"Pathfinder Dark Sun weirdness" Topic

The party is a Rogue (pretty straightforward), Druid (focused on the elemental water plane, bit of homebrew involved there) Fighter (dwarf/mul meat shield whose player makes half the games), Paladin (halfling, with a 6-legged dog for a mount, bit of homebrew there also), and a Cleric (…of the sun.)

We're at 6th level now. And we're on one of Athas' moons. The blue moon.

Never mind how we got there…

It is blue because of the abundance of ocean water (salt water.) Athas has been a desert world for generations with no oceans, so… our PC's have never seen so much water, and none of it good to drink. We have not ranged far, but all of what we have found is that the "natives" are human, not psionic and wield no magic whatsoever. Which means also that they are superstitious.

Initially sailing about as passengers, learning the language and gaining our sea-legs, our craft was attacked by pirates, multiple vessels. With much daring-do and using some covert magic, the Rogue ends up killing the captains of three of the pirate vessels, one after another. Turns out on this world, you kill the captain, the vessel and crew are yours.

Then in the same battle, the cleric made the error of channeling positive energy, causing a pillar of healing light to strike down on him, then waving out to heal all within the 30ft area. It spooked everyone enough that the captain of our own vessel wanted us off for good, and even with awesome diplomacy we were only able to recruit enough crew to sail one vessel. The captain took the other two vessels as compensation for damages he took.

Fast forward a couple sessions, the party is off to rescue kidnapped kids and maidens from a pirate raid. The pirates base is in an island cave with smaller craft patrolling about. Using a captured small craft, the Rogue goes in on the opposing side of the island, climbs down a vent and soon enough locates the pirate admiral. Fails his Use Magic Device check to hit him with a Wand of Lightning (so, 3 charges remain), so jumps in to try the Sneak Attack, fails to hit. Three opponents on him, including this admiral. Rogue takes some hits, then retreats back to try the wand again (3x attacks of opportunity from the enemies, who all fail.) Rolls Use Magic Device and charge goes off = 6d6 damage (Reflex save for half.) Enemies close and hit, admiral retreats. Use wand again and failed the roll, so another charge gone with no effect. One charge remaining, admiral out of melee range, all other enemies failed morale because of superstition over the, "lightning stick," and the Rogue has 4 hit point left.

Last shot with the wand goes off, 6d6, admiral fails his save and dies. Rogue runs up, cuts off his head and parades around the place, counting on Intimidation and putting up a front. The pirates are all trying to loot the place, stripping down whatever they can. Holding the head aloft, the Rogue yells out "GET OFF MY SHIP!" and the pirates stop looting and abandon the vessel. The kids and maidens are all locked up in another area of the island, and those guards there had no idea what was going on, but turned allegiance when they saw the head of their admiral.

So the Rogue is now an admiral, with an 88ton 3-mast vessel, a 56ton 2-mast vessel, and four single mast scout craft.

I ran a Dark Sun campaign for a couple of years back in the early 90s… good times!

Sounds like you guys have taken ot and turned it on it's head. I say, well done!

In my homebrew game, I had a group of all Elven PC's infiltrate a Goblin cavern system. They killed the Shaman, took his head, and then entered the main chamber with all of the females, and young, along with quite a few of the male warriors present. Being all Elves, they were virtually invisible, and silent, due to Cloaks and Boots of Elvenkind. They intimidated the Goblins with taunts, then they tossed the head in the midst of the crowd of 100+ Goblins. I rolled a morale check for the Goblins, and they failed, horribly. Panic ensued, and the mob of Goblins fled through every exit they could find. [The powerful Shaman's severed head came lofting out of the dark cavern, landing in their midst, after they had been verbally threatened with death and destruction by an unknown force, which claimed to be a supernatural being…] The PC's played it very well, very dramatically. The panic seemed appropriate, reminding me of the ridiculous movie, Blair Witch Project. Now the running joke amongst the players is, "We need a head!" Cheers!

I play my PC, "where the adventure takes me," and not with a plan for optimizing mechanics, so I am thinking… next level up – take it in Swashbuckler.