Hey all. If you had a large ship that was damaged by, say, a sea monster attack, are there any high level spells or abilities that could be used to keep the thing afloat? I'm open to third party for this. Or I could homebrew something, but I can't shake the feeling that something should exist.
A Telekinetisist seems to be able to move up to 1000 pounds a level by accepting burn, which ain't bad. It's certainly not enough to lift the Mayflower into the air (which seems to be about 180 tons) but it might be able to help it's natural buoyancy when damaged. Is there anything in a spell that can accomplish a similar task? Preferably something that could be used while the ship is still under attack?
Thanks folks!
What about a resilient sphere or two in the hold. You would have to be careful about positioning though. What about four resilient spheres a pair at the front and back of the ship either side of the keel.
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You would have to be quick but it takes a while for a holed ship to sink.
Or the level 2 spell buoyancy, cast on large shield sized objects (one per leve) then hooked to key structural points around the ship. It looks like the items must be in the water to count but at close range you could target them across one deck. Might not stop the sinking but might slow it down.
Wall of Force / Ice / Stone. Each has differnet pros and cons. But will work in closing the immediate holes in the ships hull to preven tflooding.
Salvage would probably help. The target is "one shipwreck" but who would argue that one can't go overboard on fixing something that ain't completely destroyed?
Fabricate is a good start. Or wood shape.
If you could somehow get a caster level of 32 animate objects would both keep the ship afloat and enable you to cast spells to restore its HP.
Control water - used carefully - might push the water out of the ship. Summoned water elementals could probably block a hole temporarily.
Make Whole seems like the obvious solution to me. Fix the hole in the hull and start bailing out the water.
Make Whole seems like the obvious solution to me. Fix the hole in the hull and start bailing out the water.
A 10 minute casting time is not an in-combat solution.
Fabricate a ballast tank to overcome the volume issue and keep the ship afloat
Thanks guys! I'm trying to retroactively explain something that happened during a campaign session, when I was favoring a cinematic approach to a sea battle over a mechanical focus. There are some good suggestions here, but it doesn't look like any existing spells do quite what the character pulled there. (I'm now trying to formerly build that character, so I'll just have it be a spell the Caster researched herself, since she knew the journey was coming.)
I wanted to say Animate Object coupled with water walk or a fly spell, but it seems you need a very high caster level if it is at all possible.
Summoned water elementals might help keep it afloat at gm discretion, depending on the extent of the damage.
Freezing sphere might turn the water into ice, expanding the volume and making it buoyant. Any cold spell might work at GM discretion. Also polymorphing in a dragon with old breath might help.
Polymorph any object might be able to repair it.
fabricate and other creation spells might create floats in the hull off the ship, most likely barrels.
While 10 minutes sounds like a long time unless the ship is filled with heavy cargo to the point that you are barely above the water line it takes quite a while to sink a ship. As the ship fills with water it still gets blocked by closed doors and half filled barrels and the like act like temporary ballast tanks. Even fairly heavy cargo decreases how much it pulls down the boat as the water closes over it.
In other words unless the ship is ripped in half there should be enough time to repair the boat before it goes under, getting the water out will be a pain though.