[Freeport] Stats for Buccaneers, Cults?

[mxyzplk]

Has GR posted, or has anyone worked up themselves and posted, D&D stats for the characters in BoF and CoF?

I have to admit, I own every single Freeport product up until these two - statting out a high level guy is "the hard part," and I'm not really interested in buying character backplot that can be come up with off the cuff in sufficient detail for how much a PC is likely to interact with them. I hope GR will consider adding stats to further Freeport products, or at least post a PDF online. I mean, I can understand how dual statting a whole adventure would be hard but something like Bucs where it's basically "10 guys", you could totally do True20 and 3.5e and have the 90% case covered.

[timemrick]

AFAIK, GR intends to continue with the current plan of setting books being systemless, with rules and stats for each supported system appearing in separate companions or web enhancements. (The Lost Island and the two other planned True20 adventures are exceptions--stats are an absolute must-have there.)

Rob Schwalb started d20 and True20 web enhancements for Cults before he moved to Wizards. Chris asked me to complete those stats and to write the enhancements for Buccaneers. I've turned in both drafts, so now it's just a matter of GR finding time in their crazy-busy schedules for editing and layout.

[mxyzplk]

Oh, nice! Thanks for the response. Looking forward to seeing them.

I don't mind the systemless/Web enhancement approach, but I'd definitely counsel GR to get them out timely (or even simultaneously) - it's pretty much what's keeping me from purchasing the products, and I suspect I'm not alone. I like having story and "fluff," but if it requires me to gin up high level stat blocks, bleah!

[timemrick]

Well, I hope you like the stats when they're released. I know I had fun working them out.

[mxyzplk]

Monthly ping to express interest in these getting through the pipeline!

[Sangrolu]

I would also be interested in seeing these as well.

[mxyzplk]

My monthly post saying "please complete and release these..."

[Juuso]

Got my copy of the Buccaneers, and it's pretty good reading too! I like the generic approach, since I don't use D20 for the game, and statting BRP characters is sooo easy, one of the advantages of percentile system I guess.

Couple of things I noticed in general. Firstly, there seems to be a technical disparity with the ships. There's one long boat of the viking type, and at the opposite end of spectrum there's the ship with broadsides of cannon! AND with limitless ammo. I feel this disparity of various types of guns and siege weapons is not only pretty hard to explain to players, but makes playing ship combat very unequal. Or how do you feel the longship would fare against ship with black powder cannon? Exactly.

You can explain the mishmash of technology with varying tech levels of different nations/races to certain extent, but for some people this would require the stretching of their suspense of disbelief to the limit. And there's always magic, you can use spell casters to even out the firepower disparity to some extent.

Don't get me wrong, I fully intend to bring cannon to my campaign, but this is an ongoing process, and most pirates and other seagoers will adapt to this, as with all technology.

Another minor matter is the naming of the ships, there seems be certain theme going through all of them? Is this intentional, or just a lucky coincidence?

Sorry for hijacking the thread a bit there, didn't feel this warranted a separate thread at this point.

[mxyzplk]

Well, in the real world some ships had cannon and some didn't for a good long time. Early cannon were pretty much not all that useful for *sinking* ships. Too small caliber, slow to reload, and short ranged (and even in the best of circumstances, can only be brought to bear given skillful maneuvering). Mainly they were used to disable enemy crews/ships enough to board. And boarding actions are where Vikings are, well... Vikings. And also other advantages can outweigh it, like Viking ships could tack earlier than other folks', apparently.

Though it is indeed a penalty to not have them - the Portugese defeated the Ottomans handily at the Battle of Diu on that account; the Portugese had cannon and the Ottomons largely didn't (can't side-mount them on galleys). But ship had cannon as early as the 1200s, there's a very long transitionary period and cannon don't guarantee a win. It wasn't till about 1600 that guns vs non-guns was a complete deal-sealer. And it wasn't until explosive shells in the Civil War kind of era that you could really count on sinking a wooden ship with cannon fire.

[mxyzplk]

My monthly post saying "just release the stats, don't edit them if it's gonna take years"

[Sangrolu]

Heh. If you play Fantasy Craft, I can let you in on my stats for the 2 chapters I'll be using for each book (Yellow Sign and Yig in Cults, Scevola Hest and Xian Lei in Buccaneers.)

[Aran MacFiona]

But ship had cannon as early as the 1200s,

No ! The first canon appeared shortly before the 100 years war. The first use was at the battle of Crecy in 1346. Those canon were to big to be put on a ship. It took another century for that.

there's a very long transitionary period and cannon don't guarantee a win. It wasn't till about 1600 that guns vs non-guns was a complete deal-sealer. And it wasn't until explosive shells in the Civil War kind of era that you could really count on sinking a wooden ship with cannon fire.

No again. Ship's artillery was powerful enough to sink wooden ships as soon as 16th century.

[mxyzplk]

Incorrect... At least if you bother to count Chinese and Arabs. There's a cannon from 1282 from Manchuria, and the Moors used them on Seville in Europe in 1248. But yes, I mistyped, meant to say 1500s.

And I didn't say it was impossible to sink a wooden ship with cannon before exploding shells, it was possible - but uncommon. They could be disabled, and you could kill most of the people aboard, but actually putting in enough holes to sink one is nontrivial.

[Aran MacFiona]

The use of canon at Seville in 1248 or at Ain Jelut in 1256 (the battle that stopped the Mongol invasion in Middle-east) is controversial at best.
Canon was developed in Europe, Moslem area and China at the same time. Those from late 13th century and early 14th century don't really deserve to be called canons.They were very small, around 30cm (1 feet) and the calibre was around 30mm. There is strong doubt that any could do any harm.

As for why disabling was preferred to sinking during the Age of Wooden Ships (& Iron men ) as more to do with the difficulty and cost to build these big triple deck and 74 canons beautiful ships, than the difficulty to destroy them. Or to put it simply : sailors were expendable and easily replaceable while ships were not. The same mentality occurred amongst land forces from the introduction of the musket given how bloody battles became and how generous with their soldier's blood generals were.

[mxyzplk]

Blah blah blah where's the stats!?!

I finally picked up Cults on sale. Still eyeing Buccaneers... But I sure don't want the job of a high level 3.5e stat block... Apparently they're in the hopper somewhere, I know y'all are all about Dragon Age and Ice & Fire but let's get us some love!

[mxyzplk]

Perhaps Green Ronin could celebrate the Companion and the new Open Design Freeport book by releasing these stats?

[mxyzplk]

Hey, I saw that the Cults stats got released! Thanks guys! Eagerly awaiting the Buccaneers stats too. Meanwhile, I'm reading the Pathfonder Freeport Companion and participating in the Dark Deeds patronage!

[mxyzplk]

My semimonthly beg for GR to release the Buccaneers of Freeport stats Web enhancement... Pleeeeeease? Thanks.

[mxyzplk]

I return, and hope y'all will release the Buccaneers stats sometime soon! Pretty please?

[havard]

I return, and hope y'all will release the Buccaneers stats sometime soon! Pretty please?

+1
I admire your enthusiasm mxyzplk

[mxyzplk]

I return, and hope y'all will release the Buccaneers stats sometime soon! Pretty please?

+1
I admire your enthusiasm mxyzplk

Heh, my Freeport Pathfinder campaign has been going for a year and is now starting to get into the levels I want to unleash high level captains onto my PCs, so I'm hoping my persistence pays off. The worst thing about 3.5 is making high level NPCs, such a pain.

[mxyzplk]

zzz snort huh, what... Hey! Buccaneers stats! Thanks guys! These'll come in useful. You know, with the upcoming Paizo pirate AP, it'd be a good time to dust off some of the Freeport stuff and prepare to sell the hell out of it...

Thanks again, I'll definitely get use out of these stats.

[mxyzplk]

Oh hey, you might want to post those to the actual Freeport page and not just the general News, it'll make them easier for folks interested in Freeport to find...

[timemrick]

I hope you enjoy them!

I've done a quick first pass over the final product, and found a few errors (some of them my own fault, sorry). My "Errata & Notes" pages for both web enhancements can be found here:

http://timsrpgerrata.wikispaces.com/Buc ... nhancement
http://timsrpgerrata.wikispaces.com/Buc ... nhancement