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skull_shackles:crewmanagement

Crew Management

Recruiting

At some point, you will need to acquiring more sailors for their crew. You may do so at any port or settlement, or upon the successful capture of another ship, by making a DC 20 Bluff (to trick sailors on board), Diplomacy (to convince people to join the crew), or Intimidate (to press-gang new crew) check. Each such check takes 1 full day, and a successful check results in 1d4+2 new crew members for your ship. Depending on where you recruit, you will get crew with slightly different job titles and builds, although that doesn't make any difference when it comes down to fighting or managing the crew (but it makes it a bit more fun for me). There might be Shipmates, Sailors, Pirates, Buccaneers, etc. Roll on the following tables.

Recruiting in a city or metropolis - roll 2d4 for each recruit.
2Veteran PirateWarrior 3
3BuccaneerFighter 2Siege engines
4ex-Galley SlaveCommoner-3General skills
5PirateWarrior2
6SailorWarrior1/Expert1Sailing
7shipmateWarrior1/Expert1Shipbuilding
8Unique Character / Veteran BuccaneerPC class - 3Varies
Recruiting in a town - roll d4 for each recruit.
1ex-Galley SlaveCommoner-3General skills
2PirateWarrior2
3SailorWarrior1/Expert1Sailing
4shipmateWarrior1/Expert1Shipbuilding
Recruiting in a village - roll d4 for each recruit.
1ex-Galley SlaveCommoner-3General skills
2FisherCommoner-2
3SailorWarrior1/Expert1Sailing
4shipmateWarrior1/Expert1Shipbuilding

Paying your crew

Unlike many other NPC hirelings, pirate crews do not have a daily wage. Instead, they are paid shares of the ship’s plunder taken in acts of piracy, when that plunder is sold. Rather than try to recreate the complexity of share amounts for historical pirate crews, the PCs should simply deduct 1 point of plunder from their total each time they attempt to sell Plunder. This represents the shares of the plunder paid out to the crew, regardless of the actual amount of gold received for its sale. This Adventure Path assumes that the PCs follow these guidelines to keep their crew happy and well paid. It is left to the GM to decide how a crew reacts if the PCs do not pay them plunder on a regular basis.

House rule: This works for up to 40 crew, and their share increases if you go beyond that. If you have 40+ crew, you pay need to pay 2 points of plunder when you 'cash out' - 60+ crew costs 3 plunder (etc)

Day-to-day

You appoint Petty Officers to manage your ship & crew on a daily basis, and normal sailing tasks are handled by these NPCs on your behalf. When there is a storm brewing, you are in pursuit of another vessel, or there is some other dangerous situation - you should be on hand to assist with, or take over, crew management duties.

Combat

When you storm a vessel or settlement - your crew fight in the background, under the leadership of their petty officers. The PCs take on the officers, leaders etc …

skull_shackles/crewmanagement.txt · Last modified: 2023/04/03 16:38 by johnb