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When selling plunder, it seems like most of the people (including myself) on here assumed that the line "the PCs should simply deduct 1 point of plunder from their total each time they attempt to sell plunder." meant that each time the PCs went to a port and sold 1+ plunder, they would subtract 1.
Some had issues with this, as the share system seemed to break down depending on when they went into port. If they go into port with 20 plunder, spend 19 days to sell 19 of it and give 1 away, then all they've lost is one. Alternatively, if they sell 5 at one port, 5 at another, and 5 at a third, then they're giving up 3 plunder (one per port).
On a re-read, I'm starting to wonder if perhaps this has been misinterpreted. It says that they should deduct one plunder "each time they attempt to sell plunder".
Each attempt to sell plunder is made on a daily basis, selling 1 per day. Could it possibly mean that the PCs should be giving 1 plunder to the crew everytime they sell 1 for themselves?
This seems like a lot (50% of plunder), but makes some degree of sense. If the crew has 20 people and the PCs have 4 officers, then share-wise, the officers are still getting a much larger share of the plunder. Assuming a full 1,000 gp for plunder, the crew is getting 50 gp each while the PCs are getting 250 gp each.
This also helps account for the first issue mentioned above. It no longer matters if the PCs are stopping frequently or infrequently, they give up 1 plunder to the crew everytime they sell 1 of their own.
Does this make sense? Seem too harsh? I'm not sure how much the AP accounts for the PCs and plunder, but it feels more fair that the crew gets 1 plunder for every 1 the PCs keep for themselves.
Thoughts?
I think the popular interpretation is what is expected, not your new one which I think seems too harsh. Keep in mind, on a basic level, all the crew does is make it so the boat can be sailed. They generally don't fight or offer any other benefit outside of role play.
Yes, if you go by the rules as written, the PCs can get around paying the crew by selling plunder in larger lots than smaller.
I tend to use the standard interpretation but also try to temper it by being reasonable. They pay a point of plunder each time they sell plunder or they pay 1 point of plunder every other week, whichever happens less.
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Yes, my reading does seem a bit harsher at first. I did want to make sure that the PCs would still get enough wealth to account for the usual "wealth by level" table though. As it turns out, my interpretation still gives them plenty to work with.
The AP expects the PCs to go from 4th to 5th level on the open seas, before the Rock. That's an increase of 4,500 gp each, or 18,000 gp in total for the average four person party. This means that, assuming they give the crew 1 plunder for every 1 they keep, that they'll need to acquire 36 points of plunder.
This also assumes they would go to Senghor to sell it (but really, why wouldn't you? It's not far, a metropolis, and you just don't do piracy in their waters, easy enough), and I'm still low-balling it. Assuming bare minimum sale price of 1,000 gp per plunder, and that they won't be able to sell anything else from anywhere (considering all the officers they attack have magical armor and even the crew has some masterwork gear, they'll get lots more after a few ship battles).
Before the Rock (and expected level 5), it's fair to assume the PCs have had a few ship battles, maybe a village battle, and probably the "Famished Mane" and "No Honor Among Thieves".
Each Ship Battle: Kurstav, Dowager Queen, Sanbalot. Each ship can (assuming not much damage, which is easy to avoid) be sold for half its worth in Plunder, or 5 Plunder each with these guys. In total, they also carry 7 points of Plunder on board.
Total: 22 Plunder
Village Raid: The PCs can gain 2 points of Plunder here. 1 for the goods, 1 for the people.
Total: 24 Plunder
Famished Mane: The ship, like the others, is worth 5 Plunder. There's an additional 1 point of Plunder in the hold.
Total: 30 Plunder
No Honor Among Thieves: Huge catch here. A warship like the Devil's Pallor is worth 25,000 gp! That's 12 Plunder for sale. The Sea Chanty is worth another 5, and they have 3 Plunder on board both ships. 20 Plunder from this one event!
Total: 50 Plunder
So with not even all of the available Events prior to the Rock, the PCs can gain 50 Plunder. With my reading, the crew would get 25, and the PCs could sell the other 25 for 25,000 gp (at *least*). That's more than needed to get them above the wealth by level threshold, especially if you add in the sale of other equipment and non-plunder treasure found. If we were going with the other assumption, the crew may only have taken 5-7 Plunder. We'll say the PCs still and keep 44 Plunder for themselves. 44,000 gp, or 11,000 gp each. That's enough to take them from 4th level gold all the way to 6th level gold.
And yes, this also assumes they have enough crew to always skeleton each ship (not hard) and that they aren't keeping any ship for themselves (not necessary).
I mistyped my previous post. I ask them to pay a point when they cash plunder out or failing that, a point at the start of the month. Sorry. Anyway, paying plunder to the crew is pretty much for verisimilitude, not to balance the game. I wouldn't overdo it.
In my campaign, it is 1 plunder per 7 days on the water. In port does not count. Been working OK so far.
As to selling plunder, many places won't buy at full rate. And when you get enough infamy, you can sell 2 plunder on the first day at port.
This means that adventure on [is]land[s] does not count against pay time for the crew. Often these adventures gain plunder.
/cevah
My group does the harder math and pays in shares. So they end up shelling out much more than 1 plunder point per sale.
On the flip-side, I credit them for everything past 1 plunder given to crew as a bonus to their rolls to increase infamy. They're in the midst of Raiders of the Fever Sea now, lvl 5 and have reached the first threshold (Despicable, I believe) during shore leave in Little Oppara on Taldas Isle. Consequently, they also have an easier time recruiting and loyalty is typically not an issue.
As Karui Kage points out, there's a ton of loot to be had, so it's not much of an issue yet.
I'd been running it as 1 plunder payment every time the crew docked - I'm not sure where i got the idea, but that was how i was running it.
I also had the first request to sell plunder only recently, and ran that as one check for as many plunder as they'd like (i think it was 4-5).
Upon reading up the rules, you are supposed to only be able to sell one point of plunder at a time (takes a PC 1 full day to make the check on one plunder: Refer p62 of book 1).
Book 2 page 12 says every time you try to sell plunder, you should deduct another plunder for the crew.
So: depending on how harshly you wanted to interpret the rules, you might have to say:
Selling plunder:
Does this mean that *attempting* to sell plunder costs 1 plunder, and may not result in a sale, unless you get a good enough check value?
This seems like an oddly harsh interpretation of the rules, but Its the closest to 'as written' as i can see.
If it were correct that would mean that a minimum of 50% plunder would go to the crew.
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1 plunder everytime they convert their cargo hold to cash... sorry... being on a pirate ship is not a democracy
Ironically it was more democratic than in any other ship heirarchy. (talking colonial-caribbean age of sail piracy, though many in the Mediterranean were also more democratically inclined than others)
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Being on a ship is never democratic - you enter an autocratic, "Captain is God" zone, and if you don't understand this, you will be made to understand somehow; don't confuse mutiny with democracy.
This is only true under sailing conditions or at-battle conditions. The crew had a right to vote and a right to bring up issues. That things divulged into grey areas depending on the crew/officers is a different case.
The captain in a warship of a nation and the captain of a pirate ship were two very different positions. Also, we dont have much information about piracy conducted everywhere in the world. I am under the assumption, as I mentioned before, that we discuss "age of sail"-new world piracy. Chinese seas piracy was was more akin to mercenary armies, dukedoms or mafias, for example.
"Captain is god" only under stressful situations / at sea / on duty, even in modern times. Armies are always more strict.
Furthermore, in many ships, for example in some trading ships (east indiamans) the captain was not the supreme authority; this was the trading company's representative.
PS: perhaps we're talking about different situations/nations/ship cultures though, were you thinking of any particular background?
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The Captain is the ultimate authority at sea, in every culture
Apparently the Swedish East India Trading Company ship Gotheborg of the late 1700s (soic.se) had an agent as an embassador from the Trading Company who could overrule the captain, though it wouldve been very daft of him to do so in many situations and was never called upon. He was the one conducting all the actual trading.
At sea, every culture does have the captain being the supreme authority (unless for exceptions like above). At port and off duty, not always the case. A call to depose of a captain could happen (only in some very select pirate cultures that we know of, i.e. age of sail). I admit to not having a direct source apart from articles and stuff I remember reading.
This thread does deal with the PCs being at port to trade plunder however. Here, it is very important to note that the captain does not have so much power. A crew member could potentially walk off and join another crew. Can the captain say no to this?
I am not trying to contradict that the captain is the most powerful figure on a ship, but that his power was situational, and in the Age of Sail pirate vessels this AP simulates, Ship Articles and such were commonly under effect. Ship Articles were a thing, and an agreed payment proportional to the plunder of a ship was to be agreed upon amongst the crew, so were many of the aspects of life onboard. That is rather democratical (close enough). Not every ship would stick to that, being captain through murderous deeds and fear was most likely a thing...humans afterall.
However give more credit to some of the reasons some of these people lived such a persecuted life; the ideal that one had more say over one's life...amongst a myriad other reasons of course.
There are some interesting pirate cultures in the Mediterranean. For example the Eolian islands, north of Sicily, during the Punic wars. They were mostly without a government, plundered everyone. The people of the islands would share the work between sailing/piracy, trading and making wares/staying in the islands to provide. This lasted until they sided with Carthage and the Romans decided these islands needing purging and brought them into their domain.
Another short lived attempt at a pirate rule was the city of Salé for a while. Not sure how their treatment of the people was though.
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If you are running a tyrannical ship in the AP however, ahem...
Make those maggots squirm as the sounds of your boots drum on the deck, make them fear for their lifes should they cross (fearful name here)!
A captain who brands each of his sailors (nevermind the slaves) and if they jump ship get prosecuted would be cool. Harrigan does this to an extent, but a mechanic to find such people would be fun. Perhaps reliquish a personal effect when being recruited?
I personally make the PCs cough up 1 piece of plunder per 7 days.
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I follow the AP recommendation of 1 pt. per trip to port. Our group is level 8 now, with 4 players, and I find the gold values pretty much bang on... challenging, but bang on. Less gold to the PCs would make that group a bit anemic. Plus, I don't want to run into a hypothetical scenario where they leave for months (lost a sea or something) and owe thousands of gold pieces to the crew... that would be silly. To give a weekly pay to pirates... is to no longer call them pirates... just sayin' ;)
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I follow the AP recommendation of 1 pt. per trip to port. Our group is level 8 now, with 4 players, and I find the gold values pretty much bang on... challenging, but bang on. Less gold to the PCs would make that group a bit anemic. Plus, I don't want to run into a hypothetical scenario where they leave for months (lost a sea or something) and owe thousands of gold pieces to the crew... that would be silly. To give a weekly pay to pirates... is to no longer call them pirates... just sayin' ;)
Damned good point! Consider that changed to plunder per prey/selling wares.
Are people's players changing plunder into gold straight away? What do they use plunder for? Are they using the gold for themselves?
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For what it's worth, I've been running with "1 plunder for the crew per 1 plunder sold", as I believed the AP intended, and the guys have had no problems with money. The ships they can fight/win against sell for a *lot*, even if damaged. More than enough that just giving them effectively half the plunder is still plenty of money.
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I don't use this suggestion or any other 'broad-brush' approach to the PCs fiances or ship operations in this AP. The assumption that it costs a crew 1000gp each time they dock is ridiculous and lazy math!
In book 5, my player's have a fleet of four ships. They calculate each sailor's pay, all expenses and materials to the coin. Our Quartermaster does a heap of work outside of the play sessions to keep the fleet's books balanced.
Generalities and assumptions like this 'rule' have no place in my game.
More work yields higher rewards.
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That sounds like a boring accounting exercise. That's great for you guys but I'm quite happy with the AP recommendation. To call the campaign rules lazy while in the same post saying that you have downloaded that tedious down to each pirate salary accounting exercise to one of your players sounds a little dubious if you ask me.
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I follow the AP recommendation of 1 pt. per trip to port. Our group is level 8 now, with 4 players, and I find the gold values pretty much bang on... challenging, but bang on. Less gold to the PCs would make that group a bit anemic. Plus, I don't want to run into a hypothetical scenario where they leave for months (lost a sea or something) and owe thousands of gold pieces to the crew... that would be silly. To give a weekly pay to pirates... is to no longer call them pirates... just sayin' ;)
Purple, do you have a page reference for this recommendation?
This was how i originally assumed it worked - after watching a stream of a S&S campaign. However, upon reading the rules, i cannot find the reference to 'every time they port'.
Book 1 p62
Book 2 p12
There's only a rule saying 'pay 1 plunder every time you *attempt* to sell plunder', and 'only sell 1 plunder at a time'
Both seem to point at 50% or more of the plunder going to the crew.
I'm happy to be proven wrong here, so if there's a contradictory sidebar floating around somewhere, it would be good to know about.
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DHTBIFOM, but we've been playing like this for two chapters and the PCs are far from rich. You have to remember that repairing the ship cost money (your ship taking 135 damage from a broadside is like someone taking 135gp from your pocket), buying siege weapons and siege ammo is horribly expensive, and raising your infamy adds 3 pts of plunder to the 1 pt you have to throw to the animals belowdeck...
A reference to a page you say? Nay sir, nayyyyyyyyy!!!! Yarrrrr! The salty spray and the sweet stench of rum on the weather deck with a fresh catch in tow is me reference yarrrrrrrrr!!
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(Yes p.12 sidebar: )
Unlike many other NPC hirelings, pirate crews do not have a daily wage. Instead, they are paid shares of the ship’s plunder taken in acts of piracy, when that plunder is sold. Rather than try to recreate the complexity of share amounts for historical pirate crews, the PCs should simply deduct 1 point of plunder from their total each time they attempt to sell plunder. This represents the shares of the plunder paid out to the crew, regardless of the actual amount of gold received for its sale. See Pathfinder Adventure Path #55 for a detailed description of the plunder rules. This Adventure Path assumes that the PCs follow these guidelines to keep their crew happy and well paid. It is left to the GM to decide how a crew reacts if the PCs do not pay them plunder on a regular basis.
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Mmmmm, that's the passage that the OP is referring to:
It says to sell 1 at a time, and deduct an additional 1 per sale.
deduct 1 point of plunder from their total each time they attempt to sell plunder
Book 2 p12
and
Exchanging 1 point of plunder for gold requires a PC to spend 1 full day at port and make an applicable skill check.
Regardless of how much plunder the PCs have, one PC must spend a full day trading to exchange 1 point of plunder for gold
Book 1 p62
Granted, I don't see any problem at all with the 1 every time you dock rule, I was using that myself, and it seemed ok. Though i did not run it for more than a few sessions. I just wondered if there was any part of the book that directly contradicted those two passages :P
I'll try running it close to RAW (though i'm not deducting plunder for an attempt the PCs decide not to accept, i think that's a bit harsh).
So: 50-50 plunder split, but if they attempt a plunder sale and don't like the price, ill let them forgo paying the crew the half.
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If the intent was 50-50 they would have simply stated that half the plunder goes to the crew. I have and will continue to completely disregard the 1 pt max plunder per day thing, as it is ridiculous. We have always unloaded ALL the plunder in one day...
If you look at it from the perspective of trying to give everyone a daily town task, it becomes less ridiculous:
Without the plunder thing, there's only infamy and crew recruitment.
Infamy is once a day, and crew recruitment quickly tapers off.
I'm not saying you're wrong to run it as you do, by the way: merely trying to interpret what they might want in such a rule.
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with frequent hauls numbering in the high teens or twenties by mid chapter 3, the 1pt per day plunder will quickly piss off a lot of players; I think this max 1pt of plunder a day thing was a typo, and I don't think the overall intent was half the plunder to the crew, based on our current group's gear value at level 8....
all I can say is that the 1pt of plunder to the crew once per port visit has worked very well for our group, as our group likes to keep a general sense of plunder and infamy scores, NOT make the whole campaign an accounting experience (i.e. they find those side systems nice and interesting, but they treat them like side systems and put the priority on plot/campaign decisions...)
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Well, it would be 3 plunder/day max in a party of 4, assuming one is doing infamy, and crew is already maxxed (and not using other custom daily tasks that players might want to do).
If you're running under 4 players, 1/day/person is going to be harder, and more than 4 it becomes much easier (and, indeed; helps them to feel useful on days spent docked).
But it's probably an indication that the plunder system is loose enough that a variance of a few thousand gold here and there is not going to break the game.
It's probably far less impactful than low-magic vs high-magic for example.
To my mind (halfway through book 2) from reading ahead, the main cap on progress when you first start getting plunder is actually infamy/disrepute: plunder can be used for cash, or to help infamy along.
Of course, if the crew sells their plunder it might delay their infamy progress: which my group did, and I can imagine is the more common route, since you don't necessarily spell out the infamy factor for them in obvious terms yet, other than telling them about impositions.
Infamy is pretty clear-cut at least: the only potential problem you'd have is if no-one in the party was capable of passing the checks at level 4, due to not having the specific skills: in which case you'd need to craft a couple of extra adventure hooks (or modify existing encounters) to hand out more infamy.
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Main flaw of this AP is not providing an alternate way to increase infamy other than having a party face PC meet the infamy DC, I agree... we solved this by allowing one of the PCs to completely retool his character: he maxed Intimidate, which can be both used for Infamy checks AND increase the conversion to plunder.
Note that the crucial point of the discussion here is mainly to determine if the intent was really to give half the plunder to the crew, and the other half to the PCs. Based on p.12 sidebar (see post above), I am still of the firm belief that the intent was 1 pt. to the crew every time you bring a haul into port, mainly due to this part of the sentence:
"the PCs should simply deduct 1 point of plunder from their total each time they attempt to sell plunder"
This, IMO, means: "If you have a total of X plunder, and you go to port to convert plunder into cash, you then begin the process of converting X-1 plunder"
In our campaign, we ALWAYS try to max out infamy and thus ALWAYS spend the maximum 3 pts. of plunder to aid increase infamy, so for us, when we go to port to convert plunder, we convert plunder equal to X-4 (basically, we don't bother unless we have more than 10pts to convert... our ship cargo hold can now ride with up to 17 pts. of plunder due to some fortuitous item we recovered at the end of Chap 2... :) )
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I got my interpretation from the same line:
"the PCs should simply deduct 1 point of plunder from their total each time they attempt to sell plunder"
An attempt to sell plunder takes 1 day, and sells 1 plunder. Not sure how else you could really read that. There's a die roll for every point of plunder, which is an attempt for every point. Unless you're making one roll for all their plunder, which isn't how the AP directs you to sell it.
I also illustrated above that even *with* the PCs giving up half their plunder, they still easily get the WBL and then some. Up to you what you do in your own game, just be aware the PCs will have a *lot* more money to spend then their WBL if you are only making them sell 1 plunder per trip. It also encourages them to make as few trips as possible (a weird metagamey thing).
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Deduct one point from their total is definitely in contradiction to "deduct points of plunder equal to half your total plunder", which is what you've interpreted.
I'm aware they wrote selling one point takes one day, but I think they somehow flubbed the write up when they said each point of plunder sold represents a separate attempt to sell plunder.
It makes no sense. If you catch a haul of beer kegs worth 4 points of plunder, wouldn't you go to one guy and make a deal with the purchase of all your kegs? you tell the guy, "actually, the crew will keep a few kegs for themselves, so there, here's your 3 pts. of beer plunder"
That should take you no more than one day. You shouldn't have to go to two different guys and make two separate deals for 1 pt. of beer plunder, while your ineffective moronic crew is splitting 20 tons' worth of bloody beer.
Ok the beer example may not be so good, for I could see pirates do this. But take a shipment of wool then. I'm assuming the crew will not start a frenzied attempt to knit wool sweaters while you're gone, or steal away wool and do door to door sales as you step off the boat. If they do I'd expect them to walk the plank.