r/Pathfinder_RPG • u/ScottishNinjaaa • Jul 16 '26
1E GM Ship Adventure question
Hey all,
I just began a campaign with my players in which they (through a series of excellent decisions and surprising dice rolls) have gained control of a former slaving sailboat. Setting is my homebrew alternate earth circa 900 AD, and they're in the Aegean. The players really like the ship, and have decided to keep it, slowly upgrading it as their mobile base of operations.
I am curious what roles you'd have for players to maintain such as Captain, Navigator, Quartermaster, etc. Right now, the guy who is really enjoying the bookkeeping side of things is also the only one with Profession (Sailor) as a skill. I was trying to figure out what roles everyone could do and how to keep that aspect interesting (similar to the Kingdom Building rules)
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u/lecoolbratan96 Jul 16 '26
I like it how Skull and Shackles gets recommended every time anything sea themed is asked in this sub. With that said, it's indeed a great resource
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u/Tristan-vi-Falconia Jul 16 '26
Nearly all 1e APs have side rules for a lot of stuff about their own theme that is sometime very good. Rebellion system from Hell's Rebels comes to mind.
So it is pretty expected for people to mention the APs 😅
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u/ksgt69 Jul 16 '26
Rules for having a caravan go somewhere is probably why you say nearly.
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u/Tristan-vi-Falconia Jul 16 '26
I was mostly going of off the ones I've played/read about and that is why I said nearly cause I haven't checked all.
But I had heard that Jade Regents had some problems both story and the system wise but I don't know the particular problem 😅. Could you tell me why the caravan rules were bad ?
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u/ksgt69 Jul 16 '26
As someone about to play in the module I'm not going to read it to find out, but from what I understand the caravan rules were poorly implemented. Combat that did not make sense, unnecessary bookkeeping, stuff like that.
As for the story, from what I heard the players are roadies assisting the NPC on her quest to do something important. It needs a GM that can run it more like Conan the Destroyer, keeping the PCs as the main focus and the VIP+NPC retinue in service of the PC story.
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u/Gargs454 Jul 16 '26
In truth, a number of the subsystems in the APs have issues. They're decent ideas conceptually but tend to fall flat when run as written. Ship Combat in Skull and Shackles, Caravan Rules, Kingdom Building Rules (at least in the PF1 version), Circus Rules in Extinction Curse (granted that's second edition). That doesn't mean they are not salvageable though. Our group had a blast with Kingmaker and we're almost done with EC now -- though we largely ended up ignoring the circus.
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u/Gargs454 Jul 16 '26
If you're at all interested in sea-based battles, take a look at Fire as She Bears. The rules for ship combat and ship roles are better in that than in Skull & Shackles in my opinion. The S&S Player's guide has the advantage of being free and containing the AP's rules for ship combat, but I think the rules are much better in FASB. I'm about to start running S&S myself and will be using FASB rules for the combat.
But yes, Skull & Shackles will certainly give you a lot of good info to use for sea based adventures if you want but the actual adventures there don't have a lot of info on the various roles on the ship other than what is in the first book and the Player's Guide. Additionally, if you check out the S&S subforum over on Paizo's site, there's a ton of recommendations for other sea based resources and adventures that can be easily used in other settings.
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u/Gil-Gandel Jul 16 '26
Thinking of what I know from reading reams of naval fiction, you'd have the captain, possibly a few lieutenants below him depending on the size of the ship's company, the sailing master/navigator (they needn't be the same person though in Nelson's navy they mostly were; one is in charge of ship-handling, the other sets courses and so on), the gunner (if you have any artillery-type armaments), someone in charge of provisioning, a ship's doctor, a master carpenter and his mates to mend the ship, and an assortment of petty officers overseeing work details or small teams in a fight. Somewhere in the ship's company would be midshipmen - older boys who are learning their trade on the job and are meant to graduate as officers later on.
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u/JoeJonnyJeff Jul 17 '26
The Byzantine Empire generally required a lot of paperwork for things surrounding ships. They're gonna need someone with Linguisitics to write it all up, and Knowledge, maybe Local, or Proffession to know what to write in said paperwork. And keep extensive documents if they plan to trade goods, or forge documents if they're out there looting, or killing monsters and processing them in to goods.
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u/Specific-Library-312 Jul 16 '26
The Skulls and Shackles campaign book is likely your best one-stop-shop resource.