Rise of the Runelords help: The rowboat debacle

[PurpleSocks]

Dreadhead go away and stop reading.

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Hi GitP,

I am currently running a gestalt game of "Rise of the Runelords" with 2 players who are currently at level 4. They have just finished the first part of the Bullywug Gambit and are now on their way back to the city of Sasserine in a race against the clock to save their employer from misinformed but suitably dangerous pirates.

For those who are unfamiliar with the adventure path, the PC's need to travel about 80 miles west along the coast by rowboat in order to make it back to the city while pirates with a healthy head start make their way to the city across a monster infested swamp. These pirates move at the speed of plot and are supposed to arrive in the city a few hours before the players who subsequently arrive just in the nick of time to save everyone from certain death.

My problem is that my PC's have decided to try and save time by rowing out into the open ocean in their little rowboat with the intention of flagging down a passing ship which will then take them the rest of the way.

Neither of the player characters have any skills, spells or items that would give them any ability to successfully navigate a rowboat on the open ocean, let alone survive it for an extended period of time.


They have no knowledge of any shipping lanes, sea routes, currents, or the locations of any ships and have passed up several opportunities to acquire this information.


Last but not least all wildlife within a mile of their current location has been turned into horrifically deformed blood thirsty monsters.


I feel like I would be doing my players a serious disservice as a GM if I started the next session with how their characters get swept out to sea and slowly die of starvation/exposure/thirst/whatever, but then I feel that they are being so willfully stupid that their should be some suitably awful consequences for their actions.

Whatever I do to them can only take so long; if their employer dies at this stage because the players took too long in saving her then it will really mess up the adventure path, and I will need to perform substantial re-writes.

Any help would be appreciated.

[daremetoidareyo]

Let them do it.

Do they have survival skill ranks? That should account for orienteering and fishing skillz.

Roll up a random encounter table, for their time on the high seas. And put a % chance on a boat arriving. Design a shipping lane on the water map, that if they make it to it, increases the chances of being picked up.

So it isn't you punishing the players, it is the dice that punish them. And...with a little luck, maybe they do make to the town like 2 days before the pirates. Then, so be it, they have a head start because they got lucky. More likely however, is that they will be a little late or right on time.

[Nibbens]

Maybe, just maybe. They find a ship with a literal skeleton crew. hew hew hew.
make an adventure out of it - kill the skelleys and the graveknight pally captain (or other sufficient baddy), take command of the ship...

But, how do we steer it? There is a pf spell (the name of which is failing me now) that summons a skeleton crew to sail a ship....
...
that was the name. SMH


Skeleton Crew (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/skeleton-crew) doesn't so much summon a crew, but animates corpses to sail a ship.

Maybe, you'll allow the skellies to be re-reanimated after their destruction as a DM to allow the PCs to get on track.

Then, its a short jump to ship v ship combat, and eventually they can make their way on shore to stop the pirate invasion. Bonus points if the PCs use the skeleton crew to kill the pirates as they're invading the city. That would be funny!

[Zombimode]

To avoid any confusion, th OP is talking about the Savage Tide adventure path, NOT Rise of the Runelords.


Dreadhead go away and stop reading.

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Hi GitP,

I am currently running a gestalt game of "Rise of the Runelords" with 2 players who are currently at level 4. They have just finished the first part of the Bullywug Gambit and are now on their way back to the city of Sasserine in a race against the clock to save their employer from misinformed but suitably dangerous pirates.

For those who are unfamiliar with the adventure path, the PC's need to travel about 80 miles west along the coast by rowboat in order to make it back to the city while pirates with a healthy head start make their way to the city across a monster infested swamp. These pirates move at the speed of plot and are supposed to arrive in the city a few hours before the players who subsequently arrive just in the nick of time to save everyone from certain death.

My problem is that my PC's have decided to try and save time by rowing out into the open ocean in their little rowboat with the intention of flagging down a passing ship which will then take them the rest of the way.

Neither of the player characters have any skills, spells or items that would give them any ability to successfully navigate a rowboat on the open ocean, let alone survive it for an extended period of time.


They have no knowledge of any shipping lanes, sea routes, currents, or the locations of any ships and have passed up several opportunities to acquire this information.


Last but not least all wildlife within a mile of their current location has been turned into horrifically deformed blood thirsty monsters.


I feel like I would be doing my players a serious disservice as a GM if I started the next session with how their characters get swept out to sea and slowly die of starvation/exposure/thirst/whatever, but then I feel that they are being so willfully stupid that their should be some suitably awful consequences for their actions.

Whatever I do to them can only take so long; if their employer dies at this stage because the players took too long in saving her then it will really mess up the adventure path, and I will need to perform substantial re-writes.

Any help would be appreciated.


Well, it depends on how do you want to handle choices and consequences in general.
If your players know that there is a possibility of failure and that their actions are directly responsible for their success/failure even in the adventure path at a whole, you can opt to play it out consequently. IF you are prepared to run something else in the future or improvise things with a new group until things align themselves with the adventure path again.

On the other hand you could just tell them WHY their plan is not a good idea. If they still want to do this despite the most obvious "Are you sure?", well I don't know. I would play it out consequently even if only to show that not all plans are equally viable (and skill actually matter!).

[Gallowglass]

Dreadhead go away and stop reading.

-... These pirates move at the speed of plot and are supposed to arrive in the city a few hours before the players who subsequently arrive just in the nick of time to save everyone from certain death....

My problem is that my PC's have decided to try and save time by rowing out into the open ocean in their little rowboat with the intention of flagging down a passing ship which will then take them the rest of the way.

...

I feel like I would be doing my players a serious disservice as a GM if I started the next session with how their characters get swept out to sea and slowly die of starvation/exposure/thirst/whatever, but then I feel that they are being so willfully stupid that their should be some suitably awful consequences for their actions.

Whatever I do to them can only take so long; if their employer dies at this stage because the players took too long in saving her then it will really mess up the adventure path, and I will need to perform substantial re-writes.
...


So, I think I can give you a suggestion. First suggestion. Stop thinking that what the players is doing is "so willfully stupid." It may be from your perspective, but it obviously isn't from theirs.

You have a mental picture of what the world looks and works like that isn't matching with theirs. In your mental picture, a rowboat hewing out to sea has little to no chance of stumbling across a shipping lane and is likely to be besot with a host of mutated beasts. Suicide. With a much lower chance of success than just trying to beat the pirates there by shore. Even though they can't beat the pirates by your own admission.

In their mental picture, they are seeing a shoreline near a large kingdom with, to them, should have plenty of active ship traffic. In their mental picture they have already decided that they have little to zero chance of beating the pirates in their rowboat so they are willing to make a clever desperation move that, if it works, lets them beat the artificial goal. They are willing to take the risk because, in their mental picture, the chance of beating the pirates using this method is HIGHER than beating the pirates the other way.

They aren't being willfully stupid. They are being clever out of the box thinkers. I will NEVER as a DM, EVER punish players for out of the box thinking.

I'm not talking about making a stupid choice either, because this isn't. I mean for making a choice to try and beat the contrived scenario being forced upon them by a module.

So If I was you I'd remember that your job is to facilitate a fun experience for everyone and figure out what that looks like here. I think the suggestion of a random encounter table is great. It was going to take them, what, 8 days to row to town in their rowboat? So give them a 1-6 chance of finding a friendly ship, a 1-6 chance of finding an unfriendly ship a 2-6 chance of nothing and a 2-6 chance of monster encounter and roll it each day. If, after 6 days they haven't found someone to help them (friendly or unfriendly) then they know they've failed.

Now, you aren't playing a self-generated adventure, you are playing a module, so that hampers your options.

If they get rescued early and get to the city early what happens? GASP! the pirate showed up an hour before you. Thank god you tried your gamble or you would've been days to late.

If they get rescued and get to the city right on time what happens? GASP! the pirate showed up an hour before you. Thank god your gamble didn't cost your employer her life.

If they don't show up until days later than they should have what happens? GASP! the pirate showed up an hour before you. They must've run into trouble on their own that delayed them. What luck! Lets fight our way to save our patron!

That's the easy cop-out route. If I was you, I'd do something like this instead:

If they get rescued early and get to the city early what happens? The patron is warned, the party help build defenses and prepare for the pirates arrival. When the pirates show up, the party stay near the patron to protect her and so they are there when the pirates fight through the bulwarks and face them in the patron's chamber. Or the party convince the patron to flee the city early, they go into hiding on the road only, three days later, in an inn while in disguise, the pirates show up and attack them.

If they get rescued and get to the city right on time what happens? GASP! the pirate showed up an hour before you. Thank god your gamble didn't cost your employer her life.

If they don't show up until days later than they should have what happens? GASP! the pirates have sacked the city and are either now controlling it as a police state or they've kidnapped the patron and taken her to a pirate's lair three days sail away. The new captain of the navy is still trying to fix the shattered city defenses, but can lend you a fast cutter to go try and save your patron.

[Zombimode]

You have a mental picture of what the world looks and works like that isn't matching with theirs. In your mental picture, a rowboat hewing out to sea has little to no chance of stumbling across a shipping lane and is likely to be besot with a host of mutated beasts. Suicide. With a much lower chance of success than just trying to beat the pirates there by shore. Even though they can't beat the pirates by your own admission.

In their mental picture, they are seeing a shoreline near a large kingdom with, to them, should have plenty of active ship traffic. In their mental picture they have already decided that they have little to zero chance of beating the pirates in their rowboat so they are willing to make a clever desperation move that, if it works, lets them beat the artificial goal. They are willing to take the risk because, in their mental picture, the chance of beating the pirates using this method is HIGHER than beating the pirates the other way.

They aren't being willfully stupid. They are being clever out of the box thinkers. I will NEVER as a DM, EVER punish players for out of the box thinking.


Just because a plan is out of the box does not automatically make it a good plan. Based on the information in the OP, the players plan is not well thought out. And this is not problem of different mental views of the situation because most of the reasons why it is a bad plan are not dependent on any interpretation of the situation.

Lets go step by step:

They need to navigate the open seas. There are rules for this (open information, any player who cares enough can educate himself). Lacking the relevant skills and abilities is also not hidden information: the zero ranks in profession (sailor) are plain obvious on the character sheets. Lacking the prerequisite abilities is a hallmark of a bad plan.

They need to find a ship. The ocean tends to be a big place. Finding something becomes much easier if you have any idea on where to look. They know they don't actually have this kind of information. So they make assumptions. But are those assumptions backed up by anything? If you are not critically reflection on your assumption that are key to the success of your plan then you are not thinking things through.

They need to survive for a longer period of time on the ocean on a very small and unsafe vessel. Fantasy oceans are even more dangerous than real-life oceans. And this is not even factoring in the increased hostility of the local wildlife. There are few creatures that are a threat to a larger vessel. Few enough that sea trade and travel can actually be a thing. The number of creature that are a threat to a rowboat is dramatically higher.
Even if factoring out creatures, there are still reefs, currents, banks of seaweed... again with no information or abilities to detect/deal with those hazards.

Yeah, this is just not a good plan.

[Eisfalken]

Let them do it and pay the consequences according to the game setting. If they have zero skills at navigation and/or ocean survival, they will get the clue about the second day of starvation or so. They aren't bound to instantly fail or die or whatever, it's just very likely given the circumstances.

And none of this coddling them. Yes, games are supposed to be fun and entertaining. But that goes for the DM as well. If the DM wants to run a semi-realistic game where there are consequences to actions, then constantly throwing a deux ex machina to save players from themselves doesn't encourage better thinking in players. It encourages them to see how far they can screw with the game before the DM inevitably saves their PCs and pulls them back. By this logic, we should just go on and throw out hit points and saving throws for PCs, since you know, losing is not fun for players. In fact, I guess if constant success is the only definition of "entertaining" at this point, may as well just not even bother about skill points or other stats; just let them succeed if the narrative calls for it, huh?

Failure is an option in D&D. Otherwise victory is absolutely meaningless. If they fail, they fail. Roll up new stats, try again, maker better choices this time. I'm not saying just close the book and say "rocks fall, everyone dies". Roll the dice, apply the rules. If the narrative actually calls for some kind of intervention, go for it, but otherwise? Let them fail and learn from their mistakes.

I like to take Q's position on adventuring here:

If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid.