Help Me With a D&D Setting

[Captainguy42]

So recently I started working on a home brew setting mod for D&D while I have been making good progress I thought it would help if I tapped into the vast creative resource that is the Escapist forum community to help me brainstorm ideas.

Spoiler: Here's a brief look at what I have so far.

Rules: 4th Edition

Setting: Steampunk/Piracy, essentially the world is a set of small continents and plenty of islands, the players will be a band of Pirates, pillaging, raiding dungeons while looking for buried treasure, and so forth.

Back story: When humans first discovered their Elvish neighbors they began to to explore further, after learning of all seven continents a new fervor for trade emerged. This fervor for trade begot an industrial revolution, which swept across the world. With this new buzz of trade, a breed of free-men took to the sea's and began a age of piracy.

World: As mentioned the world is made up of plenty of islands, it also has has 7 small continents (one for each race minus the half-elves).

Draconia: Home of the Dragon-Born, Capital City: Ajarashh.

Hylon'Del: Home of the Dwarfs, Capital City: Hylon'Ke.

Dayanairra: Home of the Eladrin, Captial City: Valelareth.

Erastea: Home of the Elves, Capital City: Faraden.

Paebib: Home of the Halflings, Capital City: Lidroc.

Forra: Home of the Humans, Capital City: New Hoddun.

Safirub: Home of the Tieflings, Capital City: Regden.

Mid-Terra: A large island almost equidistant to all 7 continents, because of it's position it has become the hub of trade throughout the world. It is separated into 7 districts, one for each nation, and is a microcosm of the world.

Free-port: Home city to anyone who calls them self a pirate, it is a lawless town run by the pirates. The only thing that keeps the peace is the knowledge that if someone were to cause trouble everyone else would kill them.

Technology: Each race has a different take and use for technology. Their uses often mimic their own personalities.

Dragon-Born: Use technology in applications discovered by their ancestors, Dragon-Born ships, while often carrying advanced technology appear just like their more ancient counter parts.

Eladrin: Don't treat science in the traditional sense. They instead focus on what they call "Scientific Application of Magic". So an Eladrin steam engine would use fire magic to heat the water instead of coal or oil. An Eladrin ship is a heavily enchanted and graceful vessel.

Elf: Elves use science to create graceful, streamlined technology. An Elvish ship is a sleek vessel that cuts through the water with ease.

Dwarf: Dwarfs us technology to create powerful unstoppable beasts of steam. While no always the fastest a dwarven engine can produce the most horsepower. Dwarfish ships are built around great monstorus guns that do devastate their enemies.

Halfling: Halfling technology is very discrete and stealthy, halflings tend to prefer gadgets and gizmo's to guns and engines. A halfling ship is a small fast, silent, and occasionally submersible.

Human: Human technology straddles the divide between power and grace. Leaning to either side depending on the inventor. A human ship is as hard to predict as the winds.

Tiefling: Tiefling's like Eladrin us magic to change the rules of technology, however their ships are all about power. A Tiefling ship features several magically enhanced guns.

Spoiler: So now that I've given you guys an idea let me show you where you come in

Weapons: I've grappled about how I should have firearms be about of this, I know I want them, but I'm still trying to decide how to balance them. Currently I'm thinking they will be more powerful than bows but require much longer to reload. The four types will be,
-Pistol
-Rifle
-Musket
-Blunderbuss

Gadgets: Being steampunk you just can't forget gadgets, these I plan to have act as buyable and equipable feats. The points I want input on are,
-Ideas for Gadgets
-Balancing

World: Any suggestion to how I can improve the world would be nice, poke wholes in my logic to make me fix them, suggest ideas for islands and cities.

Feats: Along with all these new changes I'll need feats to go along with them, any ideas would be nice.

Classes: While I don't plan on a complete class overhaul, I want to add an extra pirate based paragon tier class.

Naval Combat: I have a plan on how I want boarding combat to work; but ship vs ship cannon battles are still something I am trying to workout.

So there you go any idea's you have will be welcomed.

 

[Captainguy42]

Place holder for future use.

 

[Alex_P]

Weapons: I've grappled about how I should have firearms be about of this, I know I want them, but I'm still trying to decide how to balance them. Currently I'm thinking they will be more powerful than bows but require much longer to reload. The four types will be,
-Pistol
-Rifle
-Musket
-Blunderbuss

When working with early firearms in gaming, one of the most important decisions is "Which firing mechanism?"

Matchlocks make guns clunky and difficult to use.
Wheellocks make guns delicate and expensive (probably with matchlocks as a fallback for poorer, cheaper wepaonry).
Flintlocks are usually cheap and effective enough for guns to really, really start displacing everything else.
Breech-loaders and rifled barrels make guns start to resemble modern hunting rifles in terms of accuracy and ease-of-use.

Of course, with D&D, there are tons of other gun issues you have to deal with.
Can guns be magical?
How much damage does a gun do? (Too little and it's worthless since everything requires hit-point attrition and slow-loading weapons absolutely screw you; too much and it's overpowered since players will shoot the gun once to get a kill or near-kill and then finish the enemy off with some other attack.)
If you fiddle with reload times, be prepared for pistoleers wearing a whole brace of guns and drawing them one after the other. (Which isn't actually a bad effect. Just be prepared.)

-- Alex

 

[Altorin]

when using ad hoc gun rules, I typically just use them as flavor modified crossbows. It's really simple, they have similar issues with reloading times, and they're balanced. It's easy enough to adjust small stats on the crossbows to make them more "gun-ny".. Reducing their range.. In Fourth Edition, you could make them reload differently.. Crossbows are Reload Minor, meaning it takes a minor action to reload them, you could make them Reload Move, meaning it takes a bit more effort to reload them.

Also, in the 3rd edition (and I'd assume 3.5e) Dungeon Masters Guide, there are actual stats for some example guns, as they're offered for the "using a different era as a setting" options.. I think in the Campaign chapter of the book.. It's a good place to start at least.

Edit: I took some time to read a bit of the first spoiler tag.. honestly, I didn't read it all, because I don't care.. as for the guns though, saw you're using 4th edition, so my suggestion still stands.. Use Crossbows as a base, and change them depending on how different you want them to be.. if you want them to be harder to reload, make them reload move or reload standard (the latter would be really cruel, as it would account to a 1 shot every 2 rounds), reduce the range, and make your larger ones Area damage (Area 2 would be fine).

If you want them to be balanced, use crossbows without adjusting the actual stats, just change the names, and the descriptions, and they'll play balanced.

 

[pantsoffdanceoff]

I've tried pirates before and it didn't really work for us. The fact is that open sea navigation isn't really all that great in D&D. Also pirates don't do a lot of dungeon dwelling which takes out a lot especially considering the games name. It's your choice though you could find ways around it.

 

[JemJar]

This is all my own opinions, blah blah blah but I'm sharing them because I'm better than all of you lot.

Races

Spoiler: Races Feedback

Work really hard on making the Halflings worthwhile. Halfling culture / society is often ignored in basic DnD sources as they're often just said to live among the other groups a lot and so end up having no real identity. Possibly base the halflings on a real-world race or steam-punk culture you can find. For some reason the description you gave of a halfling ship put me in mind of a Chinese junk, giving them a Chinese twist would give them more flavour.

Dwarves I presume should be sailing Ironclads like this one [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Uss_Cairo_h61568.jpg] which look quite dwarfy.

World

Spoiler: World Feedback

Personally I'd ditch Mid-Terra. By all means have a neutral but non-pirate central hub but make it a big and colourful multi-racial city, give it a ruler of one race or another and allow them to be accepted (to varying degrees) by the rulers of each other race. If you're a WoW player think Booty Bay, if you're a Discworld reader, think Ankh-Morpork. A single island containing nicely divided camps each with one-seventh of the land is just too contrived to be reasonable.

Guns

Spoiler: Guns Feedback

Alex P makes some good suggestions on gun mechanics, especially for the loading-firing mechanisms, and the questions he asks are important. Silly as it sounds you could do worse than stealing some inspiration from Fable II's firearms [http://fable.wikia.com/wiki/Weapons_(Fable_II)], they seem to work alright for a deliberately hybrid system.

I quite like Altorin's suggestion for using crossbow rules, but only really for the hand-crossbow / pistol, it doesn't really fit for muskets and blunderbusses and personally I'd bin the rifle.

Which actually leaves two questions:

1) How authentic do you want to be?

Fire rate should be once in three rounds for a brilliantly trained soldier with a breech-loading musket or rifle - then again crossbow fire-rate probably wasn't much better in the real world.

Given the ranges of most DnD combats, the tactics of the day would probably have been to fire one round with whatever firearm you had loaded and then drop it, draw a sword and charge / defend from a charge. If you were bold you might have a bayonet attached, the downside being that reloading is then even worse.

This might not be a problem...


2) How do you want to affect the Ranger class?

No-one else should be using range weapons that much, casters (thanks to at-will powers) now have better things to do and melee fighters should really be paying attention to their job description. If none of your players want to play a ranged-Ranger then it probably doesn't matter if you under-power firearms a bit.

Replacing the hand-crossbow with a pistol makes sense, upping the reload time is probably essential but buccaneers (rogues) carrying five loaded pistols is reasonable.

Replacing the crossbow with the musket or whatever isn't actually balanced, anyone who has access to Military Weapons in the DnD rules will choose a longbow instead of the crossbow. Players may ask the justifiable question of why the longbow has been replaced by this sub-standard pea-shooter.

The Blunderbuss should be properly short range, probably as little as four squares and do a severe amount of damage - it's the precursor to the shotgun and should behave as an exaggerated version of one. Alternatively you could treat the blunderbuss as firing a weaker small-blast attack (2x2?), which makes it an interesting short-range minion killer. Reloading should be pretty slow.

The Musket is a pig of a gun, but your range increases a fair bit, probably to the region of eight squares or a shade more. The damage should be a bit higher than that of a crossbow, probably at the loss of some of the proficiency bonus. Ultimately DnD massively under-rates the range of bows and crossbows, so the other alternative is to shaft the musket range and force long-range penalties. Reload time should be painful, among actual troops using muskets the ability to get four shots off in one minute (ten rounds) was something truly brilliant. Expect reload times of three or four rounds, accept that players will carry a musket for one-shot and drop it to fight in melee.

D20 Modern used a system of giving guns large base damage (DEagle was 2d12 iirc) and taking off damage with each range increment. It's a very real option, a musket ball will slow down pretty fast to the point where it might sting but not break the skin, much like being hit by a plastic BB.

Got some ideas for gadgets (and need to edit this post) but have no time, so I'll update later.

 

[Woem]

What I'm missing is a Big Bad Evil Guy with a master plan. For instance a mind flayer lich pirate that turns low-life commoners into undead and lets them create leather armor 24/7 in sweatshops and offers them for sale. Remember: undead don't have to eat, rest or sleep. Hell, the armor might even be made from human skin.

And to add some political intrigue you could have the lich work together with the government, or what's left of it: the lich pirate disguises himself as a rich business man and makes them a deal to get rid of the beggars, petty thieves and gangsters in return for a small fee. The mayor and politicians would look away from his actions since they're more than happy to have clean and "safe" streets.

 

[To mock a killingbird]

Ok, about weapons and the sort:

Eladrin, having studied magic in a scientific way, categorizing and experimenting with it found a set of materials and geometrical structures, called magic lenses, that if magic is channeled through it is focused and enhanced. Also, they found a way to store "all-purpose magic" in a form of crystal or structure in a battery-like fashion. So, say you connect one of those batteries to a magic lens and out into an open flame, you get a blast ray even a barbarian could use. In other words, a magic cannon. Combine with any other element to get whatever result you want. The magic that comes out is in no way refined, and usually makes for blunt defenses, heavy personal weapons and deadly traps. temples of the Eldarin are full of magic lenses for all purposes (defense, healing, beauty, ect).

Also, a dark sect in the dragon-born has found a way to distill a form of super-drug from people that have been fed with a certain poisoned plant, killing them in the process. The drug is extracted from their livers, and can be used to boost mental capabilities, cure mortal wounds and illness, but is also A LOT OF FUN. like, the most fun you had in your life. and so many people get kidnapped from the streets by pirates to make what is known as the aristocrat's drug, usually used only for recreation. People who survive the extraction process, are given supernatural mental or physical abilities by the constant presence of the drug in their system, but are usually also crippled in some way, so you can get a man that can hear a pin drop a hundred miles away, but is always hungry for something, and will eat even wood-bark.
These people are usually put to use within their captor's ranks, for their abilities are usually helpful in some manner.

 

[SilentHunter7]

Spoiler: So now that I've given you guys an idea let me show you where you come in

Weapons: I've grappled about how I should have firearms be about of this, I know I want them, but I'm still trying to decide how to balance them. Currently I'm thinking they will be more powerful than bows but require much longer to reload. The four types will be,
-Pistol
-Rifle
-Musket
-Blunderbuss

A good historically, and physically accurate balance for firearms is actually perfect for your setting; gunpowder is absolutely useless when it gets wet. And considering your oceanic setting, it shouldn't be too hard to design a credible dungeon that forces players to find a way around water hazards, or else render their firearms useless.

Also, black powder really likes to absorb moisture from the air when it's warm and humid. Which, when near the ocean in a tropical area, is all the time. Powder with a high water content burns slower, and affects muzzle velocity, if it even fires at all. So you can have a gun lose a point towards damage and armor piercing every d12 or so hours the powder has been exposed to humid air. Which is an incentive to NOT always keep the gun loaded 24/7.

Unless of course there's an enchantment that protects things from water damage, or a way to keep the party from spamming it.

Just a few suggestions. Good luck!

 

[Fallswhale]

With gun magic interactions I always enjoy the spell shot concept. It usually gives bullets a touch spell effect but play it by ear.
One of my favorite campaigns involved Spelljammers and our group who was lead by a Gnomish inventor(all 2nd edition rules, but it can give you a framework)

The big advancement that gunpowder makes is penetration. It eleminates alot of the protection provided by armors of the past. If I remember right gunpowder weapons in past editions ignored armor for purposes of to hit number. That can be a rather substantial advantage.

As for reload times, how advanced a steam punk are you going? You are probably shooting for a 1800's level tech as you are talking steam engines. This can be either powder and horn reloading in the early part of the century with a substantial time, civil war era pre packaged pinches (alot faster probably by at least half again), and then the cartriges comes into being (click and reload for next turn).

And then there is rifling(bored out barrels) that will substantially raise accuracy.

Maybe races have different levels and some peoples get certain advantages while others don't.

 

[Captainguy42]

MAMA'MIA that's allot of help! Time to give some feedback I guess.

*snip*

Thanks those are a lot of things I didn't think about. The firing mechanisms will be mostly flintlock, but I may have cartridge rounds available later in campaign. Guns can also be magical (I don't see why not). I'm going to have the average musket do 2d8 (tell me what you think about that). I already anticipate the pistoleer scenario, I decide that would require a certain feat and you would be limited to a certain amount (I can justify this with a legend of a pistoleer who carried 22 guns one day he tripped on one dangling near his feet and it shot igniting the others, he was hit with 15 of his own shots and died).

*snip*

Crossbows you say? Great idea! I checked my 3rd Edition books and it I saw the suggestions it gives I'll consider then but I do want my guns to have a little more kick.

*snip*

Well pirates always look for buried treasure right? Why can't the treasure be buried beneath a mountain of minions, and traps?

*snip*

Races: I like the spin on the Halflings a lot! As for the Ironclad hit the nail on the head, exactly what I was thinking.

World-d-ditch M-m-Mid-Terra? Well why I may not want to go that far I do like your idea of having it be a separate national entity with it's own sovereign ruler. The ruling class would be extremely wealthy from all the trade but also angry because of how the other nations suppress them.

Guns:
1) I am very willing to compromise the guns authenticity to make it a fun addition. At the same time I recognize that authenticity for a gun can make the best balance.

2) Rangers, I do love them so (Drizzt fan here). With guns it will shit them from being less focused on getting a shot off every turn but making sure each on counts. A Ranger will be given a bonus feat making them faster at loading firearms.

Blunderbuss: I like the burst damage idea, originally I had a plant to have them be more of a cone effect, but a burst could also work and be effective.

The DM Guide say's an encounters last about 5 minutes in-game time so that means a ranger should get 12-20 shots off so I'll plan the reload time accordingly. I also like decreasing weapon damage based on increments.

PS. Looking forward to those gadgets!

*snip*

I like the overall idea but because my characters are pirate they'll need more motivation than just "For the good of the Land" possibly one or more characters can enter a Davey Jones situation with this Lich needing to kill him to reclaim their souls. I do like him for a great villain however.

*snip*

I like the Eladrin magic lazers, they give the Eladrin more of a steampunk spin than what I origanlly planned.

As for the Dragonborn drug-ring I definitely could see that making a great quest.

*snip*

Water you say? I am intrigued, that could make for some very interesting circumstances. I'd have to pull that one sparingly though and make sure players could avoid it with proper precautions, so as it becomes a hazard and not a nuisance that players have learned to live with.

*snip*

I to am a fan of "Magical Munitions", I decided early on that the pioneers in this field would be the Tieflings, who use magically enhanced cannons.

In terms of armor I do remember that some elite armorers learned ways of how to make a breastplate bullet proof (infact the term originated in the 1700's when a breastplate would be "bullet proved" by deflecting a pistol round). Armor could also have magical enhancements to make it more effective against bullets.

In-terms of how advances I am aiming for 1800's, steamships, flint-locks and crazy inventors.

If you could send tell about the the Spelljammers campaign it would be nice, mostly concerned with how you handled guns.


Wow that was a lot of input in not allot of time KEEP THEM COMING!

Some notes:

-In terms of technology I want players to feel like their in an era of accelerated technological discovery so while we might start with steamboats and flintlock we may finish with internal combustion, and cartridges.

-With here are the basic ideas I want for the paragon classes: Ocean Cleric (Cleric), a servant to the god of the sea he can pray for good weather, and storms on the enemy; Marine (Fighter), a master of amphibious, and ship-to-ship battle; Blade of Poseidon (Paladin), another servant of the sea god, who blesses him with the strength of a tidal wave; Sharpshooter (Ranger), Uses his rifle with deadly efficiency to dispatch his mark; Buccaneer (Rogue) an agile fighter who finds himself at home raiding the gang-plank; Davy Jone's Soldier (Warlock), you have made a pact with the devil of the sea for power; Pirate-Vet, you've been in the game long enough to know all the tricks; Storm Wizard (Wizard), focus on turning the sea against your enemies.

-Gadgets, while I said they should act like buyable feats, can also have a down side IE: A scope attachment reduces hit penalty at long rand but makes it harder to hit close enemies.

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

Another factor to consider (and forgive me if someone has covered it already) is accuracy. Rifled barrels have much more accuracy than smooth barrel guns. Length of the barrel also affects accuracy. Longer barrels are more accurate, but also much more unwieldy. There was a reason armies used massed fire up until quite recently. An option would be to change the balance on power vs. accuracy and take into account the issue of friendly fire, given the decreased accuracy of guns of that era vs. bows.

Oh, and also keep in mind that cannon and muskets require stores of gunpowder, stores which are kept in the hold of the ship, which could blow the ship to hell and gone if they caught fire. You could, in that case, have ship vs. ship fire-based attacks designed to do exactly that. Wooden ships, being as they were waterproofed with pitch and tar, were surprisingly vulnerable to fire, given the wet environment. There is also the option of hollow cannon-balls packed with gunpowder and lit with a fuse, to be fired or thrown at enemy ships. These blew holes in the decks, into which you could throw more of these early bombs, with the goal of blowing out the gunnery, the powder stores, or both.

Have you read any of the Patrick O'Brian books? They are some of the definitive fictional descriptions of Age of Sail naval warfare, and very entertaining in their own right.

 

[Captainguy42]

*snip*

Thanks for the input. The power vs accuracy trade off was something I wanted to have by having the musket and the rifle. The musket having more power, while the rifle had more accuracy and range.

I like the idea of ship weak points I'll definitely build that into the system. I'll also look out for Patrick O'Brain next time I'm at a book store.

 

[Souplex]

The dwarves will build a giant steam super ship to get rid of any annoying pansy elves cause elves are jerks.

 

[DrDeath3191]

Talking on gadgets, can they be magical gadgets, or are they merely mechanical? I would suggest merely having the gadgets add small feats (perhaps an At-Will or Encounter ability). Seeing as piracy is a theme here, you might think of employing that into your game-plan. An idea I had, for example, is a Grappling Hook Hand. It has an encounter ability which allows you to move up to 5 spaces outside of your move phase (essentially the Eledrin Warp Ability). Take a look at the feats of characters and races, and implement those to give a real balance to the tactics of a character.

 

[DreamKing]

Dipolmats would be a interesting class to play as and could come in handy in negotiating truces, contracts, jobs, etc. I would include a captain class as a paragon path. I would also add a recruiting mechanic to change things up a bit.

Add alliances, trade routes, and establish weather conditions surrounding each land mass. Hurricanes are good idea but it would make little sense if there was a hurricane in an area filled with glaciers, unless magic is wreaking havoc with the climates.

What are the leaders of each race looking to obtain?

Small pirate villages seperated from the main world that make a living off of stealing prized goods, paid by officials in the various governments, or hired by a government to take out rivals is also a great idea, because it introduces factions other than the different nations.

 

[JemJar]

Spoiler: Response: Rangers

2) Rangers, I do love them so (Drizzt fan here). With guns it will shit them from being less focused on getting a shot off every turn but making sure each on counts. A Ranger will be given a bonus feat making them faster at loading firearms.

As Drizzt fanboying goes he's known for the swords not ranged combat, so anyone trying to make a clone of him will still be fairly well off. If someone wants to play a Ranger with ranged attacks you may have to rebuild the class for it to work with slow-reloading weapons.

It's one of the best reasons I can think of for trying to make a DnD version of the Fable II Turret Rifle - assuming you've not played it the turret rifle (and turret pistol) are basically six-barrelled weapons, hence are able to fire six shots before reloading. Reloading of course will take a long time as you've essentially got to reload six rifles/pistols.

Consider making basic muskets etc. available as Simple Ranged Weapons and listing Turret versions as Military - then Rangers and other "martial" classes can field them with other classes less able to, reducing the chances of people asking why whole platoons don't get given them.

Spoiler: Response: Gun Speed

The DM Guide say's an encounters last about 5 minutes in-game time so that means a ranger should get 12-20 shots off so I'll plan the reload time accordingly. I also like decreasing weapon damage based on increments.

To my knowledge I can't find a trace of the DMG reckoning encounters will take 5 minutes - that's often stated as a maximum duration for encounter-length effects just to help with surprise counter-attacks. Given that a round is six seconds I'm certainly not used to encounters lasting fifty rounds.

As a combination with the comment on Rangers above, it's one of the best reasons I can think of for trying to make a DnD version of the Fable II Turret Rifle - assuming you've not played it the turret rifle (and turret pistol) are basically six-barrelled weapons, hence are able to fire six shots before reloading. Reloading of course will take a long time as you've essentially got to reload six rifles/pistols.

Consider making basic muskets etc. available as Simple Ranged Weapons and listing Turret versions as Military - then Rangers and other "martial" classes can field them with other classes less able to, reducing the chances of people asking why whole platoons don't get given them.

On classes I'd try not to create too much new content if you can, you've got your hands full enough anyway. Slowly try to create some of the classes you want from the standard PHB 1 & 2 options and see what you get, I'm often surprised by the potential for diversity.

Don't forget also that when it comes to ship-to-ship combat, the timescales involved will allow ritualing as an option, so extending the spell list that way will keep basic dungeon crawling combat more balanced.

If you are dead set on new stuff though, see if you can find a copy of the Dread Pirate class from 3rd Ed Complete Adventurer, you might want to give that a look in - if you ask very very nicely I might be able to type it up in a tell for you.

 

[Captainguy42]

*snip*

I had already planned stop the players from getting a ship before level ten, it nice to know other people are the same wavelength though.

*snip*

Seeing as how ships and guns can be magical I have no intention of keeping gadgets strictly tech, although magical enhancements already exist in regular D&D. It is always nice to come up with new ones.

*snip*

I didn't want to make the Players choose between being a captain and a paragon class.

Alliances and trade routes are going to be a big part, trade routes especially for a pirate who will stock them. Each nation has Imperialistic ambitions and a desire for mass trade so they going to be constantly posturing to get the upper hand on the other nations. Players as free agents would get to work for the whole range of factions during their campaign.

*snip*

Turret guns sound good, more shots at the expense of loading time, but it would make rangers more effective for longer stretches during a fight. I'd make sure my players would know however that I reserve the right to change reloading speed for balance's sake, and to make sure they don't hate it I'll make reload speed start slower that I think it should be and make it faster. On Classes I think I'm going to stop worrying about them I'd rather focus my energy on other aspects.

 

[Dr.Sean]

I always thought D20 Modern had a nice gun system, but it has incompatibility issues with DnD 4.

 

[The Maddest March Hare]

I'm not great at DnD, I've only dabbled really. But one thing I'd love to see in this setting, seeing as it involves pirates, is drunkenness! XD

Maybe roll a D4, on a 1 they overcome their dizzy head and remain composed for 2 turns, on a 2 they fall over and sleep for a turn, on a 3 they become rowdy and incensed, attacking the nearest enemy, and on a 4 they go on a rampage and attack the nearest model of any sort 'for booze money'.

You probably won't use this, and I'm not even certain if I got it to work within the rulebook, but damn that would be funny to watch and keeps with character!