Second, real-life pirate laws do not work for the player's and their crew - you can't give everyone in the crew an equal share of the spoils in a game like Pathfinder where the players' gear needs to advance along with them. It is a series of adventures in a pirate setting - any actual piracy is strictly optional except perhaps for a bit in part 2. First of all, it is not really a pirate adventure at all. Playing this adventure path now, just about to start on the final book. But, in my opinion, it is well worth the effort and will create epic RPG moments that your group will talk about for years to come. As always, you'll need to adjust it to your style. Book one in particular has some pitfalls to watch out for, namely the drinking rules and the fact that if you run the opening section where the PCs do ship chores day by day, it will become a drag. As a DM, preparing this path is difficult, but that goes for any campaign. The only downside to this is that the minis are a bit brittle and some of them will break if you do not store them for transport with care. There's even grindylow minis and one of my favorites, the seaweed siren. The best tie-in of all is the fact that they made a complete miniature line for Skull and Shackles, which includes minis for ALL of the major NPCs from Harrigan to one of the coolest NPCs I've ever used - Isabella "Inkskin" Locke. The sourcebook can help you flesh out book two, which has a massive "sandbox" piracy section. It is literally overloaded with islands to adventure on, and comes with a bunch of cool monsters too. Isles of the Shackles is seriously one of the most useful sourcebooks ever. The ship flip-map is the exact ship the PCs start out on. What really puts this over the top is all of the tie-in products. The final attack on Bonefist is OK, but in my opinion the final battle with the other main villain needed to be at sea on his ship. Five is a bit shaky and book six, in my opinion, needed to be revised quite a bit. The first four books are utterly fantastic. If you even remotely like pirates at all, you should run or play this. Hands down, Skull and Shackles is the best campaign I have ever run. As I said: this AP is based on a terrific it was brought down by a clumsy, heavy-handed plot.ĥ out of 5 rating for Skull & Shackles Adventure Path That, and a few of them simply did not enjoy the pirate genre - which has nothing to do with the writing or encounters, of course. I ended up using the NPC stats and encounters as ideas and ad-libbing rather than running the story from the book - I had no choice because my players were treating this supposed sandbox as exactly that, instead of a railroad, which it is.Book 2 offered much more freedom, but my group was already so frustrated with the limitations that they decided to no continue with it. They created opportunities to deal with the enemy NPCs that were way outside what the book expected or demanded, effetively short-circuiting several of the written encounters and interludes. I had to adjust a great deal of those 'encounters' because my players.get ready for this.THOUGHT ON THEIR OWN. It was a clumsy attempt to establish the vibe of the genre and overall direction of the plot. The first portion of the story was all railroad, seemingly in an attempt to get the players to hate certain NPCs and like others. And yet, as is Paizo's wont, there is a "story as expected," which means there is a railroad. Book 1 promised a seagoing sandbox - a great idea! In fact, it's a brilliant idea, and perfectly suited for a sandbox: PCs have their own ship, and a broad range of places to go and things to experience and do. 2 out of 5 rating for Skull & Shackles Adventure Path
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