[PF] How is Skulls and Shackles?

[AttilaTheGeek]

I've had exactly one session of GMing experience, and it was a total flop. The first half hour went okay, but that was all I had planned and ad-libbing for the other two and a half hours was not as feasible as I'd expected.

So I'm thinking about buying Skulls and Shackles so I can have a campaign already written out that I just have to run, but I'm looking for reviews. Here's some information about my group:

Six players: two system veterans, one person who's never played before but has read the core rulebook, and three complete newbies.
I really like hack-and-slash, combat action, but I've come to realize that having a complete lack of RP dilutes the fun, and the two players who've played before prefer talking to combat.
Everyone has third-level characters. I think I'll just tune up the encounters and slow the level advancement for the first five levels or so to save myself the work of redoing character sheets for the three new players (especially because one is a druid :smallsigh:) and also so that the three newbies don't come to the second session and find themselves weaker. However, if that's strongly recommended against I'll just redo characters.
Everyone is really busy, and expecting everyone to be able to meet every week is unrealistic for this group, so I think I'll just change encounters on the fly or at the last minute to compensate for the number of people there.

[Saph]

Our group's played through the first 3 modules of Skulls & Shackles over the last 6 months. We took a break between 1 and 2, then convinced the GM to run us straight on from 2 to 3. Obviously, we liked it. :)

The basic design is simple, but it works. The first few sessions are quite railroady, but it makes sense IC for that to be the case (being shanghai-ed onto a ship in the middle of the ocean cuts down on your options a bit). Once the PCs get their own ship their freedom of action opens up massively and expect them to go off and do whatever they like.

I'd recommend keeping the PCs to 1st-level rather than 3rd-level if you can (many of the early encounters will be a complete joke otherwise) but you can probably modify the enemies without too much trouble.

[Cyph Ozora]

Skull and Shackles is good fun, we started it at level 1, and even though my cleric is a completely clumsy idiot ("lets see how well you climb the rigging" *runs into mast and knocks himself out impressively*) he's somehow ended up as Captain in the progression of things.

We're currently at level 4, and are pretty much just getting into the second module, though we've put things on hiatus for a little bit.

I found it a good one to start with, as it is the first RPG I'd ever played.