Northmen Pirate Ideas for Enemies?

[Albions_Angel]

Hi all,

I love the environmental books. "Its cold outside" is a favourite of mine, while "Its hot outside" provides some fun challenges. "Its wet outside" looks fun, but I rarely get to use it. I am hoping to change that.

My world is... big. Lots of ocean separating large land masses. Plenty of opportunity for ship travel, and thus marine combat. And low and behold, I have an area teaming with traditional corsairs. But there is another area, far to the north, inhabited by small island raiders in a more Scottish/Norwegian theme. And Im having trouble coming up with ideas for their classes.

My southern corsairs are your standard fair of multi-level warriors with a few rogues sprinkled in, the odd warlock or druid, and higher level "mini-bosses" that have a couple of levels in Scarlet Corsair, Legendary Captain, Sea Witch, etc.

Now, Legendary Captain still works for my northern seafaring savages, but its hard to tack SC levels onto a barbarian. A warrior is a warrior, and Sea Witch still functions I guess? Rogues... not the look I am going for (though you can sneak attack with a great axe so...). Stormcaster might be a bit much, though it is very thematic. Leviathan Hunter would be perfect if it actually conferred some benefit to fighting things that arnt monsters...

So, what would the Playgrounds ideas be for a group of Vikingesk pirates? They should be able to engage in ship to ship combat, and ship to shore raiding without having to tailor make each ship. Ideally I want to have a set of "ships" that I can whip out during a session. Average level 1, 3, 5, 7, with a boss on the latter couple thats a few levels higher. No party of 4 should be expected to fight them alone, but should be expected to essentially fight the boss and a handful of the pirates, with their outcome "mirroring" what the other sailors are doing (if the party easily repels the raiders, so do their sailor friends, if they struggle, then the day is won but perhaps with too few crew to make it home safely, and if they start hurting badly, the captain might surrender). Thoughts? Ideas?

[hamishspence]

Warblades? The "hunger for glory" schtick sounds rather Viking.

[Eladrinblade]

You know what the vikings of my setting are? Frost giants. They don't really need class levels, but they usually have a cleric with the water and cold domains along with them.

[Albions_Angel]

Warblades? The "hunger for glory" schtick sounds rather Viking.

I should have said in the OP "No ToB classes". I cant run those as enemies. WAY too much book keeping. As a player, sure, but not as a DM.

Frostgiants is nice, but they cant be the whole lot of them. They need to be mostly medium creatures for Lore reasons.

[AnimeTheCat]

Hi all,

I love the environmental books. "Its cold outside" is a favourite of mine, while "Its hot outside" provides some fun challenges. "Its wet outside" looks fun, but I rarely get to use it. I am hoping to change that.
You forgot the best one! "It's Dank in there".


My world is... big. Lots of ocean separating large land masses. Plenty of opportunity for ship travel, and thus marine combat. And low and behold, I have an area teaming with traditional corsairs. But there is another area, far to the north, inhabited by small island raiders in a more Scottish/Norwegian theme. And Im having trouble coming up with ideas for their classes.

My southern corsairs are your standard fair of multi-level warriors with a few rogues sprinkled in, the odd warlock or druid, and higher level "mini-bosses" that have a couple of levels in Scarlet Corsair, Legendary Captain, Sea Witch, etc.

Now, Legendary Captain still works for my northern seafaring savages, but its hard to tack SC levels onto a barbarian. A warrior is a warrior, and Sea Witch still functions I guess? Rogues... not the look I am going for (though you can sneak attack with a great axe so...). Stormcaster might be a bit much, though it is very thematic. Leviathan Hunter would be perfect if it actually conferred some benefit to fighting things that arnt monsters...

So, what would the Playgrounds ideas be for a group of Vikingesk pirates? They should be able to engage in ship to ship combat, and ship to shore raiding without having to tailor make each ship. Ideally I want to have a set of "ships" that I can whip out during a session. Average level 1, 3, 5, 7, with a boss on the latter couple thats a few levels higher. No party of 4 should be expected to fight them alone, but should be expected to essentially fight the boss and a handful of the pirates, with their outcome "mirroring" what the other sailors are doing (if the party easily repels the raiders, so do their sailor friends, if they struggle, then the day is won but perhaps with too few crew to make it home safely, and if they start hurting badly, the captain might surrender). Thoughts? Ideas?

I'm a big fan of making higher tier priate fodder Feat Rogues. Lots of skills, lots of feats. A 20 person crew (very small ship) would have 5-8 feat rogues, a few regular rogues, and the rest are warriors or experts. Even throwing a level of expert on any build can be helpful. If they're humans, pick up able learner and expert 1, then pick your class skills that you want/need for your whole career.

When I think of Viking-ish pirates, I think of lightly armored raiders using a combination of one-handed axes and swords, and a combination of dual weilding and shields. Not really that much in the form of polearms except for shortspears and javelins, as they are less versatile for woodsmen or outdoorsmen than a solid axe. For the ships, there are longboats or trireams that you can use that are designed for ramming then raiding, and once you have a stock of prefabricated characters, you can plug and play with them in any number you want. I would think that most of the pirates would be expert 1s with profession (sailor) maxed, and maybe a few ranks in whatever skill governs seige equipment (knowledge something?), then with scattered ranks about for use rope, climb, balance, jump, intimidate, and then whatever else you may feel is useful on a ship. Use that Expert 1 level as your basis for all of your pirates to make sure they're not dead weight on the ship, and add on whatever other levels from there. so your level 3 could be Expert 3, Expert 2/Warrior 1, or Expert 1/Warrior 2. For PC classed characters, use Feat Rogue 1 for the first level, then mix in whatever other addins you want. Cool concept could be Feat Rogue 2/Whirling Frenzy Variant Barbarian 1. Use the feats for two weapon fighting and weapon focus then dual weild axes and get extra attacks from whirling frenzy. Could be devestating to a whole party, escpeically if you split the attacks up to multiple adjacent characters. 3 attacks at 1d6+(X+2) can possibly take out a squishier character, or seriously injure a tankier one at level 3.

[Eladrinblade]

You forgot the best one! "It's Dank in there".

"It's not outside."

[Uncle Pine]

While I once specifically built a deranged viking beholder wielding harpoons via arms of the naga as a boss, I don't think it's the kind of viking you're looking for. :smalltongue:

Ape totem barbarians (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm) could actually make for decent pirates, as they get a climb speed at 1st level to maneuver and board with ease. Same goes for scouts, although in that case you need 3 levels (dungeon specialist ACF, PHB II).

As already mentioned, rogues are great on a ship whether you go for the sneak attack or feat variant. They also make a lot more sense if you aren't forcing yourself to think about a stereotypical rogue when looking at a rogue, as the chassis of the class lends itself to any skilled character who also knows where to hit something to make it bleed best. If you only need the sneak attack without the plethora of skill utility (balance, jump, climb, profession (sailor), etc.), sneak attack fighters can also work well.

Bears are excellent swimmers, as should be vikings - a Bear Warrior could be nifty and quite terrifying to be against on a ship. Entering as a city brawler barbarian (Dragon #349) means your bear viking can hit with more than his natural weapons on the same full-attack.

I feel you could also be able to justify a more animalistic approach to piracy, either through Wild Cohort or actually having a ship with a dire eagle (RoS, refluffed as a dire albatross) as a mascot and help during boarding.