Seafaring characters

[DarkKestral]

Actually, the most successful pirate in the world was a Asian woman. At the height of her career, she and her son led a fleet of almost 2000 pirate ships. Furthermore, their fleet was VERY lawful, living by an extremely detailed code. Many of the characters representing such pirate heritage could easily be monks. Her numbered of captured vessels was huge, as most of her fleet eventually consisted of vessels her fleet had either coerced into working with them or captured. In fact, she was so strong politically, the Chinese government basically gave her and her fleet full pardons just so they wouldn't take the country by force.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ching_Shih

Easily, some of the monk abilities could be adapted to fit a character from such a fleet. They would assuredly be LN or LE, but one could definitely be a monk.

 

[IamTheTest]

you are a pirate

 

[Felix]

you are a pirate

Right up there with Leonard Nimoy's hobbit song. Ugh.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

"Most successful pirate" is going to be subjective at best. While it is true Ching Shih was quite formidable, she took over a 400 ship fleet and made it into a 2000 ship fleet.

Black Bart went from a prisoner on a single ship to history. After being voted to the ship's captainsy, he captured 470 ships in 3 years...just under 1 ship every 2 days, despite his fleet never exceeding 11 ships. He also sacked and looted a few of Spain's heavily-fortified treasure cities in the area.

OTOH...2000 ships is a LOT of people under the command of 1 pirate- I can't think of another private fleet anywhere near that size.

 

[Phlebas]

Generally agree with most comments above - its more choice of skills and flavour than specific PrC's and optional classes.

I would have thought Rogue would be the base class of choice for most seafaring characters - light or no armour, lots of relevant skills & skill points. Multi-classing with rogue would be almost essential for Fighters so they can compensate for lack of armour (or they go swashbuckler or another low armour varaint such as Duelist).

Clerics seem to be the hardest hit (again due to armour) unless they go down Cloistered cleric (bad armour / more skills) or multi-class. I'd have thought Monks, Bards and Barbarians all work with a sea-faring way of life - all you need is the right back-story.
I also like the idea of Druids / Rangers with aquatic animal companions - high level druids go all the way up to whale / giant squid which would make them seriously scary at sea...
Sorcerers and Wizards dont have a huge amount of skills for dealing with land-based adventuring so a lack of skills for sea-faring shouldn't really hurt them !

Privateering would seem to offer a lot more RP possibilities than completely outlaw pirates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privateer) especially as it would allow pretty much every character option from paladin to necromancer depending on the nature of the state / conflict involved.

You could go for a more barbaric feel with viking raids / exploration if you want something more Erik the Viking than Pirates of the Caribbean - just assume a baseline of Barbarian rather than Rogue

 

[DarkKestral]

"Most successful pirate" is going to be subjective at best. While it is true Ching Shih was quite formidable, she took over a 400 ship fleet and made it into a 2000 ship fleet.

However, her husband and her together went from nothing to 400, and when he died, she took over... and managed to win out against fleets twice her size. Plus, having enough strength to actually win a land war in Asia... that's gotta count for something.

 

[geosapient]

However, her husband and her together went from nothing to 400, and when he died, she took over... and managed to win out against fleets twice her size. Plus, having enough strength to actually win a land war in Asia... that's gotta count for something.

Yeah, but did she go in against a Cicelian when death was on the line?

 

[DarkKestral]

Yeah, but did she go in against a Cicelian when death was on the line?

Whaa? I have NO clue what you're talking about.

 

[geosapient]

Whaa? I have NO clue what you're talking about.

Sorry, it's a movie reference (The Princess Bride)

"HA HA, You fool. You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia. But only slightly less well known is this - NEver go in against a Cicelian when DEATH is on the line. AH HAHAHAHAHA... AH HAHAHAHA... AH HA HA HA!" (Cicelian drops over dead due to iocaine poison).

 

[Hairfoot]

[Sicilian] drops over dead due to iocaine poison.

...which comes from Australia, and everybody knows Australians are convicts who can't be trusted.

For a film set in an ancient, fictitious fantasy world, it manages to insult so many real-world groups: Sicilians, Australians, the Pentagon, albinos, big rats, and Spaniards who devote their life to revenge. If only there was a sequel.