Hi everyone, I have a druid in my group who is able to wildshape into a stegosaurus. Since they are usually on a ship we ruled that a standard stegosaurus would weigh too much for the normal deck to support.
Would you allow the druid to cast airwalk and just make himself light enough for the deck to support, but not actually fly, since he would not be fast enough to catch up with the ship in that case.
Hi everyone, I have a druid in my group who is able to wildshape into a stegosaurus. Since they are usually on a ship we ruled that a standard stegosaurus would weigh too much for the normal deck to support.
Would you allow the druid to cast airwalk and just make himself light enough for the deck to support, but not actually fly, since he would not be fast enough to catch up with the ship in that case.
I would rule that using airwalk, the ship would move out from underneath the Druid, unless he could keep up, or hold on. Of course, since a Stegosaurus only weighs 5,000 pounds, and large ships can carry over twice that in cargo alone (in addition to the crew) I would also rule that a Stegosaurus has no problems riding in a sufficiently large ship.
First- i would just tell him to wildshape into something smaller. Very few if any ships, are going to be large enough to truly accomodate such a beast in a battle scenario and it just isn't practical for such confined quarters. Just my .02.
Otherwise though- If you jump on a ship the ship doesn't suddenly rush past you. If you throw a paper airplane it doesn't suddenly disappear as the ship rushes out from under it. You can also, depending on the wind of course, toss a ball to someone else while above or below decks without the ship suddenly rushing past the ball.
Using that same logic- I wouldn't have a problem with someone using airwalk (or levitate for that matter, or fly) to alleviate their weight while on ship.
Just make the player aware that if they start trying to get all uppity with it (i.e. tryin to actually fly around with it) that they will at some point "lose traction" with the ship and it'll start to slip away.
I am not a physicist or anything close to it, so I can't really explain it better than that.
-S
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I am not a physicist or anything close to it, so I can't really explain it better than that.
-S
I am a physicist, and Selgard is basically correct. The druid would initially have the same velocity as the ship, and moving upward would not change that. If the ship sped up, slowed down, or turned, the druid would rapidly move out of sync depending on the magnitude of the acceleration. Wind resistance would slowly cause the druid to fall backward (relative to the ship), but at the speeds a sailing ship moves, that could easily be corrected by simply holding on, or bumping against a railing or something.
I have to agree with the question: why does the druid need to be a stegosaurus on the ship anyway? If he really likes to be a big animal, why not a big swimming animal like a pleseosaur or killer whale or something? There are lots of aquatic animals that would let him be alongside the ship, and also fight in sea encounters a lot more effectively.
Edit: Upon further reflection, I'm thinking of an effect like levitate. Since Air Walk gives the character traction with the air, I supposit's a DM call whether the druid "sticks" the air that the ship is moving past. It's similar to the question of air walking in a strong wind - does the wind blow the person along with it, or is air walk motion relative to the ground, not the air?
The simplest, most player friendly option is just to let it work. The druid is using up a 4th level spell just to pull off this trick. Bringing realish physics into a fantasy magic system can be a fun mental exercise, but often leads to some bizarre interactions.
My first question as well.
I have to agree with the question: why does the druid need to be a stegosaurus on the ship anyway?
+2. As others have pointed out, the druid could turn into any number of other creatures that would not have this problem. Since he could turn into a Huge animal, he could also turn into a medium Water Elemental and be very useful (or Air Elemental, and help propel the ship! ;) ).
Or he could even---bear with me here, I know this idea is crazy---remain in his humanoid form.
We're stampeding in the air, We're trampling in a moonlit sky
The people far below are screaming as we fly