Buccaneer

Description: Buccaneers are thieves of the high seas, plying the trade lanes in search of prey. They intermix with and complement their piratical warrior cousins...to the extent that any of these scoundrels can be said to complement anything.

A hardy Constitution (no less than 10) is required to survive long months at sea and be a Buccaneer.

Role: Buccaneers closely resemble their land-dwelling cousins, Bandits. They, too, are desperate and cruel, fiendishly cunning, and likely to have a lot of internal squabbles.

Like Bandits, Buccaneers cooperate for survival and success. They also have sordid pasts—pasts which will often bind them together. Many a pirate ship used to be put to legitimate use, but its crew rose in mutiny, took the ship, killed everyone not party to the act, and turned to piracy.

Mutiny and piracy are both punishable by death, and on the high seas the warship or merchantman of any state will gladly carry out that sentence, if given a chance. Buccaneers will therefore fight to the death, against all odds, rather than face capture and inevitable summary execution.

Buccaneers do not belong to guilds; although, like Bandits, a ship of them may be considered a nonstandard guild of sorts. Sometimes groups of pirate and Buccaneer ships will even make alliances, and cooperate to raid richly-laden (and therefore well-defended) merchantmen. There may also be rivalry among pirate groups—especially when one of them carries a healthy cargo of booty that has not yet been hidden in a safe sanctuary.

Buccaneers like to have secret sanctuaries, probably in a secret cove or on a tiny island. There they rest between raids, store treasure and provisions, and plan their activities. Such sanctuaries will have the best protection available to the Buccaneers, possibly including magical defenses.

Related to but distinct from Buccaneers are Privateers. These are "legitimate" Buccaneers. Privateers have received the sanction of some nation to practice piracy on the merchantmen of another nation. Well known historical examples of this include the Privateers of Elizabethan England, captained by such illustrious personages as Sir Francis Drake. These daring "sea dogs" raided gold-laden Spanish galleons as they returned from the New World.

While Privateers are sanctioned by one nation, those on whom they prey certainly regard them as pirates and will treat them as such if they are captured.

A group of NPC Buccaneers should include not just thieves but a healthy number of warriors with the pirate kit, and perhaps a swashbuckler or two as well. Even a renegade mage might be found among them. (Privateers are even more likely to have the services of a wizard, especially one with talents in the manipulation of water and wind.)

Secondary Skills: Gambler, Limner/Painter, Navigator, Sailor, Shipwright, Tailor/Weaver, Teamster/Freighter, Trader/Barterer, Woodworker/Carpenter.

Skill Progression: Buccaneers make much less use of the traditional thief skills than thieves of other kits. Climbing around the rigging of their ships requires some wall-climbing skill, and the delicate step needed to work high above the deck may carry over into excellence at moving silently. Finally, Buccaneers favor the read languages skill—they like to be extraordinarily adept at deciphering the strange, secret codes adorning maps, codes that may tell a sly captain the location of a rival's buried treasure.

Weapon Proficiencies: The DM may wish to make classic Buccaneer weapons, such as the cutlass, available to thieves of this kit.

Nonweapon Proficiencies: Required: Navigation, Seamanship, Swimming. Recommended: Alertness, Direction Sense, Fishing, Gambling, Intimidation, Looting, Rope Use, Tightrope Walking, Weather Sense.

Equipment: Buccaneers dress themselves as sailors (with weapons, of course), and carry about the same equipment when at sea. Also, like sailors, they will avoid armor—it gets in the way of climbing around the rigging (double penalties on climbing rolls), and also presents a problem for someone unfortunate enough to find himself overboard.

Special Benefits: Because of their familiarity with ropes, much used in the nautical arts, Buccaneers gain a bonus of +5% on climbing rolls if ropes are involved—+10% if they are ropes on a ship. (Note that the total chance of success with a thief skill, including all positive and negative modifiers, cannot exceed 95%.)

Always be sure to consider the various climbing modifiers, explained on pp. 122-123 of the Player's Handbook.

Buccaneers also can fight from a rope (usually on a ship), so long as the feet and one hand can grasp it, and they are much better at this than other types of characters. They get +1 on attack and saving throw rolls in rope combat, +2 on such rolls in shipboard rope combat. Note that these adjustments should be added to all the other modifiers—which are usually negative. For instance, a climbing character would normally get a -2 penalty on attacks; so the Buccaneer's +2 bonus merely negates this.

Use common sense when applying the saving throw bonus for a Buccaneer in rope combat; while it would apply to dodging a lightning bolt, it would not apply to saving against a charm or hold spell.

For more information on shipboard combat, see "Learning the Ropes" below.

Special Hindrances: As their expertise lies in rope-climbing, Buccaneers suffer a penalty of -10% when they attempt to climb without one.

Races: Almost all Buccaneers are human, since few demihumans and humanoids are known as seafarers. The occasional half-elf might be found among a Buccaneer crew, or, even more rarely, a half-breed or full-blooded aquatic elf. For such an elf to leave his own people would indicate a turbulent past indeed.

Learning the Ropes

(Optional Rules)

Buccaneers often find themselves fighting among the ropes and masts of their ships. This section of optional rules is intended to help simulate the difficulty and excitement of such a scenario. It may also be used in other situations of rope combat.

The basic modifiers in climbing combat are as follows:

* A climbing character loses all Armor Class bonuses for Dexterity and shield.

* A climbing character suffers a -2 penalty on attack, damage, and saving throw rolls.

* A character attacking from above gains a +2 bonus on his attack roll.

* A character attacking from below suffers a -2 penalty on his attack roll.

Other modifiers that often come into play are:

* An off-balance defender is attacked with a bonus of +2. See below for more information on balance and rope combat.

* A rear attack (e.g., against a character trying to climb up a rope—but NOT a Buccaneer climbing and dodging at the same time, as explained below) gains a +2 bonus.

Buccaneers additionally gain a +1 on rope combat attacks (+2 if shipboard), and may be given the option of dodging (explained below), thanks to their facility and frequent practice with rope climbing.

NPC sailors, also familiar with seaborne rope climbing, should, for the purpose of these rules, have a base climbing percentage of 65%. This percentage does NOT apply to other sorts of climbing (walls, mountains, etc.); in such areas a sailor is assumed to be untrained and should be treated as such.

Remember that modifiers are cumulative!

Losing and Regaining Balance

Any character engaged in combat on ropes runs the risk of losing his balance.

A character who is struck by a weapon, or attempts to climb in the course of combat, must make a climbing check or lose his balance.

Lost balance means that the next round the character must either fall voluntarily or attempt to regain his balance. In either case, the character can perform no other action. A successful climbing check means that the character has regained his balance. A failure means the character has fallen (and, of course, may suffer falling damage). Don't forget, all attacks against an off-balance character are at +2.

Optional Rule: Dodging

Thieves with the Buccaneer kit may choose to spend a round in rope combat dodging. When doing so, the thief may not attack, but he may move at half his normal rope-climbing speed. If a successful climbing check is made, the Buccaneer is able to add his Dexterity bonus to his Armor Class for that round of combat. If unsuccessful, the thief will be off-balance the next round; he must spend it regaining his balance (see below), and attacks against him are at +2.

Example: While plying the sea lanes, a ship carrying the Buccaneer Daljo assaults a merchantman whose crew refuses the Buccaneers' demand for their cargo and puts up a surprising amount of resistance. Daljo and his men board the vessel, and he finds himself fighting high above the deck, facing an ugly sailor armed with a long, curved dagger. Daljo himself wields a cutlass. Neither combatant is wearing armor.

The modifiers for this melee are as follows: Neither gets a Dexterity bonus; since they are both unarmored, they both have AC 10. The sailor's attack modifiers are -2 for climbing, but +2 for attacking from above, so they balance out to zero. Daljo has -2 for climbing, +3 for being a Buccaneer climbing ropes on a ship, and -2 for attacking from below, for a total penalty of -1.

In one round of combat, suppose Daljo is struck by the sailor's knife. He must roll his climbing percentage to avoid losing his balance. His base percentage is 75%; but thanks to his kit and the situation he gets a +10% bonus. If an 85 or lower is rolled, Daljo hangs on in spite of the situation.

But suppose he is unsuccessful: Daljo has lost his balance. The next round his action is to attempt to regain it (the only alternative is to drop to the deck), which he succeeds in doing, while the sailor strikes with a +2 bonus. If Daljo is struck again, he will have to make another climbing check lest he lose another round of attacks or even plummet to the deck below.

If the combat continues to go poorly, Daljo should probably dodge blows while retreating down the rope. The sailor has the advantage when above him, but once Daljo has returned safely to the deck, he can fight on an even footing again. If the sailor does not follow him down, however, he should not go too far—lest the sailor try to cut the rope above him!

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