I've just had the idea to build a nation of dwarves who have left the confines of their mountain and taken to the skies. I've got the whole nation written up, with politics and military and trade agreements and the lot. The issue I'm running into is that I have no idea how much it costs to make a magical flying ship. There are some nice charts and guidelines for making normal, aquatic ships, but just adding the fly spell and permanancy seems wrong.
I'm needing prices on everything from skiffs to galleys. Also, if there are some rules on making them somewhere, I'd be interested in those too.
They covered this in a 3.0 dragon magazine, but I can't remember which one (can't find it right now). I heard a 3pp released info on this for pathfinder.
The problem with starting with an artifact (such as the Cloud Castle of the Storm King) is that they don't provide prices. It is cool though, and I just might include that somewhere in a future game.
Any idea where I might be able to find that Dragon mag? My Google-fu just returned lots of bad torrents that had nothing to do with the DnD related magazine.
|
Back in the 1980's D&D established rules for this.
Craft Gnomish Submersible
To avoid being crushed, the crew must travel in water within the vessel (water breathing) allowing survival. Water is allowed to enter the hull through micropores. The Vessel looks like an Iron Fish 7' wide and 20' long. Pilot and 2 passengers.
Requirements: 20th level wizard; Spells - major creation, Water breathing, Fly
Enchant Hull:
major creation (iron) [each spell creates 10' x 10' x 2"] : 5th level spell x 8 spells = 40
Fly : 3rd level spell x 8 spells = 24
Water breathing : 3rd level spell x 8 spells = 24
total spell levels = 88 spell levels
Enchant cost = 88 spell levels x 3000gp = 264,000gp
Enchant Time = 1 week + 1 day per 1000gp or 271 days.
For a Stone Craft (Flying Keep/Sontaran Sphere), you simply calculate the number of Major Creation Spells you need to create x volume of stone and add the same number of fly and create air spells.
Anyone else getting Spelljammer flashbacks?
Anyone else getting Spelljammer flashbacks?
I liked spelljammer.
I've just had the idea to build a nation of dwarves who have left the confines of their mountain and taken to the skies. I've got the whole nation written up, with politics and military and trade agreements and the lot. The issue I'm running into is that I have no idea how much it costs to make a magical flying ship. There are some nice charts and guidelines for making normal, aquatic ships, but just adding the fly spell and permanancy seems wrong.
I'm needing prices on everything from skiffs to galleys. Also, if there are some rules on making them somewhere, I'd be interested in those too.
Once you find the rules you want, will we get to see your nation of sky dwarves?
|
It's all 3.5 material, and thus both technically outdated and copyright, but:
Ebberon had elemental-powered flying ships; market price = 95,000 gold, but they were super-fast.
Arms and Equipment Guide had rules for Hot-Air Ships (zeppelins etc), which were rather cheaper but also slower and quite vulnerable to popping.
Faerun had Haluraa, a land of mages, who use flying ships, but they are both rather slow and cost something like 650,000 gold, which is crazy.
Calculate how much weight your fly spell can carry and how many times you will need to cast it to cover your vessel then work out how many permanency spells you need to cast.
If you want to do it cheaper then use levitate and sails to power and manoeuvre through the air.
Develop Mass Fly and Mass levitate to make things a bit cheaper...
Once you find the rules you want, will we get to see your nation of sky dwarves?
Well, here is my nation, with a lot of vagueries around how the skyships work. Feel free to check out any or all of the things on that wiki. It's the homebrew world my group and I play in. Feel free to use it as long as you remember that all the content contained within is out intellectual property, so don't try to sell it or claim it as your own. (I've had to start saying that lately and it makes me feel like a bit of a jerk.)
Your campaign world looks awesome. It is frightening how similar your pantheon is to one I created many years ago.!
Very interesting, I like.
Silver Crescent Publishing
|
I personally really liked spelljammer. But for this I see a few options.
1) You could go the general route of the spelljammer concept. The ship itself is simply a hull. The helm (in the case of spelljammer) is a magical item that enchants the ship, feeding off of the magical power of a spell caster to make it fly.
2) Enchant the primary parts of a ship with certain effects. For instance: A normal ship needs wind in its sails to move. So enchant the sails with a variation of the Gust of Wind spell. You use the rudder to steer. So enchant that with a form of telekinesis. End it all with an empowered fly spell cast on the figurehead (which may have additional enchantments for the protection of the ship and crew).
3) Of course with dwarves, you have their creative engineering and forging tendencies to aid you in these endeavors. Things can be enchanted by actions rather than spells. Similar to the Master Craftsman feat in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook. So in reality you can simply say that in crafting the ship, the dwarves empowered it with their efforts with the ability to soar through the skies like an eagle or a dragon.
Just a few possibilities that come to mind.
I've just had the idea to build a nation of dwarves who have left the confines of their mountain and taken to the skies. I've got the whole nation written up, with politics and military and trade agreements and the lot. The issue I'm running into is that I have no idea how much it costs to make a magical flying ship. There are some nice charts and guidelines for making normal, aquatic ships, but just adding the fly spell and permanancy seems wrong.
I'm needing prices on everything from skiffs to galleys. Also, if there are some rules on making them somewhere, I'd be interested in those too.
There is third party material somewhere that talks about a 6th level wiz spell that allows a ship to fly for 1d/lvl and can be made permanent. Even without the actual source i'd use that as a base for price. Movement would be based on the ships seagoing speed.
If you want it to go anywhere other in the breathable atmosphere you'll have to add more magic tricks to it.
There was also a D&D spell for Clerics called Shipflight It allowed a Cleric to turn any Ship into a Flying Ship for a 24 Period.
So you can go either way - Clerics or Wizards as the theme of your Skydwarves.
Any idea which book that was in?