want some maps, check out the Outer Banks of North Carolina - there's a reason it's called the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

Alternatively, if she's more of a take-no-prisoners-charge! sort of player, then you just want to work the long range defenses, let her ship be 'faster' than the other in some way and go old-fashioned Errol Flynn. Let her swing over, pull out the ship layout, and go to town like you would in any normal dungeon. (And work in sea trolls for the fun of it.)

In either case I would suggest picking an area for her to get familiar with as her own 'turf' so to speak. If I were in your place I'd be printing out a map of the Banks right now.

http://www.novaspace.com/POSTERS/PHOTO/OuterBanks.html
(See that pale blue area? That's shifting sandbars just under the surface - some of them shallow enough to walk out on if you were that crazy.)

http://www.justobx.com/info/uploads/Outer-Banks/outer-banks-satellite.jpg

Ships eaten (not a complete list): http://www.atlantischarters.net/graphics/wreckmap-00.jpg

 

[ivocaliban]

Ship's cook (drunk)

I ran a six year pirate campaign in Greyhawk in which the ship's cook was also a drunk. I based the character on Shane MacGowan of The Pogues.

I agree with Whizbang. Throw in an old salt whose lived his life on the sea. A tough, but wiry Rogue or Expert might be best.

 

[Maldin]

Arrrr!!! Matey! Spelljammin' is the pirate's life for meee!!!
(and contains alot of info and scenarios for pirate-related adventures that could easily be converted to a more conventional sea-going campaign...)

Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Looking for Spelljammer cut-out ship models? Look here! The Ships of Spelljammer

 

[Blackrat]

She's a privateer, but I will (eventually?) need pirate antagonists.

Well then, meet the fleet of Red Sails. All of these ships use recognisable red sails and the fleet is well known and feared across the world.
-Crimson Wing: The flagship of Red Sails, her crew is the meanest bunch of pirates in the known seas. The Commodore of Crimson Wing is a Vampire lord from the orient who is so powerful even the sun can't harm him. (Obviously the BBEG , the PC shouldn't go directly against him until many levels).
-Bloody Dragon: A huge ship built to raid ports. It has enough weapons to take down a fortress. Captain of the Bloody Dragon is a 7 foot tall barbarian who shaves his head bald every morning. He isn't too bright so the commodore assigned a warmage as his advisor. The crew has many Hadozee warriors (from stormwreck) which gives the ship an upper hand against normal crews.
-Lady Pain: The fastest ship of the Red Sails has a figurehead of bound and tortured woman. Captain of the Lady Pain is a well known swashbuckler who uses the name La Tigre. She is as beautiful as she is deadly. Her crew consist of talented melee combatants.
-Red Death: A ship of goblin pirates with bugbear boarding party. Captain is an experienced hobgoblin sailor who has a good grasp of ship-to-ship combat tactics.
-Eilestraee's Spine: The name of this ship might confuse people until they see it and learn of the name. The hull has been decorated with spines of drow-priestesses who worship Eilestraee. The captain is a Drow priestess who worships Kiaransalee (Bard-necromancer). She hates Eilestraee from the bottom of her dark heart and has made it to her mission to hunt down all her worshipers she can find while conducting piracy in the mean time. Her crew consist fully of skeletons except for the first mate who is a wight.

So the ships and crews suitable for lover levels are Eilestraee's Spine and Red Death. For a higher level challenge Bloody Dragon and Lady Pain. And for BBEG-battle in a high level the Crimson Wing. Hope you like. I have somewhere in my piles of notes ( ) the stats for everyone but finding them won't be easy so I just wrote some ideas and hope they can be of use.

 

[Switchblade]

Pirates, privateers and even navy ships rarely used cannon as they would damage the prize. The last thing they would want to do is damage, for long periods of time naval action was based on being fast enough to close and board.

Read some reports on old naval battles, they tend to read things like "lots captured, one sunk".

How pirates would close is by trickery. You don't hoist up the jolly roger at the first sign of pray, you fly a false flag and look like a merchantman who just happens to be passing until you have do. Then you crack out all the sails only once they twig to close as rapidly as possible, preferably with the wind gauge on their side.

All a privateer is is a pirate under a letter of marque, giving a cut to a government and avoiding their ships in exchange for legitamacy and legal protection.

A good way to introduce a pirate antagonist is have them find a "merchantman" flying a flag from a foreign nation. As they close thinking it is a jucy prize the ship raises it's own jolly roger and tries to capture THEM. The sudden realisation that the wallowing merchant vessel is packed full of pirates and is tossing balast over the side to speed it up could lead to an intersting game of cat and mouse as they try to escape.

Reefs, fog banks, the aforementioned sand banks lend some tactics to the chase, as does favourable position re the wind.

I would bulk up on some more crew before this though as even a sloop would have a higher crew and as some are needed on the sails it doesn;t sound like the PC ship has many to spare for a prize crew. Even a merchantman would have more crew than that, which is a little embarasing.

 

[scourger]

I suggest the free adventure Island of the Damned for Skull & Bones d20. It's a cool little jaunt with some great NPCs. I used it to start a very fun pirate D&D mini-campaign a couple of years ago.