Airships are so expensive I've never actually considered what to do with one at that level of play. :)
Well you can always get one the way we did...win it in a card game with its drunken former captain. :p
There's one major problem with sail on an airship which is why it has NEVER been done in real life. You've got nothing to stick the keel in! No tacking in an airship. Your only options are generally to be blown where the wind takes you.
Good point, guess we'll leave the canvas furled while in the sky. :)
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Airships are so expensive I've never actually considered what to do with one at that level of play. :)Well you can always get one the way we did...win it in a card game with its drunken former captain. :p
Then you got back to your room to discover that WBL fairies had stolen every one of your other worldly possessions.
:P
If it was a proper airship I would have recommended
modifying the spell Silk to Steel and making it a permanent area covering spell.
Then you got back to your room to discover that WBL fairies had stolen every one of your other worldly possessions.Airships are so expensive I've never actually considered what to do with one at that level of play. :)Well you can always get one the way we did...win it in a card game with its drunken former captain. :p
I'm somewhat curious. Do most DMs do this? Count the cost of an airship towards the PCs' WBL? It strikes me as...counterintuitive. I mean, the entire purpose of WBL is to manage the PCs' power level. Counting an expensive non-combat item like an airship, or say, a homebase like a castle, against WBL seems like it would make WBL relatively meaningless. You couldn't use it to gauge/control the PCs' power level because it would have no bearing on their actual abilities, having been bloated by completely RP purchases...
I'm somewhat curious. Do most DMs do this? Count the cost of an airship towards the PCs' WBL? It strikes me as...counterintuitive. I mean, the entire purpose of WBL is to manage the PCs' power level. Counting an expensive non-combat item like an airship, or say, a homebase like a castle, against WBL seems like it would make WBL relatively meaningless. You couldn't use it to gauge/control the PCs' power level because it would have no bearing on their actual abilities, having been bloated by completely RP purchases...
I'm confused by that strategy too... It certainly discourages (punishes, even) any and all roleplay acquisitions and player cleverness, and reinforces the idea that you're supposed to be playing the game for its combat and only combat.
Though most everything else is like that. If you take a roleplay-oriented feat or prestige class, those are levels or feat slots that you don't have for combat. Many things in Pathfinder are designed to be either-or, and insist that you choose combat or roleplay (with the occasional offering that does justice to both, but rarely). So I guess some GMs assume the same must apply to wealth, and set out to enforce the rule.
Many things in Pathfinder are designed to be either-or, and insist that you choose combat or roleplay (with the occasional offering that does justice to both, but rarely). So I guess some GMs assume the same must apply to wealth, and set out to enforce the rule.
I suppose so. :(
In any case, I don't see that being a problem in our game luckily, though. I'm not sure our airship will wind up being quite as decked out in nifty weaponry and defensives as I am now envisioning...but it'll be very fun to try. :)
That is why I mentioned the Downtime Systems.
I immediately thought of the A-team fixing up the air ship. Also the only right answer is Flame throwers.
I immediately thought of the A-team fixing up the air ship. Also the only right answer is Flame throwers.
A Dragon that also provides the energy to fly and can launch attacks at the enemies...
And I now got my new Pirate Crew. Blue Dragon Power Baby.
I immediately thought of the A-team fixing up the air ship. Also the only right answer is Flame throwers.
Heh! There are only two of us who actually work on the airship, but it's a fun image. :D
A Dragon that also provides the energy to fly and can launch attacks at the enemies...
And I now got my new Pirate Crew. Blue Dragon Power Baby.
You know, if this prototype engine winds up not working, I've now got plenty of ideas for alternate power sources. My magus actually has some strong ties to the dragons of Eberron, so getting a dragon involved would not be out of the question. :D
You know, if this prototype engine winds up not working, I've now got plenty of ideas for alternate power sources. My magus actually has some strong ties to the dragons of Eberron, so getting a dragon involved would not be out of the question. :DA Dragon that also provides the energy to fly and can launch attacks at the enemies...
And I now got my new Pirate Crew. Blue Dragon Power Baby.
And now I can't help but think of the Dragon Carried Airship from that old Dragon Hunters Cartoon.
I think detecting the other guy earlier than he detects you, and being able to hit him first / from far away are the most important things.
Some of the ideas you mentioned--like invisibility--have been touched on before, but this one is completely new. You have a very valid point that in a game of trying to blow your opponent out of the sky, early detection would be a huge advantage, something I hadn't even thought of at all.
I had to look the spell up, but the use of Prying Eyes is brilliant. We don't have a wizard in the group, but that may not be a barrier. Our alchemist has Craft Wondrous Item and we both have very high spellcraft checks, so we may be able to craft an item that can cast the spell for us a number of times a day.
Remember what admiral nelson always says ... "dimension-dooring your adamantine greataxe barbarian into the other guy's engine room is the best defense."
Heh! My magus and the monk are probably the hardest-hitting members of the group, and eventually I'll be able to Dimension Door and he'll be able to Abundant Step. :)
obviously both of you should invest in the dimensional agility lines, so you can flank with each other and yourselves (also having two ichigo's popping around beating the snot out of people is a great image)!
Shunpo. I like that image. Especially if they were using Katana.
Shunpo. I like that image. Especially if they were using Katana.
Heh! Unfortunately no katanas. My magus wields a gunblade, and the monk is currently going unarmed, since his large-sized fists do bigger damage dice than his weapon was. When he did use a weapon though, it was a kusari-gama, which definitely had zan-pak-tou potential, looks-wise. :)
Shuhei Hisagi's Zanpakutou Kazeshini is a Kusarigama-based Weapon.
Shuhei Hisagi's Zanpakutou Kazeshini is a Kusarigama-based Weapon.
You know, now that I think more about Bleach, even a gunblade probably wouldn't be out of place as a zanpakutou...there were some crazy-ass zanpakutou in that series... :p
The amount of player paranoia expressed on these boards continues to amaze and amuse.
I was responding to the poster who said I'd come back and find all my other possessions vanished to accomodate the cost of the airship. :p
In a proper campaign an airship isn't a wealth commoddity, it's a story element. It's their for the players to play with, and for the DM to throw a spanner in the name of campaign story progression. I use what the PC's acquire to determine the next storyline.
I agree 100%, as does our DM for this campaign. It also serves as a way for us to spend resources on non-combat stuffs, use our organizational contacts, etc. Like you said, a story element. One I'm giddy to be playing with for the first time ever. :)
In such a situation I don't make adjustments to WBL. That's because once I'm done with character creation, WBL gets kicked to the curb. The numbers by themselves mean very little as to how PC's are equipped to deal with their problems. that's determined by their skill and approach. A DM should have a working familiarity with his players and what they bring to their challenges, and adjust as needed to give players a challenge with a meaningful amount of risk and enjoyment.
I've always used WBL to make it easier for me to judge which out-of-the-box critters from the monster splatbooks are somewhat appropriate. Maybe I'm just a lazy DM, but if I give out treasure while completely ignoring the WBL recommendations, I find that I can no longer use CR in any meaningful way, since CRs assume your players have a certain amount of gear, and if they have more or less by any significant degree...things go sideways. At least for me.
Obviously some players are better at working with less, and some players are terrible regardless of how much glowy gear they are wearing, but in general I find WBL pretty useful to keep a baseline.
Then again, like I said, maybe it's because I'm lazy that way, I'd rather be thinking up whacky NPCs with memorable (bad) accents, than trying to decide if a given monster will maul my PCs. :p
Shuhei Hisagi's Zanpakutou Kazeshini is a Kusarigama-based Weapon.You know, now that I think more about Bleach, even a gunblade probably wouldn't be out of place as a zanpakutou...there were some crazy-ass zanpakutou in that series... :p
I think there was a Quincy Weapon based on a sword with a flintlock-esque pistol attached. Apparently it was supposed to be featured in the Current Manga Arc/Final Arc.
So after exchanging some emails with my DM recently, it looks like we won't be using any specific "airship combat" rules, but merely using the standard combat rules to resolve our airship battles. That means that most of the ideas in this thread are definitely going to be in play.
There have been so many good ideas in this thread that now I'm thinking of what to prioritize, since obviously we won't be able to build, buy, or "acquire" all of them immediately. :p
My thought is that the most critical are going to be the Hallow with Protection from Fire attached for the ship as a whole, the Wall of Force shields to protect the hull against cannonfire, and the Hardening on the vulnerable propellers, which may be critical to our airship's propulsion/maneuverability. (Not sure exactly how important the propellers will actually be until I talk with that NPC engineer and figure out how the prototype engine actually works.)
It looks like at least to start we'll be relying on boarding the other ship and taking out their crew as our offense. I won't be able to fly for 2 more levels, which means if we do wind up in ship-to-ship combat before that....we're looking at grappling hooks. Wheeeee! Hope I don't blow that skill check. Climb? Acrobatics?
I have just checked the spell Ironwood. And besides it strengthening the wood I do not saw a weight increase in the objects to be treated. Just an increase of it's properties to the hardness of steel. It does say the the amount of wood to be strengthened will be limited to 5 lbs/level. So you'd need the spell during the creation of the ship. Considering the fact the spell specifically says to work on ordinary wood, it might strain the rules on having it cast on this special wood used for the airship. Then again if you GM would allow the spell used on the special wood. You'd basically have to take the ship apart, strengthen every single element and then reassemble it. Not to mention the fact that you'd need a druid casting loads of 6th level spells (better start saving up on those pearls of power level 6). the lucky part is that the ships wood is light so it will be easyer to convert the ship the it would be to convert a waterbased ship. If you are looking for ship plating you could look into a ship's armor made of Darkwood. That's half the weight of steel and the same strength.
But initially my focus would be illusionary magic and keeping the ship away from direct battle.
Yeah, originally I was drawn to ironwood too, but the weight increase killed that idea. Especially since it turns out that airships in Eberron (which our campaign world is loosely based on) is crafted of "soarwood" which is particularly light and suited for airship construction.
Due to that, thoughts of Ironwood were dropped, and I'm currently thinking of using Walls of Force via renewable Symbols of Sealing to create "shields" to defend against cannonfire.
You're definitely right about keeping the ship away from direct battle. We are likely still at least a few levels off being fortified enough to survive a ship-to-ship combat with an enemy gunship, so steering clear of fighting will be a definite goal.
Still, I like to think ahead, so that when we don't have any choice but to engage, hopefully we'll be ready. :)
On the plus side I'm thinking the Hallow should be fairly easily accomplished through one of our cleric's contacts. Not so sure about the Walls of Force.
A ship-wide invisibility was suggested as a cloaking device for the ship, which would be fantastic, but that may be iffy to accomplish as well. I may have to see what the dragons can do.
Snowleopard:
Ironwood (paizo.com)
Ironwood (d20pfsrd.com)
These both say ironwood is as strong, heavy, and resistant to fire as steel. So it's glorious stuff, but still heavy. If they were doing steel armor plating, then a thin layer of Ironwood on the exterior of the ship might arguably be just as good (and then they could use wood-repairing spells etc), but that would be a discussion to have with the GM. Chances are isn't not an ideal option at this time.
Thanks Wazat I didn't read well enough.
But the idea of Darkwood (not Ironwood) still stands. I just misread the properties of Darkwood. Darkwood halves the weight of wooden shields and gives em the strenght of steel. But steel is up to 33% heavyer then wood.
So a darkwood defence could be 33% of the weight a steel defence would give. That might open up serious armour possibilities for an airship.
Thanks Wazat I didn't read well enough.
But the idea of Darkwood (not Ironwood) still stands. I just misread the properties of Darkwood. Darkwood halves the weight of wooden shields and gives em the strenght of steel. But steel is up to 33% heavyer then wood.
So a darkwood defence could be 33% of the weight a steel defence would give. That might open up serious armour possibilities for an airship.
This is absolutely true. The next step I think is for me to ask my DM how tough soarwood is. If soarwood is less resilient than steel, then darkwood armoring sounds like a solid plan. It'd be the lightest steel-substitude we could come up with I think.
I need to keep even better attention then that, Darkwood is the same hardness and hp as wood but at half the weight. Sorry, It would only offer near invulnerability against normal arrows with the hardness of 5. That seriously limits it's use although the weight is less.
I need to keep even better attention then that, Darkwood is the same hardness and hp as wood but at half the weight. Sorry, It would only offer near invulnerability against normal arrows with the hardness of 5. That seriously limits it's use although the weight is less.
Heh, no worries.
It does appear that the options for straight-up armoring the ship are limited, though. Ironwood and darkwood are both out. So is steel naturally, since its weight is simply too great to use it in the volume needed to offer any significant protection. Mithril might be an option if it weren't for its prohibitive expense.
Hardening is still a possibility. It has its own opportunity cost, but it may be possible to use our organizational contacts to supply it.
Selective hardening with armor isn't a bad idea though. If you look at what people did with normal real-world ships (as well as ships in some fantasy settings), they tend to armor the base of the mast and certain places that are critical to protect or the ship is SOL, but the rest remains wood. You'll handle the rest with protective enchantments, long sight & stealth, and destroying the enemy quickly to minimize the damage you take.
What you really need is floating castle in the sky. Made of stone for arrow and fire resistance. And floating with the power of... love? Yes, the love of children being housed in the dungeon levitates the castle. And their tears power the orbital cannons!
It's brilliant. BRILLIANT! And they called me MAD!!!!
Ravingdork's Moving Castle might be needed...
Selective hardening with armor isn't a bad idea though. If you look at what people did with normal real-world ships (as well as ships in some fantasy settings), they tend to armor the base of the mast and certain places that are critical to protect or the ship is SOL, but the rest remains wood. You'll handle the rest with protective enchantments, long sight & stealth, and destroying the enemy quickly to minimize the damage you take.
*nod* This is a sound strategy since we likely won't have the resources to Harden the entire ship. The real question then becomes which parts of the ship need to be particularly protected. The propellers definitely, since I imagine they will be the main source of the ship's maneuverability, at the very least (possibly not propulsion, will need to learn more about the ship's engine.) And perhaps wherever the engine is actually housed...
You might wanna consider outfitting a section of the ship with armor and make sure that side of the ship is facing the enemy in combat. off course this goes horribly wrong if the adversary knows this or there are two adversaries.
And I really like the idea of the battering ram on the front of the ship. The danger is that the two ships might get lodged together by such a manouver and unable to free themselves from each other. And if one of the ships would then cease to function they'd both crash. Still using such a method with a captured ship and stacking it full of oil and a skeleton crew with rings of featherfalling. Sail straight into the enemy fleet light the ship and abandoning it seconds before it crashes into the the enemy might be an effective strategy (it's called 'the fire of Antwerp'). Or as a distraction make an illusionary ship using this strategy and in the commotion make your gettaway.
In the 'fire of Antwerp' tactic they would cram the ship with gunpowder as well, so a few nicely placed Delayed Blast Fireballs might do the trick in addition to the oil in absence of gunpowder.
Maaaaaan. Why pick *my* thread to cr*p on? :(
Anyhoo....back to airships!
You could probably take a number of ideas from this (quite fantastic) story that involves another group with an airship. Things like fireball cannons, having scrying pools with constructs watching them as a sort of RADAR or security system, hired soldiers with bows/crossbows to shoot off the sides, crafted wondrous items to shoot magic missiles (probably bump up the caster level of the MMs for more damage), etc.
May not be feasible in your campaign due to availability or cost or what have you, but they're at least ideas to consider.
I'm not familiar with 1d4chan.org, so I will pass on the link, but the scrying pools idea is interesting. Not sure it beats out Prying Eyes for surveillance purposes though. It seems like constructs would be very expensive. Also, don't most constructs lack an Int score? I'm not sure you could make instructions broad or precise enough that an unthinking automaton could serve correctly identify threats. Unless they're warforged I suppose, though at that point you'd be hiring NPCs...
I suppose you could instruct them to let you know if any ship comes near...
I'm not familiar with 1d4chan.org, so I will pass on the link
It's just a site that takes particularly interesting stories (and other wiki type things) from the tabletop gaming board on 4chan. I get it if you don't trust it, but I'll say that it's not dangerous.
but the scrying pools idea is interesting. Not sure it beats out Prying Eyes for surveillance purposes though. It seems like constructs would be very expensive. Also, don't most constructs lack an Int score? I'm not sure you could make instructions broad or precise enough that an unthinking automaton could serve correctly identify threats. Unless they're warforged I suppose, though at that point you'd be hiring NPCs...
I suppose you could instruct them to let you know if any ship comes near...
Constructs can definitely be intelligent. Virmin and oozes are the only creature types that always have no intelligence value. You may be thinking of golems, but you could certainly make intelligent constructs that follow orders and can distinguish between a ship coming in to attack and a ship just passing by.
That said, you make a good point about the prying eyes spell. Might be worth it to make an item that can cast it at will, and have either a construct or NPCs on watch shifts constantly watching through it.
You're right, I was thinking of golems. Well, golems and warforged since I play in a semi-Eberron campaign setting, but Warforged would be straight-up NPCs.
I have a feeling that one or more of our party will eventually be attracting flunkies, either through Leadership or role-play, so we'll have to see about pressing some of them into airship service! It's only sensible to get an NPC crew on the ship asap anyway, as leaving an unattended airship around is a surefire way to get it stolen.
Actually, that brings up an interesting alternative. Could you have a player learn some basic necromancy spells (like animate dead)? Because Skeletons and Zombies might make excellent crew to handle the basics of ship operation, swabbing the decks, watching for approaching ships, etc. They do have a certain level of intelligence and, if I remember right, skeletons are pretty perceptive (they see unnaturally instead of with normal eyes). Might want to double-check that though. Also, skeleton archers and swordsmen make a great line of defense against attackers.
All of this frees up you and fellow players to focus on more important tasks.
That might be much cheaper than constructs... However, you have to wonder whether your group and NPCs are okay with having a literal skeleton crew on board. ;) Some characters will be terrified of the undead, superstitious, etc.