Pirates
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Sutek
Mongoose
Not necessarily. A pirate as a professional sailor is either likely to get fewer and fewer good job offers as his pirate rep increases, or his pirate affiliations are more and more in jeopardy as he acquires more legitimate jobs.
However, having some Profession in smithing, or as a bouncer or overland guide or something can drive adventures or make the down-time make more sense.
However, having some Profession in smithing, or as a bouncer or overland guide or something can drive adventures or make the down-time make more sense.
treeplanter
Mongoose
You can give small circumstancial bonus to character with profession or craft.
Like if PC start in a foreing country with almost no equipement, you could give a bow with someone with craft: bower or a broadsword to a weaponsmith.
Coming back to profession sailor, I think it all depend of the kind of character you wanna make. If you wanna make a Pirate more hanging in seaport and robbing, or a barb/pirate pillaging and not enough charismatic to because a captain, then I would not came much about the profession: sailor.
However if I wanna eventually become a capitain and sailing the ship or an Explorer then I'll clearly maximise (or at least keep high) P: Sailor, maybe even put some rank in Craft: Woodworking.
Like if PC start in a foreing country with almost no equipement, you could give a bow with someone with craft: bower or a broadsword to a weaponsmith.
Coming back to profession sailor, I think it all depend of the kind of character you wanna make. If you wanna make a Pirate more hanging in seaport and robbing, or a barb/pirate pillaging and not enough charismatic to because a captain, then I would not came much about the profession: sailor.
However if I wanna eventually become a capitain and sailing the ship or an Explorer then I'll clearly maximise (or at least keep high) P: Sailor, maybe even put some rank in Craft: Woodworking.
Violetsaber
Mongoose
One of the other advantages of the Profession: Sailor skill is the ability to outmaneuver other ships during sea battle. I believe the Pirate Isles book has a variety of rules pertaining to battle between two ships, and many (if not all) of them are directly powered by the Captain's Profession: Sailor skill.
Also, I make my players roll Profession: Sailor skill rolls for most boat-related duties, including setting the rigging, rowing a dinghy, raising and lowering sails, swabbing the deck, and the like. Some of these sound like minor duties, but many of them are not. Incorrectly set sails reduce the speed of the ship. Screwing up the rigging or sailing poorly can cause the boom to swing out and knock people completely overboard. A badly swabbed deck can have spots on it that players will slip on during combat or while rushing for any other time-intensive situation.
These are a few ways I use the Profession: Sailor skill in my games. Take it or leave it as you will.
Also, I make my players roll Profession: Sailor skill rolls for most boat-related duties, including setting the rigging, rowing a dinghy, raising and lowering sails, swabbing the deck, and the like. Some of these sound like minor duties, but many of them are not. Incorrectly set sails reduce the speed of the ship. Screwing up the rigging or sailing poorly can cause the boom to swing out and knock people completely overboard. A badly swabbed deck can have spots on it that players will slip on during combat or while rushing for any other time-intensive situation.
These are a few ways I use the Profession: Sailor skill in my games. Take it or leave it as you will.
Sutek
Mongoose
Hmm..I don't rember much from that supplement, but I have it so I'll look. My GM instinct is that swabbing decks and battoning jibs...erm...or whatever...is more of a Craft than a profession, and Profession (like other instances within the broad skill) ought to be reserved for generating income. Intersting.
treeplanter
Mongoose
No, Violet's right. profession: sailor is also used to manoeuver ship and don't get lost at sea. So in a pirate/coastal campain I think at leas one PC should have it maxed.
You could call for a profession check on some other circumstance as opposed check when 2 professional are rivaling each other, let say 2 protitutes trying to seduce a nobleman could make an opposed profession: prostitute check
You could call for a profession check on some other circumstance as opposed check when 2 professional are rivaling each other, let say 2 protitutes trying to seduce a nobleman could make an opposed profession: prostitute check
Clovenhoof
Mongoose
Basically a Craft skill is always something where you actually, you know, CRAFT something, in the sense of make, produce, create, and possibly refine. Think of "Craft: Weaponsmith" or "Craft: Trapper" etc.
P:Sailor is one of the very few Profession skills that are actually usable in game. In our game it covers virtually everything that needs to be done aboard a ship. The common sailor uses it to handle the rigging etc., and the higher ranks (like sailing master or boatswain etc) use it to handle their crew.
P:Sailor is one of the very few Profession skills that are actually usable in game. In our game it covers virtually everything that needs to be done aboard a ship. The common sailor uses it to handle the rigging etc., and the higher ranks (like sailing master or boatswain etc) use it to handle their crew.
Clovenhoof said:
Wouldn't that be more of a leadership/ charisma feat? The crewhandling, that is?
I suppose it would work if you want to make the sea captain only charismatic/ leaderlike on a boat, but a buffoon on land.
As for Pirate Isles, It is on my Amazon shopping list for next paycheck.
When you boost the Pirate's skills, it starts to close in heavily on the Thief. 6-7 skills points on a Pirate with a full BAB and better Dodge, and your Thief is starting to feel pinched into a Glass-Jawed Shotgun corner.
The same holds for the Noble. It's definitely underpowered, but if you throw open skill points it's way, you've closed up on the Temptress and the Social Thief.
Regarding the Profession chat, I don't like it either. It's part of a wage-earning mechanic that doesn't make any sense for a Conan game, and is even less relevant in a D&D game. Pure synergy skills are a waste of points, as are skills which say "Yeah, I'm a level 10 soldier, and I have 10 skill points of Soldiering under my belt!". It's almost enough to make you institute level checks for class-based Professions.
I use a "Seafairing" skill to cover everything from knot-tying to navigation, cartography, ship repair, fishing, trailing ships, weather prediction, and Swim synergy. It is the Survival of the ocean.
The same holds for the Noble. It's definitely underpowered, but if you throw open skill points it's way, you've closed up on the Temptress and the Social Thief.
Regarding the Profession chat, I don't like it either. It's part of a wage-earning mechanic that doesn't make any sense for a Conan game, and is even less relevant in a D&D game. Pure synergy skills are a waste of points, as are skills which say "Yeah, I'm a level 10 soldier, and I have 10 skill points of Soldiering under my belt!". It's almost enough to make you institute level checks for class-based Professions.
I use a "Seafairing" skill to cover everything from knot-tying to navigation, cartography, ship repair, fishing, trailing ships, weather prediction, and Swim synergy. It is the Survival of the ocean.
Clovenhoof
Mongoose
The Pirate doesn't have Full BAB. He has the same BAB as the Thief. And unless I overlooked some posts in this thread, the prospect of upgrading the Pirate to Full BAB has never been discussed.
Now a Pirate with Full BAB... (something unheard of for a class with Sneak Attack ever since 3.0 first came out) and all the other Pirate class features - that would be enormously powerful. It would make the Barbarian look pale. (I think it's pretty much commonly accepted that Barbarians are the single most powerful class in the game.)
Now a Pirate with Full BAB... (something unheard of for a class with Sneak Attack ever since 3.0 first came out) and all the other Pirate class features - that would be enormously powerful. It would make the Barbarian look pale. (I think it's pretty much commonly accepted that Barbarians are the single most powerful class in the game.)
Clovenhoof said:
Doubt it. It seems hard to even get people to uniformly agree that barbarian is the only fighter class worth playing.
As to comparing to thief and scholar, they have significantly different specialties to where you are usually going to want all three (or have every character take levels in all of them).
There's a theory to balance that the determination of okayness is that there's a reason to take/play something even if something is played more often. Even if you have players skew toward, say, barbarian versus scholar, there's reasons to play both. Can still say one is more powerful, but nobody worries about it, unlike the situation where one class/whatever is so much better that the only incentives to take the weaker class/whatever are such things as humor value, need to be different, etc.
Btw, I'd pick scholar, but you have to have a clever player. Scholars played badly lead to the arguments that they are underpowered. Then, everything is dependent upon the campaign. I'd imagine that in a campaign all about proclaiming your lineage while your minions actually do stuff a noble would be much less useless.
Clovenhoof
Mongoose
I can see your point about Thieves and Scholars (and of course have read it before), as those classes each have truly exclusive abilities that no other class can emulate. For Scholars it's self evident (Sorcery), but for Thieves it's basically just Trapfinding, which can be acquired with a single level.
Your point about campaign is also valid, of course. In our current campaign for instance, we've agreed to abstain from magic users, so Scholar is already out of the equation.
Also, we know that the GM is not a friend of dungeon crawls, and our adventures look rather different. So far we haven't had a scene where a Thief would actually have made a difference (though of course, if we had one in the party, the GM might have built in corresponding scenes).
Our GM, btw, is pretty new to the Conan system - hadn't used it before we started this campaign - but last session said himself, almost literally, that he now considers the Barbarian the only (fighter) class worth playing.
Your point about campaign is also valid, of course. In our current campaign for instance, we've agreed to abstain from magic users, so Scholar is already out of the equation.
Also, we know that the GM is not a friend of dungeon crawls, and our adventures look rather different. So far we haven't had a scene where a Thief would actually have made a difference (though of course, if we had one in the party, the GM might have built in corresponding scenes).
Our GM, btw, is pretty new to the Conan system - hadn't used it before we started this campaign - but last session said himself, almost literally, that he now considers the Barbarian the only (fighter) class worth playing.
Spade said:
I don't see how the Pirate is a more capable fighter than a thief. They have the same BAB as a thief. They wear the same armour as a thief. But they have better dodge and fortitude saves than a thief. They only have 4 points to skills and a limited list at that (in comparison to a thief). And the sneak attack is limited (starts at third level with no "special weapon").
Saying all of this is why I suggested and use in my campaign giving the pirate 6 skill points per level (along with the noble). I just think that it rounds out the character. I mean 3 of your main fighting classes have 4 skill points per level.
And profession skill is not just to make money! The book states "a Profession skill repesents an aptitude in a vocation that requires a broader range of less specific knowledge" (pg 111 2nd edition). Also in CHECK it states " You can practice your trade and make a decent living, earning about half your Profession check result in silver pieces per week of dedicated work. You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the profession's daily tasks, how to supervise helpers and how to handle common problems" (pg 111 2nd edition).
Clovenhoof
Mongoose
Oh, the Pirate is definitely a much better fighter than a Thief. At very low levels the Thief may have an advantage but the leaf turns at higher levels. The Pirate has:
* Better Dodge (as you already said) which often doesn't help much against regular primary attacks but can make a difference against iterative attacks and Power Attacks
* Two-Weapon Combat for free, i.e. one extra feat,
* Uncanny Dodge -> not especially vulnerable at beginning of combat
* Improved Uncanny Dodge -> cannot get flanked, und thus can move about the battlefield much more freely
* Mobility chain -> first gets resistant to AoOs, then immune, then can perform a Move and Full Attack action in the same round
So in short, a Pirate may not get as much Sneak Attack as a Thief per hit, but he is much more mobile and eventually gets up to 6 times as many attacks as a Thief:
where the Thief moves in on a vulnerable enemy, or feints to be able to Sneak (note that he can't move, feint and attack on the same turn), and may succeed to kill a single opponent with the one blow he has...
...the Pirate can perform up to 3 main hand and 3 off hand attacks, moving between any and all of these attacks up to his movement rate, and especially in the first round of combat kill up to 6 opponents at once.
Also, if the Thief's fails to kill his target, he may try to move out and will draw an AoO, but if he holds his ground the enemy may Full Attack the Thief on his action, which will be very unwholesome for the Thief...
...whereas the Pirate just needs to keep 10' of movement in reserve, and after doing his attack(s) he simply jumps back ten feet without drawing any AoO, and any opponents going after him will only get a single attack each.
In other words, if the Thief tries to survive the rest of the round after his damage output, he will be very limited. A Level 15 Thief may do 1d10+8d8+Str in one blow, but having to pick his targets carefully means he'll also _get_ only this one blow. Note that he has to end up with not 5' but 10' of free space between him and the next active enemy if he doesn't want to get hammered by a Full Attack.
Whereas the Pirate gets up to 6 attacks at +5d6 Sneak attack (which will usually suffice to trigger MDS), so potentially up to +30d6 just in sneak attack per turn.
Of course the Pirate will only be able to Sneak multiple opponents on the first round. But that first round means he can very reliably kill up to six enemies, where the Thief will score only one, except if he uses a bow, which increases his potential to 3 or 4 kills, and that's it (and he'll have to switch weapons after round 1).
...and he says the Pirate isn't a more capable fighter than a Thief! :lol: (no offense meant but I hope I was able to enlighten you)
* Better Dodge (as you already said) which often doesn't help much against regular primary attacks but can make a difference against iterative attacks and Power Attacks
* Two-Weapon Combat for free, i.e. one extra feat,
* Uncanny Dodge -> not especially vulnerable at beginning of combat
* Improved Uncanny Dodge -> cannot get flanked, und thus can move about the battlefield much more freely
* Mobility chain -> first gets resistant to AoOs, then immune, then can perform a Move and Full Attack action in the same round
So in short, a Pirate may not get as much Sneak Attack as a Thief per hit, but he is much more mobile and eventually gets up to 6 times as many attacks as a Thief:
where the Thief moves in on a vulnerable enemy, or feints to be able to Sneak (note that he can't move, feint and attack on the same turn), and may succeed to kill a single opponent with the one blow he has...
...the Pirate can perform up to 3 main hand and 3 off hand attacks, moving between any and all of these attacks up to his movement rate, and especially in the first round of combat kill up to 6 opponents at once.
Also, if the Thief's fails to kill his target, he may try to move out and will draw an AoO, but if he holds his ground the enemy may Full Attack the Thief on his action, which will be very unwholesome for the Thief...
...whereas the Pirate just needs to keep 10' of movement in reserve, and after doing his attack(s) he simply jumps back ten feet without drawing any AoO, and any opponents going after him will only get a single attack each.
In other words, if the Thief tries to survive the rest of the round after his damage output, he will be very limited. A Level 15 Thief may do 1d10+8d8+Str in one blow, but having to pick his targets carefully means he'll also _get_ only this one blow. Note that he has to end up with not 5' but 10' of free space between him and the next active enemy if he doesn't want to get hammered by a Full Attack.
Whereas the Pirate gets up to 6 attacks at +5d6 Sneak attack (which will usually suffice to trigger MDS), so potentially up to +30d6 just in sneak attack per turn.
Of course the Pirate will only be able to Sneak multiple opponents on the first round. But that first round means he can very reliably kill up to six enemies, where the Thief will score only one, except if he uses a bow, which increases his potential to 3 or 4 kills, and that's it (and he'll have to switch weapons after round 1).
...and he says the Pirate isn't a more capable fighter than a Thief! :lol: (no offense meant but I hope I was able to enlighten you)
I'll pursue this because how you interpret Profession definitely affects the balance of the Pirate. I almost want to write up the full argument, but that's been done to death, and I don't have the energy to do it up formal-like yet again.
The book's rules for Profession are a boring collection of miscellaneous skills and abilities more profoundly earned elsewhere. Obscure skills and abilities not covered elsewhere should either be made into a skill with some kind of gameplay significance or discounted as information trivial to an adventurer.
A high level Pirate should be a highly skilled pirate, no? In that case, give them free ranks in Profession[sailor]. It gives them some additional skill points without closing in on the Thief's heels. The Scholar gets Knowledge is Power, I advocate Piracy is Arrsome.
Every time I've ever seen Profession put to good use it replaced roleplay and the rest of a character's relevant abilities with a skill check and no player options.
- Spade
This was probably an unecessary and largely irrelevant rant. Enjoy!
Thanks for everyone's input.
I have re-tooled the pirate class (aka house ruled)
these changes:
Pirate gets new feats: Dodge ( I thought having all the "dodge" special class abilities w/o Dodge feat, struck me as odd), Weapon Specialization (Cutlass), Weapon Focus (Cutlass), Leadership (at 11th level), Carouser (7th level; I love the flavor this feat imparts to the game), and Pirate Code Expert (13th level).
I gave him free 4 skill points / per level that he must spend on these skills:
Use Rope, Climb, Swim, Appraise, Spot (kinda useful when you are looking for boats on the ocean), Knowledge (geography), and Gather Info (I like the thought of waltzing in a Barachan inn at noon and leaving the following day with news of a treasure ship's passage.).
I made the pirate automaticallly gain a free a point each level in Profession (sailor); the rationale behind it is the freebie feat of navigation normally requires it and we can all agree that it is such a worthless skill anyway for PCs.
I Thought the free feats really did not overpower the Pirate into a seagoing bad-ass; obviously the cutlass feats are cool but not a deal breaker IMHO. Fact remains that Pirate still is a competent fighter, but not a whirling blade of death.
I also thought the free 4 points being restricted in their usage wont overly tip the balance in the Pirate's favor, since these skills are really only useful in a non-combat format. Chances are your pirate wont have a massive INT bonus to use on skills and I think WE ALL AGREE that 4 points is a joke if you ever plan on having your pirate sail/ lead his pirate ship out of port.
I am convinced the Pirate has the potential to be a fun character to play even on land with these changes.
What do you guys think?
I am aiming for balance and flair (character) for this profession without making it into the new uber-class.
I have re-tooled the pirate class (aka house ruled)
these changes:
Pirate gets new feats: Dodge ( I thought having all the "dodge" special class abilities w/o Dodge feat, struck me as odd), Weapon Specialization (Cutlass), Weapon Focus (Cutlass), Leadership (at 11th level), Carouser (7th level; I love the flavor this feat imparts to the game), and Pirate Code Expert (13th level).
I gave him free 4 skill points / per level that he must spend on these skills:
Use Rope, Climb, Swim, Appraise, Spot (kinda useful when you are looking for boats on the ocean), Knowledge (geography), and Gather Info (I like the thought of waltzing in a Barachan inn at noon and leaving the following day with news of a treasure ship's passage.).
I made the pirate automaticallly gain a free a point each level in Profession (sailor); the rationale behind it is the freebie feat of navigation normally requires it and we can all agree that it is such a worthless skill anyway for PCs.
I Thought the free feats really did not overpower the Pirate into a seagoing bad-ass; obviously the cutlass feats are cool but not a deal breaker IMHO. Fact remains that Pirate still is a competent fighter, but not a whirling blade of death.
I also thought the free 4 points being restricted in their usage wont overly tip the balance in the Pirate's favor, since these skills are really only useful in a non-combat format. Chances are your pirate wont have a massive INT bonus to use on skills and I think WE ALL AGREE that 4 points is a joke if you ever plan on having your pirate sail/ lead his pirate ship out of port.
I am convinced the Pirate has the potential to be a fun character to play even on land with these changes.
What do you guys think?
I am aiming for balance and flair (character) for this profession without making it into the new uber-class.
Clovenhoof
Mongoose
Let's see:
* Dodge: I don't quite see how that follows. Do you also give Dodge to the Barbarian for free, who has the same dodge abilities and good progression? I don't think it's necessary. Basically it means that the Pirate would get Whirlwind Attack faster and cheaper (after all, he also gains Mobility for free).
* Cutlass Feats: may be reason enough to skill a character differently. The dilemma is that Cutlass cannot be finessed (which is part of the game balance, or it would be identical to the Arming Sword), but a Pirate normally is well advised to bank on Dex because of his reliance on Dodge and Sneak Attack. In short, those freebies are rather nonsynergistic, but a nice boon for shipboard or close quarter fighting.
Still: all in all you're giving the Pirate _six_ extra feats, in addition to all the other stuff he already gets (something at every level). Two of those (Carouser and Code Expert) are more flavour than crunch, but still. Even a Soldier needs _ten levels_ to get that many bonus feats and he gets _nothing_ else.
Long story short, six extra feats is too much imho.
* Freebie Skill points: basically the idea of class-related skill freebies isn't bad. But why should only the Pirate get these? With the same justification, all Fierce classes for instance should get Survival for free at each level and other wilderness skills as a bonus.
--
Again a word on Profession Sailor: I repeat it's a very useful skill for any seagoing adventure. For instance, session before last we had to escape from a port where we, um, had become non-grata. Our Pirate first had to make several Sailor checks to successfully navigate the reefs and undepths at the harbour entrance (while the harbour fortifications opened fire at us). Then a bit later, two of their warships were chasing us, and he delivered a P:Sailor duel with their captains to outmaneuver them. (Eventually he managed to lose one of the chasers, but the other caught up to us and it was fight to the death.)
We also play out such ship battles on a battlemap. The Pirate maneuvers by means of his Sailor skill, the Barbarian operates the Ballista, and the Temptress is decorative. The captains of each ship roll opposed Sailor checks and the winner can choose to increase or decrease the distance between the ships.
* Dodge: I don't quite see how that follows. Do you also give Dodge to the Barbarian for free, who has the same dodge abilities and good progression? I don't think it's necessary. Basically it means that the Pirate would get Whirlwind Attack faster and cheaper (after all, he also gains Mobility for free).
* Cutlass Feats: may be reason enough to skill a character differently. The dilemma is that Cutlass cannot be finessed (which is part of the game balance, or it would be identical to the Arming Sword), but a Pirate normally is well advised to bank on Dex because of his reliance on Dodge and Sneak Attack. In short, those freebies are rather nonsynergistic, but a nice boon for shipboard or close quarter fighting.
Still: all in all you're giving the Pirate _six_ extra feats, in addition to all the other stuff he already gets (something at every level). Two of those (Carouser and Code Expert) are more flavour than crunch, but still. Even a Soldier needs _ten levels_ to get that many bonus feats and he gets _nothing_ else.
Long story short, six extra feats is too much imho.
* Freebie Skill points: basically the idea of class-related skill freebies isn't bad. But why should only the Pirate get these? With the same justification, all Fierce classes for instance should get Survival for free at each level and other wilderness skills as a bonus.
--
Again a word on Profession Sailor: I repeat it's a very useful skill for any seagoing adventure. For instance, session before last we had to escape from a port where we, um, had become non-grata. Our Pirate first had to make several Sailor checks to successfully navigate the reefs and undepths at the harbour entrance (while the harbour fortifications opened fire at us). Then a bit later, two of their warships were chasing us, and he delivered a P:Sailor duel with their captains to outmaneuver them. (Eventually he managed to lose one of the chasers, but the other caught up to us and it was fight to the death.)
We also play out such ship battles on a battlemap. The Pirate maneuvers by means of his Sailor skill, the Barbarian operates the Ballista, and the Temptress is decorative. The captains of each ship roll opposed Sailor checks and the winner can choose to increase or decrease the distance between the ships.
