Ship for the party with a small crew number

[Silverfang]

I'm about to start a pirate-era themed campaign and have a party of 4-6, most likely on the lower end, is there any sea worthy vessels that can have a crew number that low? If not, I might put them underneath an NPC captain for a bit until they can afford a ship and a crew of their own.

[The Grue]

This might be helpful (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rating_system_of_the_Royal_Navy#Royal_Navy_rating_ system_in_force_during_the_Napoleonic_Wars).

Basically: No. Sailing ships require a lot more manpower than I think you realize. Anything that can be crewed by six people, while certainly sea-worthy, isn't going to be able to do a lot in the way of piracy. Especially as merchant ships are going to have crew and deckhands by the dozen.

[Alefiend]

Folding Boat (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/a-b/boat-folding). It has the advantage of not becoming a liability when the party wants solid land under their feet for a while.

[Kudaku]

The Ship-to-Ship combat rules reads as follows:


Most ships require a crew. A ship without a full crew complement, but with at least half its crew, takes a –10 penalty on all sailing checks. A ship needs at least half its crew complement in order to be piloted at all.

The Junk (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/ship-combat/vessels) is capable of ocean travel and is listed as having a crew complement of 10. If you have five PCs, they'd constitute half the crew, so they could sail the ship.


Outside of combat, the base DC for all sailing checks is DC 5.

With the -10 penalty for sailing the ship with half a crew, that DC is in practice not 5 but 15. So as long as however pilots the Junk has a profession: Sailor bonus of +5 or more, he can take 10 and pilot the Junk with a crew of 4. He will run into trouble if he tries to make any fancy maneuvers or if he runs into a storm though.

[Broken Crown]

A crew of 4-6 would be able to handle a small sailing vessel, like a cutter, schooner, or small junk. However, this is a bare minimum. With so few people on board, you'd want to do all your sail handling between watches, when everyone was on deck.

You'd never want to engage in piracy with such a small crew. You wouldn't have enough sailors to operate any weapons the ship carried, or to handle the sails quickly enough to maneuver the ship in combat, or to perform damage control, or to form a boarding party (or a prize crew, if you miraculously captured another ship). If your ship took damage below the waterline, you also wouldn't have enough men to man the pumps, so you'd sink before you could get the leaks taken care of. And you'd want enough extra crew members that you wouldn't be short-handed if you took casualties.

The page that the Grue linked gives a good idea of the number of people you would need to carry out all these duties. Warships in the Age of Sail would normally carry about ten times as many men as would actually be needed to sail the ship.

[Silverfang]

Yeah, looks like they're going to have a captain of their own for a while. I'll probably suggest someone take the leadership feat though, make it easier on them once they get to that point. Thanks!

[Fouredged Sword]

There is magic rigging in stormwrack that reduces the crew requirements (and can take it down to 1). Haunt shift the helm with a pirate ghost captain and the ship sails itself! I suggest a pinnance, as the crew requirement is 4, so minimal investment to reduce the crew size to 1.

[Broken Crown]

There is magic rigging in stormwrack that reduces the crew requirements (and can take it down to 1). Haunt shift the helm with a pirate ghost captain and the ship sails itself! I suggest a pinnance, as the crew requirement is 4, so minimal investment to reduce the crew size to 1.
The problem with this is that they already have enough people to sail the ship. What they need is enough people to use the ship for piracy. This is a much larger number, for reasons explained above. This is especially true if the PCs are low-level, which I presume they are, or one of them could just take Leadership and get a crew that way.

[Fouredged Sword]

The idea is to reduce the crew to a requirement of 1, and replace that 1 with an creature that is under their control. That allows the ship to sail itself and the party can go pirating and all preform a boarding action.

[Broken Crown]

... while their unattended ship sinks or burns behind them? Or is captured in turn by the crew of the ship they're trying to board, who outnumber them at least two to one?

As I have said before (twice, now), sailing the ship isn't the issue here. Six people really isn't enough to handle a ship in combat or perform any serious piracy.