The crew have formed an uneasy alliance with Isabella Locke, who wants revenge on her former mate Knuckles Grype almost as much as the body builder wants to break Casius. They head to islands depicted on the map tattooed on Isabella, and try to decipher the clues to the puzzle along the way, but before they can go treasure hunting its time to fight Grype, who challenges for command of both ships!
GM Notes
+++Pathfinder 2nd Edition Conversion Notes (SPOILERS BELOW):
Oh my, so as a GM I could not have been happier with how this single combat came out, besides rolling rocks on the party Knuckles Grype is only the second NPC that I created using the PC rules in Pathfinder Second Edition.
So making a single PC be frightening to a party of 4 or more is pretty hard in game design, especially with 1st Edition Pathfinder and Starfinder in my opinion. Usually once you have them surrounded and flanked, have put some debuffs on the target the battle is pretty one sided. You usually have to compensate by making the single target much higher level and almost feel impossible.
With Knuckles Grype I did make a NPC that was three levels higher than the party (he is a level 9 Fighter vs the PCs who are level 6 at the time) but beyond that I knew I needed to give him some powers that would allow him to strike often and hard in combat. So he gets Exacting Strike, and to debuff the party Intimidating Strike. Intimidation I feel like is a super important part of Second Edition, especially for fighters and other melee characters, and it seemed to fit with his character.
The hulking muscle-bound villain we haven’t seen since Casius’ fight against Owlbear, who was just given altered pirate NPC rules, but looking back I wish I had given the brute some more character abilities, as they really make combats like this shine.
How to Get More Pirate Action
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Cast and Characters
- Gibert is “Qandoso” and “Bartleby”
- Rebecca is “Elaerys Delqarin” and “Sharga”
- Seth is “Hanto” and “Ozzie”
- Tyler is “Casius Vell” and “Kovik”
- Patrick is “Grogmaster GM” and “A Devilishly Handsome Man!”
About the Podcast
Dead Men Roll No Crits is an actual play podcast from the Cosmic Crit network, featuring the beloved Adventure Path “Skull and Shackles,” converted for Pathfinder 2E (Second Edition).
Join Patrick (GM), Rebecca, Gibert, Tyler, and Seth as they don their tricorne hats and set out to conquer (or at least survive) the Shackled Seas.
Music Credit
Intro music created exclusively for Dead Men Roll No Crits by Max Coltrin of Coltrin Compositions
Additional music from Bensound, Kevin MacLeod, Tim Beek, Scott Buckley, Alexander Nakarada, and Max Coltrin.