D&D 5E What's the rush? Has the "here and now" been replaced by the "next level" attitude?

[JamesonCourage]

And I agree Jc. But the thread is about speed of levelling.

You might want to stop bringing up the idea that it takes a certain amount of time to mechanically realize your goal of being a Fighter-specific ship captain then.

I get what you're saying about hours played to get the payoff of a certain mechanical concept coming to fruition, but best we not get bogged down in details, looks like.

 

[Anastrace]

In response to the original question, I've always looked forward to the next level and gaining something new. Well maybe with the exception of playing a fighter early on. Post 3E and Modern and Pathfinder, I really enjoy the fun of mapping out my progression beforehand and then developing into whatever I have in mind over time.

 

[N'raac]

Isn't that what the Appraise skill is for? And Sense Motive? Are we now going to simply replace skills with Profession? Why on earth would a sailor (Or pirate for that matter) know the market value of cotton?

Isn't appraise usable untrained? Aren't cotton and tobacco common, so I need to make a DC 12? Isn't (take) 10 + (INT bonus) 2 equal to 12?

Going back to the speed of levelling we've been talking about, we're still at 10 sessions/level (note, Celebrim's rebuttal to this a few pages back actually specifically agreed on this levelling speed). So, we're still at 120 hours of play before hitting Pirate Captain.

Not a bad amount of time.

In my game, with the 7th level pirate captain, we're talking about (20 hours/levelx6 levels) 120 hours of play. Exactly the same.

Which is what I stated multiple times before. It's a wash. You grant the archetype at earlier levels, but then stretch out each level. I grant the archetype at higher levels, but level faster. The end result is exactly the same. You hit your archetype at the same time.

So, what's the difference?

One difference is that I get to be a pirate captain for an extra three levels, compared to your pirate captain, before we hit the level at which we end the campaign. As each level takes longer, I will have even longer to play that chosen character, and fully explore the possibilities of the archetype and personality of my player. So my Pirate will have a much lengthier biography to pen in his retirement!

 

[tomBitonti]

Hey, the pirate lord (or captain) has a crew. He/she doesn't need to do everything or know everything. He just needs to have crewman with the necessary skills.

A problem is that working with the crew requires more skills than a typical fighter would have: Intimidate and Profession(Soldier). But, Sense Motive and Bluff, and maybe, Diplomacy seem necessary, and most fighters cannot afford to take those, too. Not to mention, this fighter doesn't have jump, climb, or swim, which will reduce his combat effectiveness slightly. And, no points left over for language, or knowledge. Fighters just don't work very well for a skill intensive role. (But, a Rogue or Bard does!)

For example, the captain might browbeat the first officer (who knows commerce) to exchange their loot for rum and ship's supplies, but, if the first officer goes behind his back and takes a 20% cut of the exchange as a reward for accepting a low-ball price and inferior goods, how is the captain to know?

I don't have any problem with a fighter being in command of a small vessel. Getting to the point of being a feared and powerful pirate lord -- who commands a fleet of ships and a secret harbor / village -- is a different matter.

Thx!

TomB

 

[tomBitonti]

Did Conan (in the Howard stories) ever rise to captainhood? He was a pirate under Belit, but she was the captain, not he. I thought that afterwards he did become captain (perhaps not until later stores), but I'm not finding that with a quick search.

The question then, is what skills would Conan rely on as a pirate captain? Intimidate and Sense Motive, and Language.

Those, I'm thinking are enough to run a single ship which simply preys on other ships and does not attempt much other than what requires daring and fighting skill. I don't see that as enough to garner a fleet, or withstand a canny captain in the true sense.

Thx!

TomB

 

[jodyjohnson]

Maybe it's time to start a thread about "Why do People only want to play 10 or less campaigns over their lifetime instead of enjoying all the awesome APs that WotC, Paizo, and EnWorld are printing?"

And then spend 35 pages trying to convince the slow-play folks that they need to play faster.

I've got over 15 APs on the shelf now I haven't played yet. And at least 3 campaign settings.

That's just between my Dungeon subscription and Paizo AP sub.

I'm to the point now, where my player's are going to complain we're moving too fast. Which is exactly my target.

 

[billd91]

For example, the captain might browbeat the first officer (who knows commerce) to exchange their loot for rum and ship's supplies, but, if the first officer goes behind his back and takes a 20% cut of the exchange as a reward for accepting a low-ball price and inferior goods, how is the captain to know?

This is why the devious captain cultivates informants among his other crew and officers. But ultimately, maybe he discovers it, maybe he doesn't. Either way - are the players having fun? Is the kickback fairly detectable if the fighter-class captain happens to do the right things to find it (hires an auditor, follows-up on suspicions with other NPCs, etc)? Then it doesn't matter if the fighter character has the intimidation, sense motive, appraise, profession (merchant) or any of that himself. He may have to spread a little more cash around than if he had the skills himself.
In Skull and Shackles, I started captaining the ship at maybe 3rd level as a summoner. And that worked out OK. My sailing skills are terrible - I was pressed into being the cook. But I've got a good diplomacy and our PCs built up a good coalition of other crew members so that when we felt it was time to mutiny, we already had most of the crew on our side. Since that point, we've been treating them right with regular pay and shore leave - who needs to intimidate them into doing everything?

I don't have any problem with a fighter being in command of a small vessel. Getting to the point of being a feared and powerful pirate lord -- who commands a fleet of ships and a secret harbor / village -- is a different matter.

I agree that you shouldn't be a feared and powerful pirate lord instantly - but I wouldn't consider it dependent on level so much as building up a reputation and pirate appropriate power resources through play. "Power" may be personal combat prowess but it might also be allied or vassal ships, important political connections in ports of call, skilled crews and subordinate officers, and good equipment. And none of those are inherently tied to level.

 

[Minigiant]

It all comes down to level locks and D&D's class system.

If you want to be a pirate captain you need on level martial skill and either a lots of skills or a lot of money to hire skills.

But fighters lack the skills until high levels
And rogues lack the martial latent unless they multiclass or outlived the enemy.
And available wealth is up to the DM.

So you either end up running core and waiting for future levels to get the build to flourish or you beg the DM to allow house rule or playbook content.

 

[tomBitonti]

Two question: Are the wealth-by-level guidelines being followed? And, is there a new rules sub-system to measure the player power, as described?

The Pirate Adventure Path has a sub-system specific to the story which tracks player power. That's not in the core rules, but added. That's fine to use, but its presence shows how the core rules are not sufficient.

About the wealth guidelines: Lots of folks will ignore those. If they are followed, a party of 4 can affort a sailing ship maybe at 3'rd level, and a warship somewhere between 4'th and 5'th.

What the issue resolves to, for me, is whether the DM is tracking player power in a way that ties to player level. Then, as that reflects on the games rules, whether the rules encourage and provide examples of how to do so, or, are written in a limiting fashion.

My view is that 3.5E and 4E were written in a limiting fashion. Paizo has worked to overcome the limits, with background options, and the subsystems added to the adventure paths, but, still must live within the limits built into the game system. You can go outside of the rules, but aren't (or weren't) encouraged to do so. Limited by the rules, players had little recourse except to gain power by leveling. Looking at 5E, the question remains: How well does the game facilitate external (non-level) measures of power (included in what I've been calling player state).

PC Wealth by Level
Level Wealth
2nd 900 gp
3rd 2,700 gp
4th 5,400 gp
5th 9,000 gp
6th 13,000 gp
7th 19,000 gp
8th 27,000 gp
9th 36,000 gp
10th 49,000 gp

Rowboat 50 gp
Keelboat 3,000 gp
Longship 10,000 gp
Sailing ship 10,000 gp
Warship 25,000 gp
Galley 30,000 gp

Thx!

TomB

 

[ForeverSlayer]

All you have to do is remember that word guideline.

If you had your players come across a wrecked wagon on their quest to defeat the goblins and they used their skills to repair it, would you count that against their WBL?