Vehicles rules laughably bad, how do I use them

[demlin]

So I'm currently looking at vehicles and their cost and am having a hard time justifiying the gold investment for a PC. On the GM side, I can't figure out how to use them.

A vehicle has AC, HP and a fort save which roughly matches a creature of their level and has no listed weapons. Ballistas in Guns and Gears target Reflex saves which don't exist on a vehicle.

Is an Airship immune against Fireballs because there is no reflex save? Does the Airship fall out of the sky once it reaches its BT (which is easier than killing an on level creature)? If so, it's the easiest way to TPK a party. How are stats like AC and Fort even coming up during gameplay? How can I justify the Gold cost to make it worthwhile without homebrewing and replacing everything?

[NorrKnekten]

GM Core pg. 213 2.0 Vehicle Statistics wrote:

Saving Throws The vehicle's saves (typically only Fortitude). If a vehicle needs to attempt a saving throw that isn't listed, the pilot attempts a piloting check at the same DC instead.

Pages 212 and 213 are what you are looking for, with clarifications that vehicles can still retain functionality but at a penalty while broken

[yellowpete]

Making a satisfying vehicle system that includes things like momentum is obviously an uphill battle in a turn-based encounter system. I've tried playing with those rules once and it was surprisingly okay considering, but I definitely wouldn't go into it expecting the experience to be completely seamless.

The answers to your mechanical questions are in the rules: For saves which the vehicle doesn't have, the driver makes a Piloting check instead. When it's broken, it still functions but with penalties: "It takes a –2 penalty to its AC, saves, and collision DC, and the DC of all piloting checks related to the vehicle increase by 5. The broken vehicle's Speeds are halved."

As for acquiring a vehicle, for something like an AP that doesn't plan for vehicle usage at all, it obviously won't be a great purchase or might even disrupt things. It's the kind of thing you probably want to agree on between players and GM before either introduces it. Then, it might just be provided to the PCs for story reasons or there's a particular challenge they could choose that would be near insurmountable without the right vehicle (which then gives them a reason to save up that much cash).

[demlin]

So when including in combat, have you found that the vehicle itself will be focus fired or how long the vehicle survives focus fire? My players will be on a ship that will sink/fall out of the sky if it's destroyed.

In a similar vein PCs could just focus fire the enemy ship to take it out. How did that work out?

Given that my players will be on a single ship I'm also interested in if the Hardness will prevent me from setting them up against 4x level-2 enemies since the hardness will probably be much higher than an NPCs damage and Critical Hits (Level 9 Sailing Ship: 15 Harndess; Level 7 NPC moderate damage: 17). Have you used any ship weapons?

[NorrKnekten]

I find that typically the vehicles hardness makes it a rather unwelcoming target when not using proper weaponry, most ranged characters will struggle to put any more than a dent into a ship of similar level, Most of the time its more relevant to target weapon mounts that can deal significant damage to your ship. Exposed crew and especially the pilot make for juicy targets too and this becomes the main way of handling an encounter if the vechicle is of significantly higher level compared to the party.

Siegeweapons or similar are also the main way of letting melee martials in on the fun. Especially in larger vehicles as you typically need a pilot and a crew that is larger than the party itself complete with any other passangers. I had one scenario where two melee martials helped load and aim the cannon while a caster provided spells and pulling the trigger.

What weapons and if you decide to just turn it into a boarding scenario depends on the partys level and what kind of encounter you are looking for.

[yellowpete]

Only occasionally, most of the combat was still between creatures (especially when enemies came close, as it hardly serves you to destroy their vehicle after they've boarded yours). There was a decently quick path towards getting an on-level vehicle to Broken if you invested resources into that (max level spells) and focus fired it, iirc. In an environment where that threatens to become a no-brainer strategy I might increase HP or Hardness somewhat, maybe by a difference of a level or two. Notably it's an object, so if you have a dedicated Crafter with Quick repair and Master or better you can sustain quite a lot.

Have not used ship weapons, no.

[Errenor]

demlin wrote:

1) Is an Airship immune against Fireballs because there is no reflex save?

2) Does the Airship fall out of the sky once it reaches its BT (which is easier than killing an on level creature)? If so, it's the easiest way to TPK a party.
3) How are stats like AC and Fort even coming up during gameplay?
4) How can I justify the Gold cost to make it worthwhile without homebrewing and replacing everything?

Some of it could be answered by just reading the rules in full. Some of it - by thinking about your campaign.

1) No. Obviously. "If a vehicle needs to attempt a saving throw that isn't listed, the pilot attempts a piloting check at the same DC instead." That's if the situation permits. If there's no acting pilot, it's autofail (but not crit fail) I suppose.
Also vehicles are objects and have object immunities, so a lot of effects simply don't work at all. Not fireballs, but a lot of others.
2) What do you need for your campaign? I'd imagine it becomes
Wow! What do you think? I've found rules for that!
"When a vehicle is broken, it becomes harder to use. It takes a –2 penalty to its AC, saves, and collision DC, and the DC of all piloting checks related to the vehicle increase by 5. The broken vehicle's Speeds are halved.

A vehicle reduced to 0 HP is destroyed, like any other item. If the vehicle is in water when it's destroyed, it sinks; if it is flying, it falls and everyone aboard takes falling damage. A pulled or rowed vehicle that becomes wrecked, regardless of which method of propulsion the vehicle is using at the time, deals its collision damage (no saving throw) to the creatures pulling or rowing it, and the creatures may have to be physically freed from the wreckage."
3) See above. Also remember immunities.
4) What do you need for your campaign? Do PCs need to get somewhere inaccessible by feet? Do they need to move faster? On a difficult terrain? Move a lot of cargo? Have a ship battle? Is this justification enough?
If you or your PCs don't need anything from the list, why are vehicles even a thought?

[Trip.H]

I think another issue is that of vehicles being stated and printed at a specific static level, and not being written with a variable level in mind.

IMO, this is not a small yikes, and is kinda terrible, as it basically guarantees that each vehicle will need to be improvised to become the level the GM needs it to be, *especially* if it's going to be used in combat.

I'd honestly say it's kinda "mandatory" for any GM to sketch out some napkin math to figure out how to scale vehicle stats, which has abnormal considerations like "large passenger count vehicles should have a big bonus to HP, but how much?"

And to be clear, you cannot "trust" the paizo-presented examples, you've got to go into it assuming they are inconsistent / "wrong".

The Firework Pogo and Steam Trolley are both L4, but the literal pogo stick that holds 1 has 70HP, 17AC, yet the 8 person Steam Trolley has 50HP, 15AC.
(yes, one can always invent pseudo-narrative justifications for inconsistent stats, but I think we can all agree that a pogo stick should be more fragile than an entire trolley, lol)

.

I really don't like that a GM has to both completely improvise the stats in addition to potentially needing to massage the gameplay of their mechanics.

With that much "fixing" needed to use pf2's vehicles, I don't blame anyone for tossing out the whole system and sketching out some rolls of their own for the one scene in their narrative involving vehicles in combat.

[demlin]

Thank you :)

I think I've got a better picture now over how it plays out in combat.

[Captain Morgan]

I don't really think vehicles are meant to be PC purchases. They are meant for merchants to haul cargo. They aren't as flimsy as the OP states, but they aren't incredibly durable either. Mid to high level characters are super humans who can punch through a Wall of Stone and have lots of ways to get around without needing mundane vehicles. It's not like they are using chariots get around dungeons.

The on time I saw vehicles used in a dungeon, a bunch of level 8 PCs didn't want to spend a spell slot on water walk for a dangerous underwater cavern and grabbed some level 1 rowboats they found instead. Sure enough, some Chuuls showed up and destroyed the boats, making the two APL-1 enemies an extremely deadly encounter that in fact killed one PC.

If you have PCs riding an airship (lv 12), they (and their enemies) should either be low level enough to not be able to effectively damage it, or should be packing flight and/or feather fall options for emergencies. If my party plans to take a boat ride I better be prepared to fall overboard.

[OrochiFuror]

Captain Morgan wrote:

I don't really think vehicles are meant to be PC purchases.

Vehicle mechanic AT suggests otherwise. I do agree they tend to be terrible adventuring purchases and better as set pieces to assist the story.

Land vehicles are laughably slow and the rules for piloting leave much room for failure and little for fun. Having set levels with no way to raise them means threats to them are on a crazy curve that a GM needs to keep in mind. So long as the vehicle is 4-6 levels above the group then anything they should be encountering will likely have a hard time with focusing the vehicle.

[Captain Morgan]

OrochiFuror wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

I don't really think vehicles are meant to be PC purchases.

Vehicle mechanic AT suggests otherwise. I do agree they tend to be terrible adventuring purchases and better as set pieces to assist the story.

I think you hit the nail on the head there. They aren't meant to be adventurer purchases. The fact that there are PC archetypes for it doesn't change that. Many of the "profiession" archetypes don't feel worth the feats for a typical adventure. It's a big part of why I find free archetype to be less balanced/simple that people pretend it is. The balance for archetypes is far less finely tuned than regular class feats, and there's far more of them fo wade through.

And you're right that a vehicle worth using as a set piece will likely be too hard for the PCs to control. That's probably working as intended; it means the PCs are better off protecting the full time sailors than removing themselves from exciting combat to try and roll the piloting checks.

[Finoan]

Starfinder just straight-up says that the party gets their first starship for 'free' at or before the start of the game and can't spend the same currency for upgrading their ship as is used for buying their PC's equipment, goods, and services.

[Castilliano]

Finoan wrote:

Starfinder just straight-up says that the party gets their first starship for 'free' at or before the start of the game and can't spend the same currency for upgrading their ship as is used for buying their PC's equipment, goods, and services.

Yeah, if the campaign's centered on airship battles this might be the better way to go, separate wealth-development streams. Otherwise a lot of money might get wasted on ships that get destroyed or the opposite where PCs prioritize taking ships because of the wealth they'll gain. Personally I (if I could get the other players to agree) would neglect my ship and put "ship wealth" into personal flying prowess to hijack enemy ships, and seldom put my best ships at risk.

There's a 3.X Paizo AP in Dungeon Magazine where the party augments one ship all the way until sailing the River Styx, and while it's cool to pilot the same ship through such an arc, it took a lot of effort and plot manipulation to make that viable (esp. in an RPG where it was easier to break objects). Even then, the PCs get kinda bound to the ship because you can't leave that much gold unguarded (or effectively unguarded by NPCs too far below your level). It's kinda like Knight Rider where you want the hero to do their own heroing, but the car's the special concept in the story, but in the case of airships there's little security to protect it...so now KITT's in the hands of who knows who...so why bother investing in KITT when you can buy anti-armor weaponry for yourself.

[Paul Zagieboylo]

Remember, the only purpose of a major vehicle (wagon, ship, train, cruise liner, airship, caravan, military academy, spacecraft, &c) is to break, sink, crash, fall down, explode, collapse, or otherwise suffer some sort of critical existence failure, thus leaving The Heroes stranded far from the comforts of civilization, specifically including equipment shops. Seriously, when was the last time you heard of an adventuring party boarding a ship and actually getting to where they were trying to go? Yeah, me neither.

As a mechanical question, yes, the provided rules for vehicles are hot garbage. If you really want to do some kind of wacky Wild-West-style stagecoach chase scene, you'll have to retrofit them pretty heavily. I recommend starting by inventing reinforced vehicles along the same lines as reinforced shields, just to forestall the first obvious choice of "blow the vehicle up and the crew goes with it." But in general I would leave them as plot devices.

[graystone]

OrochiFuror wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

I don't really think vehicles are meant to be PC purchases.

Vehicle mechanic AT suggests otherwise.

I don't see that as a particularly good argument. The Using Vehicles sidebar notes; "The vehicle mechanic plays best in a campaign where the PCs adventure together in one shared vehicle that the mechanic can enhance, such as in a pirate campaign on a single vessel." As such, its "best" usage is with a group vehicle, not a single PC purchase or any PC purchase [DM: surprise, you now own a boat] as it can be the basis for the campaign itself as the central plot device that allows the characters to adventure.

OrochiFuror wrote:

Land vehicles are laughably slow

Not really. Many are the speed of the driver or steed or an equivalent speed. As most can bring passengers along, that's free movement for them. Add to that that they can also move up to 3 times speed, they can outrun a lot of creatures and mounts that have to be controlled as they only get 2 actions to move.

OrochiFuror wrote:

and the rules for piloting leave much room for failure and little for fun.

If you're playing with a vehicle as a central part of the game, having the high Int or Dex character take the Trick Driver Archetype makes it much easier. Add to that that even though larger ships have higher DC's, they also have a greater number of crew that can Aid in the check and all they need is a lore skill to do so [a single skill feat, Additional Lore, gets you scaling proficiency in one]. It's also not hard to cast a spell for bonuses to Pilot either.

Altogether, this means that you can get Speed x2 without much issues and you can have x3 with a reasonable chance to get x3. This does mean that you have to lean into making it work and spend some resources and extra actions, though not that much. That said, the overall rules work best for chase scenes than back and forth combat: it's generally easier to kill the crew and with the price tag of vehicles, it's a sizable haul and not something you want to destroy.

[Finoan]

graystone wrote:

even though larger ships have higher DC's, they also have a greater number of crew that can Aid in the check

How many crew does it take to change a lightbulb Aid a pilot?

Aid gives a circumstance bonus, so doesn't stack with other Aid successes. One crew member can aid just as effectively as ten crew members.

graystone wrote:

Add to that that they can also move up to 3 times speed, they can outrun a lot of creatures and mounts that have to be controlled as they only get 2 actions to move.

Only Minion mounts like Animal Companions and Summoned creatures move slower because they can only be given 2x Stride actions each round. If you rent or buy a horse you can Command it to Stride 3x each round. Granted, it will die if sneezed at... much like the vehicle will.

/s

If I was running a game that featured vehicles as more than just an oversized backpack with wheels, I would run any encounters as Victory Point skill challenges such as Chases rather than trying to use the tactical movement and item stat rules designed for PCs and their weapons, armor, and held items.

[graystone]

Finoan wrote:

How many crew does it take to change a lightbulb Aid a pilot?

Aid gives a circumstance bonus, so doesn't stack with other Aid successes. One crew member can aid just as effectively as ten crew members.

While they don't stack, the bonus for a crit success goes up with proficiency, so once you are unlikely [or unable] to fail a roll of 15, multiple people can roll to try for a crit for a +1-3 higher bonus. Multiple crew gives a built-in explanation of how you're trying to help AND your proximity for those multiple Aid rolls. So I'll have to strongly disagree that "One crew member can aid just as effectively as ten crew members": getting multiple rolls to try for a double, triple or even quadruple bonus can be MUCH more effective than a single try.

Finoan wrote:

Only Minion mounts like Animal Companions and Summoned creatures move slower because they can only be given 2x Stride actions each round. If you rent or buy a horse you can Command it to Stride 3x each round. Granted, it will die if sneezed at... much like the vehicle will.

Yep and some even have Gallop too. The difference is that vehicles often also allow for passengers that do not also have to spend those actions: this means that the vehicles end up being faster than what's chasing them while also having actions left to do something else. So someone chasing you on a non-minion mount sure can use the same number of actions to follow you, your passengers can actually DO something else to slow them down or stop them while the pursuers can only move [unless they have some kind of move+attack ability]: if they attack, they lose actions and start falling behind.

All in all, it's not "laughably slow", which is what I was commenting on.

[Finoan]

graystone wrote:

So someone chasing you on a non-minion mount sure can use the same number of actions to follow you, your passengers can actually DO something else to slow them down or stop them while the pursuers can only move

That sounds familiar.

graystone wrote:

All in all, it's not "laughably slow", which is what I was commenting on.

And yeah, that's fair. I would still run it as a VP system and mostly ignore tactical movement speed.