Fox45
2011-07-10, 08:13 PM
So I've been making this world for some high seas adventuring using the Pathfinder rules and it was going all well and good until something occured to me. In my world of sea voyages and swashbuckling action there has to be whalers. It can't be avoided whales being the source for oil back in the day, and with the dwarves in my world having some basic steam power technology having oil would be a necessity. So I decided to research it and try and calculate a whale hunt using Pathfinder rules. The Whale stats in Bestiary 2 seemed a bit high for a group of NPCs so I used the stats in the D&D 3.5 Monster Manuel. I also used the 3.5 harpoon since Pathfinder doesn't have one that's not 3rd party yet.
So this is how it goes the ship would spot some whales and the crew would jump into action. Lowering the row boats and rowing out to their quarry. Once they were close they would stop rowing and drift as close as they could. Then the harpooner would strike and 1 of 3 things would happen. The whale would dive down, it would turn and attack or it would swim away close to the surface. If it swims away the whalers tie off the line and let the whale tire itself out from pulling their boat. Once the whale couldn't drag them any further the mate would come up with a spear and stab at it until they would see blood come out of it's blowhole. At that point the whale's lungs have been punctured and the whalers just wait for it to drown in it's own blood, which takes a few minutes. They then drag it back to the ship to cut off it's flesh and cook it down into oil.
Following the historical way of killing whales the only thing that the NPCs really need is the mate to be a rogue with the bleeding attack rogue talent, he just does sneak attack to it acouple of times and then they wait around 20 to 70 or so rounds for the whale to die.
So yeah I calculated all that out just so I could stop wondering how a bunch of NPCs could do it. Whaling is something that I thing of as horrible. They hunted whales so much between the 17 and 18 hundreds that whalers from New England would have to sail all the way around South America to the Pacific Ocean to hunt whales. As someone who grew up hearing "Save the Whales" and watching Star Trek 4(where they save the whales) I feel pretty terrible now that I've done these calculations. And now if you'll excuse me I have to go calculate how much damage a baby deals as a thrown weapon.
So this is how it goes the ship would spot some whales and the crew would jump into action. Lowering the row boats and rowing out to their quarry. Once they were close they would stop rowing and drift as close as they could. Then the harpooner would strike and 1 of 3 things would happen. The whale would dive down, it would turn and attack or it would swim away close to the surface. If it swims away the whalers tie off the line and let the whale tire itself out from pulling their boat. Once the whale couldn't drag them any further the mate would come up with a spear and stab at it until they would see blood come out of it's blowhole. At that point the whale's lungs have been punctured and the whalers just wait for it to drown in it's own blood, which takes a few minutes. They then drag it back to the ship to cut off it's flesh and cook it down into oil.
Following the historical way of killing whales the only thing that the NPCs really need is the mate to be a rogue with the bleeding attack rogue talent, he just does sneak attack to it acouple of times and then they wait around 20 to 70 or so rounds for the whale to die.
So yeah I calculated all that out just so I could stop wondering how a bunch of NPCs could do it. Whaling is something that I thing of as horrible. They hunted whales so much between the 17 and 18 hundreds that whalers from New England would have to sail all the way around South America to the Pacific Ocean to hunt whales. As someone who grew up hearing "Save the Whales" and watching Star Trek 4(where they save the whales) I feel pretty terrible now that I've done these calculations. And now if you'll excuse me I have to go calculate how much damage a baby deals as a thrown weapon.