As weird as it may sound...Craft: Trap? It seems to be pseudo-mechanical and would likely require the same amount of skill to make as a simple snare trap or something.
Problem is I can't find the DCs for creating Mechanical Traps.
As for land speed, I'd say double, maybe triple the character's base speed? Maybe counts as a mount for the purposes of Mounted Combat/Ride-By Attack and such, but you have to make an Acrobatics check to avoid falling off when you attack?
Seems like it'd be interesting.
+10ft movespeed while traveling on well maintained, uncrowded roads. Acrobatics should suffice for a check to stay on. Just double the DC for vertical and horizontal jumps and you're golden.
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How would it be statted using the Vehicle Rules?
Would it be considered a vehicle, and if not, what would it be considered?
Treating it as a vehicle sounds reasonable. Statting it out would depend what exactly it's made of (hardness, ect). It's small and fast so a high AC would make sense. I'd say +10 untyped bonous to speed, so let it stack with affects like haste. If someone is attacking from it provide a decent penalty, with acrobatics and/or ride checks to stay on.
And where would you ride this wonderdeck?
On the amazingly high quality glass smooth ashphalt roads of Golarion?
Do you own a skateboard and have ridden one?
Could you kindly take it to your nearest dirt track and give it a ride? How about a rough cobbletone road?
I'd say thats going to be your problem - no surfaces on which it is going to work.
I've ridden a skateboard on dirt and very rough roads (gravel being the worst attempted. Gravel's not a good choice).
It's doable.
It's doable, sure, I've done downhills and 'slalom' runs on compacted dirt roads... but you certainly wont be kicking along at any real speed and for any great distance... it will be kickkickkickkickkickkickkick and no glide.
You certainly wouldn't be moving faster than someone just running along and would have to devote all your effort to just moving.
Well, there are off-road skateboards known as Mountainboards.
Once again, you will need to be using a hill or slope for monmentum... you are also moving well outside the 'skateboard' concept. Not sure how your solid wood/stone/metal wheels are going to go for any sort of traction either.
Have an image search of Roman Roads.
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I don't have one handy of a skateboard, but I do have a medieval woodblock of a wizard on a surfboard or single water ski.
sounds like you need engineering to make it work.
Well the conventional version is difficult, but the back to the future version is very doable. Have a familiar cast from a scroll floating disc. And hop on the floating disc and it has the movement speed of familiar. You can also dot it with wand of floating disc. Its best if the familiar has invisibility.
Since your a passenger, and don't control the movement. You make either acrobatic s check or ride check and then get full bab.
A modern skateboard is a fairly sophisticated device. It's not just "four wheels on a board." It's four wheels made of a highly specialized material designed specifically for traction and flexibility to avoid the problem of the tiniest pebble causing a wheel to come to an immediate and dangerous halt. The wheels themselves use several ballbearings and the front axle is designed to allow steering of the board.
Now, having said that, if you want skateboards in your fantasy world go ahead and make them. But you might want them to be some minor magical thing so that you don't have to explain why you have skateboards but you don't have any of the vast array of mechanical devices that would exploit the same technology that a skateboard is based on, or where you managed to find nearly perfect steel spheres of nearly identical size since just the creation of the ball bearings alone would be beyond any reasonable blacksmith's ability.
Having said THAT, the only real question I have is whether you want one just for role playing flavor, or if you want some mechanical advantage, etiher while traveling or while in combat?
Well, it's more for flavor, but being able to utilize it in combat, without it being akin to falling on my sword, would be awesome.
It all depends on how "gritty" your campaign is. Ball bearings are required to make a reasonably effective skateboard, and ball bearings are highly specialized manufactured items requiring extreme precision.
So if you want to do it, I'd use some sort of researched cantrip to make a board "float" like the "Hoverboard" from Back to the Future.
If you don't care about grittiness, then just have a blacksmith masterwork something up for you.
Your GM will have to decide what mechanical advantage it may or may not supply.
Well, if my DM has to do any work to figure out how it works, then it will be vetoed.
If I do all the work myself, and it is obvious that it not some kind of OP horror, then it will be fine.
Then if I were you I'd go the masterwork blacksmith route since most folks probably don't realize what level of technology is actually inside skateboard wheels. Then I'd suggest that on paved roads I get a +10 to movement or something like that.
I wouldn't push for any in combat benefits.
Could one charge on a skateboard?
I suppose that would depend on your credit rating.
If it was just four wheels on a board you couldn't steer and there's be no shock absorption to speak of, so you're talking some fairly complex blacksmithing for things like the trucks. I'd also say trapsmithing is probably your best bet.I don't think it's possible without fabricate. Uniform ball bearings are just not happening with medieval or renaissance crafting technology. Without the bearings it's not going to roll easy enough on wheels that would fit under it to be useful. You might be able to do without bearings if you use something like Salve of Slipperiness as a lubricant, but that's a wondrous item.
Well, if it's a technology argument, then I remind you that there are shotguns in Pathfinder.
Blunderbluss was invented in the 18th Century and shotguns in the 19th Century... and while they are engineering feats and require some alchemical components they are not as sophisticated as an ordinary skateboard that has ballbearing wheels plus urethane composites and other 20th Century technology that is advanced (unless you are living in the Numeria part of Golarion perhaps?).
Not without some Fabricate and high magic can you make a decent Skateboard in Pathfinder... and even then you would need an area that is smooth enough to use it (Everyone keeps talking about a +10 movement rate for using a skateboard but its useless unless you have super nice terain.... even a dirt road will slow you down).
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There has been proof that Uniform Iron Balls could be made using Golarion Tech.
Look for something called Casting Stones. They were designed for making Bullet Molds for Mass Produced Muskets/Muzzle-loading Rifles.
Most of the earlier ones did have a small peg, to allow a pipe for lead to enter a mold made using the stone, that could easily be removed and typically was when the Stone was retired. When retired they were used in Wagon Axles to along easier turning on the Yoke.
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Okay, so far, this is an argument more about technological advancement and era of production than it is about the skills used in skating. The obstacles described are technological innovations in our own history, but exclude any alternative possibility in the process. When defined by a series of problems and solutions, it could be said that the engineering involved would be oriented on the design challenges of uniform ball bearings (solved by casting stones, and would be uncommon or rare in trade); a specialized material needed for wheel composition; and a surface optimized for practiced skill in such activity. Optimized is just a fancy way of saying masterwork. If people wanted it, it's doubtful that simple folk magics couldn't come up with something - and if even one of those innovations came from a more common source (say, a magical fantasy rubber plant that produces the perfect alchemical resource), then it's not impossible.
So let's change the discussion and turn the argument up on its head, just to get to the root of the design challenge here. Because a player character is going to be more concerned for concept and fun than they are about the realism of the technology. Also, we can fall back on the fragile item quality and broken condition when necessary to simulate realism.
Surfing has been around for a long while, could be enjoyed potentially anywhere there are waves, and requires few of those other specialized innovations for it to originate. Someone mentioned on a similar thread that we have ice skates in PFRPG - but I don't recall in what resource those might be. Ice provides a common slick surface in many circumstances, as well as rushing water (design challenge solved). When we can tie together these innovations to their skill use and possible trade values along with the skateboard basis, I think it could serve as a nice new supplemental content source.
I also have a player who verbalized a desire to play a PC concept that was a surfer or skateboarder type - players want combat tricks and fancy moves along with combat advantage. There is a middle ground in there somewhere. The skill of using such a device is Dex-based and mobility-oriented, regardless of the terrain and other necessary practical or technical obstacles involved in its design and use in gaming. I would stick with engineering or even toy-making over trapsmithing.