| Post/Author/DateTime | Post |
|---|---|
| BrokenJade05-31-07, 01:59 PM | HI guys i am kind of new to the ebberon scene and really like the whole mixture of magic and low tech pulp feel. The airships in particular are very fascinating to me, what my question is how would i make an ironclad version of one. MY campaign idea is that the pc's are hired by one of the houses to retrieve a new type of Airship an Ironclad, it has been stolen by a rival group who wants the technology. And i am kind of lacking ideas on the look and feel of the ship. Any help would be aprecciated |
| Vharuck05-31-07, 04:25 PM | I'd say it would look like a zeppelin, but made purely of metal. That metal being led [sic]. :P Anyways, I'm serious about the zeppelin. It wouldn't have a deck like a normal airship, because that's a needless liability. It would be bullet-shaped with murder holes (slits just wide enough for archers to fire arrows through) and maybe a small section of open deck on the sides for ballistas. However, I'd say that to carry all that weight (soarwood is light, steel is much heavier!), it would need three elemental rings. Also, three would make it look kick-ass. |
| BrokenJade05-31-07, 06:21 PM | Maybe a submarine type design would fit the bill. Crap you got me thinking now i have to draw up some concepts |
| WarlockDa05-31-07, 06:24 PM | It would almost absolutely have to be Mirthal-clad, and most likely magically enhanced Mirthal at that. All airships are made from soarwood, which is pretty much near being as light as air,..allowing an airship to slowly float to the ground is the elemental is damaged. This is the only way the ships are able to leave the ground. But I could see mirthal, which is already a super light metal, and yet still very strong, being enhanced, or perhaps have the metal plating itself bound with an air elemental in the same manner a weapon is. Personally I'd go with a look similar to the Monitor or Virginai Ironclads, perhaps even allowing a small portion of the deck to be a traditional open deck. |
| Bodger05-31-07, 08:18 PM | I have been working on a design that was used during the last war. It was used as a resupply ship for the other ships of the fleet. It was a sphere 80 feet in diameter with a 30' wide by 25' high dock sticking out about 100' out the back. it was also designed to split to permit a third ship to dock between the first 2 depending on the size and design of the rings of the docking airships. the 8 decks were set up in decending order. Bridge\command deck (nav. etc..)/capts quarters/ mess and crews quarters/ supply decks x2// repair area/ passengers and observation deck. Bodger |
| Runepriest06-01-07, 09:15 PM | I second the zeppelin idea. Mithral instead of lead. And Vharuck, you misspelled lead |
| Meikle_64106-01-07, 09:31 PM | I second the zeppelin idea. Mithral instead of lead. And Vharuck, you misspelled lead Yup, which was intentional since he said [sic] afterwards. He was referencing the awesome classic rock band Led Zeppelin, actually. |
| Vharuck06-02-07, 02:50 AM | Yup, which was intentional since he said [sic] afterwards. He was referencing the awesome classic rock band Led Zeppelin, actually. "Bad grammar makes me [sic]" I saw a shirt with that advertised online, and I really want to buy it. |
| Runepriest06-02-07, 09:43 AM | Yup, which was intentional since he said [sic] afterwards. He was referencing the awesome classic rock band Led Zeppelin, actually. Didn't know about that. |
| The_wizard_Tim06-02-07, 10:52 AM | The sheer cost of making this ship would preclude anyone doing it. Soarwood is so much lighter than mith its silly. you would have to have layers of enchantment on each piece of mith, to get mith with soarwoods properties. I would think that it would cost so much it could bankrupt an entire nation. But other than that its a very cool idea. Make it round so there isnt any real blind spot. Kind of an eberron death star...... lol now how do I get the super lazer?! |
| Mort_Q06-02-07, 12:17 PM | The sheer cost of making this ship would preclude anyone doing it. I wouldn't go that far. Villains always push the envelope, and so do eccentrics. A prototype, or only 2 or 3 built in at a hidden base during the war... ... why not? Then again, even regular Airships are relatively new to Eberron. |
| OctaviusIII06-02-07, 11:10 PM | Our campaign has a prototype living construct airship ironclad. What might also be interesting is finding the old stronghold builder's guide. It's got info on various things you can put on walls or floors. My favorite for something like this: spiderwalk, a permanent spiderclimb spell, on the top deck of the ship, if you want a top deck. Also: windows made from permanently invisible adamantine or something similar. Otherwise: yeah, mithral submarine with ballistae portholes as well as arrow slits, space for a few air skiffs and/or flying mounts, and possibly a place to disgorge troops. The thing's principal weapon would be ramming other airships, although you also would want it to be able to bomb targets with either gunpowder bombs or just boulders. I'm thinking of a combination Flying Fortress, WWI Zeppelin, ironclad and carrier. If you're going REALLY all-out, a network of modified rings of sound (forgot what they're called) would serve as an intercom system. Lastly: if it's a living construct (maybe int. 2 or 3), give it one or two once-a-day spell-like abilities. Our campaign's ship has teleport and invisibility, although you might want something else. |
| BrokenJade06-03-07, 08:04 AM | Thats was my general idea, it is a proto type that has been stolen. In regards to armorments i was thinking of giving it several forward firing bilistea, with the enchantment to fire bolts of force. A bomb bay that can release a payload of Alchemist based bombs. And a rear bay designed for the release of troops and airskiffs. |
| Phalo06-03-07, 07:35 PM | would this Iron clad air ship be more along the lines of that floating castle just smaller faster and more agile. Side not in a 2ed campaign i made a ship that was based on some of those solid clouds, (they were formed from clouds that had genie blood fall on them.) |
| BrokenJade06-04-07, 08:22 AM | So far the designs in my head is based on the Union Monitor |
| DarkWarriorKarg06-04-07, 11:07 AM | Ironwood body. (Ironwood is a FR spell, I believe) Gives wood the strength of iron without changing any other properties. Bind an earth elemental to it for DR (extra hardness). Remember to use proper background music when it appears (Imperial march or something else suitable). |
| BrokenJade06-04-07, 02:37 PM | I like the ironwood enchantment idea. though i think that several magicaly hardened mythril plates over several key areas is in order. |
| Runepriest06-06-07, 08:51 AM | Ironwood is in the PHB. It's a Druid spell. |
| DarkWarriorKarg06-06-07, 12:48 PM | Ironwood is in the PHB. It's a Druid spell. Thanks! I think I was mixing it up with glass steel. |
| Euangelion06-06-07, 02:52 PM | Ironwood is not permanent. However, the hardening(?) spell/infusion from the ECS is. It simply adds a value to the hardness of an object equivalent to the CL. Using a minor schema of the spell would allow eventually hardening the entire hull of an airship to a hardness of 11, 1 better than iron. Thus while it doesn't add hit points to the hull, it does make it more resistant to damage. In fact, since minor schemasare forever, it should probably be SOP for the construction of any major vessel. (A caveat is if the hardening spell has a costly material component, making it ineligible for a minor schema.) |
| Vharuck06-06-07, 04:54 PM | Ironwood is not permanent. However, the hardening(?) spell/infusion from the ECS is. It simply adds a value to the hardness of an object equivalent to the CL. Using a minor schema of the spell would allow eventually hardening the entire hull of an airship to a hardness of 11, 1 better than iron. Thus while it doesn't add hit points to the hull, it does make it more resistant to damage. In fact, since minor schemasare forever, it should probably be SOP for the construction of any major vessel. (A caveat is if the hardening spell has a costly material component, making it ineligible for a minor schema.) Good thing is that magic items can ignore precedent and do whatever. I'd say that if one of the airship's creators used ironwood during the airship's building (and paid the appropriate cost), it would be permanent. |
| Euangelion06-06-07, 08:35 PM | That's very true. But what druid wants to sit around and cast ironwood on an airship everyday for 92 days? ;) (Of course, someone else could perhaps find a minor schema of ironwood and use it by means of Use Magic Device, but that would slow down the process somewhat even further.) However, hardening is only half as effective as I originally thought, 1 point for every two caster levels, which means that a standard minor schema of hardening only makes the wood as hard as iron (10), rather than 11. On the other hand, since hardening has no material component at all, it indeed is eligible for a minor schema. |
| Elderich06-09-07, 10:22 PM | Didn't know about that.Stop the thread. Go "Get" all their albums. now. The albums work as a Tomb of coolness and grant a +5 cool bonus to everything for the rest of your life. |
| Nephallim06-18-07, 02:12 PM | For iron (or other metal) clad airships, you could always go with using multiple and/or larger elementals. In the campaign I'm running, there's a 300 yard long, adamantine clad flying fortress that stays flying by using three elder fire elementals. As far as mechanics, I think there's rules for adamantine plating ships and such in the 3.0 Arms and Equipment Guide...might want to check there for ideas. Appearance wise, the airship I use in my game basically looks like a giant, flying black submarine. |
| madninjapimp06-19-07, 06:11 PM | I'd suggest picking up the golden dragon eberron adventure. It specifically includes and revolves around an "ironclad" prototype airship. |
| Ashen_Child06-20-07, 03:33 AM | If you're going to make a spell permanent, rather than ironwood on floatwood, why not just give it 'feather fall' and make it actual iron (possibly with adamantine plating near the vulnerable areas. Or you could make it that it relies completely on its elementals, and that if anything happens to them, byebye airship. Remember that it's pretty much like that with alot of modern aircraft. Personally i think the last could add some excitement if you have an in-flight combat situation onboard. |
| Euangelion06-20-07, 10:44 AM | Or use the mage armor spell. That way you could have a shell of force energy around the ship, a "force field" or simply "shields" you might call it. And it could be activated at will by the captain shouting "Shields up! Red alert!" Bet no one's ever thought of that before. |
| DarkWarriorKarg06-20-07, 12:50 PM | Or use the mage armor spell. That way you could have a shell of force energy around the ship, a "force field" or simply "shields" you might call it. And it could be activated at will by the captain shouting "Shields up! Red alert!" Bet no one's ever thought of that before. Don't forget the psionic empath advisor with low wisdom and 0-levels of sense motive... "Captain... I sense hostility and a growing anger" "No kidding, I'd have never guessed that coming from a stolen airship flying the Emerald Claw colours whose crew is lauching fireballs at us." |
| OzyBurrfoot06-20-07, 12:53 PM | Stop the thread. Go "Get" all their albums. now. The albums work as a Tomb of coolness and grant a +5 cool bonus to everything for the rest of your life. Thats "Tome" btw... Also, consider this idea stolen for my FoW/HoB game I'm planning. |
| Archangel6206-21-07, 03:14 AM | I actually have something similar to this that I'm setting up for one of my games, if you want the data that I have on mine just PM me and I'll send over the basic stats and the story behind the item. |
| OzyBurrfoot06-21-07, 06:22 AM | Why not just post them here and share it with us all? |
| Archangel6206-21-07, 07:26 AM | Why not just post them here and share it with us all? Ok, but you asked for it, these are some rather large posts as I'm making one for each airship, flavor text and all. “Gentlemen, I bring before you the plans for the greatest weapon in modern warfare. It will do far more than mere troop transport that a few of the other militarized airships have done, no, this will instead sow pain and panic among enemy soldiers as well as being a mobile engine of pure destruction. The floating cities of Breland can fall before this, waves of soldiers will perish under its…” “Yes, yes, we get the idea, now could you end the sales pitch and tell us what exactly it is that you want us to buy?” “Of course, what I have here are the plans for a militarized airship, you’ll notice that it uses a collection of bound elementals rather than just one and that it lacks the standard elemental ring. The ship itself uses heavily altered soarwood treated with the ironwood spell and then the elementals themselves are bound in, alternately to the ship itself or the various lattices that dot it’s form. There are five elementals total, each of them will need to be elder, possibly greater, to achieve the maximum affect. The air elemental provides the ship with movement and thrust, it also maintains a constant windwall around the vessel, defending it from enemy archers. The fire elemental feeds into two areas as well, maneuvering devices that cover the ship, this method gives us a tighter degree of turning and better maneuvering, it also aids in keeping the ship aloft with its increased weight. The other area it feeds into is onto the gunnery platforms, ideally warforged will be locked into the targeting systems but if not then anyone with some targeting training can do the job fine, the cannons have an incredible range and can fire almost constantly, letting you tear through enemy troops like tissue paper. The water elemental provides cooling for the ship as well as powering the weapons on the belly of the ship, these weapons are essentially entangling devices, when activated these pods will discharge and anyone below the ship within a 300 foot radius will be trapped in ice, it is admittedly minimal a little work can free those entrapped but it can aid greatly in slowing down enemy troops, however you also need to be closer to the ground for this so it is recommended you only use it when supporting ground forces or advanced units such as the Warforged Titan. The earth elemental provides protection to the ship, reinforcing the armor as well as guarding those exposed on the decks connected to the weaponry, warforged that are bonded in get a greater benefit but even organic pilots can get some protection out of it. Finally the key to all of it is the bound shadow elemental, it is bound directly into the hull of the vessel, doing this makes it difficult for enemy soldiers to get a proper fix on it by sight and it also allows for something much greater…it can temporarily enter the plane of shadows, allowing it to get from one battlefield to another incredibly fast.” “This all sounds very good, almost too good to be true, what’s the weakpoint of it?” “Why the price of course.” “…Fine, we’ll make arrangements and you can make on for us, what exactly do you plan to call this thing.” “That’s easy, Deaths Shadow.” Deaths shadow is an advanced combat airship, a collaborative effort from house Cannith and a few anonymous Excorciates from Lyrandar the airship was created and deployed during the last year of the Cyran conflict. It was believed to have crashed on the Day of Mourning and most of those who know of how to rebuild the ship or repair it are either dead or in hiding. The ship itself is 200 feet long, 40 feet wide and 125 feet high. It has a top speed of 500 feet per round and a standard speed of 200 feet per round with perfect manueverability. The ship itself has three layers of side cannons on both starboard and port side, each layer having 10 cannons each 10 feet apart from each other, the top level is an open observation point for use of high level spellcasters or for the use of heavy artillery such as magical ballistae should they be deployed as such. The cannons themselves work as the Scorching Ray spell cast by a 12th level caster and have range as such, the cannons have enough turning radius that they can support one another with lines of fire however they are kept restricted to keep from accidentally hitting the ship. The lower weapons pod is essentially a very large entangling spell, it does no damage, merely freezing soldiers in place, aside from the additional way to remove the entanglement by heated metal or fire it functions as the entanglement spell. The ship is considered to be surrounded by a constant wind wall on all sides, in addition the shadow elemental places the ship under the effect of a constant blur spell. The earth elemental provides the vessel itself with fast healing 3, as for those manning the guns they are given DR2/- from the wards placed around the gun controls, if however warforged are interfaced they gain DR5/- and also fast healing 3 while connected to the guns. Finally, the ship had one very potent weapon, in order to activate it the guns could not fire, the defenses for the ship would deactivate and it would have to remain immobile for 1 minute (which is what was believed to have led to the crash). The ship can then channel the energies of the bound elementals into a 40 foot prismatic spray, however it could only affect that which was in front of and below the ship. In order to bring down any of the affects you would need to actually enter the ship and destroy the Khyber Dragonshards that bind each elemental. Now to the actual weaknesses, besides needing to essentially become a very large target when using the main weapon the ship also requires casters to serve as the pilots. This was a side effect of the modified lattices that the excorciates provided, they knew of no way to create a ship that could be controlled by anyone, they had to do a lot of work to merely make it run off of any magic rather than their dragonmarks. The ship requires a group of 5 to command it and make it move, they are in the heavily reinforced control area near the front of the ship. Each must be of caster level 6 or higher, they connect themselves to the ship and use their energies to steer and command it, this uses up their allotment of spells/infusions/power points for that day. Warlocks might be a possible power source for the ships but this was never tried and may have unforseen side effects.The other issue is that the ship itself can't remain on the plane of shadows for any more than 20 minutes, and cannot shadow walk more then 3 times in a day due to the strain that this places on the lattices of the ship and the pilots, though this was a carefully guarded secret. |
| Archangel6206-22-07, 10:31 AM | This second airship is an experimental fighter model, it didn't work but it might exist for players to find and possibly be used by them, a nation, or perhaps the Lord of Blades. The foreman entered the work area, before the research crew were a few of the new theoretical airship in varying degrees of completion, he raised his voice to ensure they could hear him “How is the new prototype coming?” The crew leader was a heavyset man he wiped his brow and looked up at the foreman “The good news is we have most of the key systems done, weapon systems are ready and we believe it can deliver a fairly potent payload…the only problem is that the Stirge still has some issues.” The foreman blinked, confused, “The Stirge?” One of the other magewrights, a skinny man with a shaved head commented, “Our nickname for the thing, individually these suckers aren’t that dangerous, en masse they can be pretty unpleasant, other reason is that while these might be hard to hit, one good shot and down they go.” The foreman scowled, “What do you mean ‘one good hit and down they go?’ This is unacceptable!” Now the head of the crew stood up and walked over, looking irritated, “The problem is that the requirements of the project. This ship was given dimensions so small that we can barely create a proper lattice for a bound elemental, it was demanded to be incredibly fast and maneuverable AND you wanted us to add a personal weapon system, might I add that since we were told that these had to be single pilot something had to give. The end result is that we had to let some things fall by the wayside.” The foreman stiffened and glared, “Like what?” The crew head sighed, “For one, the weapon system is a modified version of the wand sheath for a warforged, we’ve made a few modifications to it but the principle is effectively the same. We can’t fit anything actually built in, the other problem is that the ship itself has to be very lightweight, a side effect of this is that we CAN’T give the thing much in the way of armor naturally and any magical defenses would tax the charge lattice.” “The what?” “The problem that we have here is that we simply can’t set a proper elemental lattice in, so we came up with a possible workaround. We use a major Khyber shard to hold the Greater Air elemental, it’s hooked into a charge lattice, we then use smaller Khyber shards in a smaller lattice on the ships, in essence we recharge the vessels. The stirge can only go about an hour before it needs to be recharged.” “Unacceptable.” “You asked how we were doing, I’m telling you, either we have this or we have to lose one of the key demands for it.” The Stirge was designed to follow the concept of the fighter airship, unfortunately it didn’t work very well due to a set of demands that simply couldn’t all be fulfilled. The Stirge was created in a prototype form but it never saw active use, the plans and prototypes are all native to Cyre, as is Deaths Shadow, as a result are inaccessible and in most cases unknown as those who were aware of the project are most likely dead. The dimensions of the ship are 15 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 10 feet high, there is a small Khyber shard built into it to hold a charge for the lattice but a more effective lattice would unfortunately take up too much weight and force the ship to a greater size. The ship has a flight speed of 150 feet a round and a maneuverability of perfect. The ship provides and AC of 19 and has 25 hitpoints. As for the weapons, the ship functions off of wands. There is one weapon system primarily, it runs off of wands of force missle. The Wand must be loaded into the ‘clip’, it maintains its caster level (8th) and can fire two missles per shot, however it can also be boosted to ‘full fire’ which consumes 5 additional charges each time which allows for 5 force missles to be fired however it also adds a cooldown time of 1d8 rounds. |
| Archangel6206-24-07, 10:18 AM | (no comments on either of my designs?) |
| OzyBurrfoot06-24-07, 05:56 PM | They both look great. For some reason I thought you had three, so I was waiting for the last one. |
| Archangel6206-25-07, 02:10 AM | They both look great. For some reason I thought you had three, so I was waiting for the last one. I think I do but I can't find it at the moment. |
| bigsnarf06-27-07, 06:05 PM | What you need to do is write up a tactical combat rule on a miniature scale. Folks can make thier own counters( Just like old school Spelljammer.) Ship to ship battles with flying mounts as fighters are also a must.:drool: :drool: :drool: |
| Archangel6206-29-07, 12:44 AM | Ship Number 3 is up The two men sat at the table, not much had been said since they both arrived, technically neither was there, but then again that was how most weapons purchases worked, especially for purchasing more advanced airships. The man from Cannith spoke, his voice having a melodic, almost hypnotic, air “My good sir, I believe that I have found the war winning design, one that will tear the enemy apart and empower our troops simultaneously.” The representative of Cyre rolled his eyes at that, they were told that each new invention was the war winning devince, and maybe it would be if they didn't sell these things to each side. “We’ve heard it before, but go on, I’m honestly curious. Deaths Shadow was successful and if this is as useful you might have something.” “This design is a bit…shall we say different. It has a pair of bound entities, a fire elemental provide the locomotion for it. The other devices you see here are..” “Wait, you said a pair, and you also said entities…not elementals, what precisely is in there with it?” “It really isn’t relevant for this you simply need to know…” “I’ll be the judge of relevance, what is it?” “It’s a demon, we discovered a group of mercenaries using a few summoned ones and we managed to capture it, apparently they can be bound as elementals are a useful piece of knowledge for future reference.” The man blanched, turning away and pacing, “You mean to tell me that you have a DEMON in the airship.” The other paused, taking a deep breath, he appeared to be organizing his thoughts, “The demon exists for two reasons, one is to augment the weaponry of the vessel and its defenses, the other is to help provide power for the eldritch machine that the vessel is built around.” The first man paused, he was ready to tell this man to go to hell, to leave, but he also knew that Cyre was desperately in need of weapons to win the war and that anything would be useful, he shook off the revulsion he felt as he asked, “What does it do?” The other smiled, good, he was interested “Simply put it converts the enemies into something useful, energy. As they die the eldritch machine channels the power into your soldiers, making them stronger and more durable, even increasing the magical energies of those who are connected to the device. Imagine, your soldiers tearing through enemy columns, growing stronger and more deadly with each foe they bring down. Its range is somewhat limited, roughly 500 feet from the vessel.” He felt a growing sense of unease, of wrongness at the whole thing. This vessel would be powerful but he couldn’t allow it, he wanted to go but he also knew he was bound by duty to listen. “The vessel itself also has potent defenses, it has 12 cannons, the vessel is ovoid and they are roughly equidistant, the cannons fire a dark energy that we have termed hellfire, likely a result of the interaction of the elemental and the demon. It is admittedly somewhat slow only making 50 feet per round, it cannot go any faster due to the weight placed on it to house and protect the eldritch machine. To make it work correctly your soldiers would be marked so that they would receive the energies, those not marked will get absorbed into the machines lattices and turn into…for lack of a better term, fuel for your men. Now the price for something like this is…” “NO! I don’t care WHAT you are charging for it I won’t purchase it and I’ll make sure no one else does either! What you’re proposing is monstrous, it’s madness! A weapon like this is a war crime in and of itself, to say nothing of the harm it can cause to civilians in the area, or of what might happen if the demon broke free! You aren’t talking about some new weapon, you’re talking about an abomination, a monstrosity of truly epic proportions. I don’t care who you sell it to but it won’t be to Cyre, good day sir!” With that the man stormed off The Rhaksasha muttered, annoyed with himself, he wondered if perhaps his guise wasn’t good enough, but no, the human was apparently either too strong willed or perhaps too moralistic to use the weapon. It didn’t matter, at the rate this war was going soon someone would desire this creation, and when they did his plans would begin, and his masters would be most pleased. The ship is known as a hellmouth, it was designed by a Rhaksasha who had a taste for artifice. He killed and replaced a member of a Cannith design team to create the vessel, hoping to use the knowledge to aid in the freeing of his masters as well as to create a debased army. The spell the eldritch machine provides to those connected to it is an amplified version of Greater Consumptive Field in that there is no cap to the increase in caster level and those struck down by those who are marked will be killed and the duration is effectively permanent (it fades one hour after the last kill made, meaning on a battlefield it is theoretically infinite). The hellfire damage from the cannons is 12d6 damage, half unholy. Also the ship can throw up a field of fire around itself dealing 8d6 damage to any who attempt to board it. The marks for the soldiers also have a secondary feature, they also slowly twist the minds of those connected, turning them into mindless sociopathic killing machines, beings addicted to the energy that pulses through them and desiring to kill more and more to maintain that level of power. Eventually they can transform into fiendish creatures and possibly even lesser fiends in some isolated cases. The Raksasha survived the mourning and has new plans, he now moves in the guise of a warforged artificer that serves the lord of blades. He hopes to find a way that he can introduce these ‘discovered’ plans and the location of the bound fiend, for such an item would be most useful to the Lord of Blades, and even more useful to the Lords of Dust for what it will turn the warforged armies into. |
| mightyix07-02-07, 01:48 AM | The sheer cost of making this ship would preclude anyone doing it. Soarwood is so much lighter than mith its silly. you would have to have layers of enchantment on each piece of mith, to get mith with soarwoods properties. I would think that it would cost so much it could bankrupt an entire nation. Actually, you would get the cargo capacity of the ship worth of "iron clad". Yes the ships are made of soarwood, but they also supposedly have 20 tons of cargo capacity. No enchantment needed. Just don't plan on carrying a lot of food or troops. |
| mightyix07-02-07, 02:20 AM | Oh, and el-cheapo, but supremo-effectivo ideas can be found in a past airship thread. I'm combining some of what I remember from that thread with this one. 1) The ironwood spell in a minor schema idea rocks. There's no reason that during the 92 day construction period that every exposed surface couldn't be hit with that spell. If nothing else, an artificer hired as ship's crew could do it over the course of the first few weeks of 'sea trials'. 2) Ballista throwing rocks instead of spears (large ballista from Heroes of Battle - historically accurate if your DM will let you lob rocks) have an extreme range advantage on even long-range spells and cost a lot less. Additionally, the ballista itself can be enchanted so that the bolts/stones coming off of it do all sorts of wonky things. You load these things into multiple decks of broadsides with a couple mounted fore and stern and you (even with poor maneuverability) can lob a broadside off every other round against anything you are chasing or that is chasing you. -- On a 300' x50' warship, 2.5 ballista decks, 15' square per ballista with space for stones... I believe it was something like 20 ballista per broadside for a total of 100d8 every other round in 5d8 increments. It's a fun way to level a castle. If you want to go the 'construct ship' route, make each one a Siege Golem instead of a ballista. Damage is about the same, IIRC, and accuracy much better. Downside is cost. It's no longer a cheap ballista and a crew of mostly 1st level experts. It's a super expensive golem. 3) You're going to want a flat deck of some kind for loading cargo and staging Marines for capturing other airships. Or at least the ability to drop an entire side of the airship to allow access. For cheapness of construction I recommend the open deck idea. It also multiplies your short range firepower by a significant factor if you flood the deck with bowmen. 4) Protect your open spaces, like the deck, with netting. Good fishnet is cheap, can be sized to fit a framework over your deck and will seriously slow just about anything trying to rip through it. This gives the guys with boarding pikes a chance to 'repel all boarders' and prevents flying critters (who are sometimes faster than an airship) from landing. If you make it out of a fine enough net weave, add a little slack, you can even stop most bombs from breaking on top of you. So much for the tanglefoot bags and alchemist fire, eh? 5) Others suggested a flight deck filled with griffons and/or hippogriffs/and or ornithopters (Arms and Equipment Guide) to sort of stretch the reach of your craft even further and provide scouting so that you knew of an enemy well before he knew of you. 6) Whatever tonnage you have left over can be used for armor plating. Armor used in historical platemail was about 1/16th of an inch thick, or you can go with 1/8th if you'd like. 1/2 inch probably gives you good game stats. At 20 lbs per square foot though, you're only going to be able to cover. That gives you 100 square feet per ton removed from your cargo capacity. If you want to play with weight and thickness yourself...http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/s/sheetgauges.html will give you the info that you need. PLEASE NOTE that outside of the schema/or artificer (which is a one time fixed gp cost multiplied by time or fixed hireling cost) and the possibility of using siege golems, nothing that I suggested is magical and a VERY POTENT airship can be made by modifying an existing airship using a bunch of people with nothing more than low commoner levels and various craft and profession skills. Give a good long look to actual goldpiece cost, think about the Eberron campaign setting NPC qualifications to put things together (generally low level, generally NPC class) and see if it really makes sense to load up on the magic. You'll probably find that you'll get similar results while keeping closer to the flavor of the campaign world. |
| Lelander_the_L07-02-07, 09:49 PM | This whole thing makes me remember that one line from Titanic "Its made of Iron sir, it can sink", Said the creator of the ship. so my thoughts come down to 1. it would defiantly need those three elemental rings 2. you would need just about the best pilot |
| Archangel6207-12-07, 10:22 PM | Any comments in terms of feasibility or problems with the designs I have up? |
| Euangelion07-13-07, 10:28 AM | First of all, just as a general comment, the best crewmembers of an airship are gargoyles (and wingwyrds)- they don't need to sleep, eat, or breath, they can fly, and they are powerful combatants. Even just one or two gargoyles as part of a crew can make a tremendous difference. And of course, being Eberron, gargoyles aren't inherently evil (they're part of a courier service in Sharn, for example). Sure, they'd be expensive to hire, but probably worth it. Second, I'm not sure many DMs would allow a ballista to fire a rock, Mightyix! However, IIRC from Heroes of Battle, even ballistae do full damage against objects since they are also seige engines by HoB's definitions, so no other ammunition other than standard ballistae bolts should be needed. Edit: but even if they only do half damage, it's off a d8, not a d6, so it will still do reasonable damage. Third, those are interesting concepts for the airships, Archangel62. That third one is about as subtle as a 2x4. It shows up, and everyone pretty knows that they're toast. |
| Archangel6207-13-07, 12:26 PM | Third, those are interesting concepts for the airships, Archangel62. That third one is about as subtle as a 2x4. It shows up, and everyone pretty knows that they're toast. That was sort of the hope too, the fun part is if multiple ones were in use, but yeah the goal was to make something horrible. My future plans for a campaign might involve the LoB getting a hellmouth ship off the ground. |
| mightyix07-14-07, 07:09 PM | Second, I'm not sure many DMs would allow a ballista to fire a rock, Mightyix! However, IIRC from Heroes of Battle, even ballistae do full damage against objects since they are also seige engines by HoB's definitions, so no other ammunition other than standard ballistae bolts should be needed. Edit: but even if they only do half damage, it's off a d8, not a d6, so it will still do reasonable damage. If your DM knows anything at all about Ancient history, then they'll know that the Romans did indeed use stone throwing ballistae in addition to stone throwing catapults that pop culture has associated with them. Keep the same stats as a bolt thrower of the same size, but overcome the limitations on damage with piercing objects at the cost of your ammunition weighing far more. It's balanced within normal DnD precepts of weapons being balanced against others by having the more effective one (in this case the stone thrower) having a higher cost of usage (in this case, ammunition weight multiplier of lots and the same sized crew you would need for a 'catapult' of the same damage). As a matter of fact, the Romans INVENTED the word "ballista" to refer to their stone throwing, torsion armed, giant crossbow-like weapons. http://198.144.2.125/Siege/Photos.htm shows good photos of a reconstructed one (although far smaller than the 15x15 HUGE sized one that I proposed for the airship) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_siege_engines , while a Wikipedia article, is respectably accurate and gives a good description of the history of the ballista. Stone throwing ballista are in fact the PRIMARY ballista of history, while the modern age has erroneously associated the scorpion and smaller spear thowers with the term. |
| Euangelion07-17-07, 11:01 AM | If your DM knows anything at all about Ancient history... That's all very interesting, seriously, but my point was based on what most DMs would allow, which most likely will be based on the D&D RAW, not on actual Earth history. Besides, this is Eberron we're talking about, and I've searched the entire Library of Korranberg, and I can't find any mention of ballistae being anything other than what is essentially a large crossbow, in the entire history of Eberron! Firing rocks from a ballista? How primitive... ;) :D |
| mightyix07-18-07, 06:02 AM | I've searched the entire Library of Korranberg, and I can't find any mention of ballistae being anything other than what is essentially a large crossbow, in the entire history of Eberron! Firing rocks from a ballista? How primitive.. Touche. :D |