Plunder

There is a difference between Plunder and Gold and other valuables that are traditionally associated with lining a pirates chest. While gold and doubloons can be plunder found in the hulls and vaults of their targets, it is more common to find trade goods, foodstuffs, and other valuables of a more mundane sort. By combining all trade goods into a collection of goods that can be more easily managed.

Winning plunder is done through many methods. Claiming ships, hideouts, find a hidden treasure. A portion of these finds can be translated into easily managed plunder while the rest of it is conventional adventuring loot.

Minor Award: 1 point of Plunder

Major Award: 5 points of Plunder

Value of Plunder

It can be sold for gold pieces for approx. 1,000gp It helps increase infamy

Exchanging 1 point of plunder for gold requires a PC to spend 1 full day at port and make an applicable skill check. Regardless of how much plunder the PCs have, one PC must spend a full day trading to exchange 1 point of plunder for gold. The PC trading also must be the same PC to make the skill check to influence the trade

The larger the Port the higher the skill check. The better the price the PC's can get for their plunder.

At smallerports there’s little chance of getting more than half value for plunder, unless a PC can employ a skill to make a better deal. At larger ports, the chances of finding a buyer willing to pay a reasonable price for cargo increases, and PCs can still employ skill checks to make even more lucrative bargains. PCs seeking to win a higher price for their plunder can make one of the following skill checks and apply the results to the table below: Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, or any applicable Profession skill, like Profession (merchant). A poor result on a skill check can reduce the value of plunder. If the PCs are not satisfied with the price they are offered for their plunder, they need not take it, but a day’s worth of effort is still expended. They can try for a better result the next day. The table below explains how much PCs can expect to get for their plunder in communities of various sizes, the skill check DC required to increase this amount by a set percentage, and the maximum amount buyers in a community can be convinced to buy plunder for. Each column is explained in brief here

Community Size: The size of a community is determined by its population, noted in every community stat block and further detailed in the Pathfinder RPG GameMastery Guide.

Base Sale %: Every community is willing to buy plunder from the PCs, but not necessarily at its full value. This column lists the percentage at which a community is willing to buy 1 point of plunder (along with that percentage’s expression in gold pieces).

DC to Increase Sale: This is the skill check DC required to increase the sale percentage a community offers for  plunder. Every community can be convinced to offer more for plunder (to a maximum sale percentage listed in the final column of the table below), but this requires the PCs to make a skill check. The DC of this skill check is 10 + an amount determined by how much the PCs are trying to increase the sale percentage. For example, if a PC is unwilling to

accept a mere 20% of the value of his group’s plunder when attempting to sell it in a hamlet, he can attempt to increase

this percentage by 5% by making a DC 15 skill check. If he wants to attempt to increase the percentage to 30% (the

maximum amount the hamlet can possibly pay), he must make a DC 20 skill check. Failure results in no increase, and

this skill check can only be made once per day. In larger communities, the DC to increase these percentages rises,

but the percentage also increases, as does the maximum percentage buyers can be talked up to.

Maximum Sale %: This is the highest percentage at which a community can be talked into buying 1 point of plunder. Merchants in a community will never buy plunder for a higher price than this. Additionally, this column lists the skill check DC required to haggle buyers up to this percentage, and how much the percentage is worth in gold pieces. Spending Plunder: In addition to its value in gold pieces, plunder is vital to increasing a pirate crew’s Infamy. See the Infamy subsystem for more details.

Buying Plunder: Although gold typically proves more valuable and versatile than plunder, some parties might wish to exchange their traditional wealth for plunder. In any community, a party can buy 1 point of plunder for 1,000 gp. What form of goods this plunder takes is determined by the GM.