Pirates

[Clovenhoof]

Thanks Ichabod, useful as ever. ^^ I take it "Wastrel" is the dub for a Thief/Pirate multiclass?

But, there's no vacuum with parties. What does the party need?

Right, that would be good to know. We are a party of three: I play a Cimmerian Barbarian and the third member is a Zingaran Temptress. Right now we're all level 7 and single-classed. Let's have a look at them:

I plan to level my Barb straight through, though that means to be awfully short of feats, so I may be forced to take some levels of Soldier for the bonus feats.
Currently I have Eyes of the Cat, Imp. Ini, Power Attack, IUS and Improved Grapple. I plan to add Crushing Grip, Combat Expertise and Improved Trip by level 12, and then possibly Fleet-Footed and Leadership (if things go my way). That's right, probably no Cleave, unless I take the Soldier levels, which would also make room for ITWF. My intended combat style is to use Fling Aside and Improved Trip, and of course Crushing Grip when necessary.
(Originally I had planned to take Reckless Attack and Cleave, but since the GM won't allow RA and has threatened to nerf Massive Damage, I figured Cleave wouldn't trigger as often anyway. He already nerfed Great Cleave to be usable only once per regular attack, so you couldn't go in and Greatcleave through eight enemies on your first regular attack.)

The Temptress, now, already has Improved Feint and is using it as often as possible, with Thievery as Secret Art. She is toying with the idea of taking a few Pirate lessons to get TWF and further advance her SA while twinking her way to Improved Mobility (by taking Mobility as a feat before gaining the 5th Pirate level).
Basically she's going to stay out of the fight when possible, due to her low HP and nonexistent armour. First of all she is our "Face", and often serves as distraction to the guards while we sneak up from behind.

BTW we all have Improved Initiative.

Edit: I consider advising the Pirate player to take a few levels of Barbarian or other fighting class to pump his BAB a little, so as TWFer he'd eventually get 8 attacks per round. What do you think?

 

[Ichabod]

I almost considered not posting just to see how long this forum could go without new posts, but I've been thinking about your "problem" for a while.

Synergy. It's important, duh. There's two thoughts on it, though, with the pirate character. Do you do more of the same and have the party have strong strengths and weaknesses or do you try to cover weaknesses to have flexibility with less brutality?

In other words: The pirate and temptress can go heavy SA plus whatever to whipsaw anyone between them or for the barbarian to have the same mission statement regardless as to which other character goes next - establish flank. This probably also means an offensive approach to the character, which makes the whole party seem very offense heavy and defense questionable.

Or, much like I can imagine a reason to have a "soldier" who is the frontline anchor/wall around which barbarians and thieves kill things, the pirate in this group can go defense heavy to provide an anchor (Combat Expertise, Intricate Swordplay, whatever). A defense heavy character can also concentrate on Heal and any other skills to get a crippled party out of TPK situations.

But, there's more to life than combat. Our group's diplomat is a borderer, swimmer is more soldier than anything else, and healer a barbarian. With a lot of skill ranks, I'd assume the temptress is not only the face but the brain as well. The barbarian is what? Athlete? Sensor? Obviously, with only three PCs, the pirate should be trying to fill in whatever skills are weak of the other two. If the sensor, the pirate could take things like Alertness.

The pirate could try to be the toolbox for the party (thief or scholar would be better, but oh well), not having any sort of focus and just trying to cover weaknesses while still being piratey in some way. Or, the pirate could feed into the strengths of the other two to where the party can't do it all but can do some things absurdly well.

 

[Clovenhoof]

I almost considered not posting just to see how long this forum could go without new posts, but I've been thinking about your "problem" for a while.

Yeah, it's been rather quiet these days, despite my attempts to start or revive a few discussions. Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Synergy. It's important, duh. There's two thoughts on it, though, with the pirate character. Do you do more of the same and have the party have strong strengths and weaknesses or do you try to cover weaknesses to have flexibility with less brutality?

Well, we try to find a good balance between covering weaknesses and synergizing strengths. The Pirate has the highest Defense potential, while the Barbarian relies more on his armour and hit points to stand through fights. Of course there's some similarity between Barb and Pirate, and between Pirate and Temptress, so that also means there are certain gaps in our party-of-three.

Since the GM won't allow Greater Combat Reflexes, the pirate player now exchanged his Combat Reflexes for Whirlwind Attack. Now that one's not synergistic with TWF, but it allows some flexibility. (BTW we do allow to use Whirlwind with Finesse.) Of course that also means the Pirate already has Combat Expertise, though he never used it yet (we just hit level 8 yesterday).

But, there's more to life than combat. Our group's diplomat is a borderer, swimmer is more soldier than anything else, and healer a barbarian. With a lot of skill ranks, I'd assume the temptress is not only the face but the brain as well. The barbarian is what? Athlete? Sensor?

Yes, the Barbarian has the highest Athletic, Stealth and Perception (ASP) checks, and is also the tracker.
The Temptress of course has ridulously high skills in Bluff, Diplo, Gather Info and Perform, and decent Sense Motive. She is also the Healer and knows about Herbalism. Or next task is to give her some ASP.
The Pirate has some Appraise and good Bluff, but apart from that I think all his skills are rather average. So far his ASP skills have been just good enough (i.e. could have been better).

Currently we raid the ocean on our own corsair galley, so right now the Pirate gets to shine as the Captain of the ship, with Seamanship and a competence bonus to rally the crew, and being a nice Dodge Tank in shipboard fights.

For infiltration/strike ops, our preferred modus operandi is to use the Temptress as decoy while Barb and Pirate sneak up wherever they need to go -- for instance in the guards' back to launch a surprise attack. Once we had to leave the Temptress behind to get the job done, which of course was rather boring for her player.

Anyway, I think I'll recommend both to multiclass a little.
The Temptress might go for Pirate, since her social skills are really good enough for now, and she could use a little boost in the physical department. She'd get TWC, have more flexibility with weapons, a different skill selection, the option to wear light armour, and most of all a way to get Improved Mobility with just 5 levels of Pirate (i.e. take the Mobility Feat first so the Pirate Mobility stacks up to Improved Mobility).
Another option would be taking a few Thief levels, to pump Disable Device and Search quickly, which would allow the GM to introduce a new kind of challenges (think of ancient temples and labyrinths with cunning traps).

The Pirate in turn could wait until level 10 (to get the FC feat and Navigation asap) and then add in 4-5 levels in a Fighting class, possibly Barbarian, to improve his BAB and get up to 4 attacks per hand, without crippling his Dodge or Mobility capabilities. With ITWF he'd have the choice between that and Whirlwind Attack in combat, while continuing the good teamwork with the other two characters (Flanking etc.).

 

[Spectator]

Thanks C'hoof and Ichabod and all others, please don't let this thread die. I was always a big fan of Valeria because she was not such a stud like Conan. The fact that her expertise was knowledge based and agility based as opposed to being a "Tank" made me wonder on how to improve the class.

I will have to synergize some skills, and maybe add a point or two (or three) /level in terms of skill advancement to emphasize the Pirates Skill based approach.
I really like the concept of expanding the intimidate and Reputation factor, since their were historical accounts of ships either fleeing pirates (if they could) or begging for mercy and not fighting ship-to-ship if they knew the pirate would not put them to sword or overboard.

As someone mentioned the age of Conan is primarily (90%) land oriented with a mere fraction of the trade being seaborne until you have to cross the Vilayet.

Ithink I will definitely put more thought in this and try to balance the pirate out with some upped skills, maybe a few bonus feats involving intimidation and leadership.

The pirate captain is not meant to be a Tank, rather a leader of mariners, like the noble leads the troops.

I was tempted to make the pirate with the same BAB progress as the fighter, but I think that willl just overpower it, and I'll leave the class BAB progression (and other save progressions as is).

Guys, yeah the board is slowing down, so let's keep it going with good insight and comments, a flame war every now then too, as long as you promise to not to depart if you end on the losing side.

 

[Spectator]

Thanks C'hoof and Ichabod and all others, please don't let this thread die. I was always a big fan of Valeria because she was not such a stud like Conan. The fact that her expertise was knowledge based and agility based as opposed to being a "Tank" made me wonder on how to improve the class.

I will have to synergize some skills, and maybe add a point or two (or three) /level in terms of skill advancement to emphasize the Pirates Skill based approach.
I really like the concept of expanding the intimidate and Reputation factor, since their were historical accounts of ships either fleeing pirates (if they could) or begging for mercy and not fighting ship-to-ship if they knew the pirate would not put them to sword or overboard.

As someone mentioned the age of Conan is primarily (90%) land oriented with a mere fraction of the trade being seaborne until you have to cross the Vilayet.

Ithink I will definitely put more thought in this and try to balance the pirate out with some upped skills, maybe a few bonus feats involving intimidation and leadership.

The pirate captain is not meant to be a Tank, rather a leader of mariners, like the noble leads the troops.

I was tempted to make the pirate with the same BAB progress as the fighter, but I think that willl just overpower it, and I'll leave the class BAB progression (and other save progressions as is).

Guys, yeah the board is slowing down, so let's keep it going with good insight and comments, a flame war every now then too, as long as you promise to not to depart if you end on the losing side.

 

[cbrunish]

Personally I like the Pirate class. Actually I like all of the core classes. But I feel that the Pirate and Noble are low on the skill points. Both of these classes really should have more skill points. In my campaign I have increased the Noble and Pirate to 6 pts +int per level.

Look at the classes as they are:

Barbarian-fighter with some wilderness skills and the ability to take damage along with dishing damage. Good HP.
Borderer-fighter with wilderness skills and boss bonuses to favored terrain. Good HP.
Noble-mid-fighter with social skills. Mid HP.
Nomad-fighter with wilderness skills (specialized to plains or dessert). Good HP.
Pirate-mid-fighter with some ship skills and boss bonuses to ships. Mid HP.
Scholar-weak fighter with tons of skills and spells. Low HP.
Soldier-straight fighter with lots of specialty in fighting and low skills. Good HP.
Temptress-weak fighter with tons of social skills and even a few cool special abilities. Low HP.
Thief-mid fighter with tons of skills. Plus best backstab!! Mid HP.

IMO both the Noble and Pirate are lacking.

Nobles have less fighting and HP than the fighterstyle classes but they do not get a ton of skills to balance this out. True they get some extra abilities but there are too many skills that I feel a Noble should have. Truthfully I would love to give them 8 skill points +int per level but this would probably be unbalancing.

Pirates also have less fighting and HP than the fighterstyle classes. There skill points are also low. Again there are too many skills that a Pirate should have. Profession-Sailor is almost a must. True they do get some extra abilities (sneak attack) that offset this somewhat but I don't feel that it really is enough.

 

[Ichabod]

I find your way of looking at the classes unusual. For one thing, I rate hit points as a trivial factor. Trivial might not be correct, but it still has to come far down on the list of things I'd be concerned with, past specials, saves, BAB and DV progressions, even weapon proficiencies.

My analysis indicates that to match barbarian, nobles should get 7 skill ranks per level and pirates 5. The noble thing makes some sense to me, the pirate not so much. While you can pull out individual specials and laud their awesomeness from the best in the game that is Uncanny Dodge to Mobility tree to additional attack Ferocious Attack, when going to actually build a pirate I can't help but feel that there's something deficient.

The SA is too low for most levels to guarantee evisceration, something a thief mostly has covered by 5th level and certainly by 7th. That SA and FA don't work together creates a nonsynergy mess. The BAB progression is actually *vastly* inferior to barbarian in actual play, which FA is supposed to help with, except you'd rather just have the better BAB to get more use out of Power Attack, et al.

It's got great parts - saves, DV, specials - that just don't hang together. Now, I'm a big fan of playing jacks of all trades and masters of none, but the thief does that better in the skill arena and still has nuclear capability.

I do think the heart of the problem is that you either want a ton of SA or you don't care a whole lot about it and fall into the efficient STR/PA/2h combat build. Having some beatings with FA and some SA is far, far worse than doing a beatings build with a better BAB or doing a "roll d8s until it's dead" strategy.

Then, given a choice between an 8th level pirate and a 4th/4th barbarian/thief, I'd vastly prefer playing the latter.

So, if you put in some sort of negative adjustment into my numbers for nonsynergy, maybe 6 skill ranks per level for pirate is about right*, and it sort of matches a 4/4 barbarian/thief, making that comparison far more interesting.

* To match barbarian. I don't think people would believe the numbers for scholar and thief.

 

[treeplanter]

HP is trivial? well I don't think so. From my experience Thief and Pirate tend to be killed lot faster than the brute squad when come the heat of combat. Pirate less, thanks to his higher dodge. Noble, it depend, you can take heavy armor.

Yes ferocious attack is not synergic with sneak attack. On the other hand, it is not a bad ability. I mean it will happen you'll loose initiative, or you'll encounter opponent immune to critical it or with reflexive parry/uncanny dodge. at 7th level it's +4/+4 and an extra attack, so better than drive your ennemies before you (wich require 3 feat). Honestly I don't see any problem with this ability.

Personnaly about the noble I give him 6 skills point by level and I feel it's fine. Mix the noble and the soldier and you get a decent fighter couple with decent skill. On the other end one of my concern about the noble is the blank level (3, 7 ect) he get nothing at all. I feel there should be an ability on those spot, since every other class get something at each level.

 

[Apple]

I find your way of looking at the classes unusual. For one thing, I rate hit points as a trivial factor. Trivial might not be correct, but it still has to come far down on the list of things I'd be concerned with, past specials, saves, BAB and DV progressions, even weapon proficiencies.

HPs are just about the most important thing in combat. There are lots of ways to deal damage, but if you can't take it you won't survive. If you use massive damage rolls then fort saves are the most important before HPs, leading me to suggest that if you use mass damage saves in your campaign than as a player you want to multi-class your butt off to get as high of a fort save as possible. Conan poisons can be pretty ugly too, a good fort helps with that as well.

HP is trivial? well I don't think so. From my experience Thief and Pirate tend to be killed lot faster than the brute squad when come the heat of combat. Pirate less, thanks to his higher dodge. Noble, it depend, you can take heavy armor.

As soon as your opponents can start doing 20+ damage regularly your heavy armour literally falls apart in a couple rounds. A good dodge defense with some light armour for finesse attacks or to soak up attacks from foes who get many weaker attacks is better.

 

[Spectator]

BAck on topic, of Pirates, not HP.
With the MD rule, HPs are a lot less important (Hence, I don't use MD).
But on with the skills and stuff.
I would definitely think that at 11th level they should get leadership as a bonus feat and they should automatically gain 1 point in profession (sailor) every level as a freebie.

 

[treeplanter]

Don't agree, at least on the bonus feat. If you wanna it, then take it? For profession sailor, seamanship already give you a bonus, so dunno seem to me pirate already are the best sailor.

One small modification i proposed for my playgroup was seamanship also give the bonus to swim, and to initiative. Same for favoured terrain also (for initiative).

@Apple: Dishing 20 damages a round is not trivial. Maybe if you act first and you can max your power attack, otherwise you need to hit wich is not a garanty if especially if you drop your attack bonus. Even if your armour get destroyed after 2 or 3 blow it will likely have strucked some damage and saved you from a massive damage blow. Finally, does every villain in Conan have Power attack and a two-handed weapon?

 

[Apple]

@Apple: Dishing 20 damages a round is not trivial. Maybe if you act first and you can max your power attack, otherwise you need to hit wich is not a garanty if especially if you drop your attack bonus. Even if your armour get destroyed after 2 or 3 blow it will likely have strucked some damage and saved you from a massive damage blow. Finally, does every villain in Conan have Power attack and a two-handed weapon?

You hardly need those. Many of the creatures in the bestiary can dish out 20+ damage without much problem, hippos, elephants, apes, sons of set etc. Sneak attack can easily get up to there. Reckless attack can easily get up there. A mid-level thief/soldier two weapon fighting with sneak attack and reckless attack can easily drop 3 30+pt attacks into you. Most crits will break 20 damage and falchons can crit on 15+ after the level 8 pre-req feat.

Considering a rageing 15th level barbarian can push well beyond 150 HP, hitting them with sub-20 point attacks doesn't do a lot, particularly if they're in moderate armor. The massive damage system and armor damage system break at mid level since they don't scale.

 

[Ichabod]

HP is trivial? well I don't think so. From my experience Thief and Pirate tend to be killed lot faster than the brute squad when come the heat of combat. Pirate less, thanks to his higher dodge. Noble, it depend, you can take heavy armor.

I agree with you about thieves and pirates going down faster. But, I think there are some simple reasons that come to light during play.

First, we have to assume every character has the same CON or it's not a fair analysis. Actually, a thief should want a higher CON to make up for worse Fort saves, but whatever.

Assuming rational character builds with equivalent attribute totals, fighters are better at killing stuff than t&p. Sure, thieves should autokill anything they can sneak attack, but that's usually one thing a round either because they lack multiple attacks or, more likely, they put themselves into a position (flanking) which only effectively kills one thing a round. The best defense is a good offense. Every eliminated enemy is less attacks to suffer in the counterattack. As the fighters mow through the opposition, they greatly reduce counterattack ability while the t&p are taking extra attacks that they don't.

Of course, for those of you who play in campaigns where armor heavier than leather jerkin isn't suicidal, I would imagine you often see fighters wear more armor than t&p.

And, just a note on the HP thing. As usual, how about giving people credit for some basic sense before overreacting? The difference in HP between a d8 class and a d10 class is 2HP at first level and 1HP every other level. That's roughly the difference between having a CON of N vs. a CON of N+/-1. Yeah, it's just fantastic to have that extra 6HP or 12HP or whatever that you get from your class. If we were talking about thieves getting d6's and barbarians getting d12's, I can see why it would matter, but we aren't.

 

[Clovenhoof]

Actually I used to consider HP "trivial" as well, preferring builds that would avoid getting hit and this not having to rely on high hitpoints. That was in days of D&D.
Conan made me change my mind there. There's hardly a good way to boost your Defense so high you won't get hit anymore. At least not without seriously crippling your offensive capabilities (read, Combat Expertise).

Disregarding Combat Expertise, Pirates and Soldiers can get the highest Defense scores. Soldiers just need to skill Str to boost both offense and defense. Pirates can skill Dex as they get their damage bulk out of Sneak Attack.
Compare that to the Barbarian, which deceives you into thinking they have good Defense because you see that +15 Dodge progression, but they get their damage only out of Strength, so skilling Dex will make them useless in combat.

Of course, for those of you who play in campaigns where armor heavier than leather jerkin isn't suicidal

Sure, Medium or Heavy armour slows you down. But the perfect armour is the Chain Shirt. It is Light and doesn't slow you down, and the ACP is also manageable. With a steel cap, you get DR6, which is much less easily Pierced than a DR4 leather jerkin. And subtracting 6 points off a damage roll instead of 2 points is a _world_ of difference. More important than the average 1 extra HP per level a bigger HD will give you.

 

[cbrunish]

When I first posted on this thread, I put HPs only for comparison. It is not the end all. But the problem with Pirates is that one tends to think they would be tough fighters. On a ship, yeah they are tough but what about the on the land. Not as much. Makes sense.

But there just seems to be too many skills for them to pick from. PS-sailor is almost a must. That is 1 point every level (4 at first) that is sacrificed. But you also have KN-geography, Balance, Climb, and Use Rope that all are useful for a pirate. Also you would want Appraise (you want to know what your loot is worth) as a skill. Gather Information and Intimidate are also really useful. But you would have to wast a high score on Int to get the extra points.

I just think that giving the Pirate and extra 2 points per level balances this class with other classes based on hp, fighting ability, skills and feats.

 

[treeplanter]

Well I don't think you need to go up profession sailor every level in my opinion. you get navigation whatever your rank in sailor. I'll more go like put 4 rank at 1st level, then add a point after a sea-based adventure.

Still @Apple: Well, does an heavy armor make your character harder to kill in combat or not? Whatever you fight, you'll go down faster without this 10 DR

 

[Clovenhoof]

You don't need to keep P:Sailor maxed out, the same goes for Use Rope, Appraise and many other skills.
Actually I think most skills are good enough with a check of +10 or so.

Which is not to say that the Pirate (and possibly Borderer) shouldn't be upgraded to 6+Int skill points.

 

[Sutek]

P:Sailor is a factor of how well you can make a living at being a sailor if you took a regular job for a week. It gives you a weekly salary at best, and doesn't really lend to a good RPG adventuring charactrer who needs ranks in other skills that make him good at being on deck, being up in the rigging, messing with ropes, etc.

 

[treeplanter]

You don't need to keep P:Sailor maxed out, the same goes for Use Rope, Appraise and many other skills.
Actually I think most skills are good enough with a check of +10 or so.

Which is not to say that the Pirate (and possibly Borderer) shouldn't be upgraded to 6+Int skill points.

True, except for opposed skill

 

[Sutek]

I'd even go so far as to say that Pirates should even be good Professional Sailors. They make their living by robbing and stealing on the high seas, not by deriving a good wage from and honset weeks work.

If I had a player pumping skill points into his Pirate character's Profession: Sailor skill, I'd adjust his reputation accordingly for being such a well know business man and see how that ends up affecting his pirating...adversely, I'd imagine. (lol)