OK was doing some thinking / daydreaming / brainstorming / or whatever you would call it.
I was thinking of changing up the Skull and Shackles AP a little bit and was wondering if this sounds doable or even desirable.
changes I was looking at:
1. move the setting from the Shackles to real world Caribbean.
2. change the religion to basically real world religions.
3. vastly reduce magic items but still have magic as something mysterious, possibly use the auto progression idea from Unchained.
4. make the game as guns everywhere (basically a good ole Pirates of the Caribbean / Black Sails kind of feel.)
thoughts? comments? criticism?
PotC franchise... based the movie on the book but there were some changes to keep the continuity with the main characters.
the fountain of youth was kept as well as the introduction of Blackbeard in the film.
I will pick up the e-book from B&N as soon as I can.
the next question is.. would this be doable in pathfinder rules and using the Skull and Shackles AP as the story line.
|
I think it's eminently doable, more so than a lot of other APs. The things to watch for, though, are that 1) with minimal magical healing the encounter tempo is going to have to be massively jiggered to avoid TPKs; and 2) use of real-world religion has the potential to be fraught, depending on your players.
Though this would have more traffic... guess the idea isn't that great?
Sounds feasable. First thing, have a look at Fire As She Bears and use that, it'll give a lot more depth to the real world feeling you're going for, it is worth the purchase.
For religions, the issue here is that in the real world religion was a driving force, or a strong excuse at least, which is not the case in S&S. It is however, very political, which goes well with point 1.
Guns everywhere then means the 1700s. Look up who the mayor players were in that region and try to connect them to the powers.
Sargava - Cheliax - Shackles relationship is what you might have most trouble with, as there never was a colony paying another power to wage war on their behalf (north american states probably some of the earliest to do it in a big scale).
I can imagine Cheliax being the kingdom of Spain. Early mid 1700s their power at sea was still immense, yet waning rapidly, their extraction of treasure from the colonies diminishing (and getting plundered by dutch and english privateers). Cheliax loses this connection with Sargava too, therefore it fits well. The AP could revolve in a hypothetical fleet to bring the Caribbean under spanish rule once again.
If anyone says Britain corresponds with Andoran I will find you and cast Bigby's Often Unmentioned But Very Horrible Spell on you. Just joking, moderately. Andoran is hard to fit since they are a freedom fighter nation, which is applicable to exactly 0 colonial powers. Luckily they dont feature in this AP.
France, Netherlands, Britain, Spain, Portugal.
Another way to play this is have the different Shackles factions be aligned with the different powers. Imagine Kerdak Bonefist being in the British isles, Tessa Fairwind in the French islands like Martinique, Brasil being Sargava (mainland to the south...though portuguese were not about freedom either), Arronax of Hell Harbour correspnd with the Spanish territory and the Master of the Gales at Drenchport with the Dutch (druid free for all everyone gets plundered NOW..dutch!).
That covers the mayor players in the AP.
I suggest reading about s game called Sid Meiers PIRATES! play it too if you have tbe chance. There, you start with a small boat and crew and take prizes until the Nations want you to align with them (in the caribbean). You can break off alliances and chose whom you like as allies, but will make you hostile elsewhere. You get letter of marques, get to climb social ladders and fromtime to time end up in prison from where you need to bust out. Good times, bluckes, swashes and ha-ha-stabbings.
Anyway, the story needs minor tweaks and it depends on if your players need a grand scheme or are happy filling their pockets and doing less grand quests.
Good luck with this, sounds fun and very doable.
Also, consider running a different RPG altogether, such as 7th Sea (i think thats what it was called) or Razor Coast's stuff (fire as she bears is part of that but usable in PF), if you arent overly attached to pathfindef.
Thanks for the ideas
I wanted to keep much of the game in tact with only the setting and the magic level changeing.
Also upping the tech level slightly to be more in line with traditional pirates.
Just for area comparison, the entire Shackles is about the size of Hispaniola.
|
I moved my S&S campaign to a Caribbean-equivalent island chain off the Arcadian coast on Golarion. Spreading out the Shackles, and giving merchant ships a compelling reason to sail through them, made the whole AP sit better with me. Transplanting the AP to the actual Caribbean should work great.
Do you plan to restrict your PCs' career options to non-spellcasting classes? Would you be open to one arcane caster and/or one divine caster in the party?
Will you allow dwarves, elves, etc., or only humans? You could translate the various Pathfinder human ethnicities to the major powers of the Age of Sail.
If you replaced the majority of the non-human enemies with humans, you could get a bigger impact from the few occasions when something monstrous does appear (like Elizabeth's reaction when she first sees the crew of the Black Pearl in their undead forms).