Mobile Fortress armaments? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Mobile Fortress armaments? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
][ncubus
02-10-05, 05:40 PM I’m currently fleshing out a military style campaign that would be based around the Argonth and set a few years/months before the end of The Last War. The ECS mentions that the mobile fortress uses its defensive/offensive capabilities to ward off monsters from the Mournland after the war. So my question is this: above and beyond the capabilities of its inhabitants, what are those "capabilities"? Also what interesting units could be stationed in the fortress especially during the war or what tactics does the fortress lend itself to (beyond what is mentioned in the ECS)?
Edymnion
02-10-05, 06:01 PM I'd imagine heavy seige weapons.
Ballistas, catapults, trebuchets, that sort of thing.

On top of archer platforms, magewrights with offensive magic eternal wands, and all that sort of thing.

All properly enchanted of course.
The only thing worse than firing bolts the size of small trees is firing bolts the size of small trees that also happen to be flaming burst trees.
Cloud Divider
02-10-05, 06:07 PM [ncubus']I’m currently fleshing out a military style campaign that would be based around the Argonth and set a few years/months before the end of The Last War. The ECS mentions that the mobile fortress uses its defensive/offensive capabilities to ward off monsters from the Mournland after the war. So my question is this: above and beyond the capabilities of its inhabitants, what are those "capabilities"? Also what interesting units could be stationed in the fortress especially during the war or what tactics does the fortress lend itself to (beyond what is mentioned in the ECS)?
Something I'd always thought to be cool (but unsure how to make work/fit) is magical siege armaments.

I mean, you can have a Wand of Lightning Bolt that zaps away for 10d6 damage for what, 22,500gp? That's pretty impressive (AND expensive), but it's still essentially a "man-portable" weapon. A ray-gun, essentially.

So what happens if magic was scalable? Imagine, if you will, a 12-foot long Wand of Lightning Bolts, specifically designed as a weapon to be used against Really Big Stuff (castles, sea/airships, giants, dragons, etc). Stick it on a carriage (like the kind you use for a ballista), and suddenly we're talking about a Lightning Ballista. Considering that a 12' long couple-hundred pound wand is rather significantly less convenient than a "regular sized" wand, maybe we can carve the cost down a wee bit. Maybe throw in some other limitations (takes N rounds between shots to "cool down", takes an Ranged Touch Attack to aim, takes a Ballista-like penalty to hit targets - say, just enough penalty that it's rolling an even +0 to hit a Huge target), and maybe we can cut the price in half. About 12-15k sounds fairly reasonable to me, considering it's a consumable asset. Possibly also add some range improvement, too, just to get the range to reasonably match a standard ballista.

Alternately, have it work as a "magnifying glass" for a standard Wand, doubling the damage dice but doubling the charges expended. So a "Force Multiplying" Lightning Ballista uses a Wand of Lightning Bolts (11250gp/ea) as the power source, and can get 25 10d6 blasts off with it...

On some level, I think I like the sound of the consumable Lightning Ballista better, because the image of a rune-encrusted telephone pole that chars and smokes as it's used, and eventually collapses into smouldering ash is a REALLY cool mental image.

On some level, it feels like an Eldritch Device, but certainly not on the Plot Device-y level of the other Eldritch Devices that have hit print.

I dunno, call 'em Siege Wands or something.
][ncubus
02-10-05, 06:23 PM Imagine, if you will, a 12-foot long Wand of Lightning Bolts, specifically designed as a weapon to be used against Really Big Stuff (castles, sea/airships, giants, dragons, etc).

This is more along the lines of what I was thinking. Catapults, etc are obvious choices and are cost effective. But part of the fun of the Eberon setting is the way magic gets incorperated in everything! Any other ideas?

Next question. How would an attacking force go about assaulting the fortress? Conventional siege doesnt work as the time it takes to set up and aim siege weapons is too long vs a moving target. And I'm not sure using ladders would work either (really funny mental image of a scaling team chasing after the fortress with ropes and ladders :clap: "good job guys, it cant keep it up for ever, you will catch it eventualy" ). Conventional infantry is also pretty much out, esspecialy if the fortress has any amount of altitude control. In my mind that pretty much leaves magic and mounted flyers. Anything else?
Cloud Divider
02-11-05, 12:26 AM [ncubus']This is more along the lines of what I was thinking. Catapults, etc are obvious choices and are cost effective. But part of the fun of the Eberon setting is the way magic gets incorperated in everything! Any other ideas?
The ideas about the standard ballistae firing enchanted Keen Flaming Burst ammunition isn't a bad thought either. One downside, though, is that Flaming Burst ammunition is still generally only good against a point target. You'd ideally want some decent area effect capabilities, particularly if we're talking about magical field artillery here...

But I like Siege Wands better... Siege Wands of Lightning Bolt would be pretty effective against point targets like Warforged Titans, while Siege Wands of Fireball (with improved range and burst radius) would be just heinous against infantry formations, even if it's only 3d6 damage (even on a save, the 5hp damage will wipe out most average 1st level Warriors).

Next question. How would an attacking force go about assaulting the fortress? Conventional siege doesnt work as the time it takes to set up and aim siege weapons is too long vs a moving target. And I'm not sure using ladders would work either (really funny mental image of a scaling team chasing after the fortress with ropes and ladders :clap: "good job guys, it cant keep it up for ever, you will catch it eventualy" ). Conventional infantry is also pretty much out, esspecialy if the fortress has any amount of altitude control. In my mind that pretty much leaves magic and mounted flyers. Anything else?
Probably the same way someone would assault a modern aircraft carrier (or cruise ship). You can hit it with something really hard like a cruise missile or torpedo (neither of which have much of an obvious Eberronian analogue, save maybe a Dragonhawk with a Siege Wand strapped on), and hope to cripple it.

The other option is to get people aboard it somehow - the sneakier the better, because it's just not realistic to expect to win by brute force (there's no way you could get enough people aboard that way). You could have a team of climbers try to scale the exterior (using Spider Climb potions/scrolls/items), and then sneak around and hit the key targets (command, communications, volatiles like fuel/ammo, and the power and control systems). If you had aerial assets, you could have "paratroopers" do HALO (high altitude, low opening) insertions from airships or dragonhawks, and then using Feather Fall items (a minimum of 2 uses/day, and ideally saving one use to survive jumping off the side of the ship to escape) instead of parachutes; once they landed, they'd go after the same key targets. A third option, is the extra-super-sneaky one: Get your people aboard the ship BEFORE it goes anywhere. Have sleeper agents placed within the crew or as passengers. When it's go time, they revert to Secret Agent mode, and wreak havok aboard the ship.

The big strength the landship has against a conventional opponent is the mobility - if you can remove that advantage, it's suddenly a giant immobile castle. So I'd suppose that ambushes could be fairly successful (lure the landship into an area where you've already got your siege weapons prepared). Having your insertion team disable the engines just as the ship enters the range of your hidden Siege Wands and Arcane Artillery Teams would be particularly ugly, as the chaos ensuing after the "engines" blow up will slow any response to your Siege Weapons opening fire.

There's some ugly indirect actions you could take too - just like a city, these floating fortresses have a large population in a contained area (and presumably limited supplies). Which makes for an ideal situation for unconventional weapons and warfare - disease and poisons. If you contaminate their water supply (while yes, the clerics/adepts aboard could try to purity water, it's doubtful they could keep up with the demand), they may have to pull into "port" sooner than planned, and you set your ambush for next to the oasis. Even just giving everybody simple food poisoning could have serious results (reduces morale and combat effectiveness). Let alone throwing in something nasty (influenza), or really nasty, like a magical disease. And each of those tasks could be performed by the aforementioned insertion team.

Yay for Khorvaire Special Operations teams! One could ponder what kinds of freaky equipment they'd have...

Assume at a minimum, they're 3rd level, but with PC classes, and a minimum of 2700gp of gear (it'd probably be safe to assume they'd have more than this, as much of it would be "issued" from a higher power).

But as a baseline:
1 suit Shiftweave (black "stealth" outfit, "civilian" outfit, and enemy "military" outfit; 500gp)
Feather Fall Token x3 (50gp/ea)
Potion of CLW (50gp)
Shortbow + 20 arrows (31gp, perhaps Mighty+1 for 151gp)
Weapon of Choice, MW (likely a shortsword or mace, 300ish gp)
Wand of Magic Missile or Lesser Elemental Orb (the silenced 9mm equivalent... 750gp)
Special Mission-specific Widget (big jug of nasty poison, enchanted "block of C4", etc., 800gp)
Maybe throw in a few fun Alchemical items (Alchemist's fire, tanglefoot bags, thunderstones, ninja smoke bombs, whatever).

That adds up pretty closely to the 2700gp recommended limit (for an NPC). Yes, the lack of armor is intentional. If they get into a big firefight, they're hosed anyway, as they'd be outnumbered by a zillion to one.

The equipment load is designed primarily for stealth and concealability. That's why there's no armor - it's incompatible with the Shiftweave suit, and 2700gp isn't enough for Glamoured armor; the weapons should be reasonably compact as well. If he has to fight, his weapons are fairly likely to disable most opponents in a single round, IF you assume the Average Private Joe Guard-on-Duty is an L1 Warrior (which is fairly reasonable, given Eberron). If you assume these Khorvaire SpecOps guys have at least 1 level of Rogue, they're even more effective (assuming they can get Sneak Attacks off regularly). I forget if you can Power Attack with a ranged weapon in 3.5e (it simulates a "called shot" pretty nicely, in my book), but the Rog/Ftr version could either use that or Rapid Shot to boost his first-volley damage. The 3 Feather Fall tokens are for the insertion (one plus a backup) and one for the escape. And naturally, the CLW potion's utility should be obvious... :)
Beleriphon
02-11-05, 01:18 AM For fun ideas see the Stonghold Builders Guidebook (despite some glaring typographical errors, not so hot spelling). This book is perfect, since it acutally has rules for building a floating fortress, and rules for creating, and buying, magical type seige equipment. Hand stuff.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
][ncubus 02-10-05, 05:40 PM	I’m currently fleshing out a military style campaign that would be based around the Argonth and set a few years/months before the end of The Last War. The ECS mentions that the mobile fortress uses its defensive/offensive capabilities to ward off monsters from the Mournland after the war. So my question is this: above and beyond the capabilities of its inhabitants, what are those "capabilities"? Also what interesting units could be stationed in the fortress especially during the war or what tactics does the fortress lend itself to (beyond what is mentioned in the ECS)?
Edymnion 02-10-05, 06:01 PM	I'd imagine heavy seige weapons. Ballistas, catapults, trebuchets, that sort of thing. On top of archer platforms, magewrights with offensive magic eternal wands, and all that sort of thing. All properly enchanted of course. The only thing worse than firing bolts the size of small trees is firing bolts the size of small trees that also happen to be flaming burst trees.
Cloud Divider 02-10-05, 06:07 PM	[ncubus']I’m currently fleshing out a military style campaign that would be based around the Argonth and set a few years/months before the end of The Last War. The ECS mentions that the mobile fortress uses its defensive/offensive capabilities to ward off monsters from the Mournland after the war. So my question is this: above and beyond the capabilities of its inhabitants, what are those "capabilities"? Also what interesting units could be stationed in the fortress especially during the war or what tactics does the fortress lend itself to (beyond what is mentioned in the ECS)? Something I'd always thought to be cool (but unsure how to make work/fit) is magical siege armaments. I mean, you can have a Wand of Lightning Bolt that zaps away for 10d6 damage for what, 22,500gp? That's pretty impressive (AND expensive), but it's still essentially a "man-portable" weapon. A ray-gun, essentially. So what happens if magic was scalable? Imagine, if you will, a 12-foot long Wand of Lightning Bolts, specifically designed as a weapon to be used against Really Big Stuff (castles, sea/airships, giants, dragons, etc). Stick it on a carriage (like the kind you use for a ballista), and suddenly we're talking about a Lightning Ballista. Considering that a 12' long couple-hundred pound wand is rather significantly less convenient than a "regular sized" wand, maybe we can carve the cost down a wee bit. Maybe throw in some other limitations (takes N rounds between shots to "cool down", takes an Ranged Touch Attack to aim, takes a Ballista-like penalty to hit targets - say, just enough penalty that it's rolling an even +0 to hit a Huge target), and maybe we can cut the price in half. About 12-15k sounds fairly reasonable to me, considering it's a consumable asset. Possibly also add some range improvement, too, just to get the range to reasonably match a standard ballista. Alternately, have it work as a "magnifying glass" for a standard Wand, doubling the damage dice but doubling the charges expended. So a "Force Multiplying" Lightning Ballista uses a Wand of Lightning Bolts (11250gp/ea) as the power source, and can get 25 10d6 blasts off with it... On some level, I think I like the sound of the consumable Lightning Ballista better, because the image of a rune-encrusted telephone pole that chars and smokes as it's used, and eventually collapses into smouldering ash is a REALLY cool mental image. On some level, it feels like an Eldritch Device, but certainly not on the Plot Device-y level of the other Eldritch Devices that have hit print. I dunno, call 'em Siege Wands or something.
][ncubus 02-10-05, 06:23 PM	Imagine, if you will, a 12-foot long Wand of Lightning Bolts, specifically designed as a weapon to be used against Really Big Stuff (castles, sea/airships, giants, dragons, etc). This is more along the lines of what I was thinking. Catapults, etc are obvious choices and are cost effective. But part of the fun of the Eberon setting is the way magic gets incorperated in everything! Any other ideas? Next question. How would an attacking force go about assaulting the fortress? Conventional siege doesnt work as the time it takes to set up and aim siege weapons is too long vs a moving target. And I'm not sure using ladders would work either (really funny mental image of a scaling team chasing after the fortress with ropes and ladders :clap: "good job guys, it cant keep it up for ever, you will catch it eventualy" ). Conventional infantry is also pretty much out, esspecialy if the fortress has any amount of altitude control. In my mind that pretty much leaves magic and mounted flyers. Anything else?
Cloud Divider 02-11-05, 12:26 AM	[ncubus']This is more along the lines of what I was thinking. Catapults, etc are obvious choices and are cost effective. But part of the fun of the Eberon setting is the way magic gets incorperated in everything! Any other ideas? The ideas about the standard ballistae firing enchanted Keen Flaming Burst ammunition isn't a bad thought either. One downside, though, is that Flaming Burst ammunition is still generally only good against a point target. You'd ideally want some decent area effect capabilities, particularly if we're talking about magical field artillery here... But I like Siege Wands better... Siege Wands of Lightning Bolt would be pretty effective against point targets like Warforged Titans, while Siege Wands of Fireball (with improved range and burst radius) would be just heinous against infantry formations, even if it's only 3d6 damage (even on a save, the 5hp damage will wipe out most average 1st level Warriors). Next question. How would an attacking force go about assaulting the fortress? Conventional siege doesnt work as the time it takes to set up and aim siege weapons is too long vs a moving target. And I'm not sure using ladders would work either (really funny mental image of a scaling team chasing after the fortress with ropes and ladders :clap: "good job guys, it cant keep it up for ever, you will catch it eventualy" ). Conventional infantry is also pretty much out, esspecialy if the fortress has any amount of altitude control. In my mind that pretty much leaves magic and mounted flyers. Anything else? Probably the same way someone would assault a modern aircraft carrier (or cruise ship). You can hit it with something really hard like a cruise missile or torpedo (neither of which have much of an obvious Eberronian analogue, save maybe a Dragonhawk with a Siege Wand strapped on), and hope to cripple it. The other option is to get people aboard it somehow - the sneakier the better, because it's just not realistic to expect to win by brute force (there's no way you could get enough people aboard that way). You could have a team of climbers try to scale the exterior (using Spider Climb potions/scrolls/items), and then sneak around and hit the key targets (command, communications, volatiles like fuel/ammo, and the power and control systems). If you had aerial assets, you could have "paratroopers" do HALO (high altitude, low opening) insertions from airships or dragonhawks, and then using Feather Fall items (a minimum of 2 uses/day, and ideally saving one use to survive jumping off the side of the ship to escape) instead of parachutes; once they landed, they'd go after the same key targets. A third option, is the extra-super-sneaky one: Get your people aboard the ship BEFORE it goes anywhere. Have sleeper agents placed within the crew or as passengers. When it's go time, they revert to Secret Agent mode, and wreak havok aboard the ship. The big strength the landship has against a conventional opponent is the mobility - if you can remove that advantage, it's suddenly a giant immobile castle. So I'd suppose that ambushes could be fairly successful (lure the landship into an area where you've already got your siege weapons prepared). Having your insertion team disable the engines just as the ship enters the range of your hidden Siege Wands and Arcane Artillery Teams would be particularly ugly, as the chaos ensuing after the "engines" blow up will slow any response to your Siege Weapons opening fire. There's some ugly indirect actions you could take too - just like a city, these floating fortresses have a large population in a contained area (and presumably limited supplies). Which makes for an ideal situation for unconventional weapons and warfare - disease and poisons. If you contaminate their water supply (while yes, the clerics/adepts aboard could try to purity water, it's doubtful they could keep up with the demand), they may have to pull into "port" sooner than planned, and you set your ambush for next to the oasis. Even just giving everybody simple food poisoning could have serious results (reduces morale and combat effectiveness). Let alone throwing in something nasty (influenza), or really nasty, like a magical disease. And each of those tasks could be performed by the aforementioned insertion team. Yay for Khorvaire Special Operations teams! One could ponder what kinds of freaky equipment they'd have... Assume at a minimum, they're 3rd level, but with PC classes, and a minimum of 2700gp of gear (it'd probably be safe to assume they'd have more than this, as much of it would be "issued" from a higher power). But as a baseline: 1 suit Shiftweave (black "stealth" outfit, "civilian" outfit, and enemy "military" outfit; 500gp) Feather Fall Token x3 (50gp/ea) Potion of CLW (50gp) Shortbow + 20 arrows (31gp, perhaps Mighty+1 for 151gp) Weapon of Choice, MW (likely a shortsword or mace, 300ish gp) Wand of Magic Missile or Lesser Elemental Orb (the silenced 9mm equivalent... 750gp) Special Mission-specific Widget (big jug of nasty poison, enchanted "block of C4", etc., 800gp) Maybe throw in a few fun Alchemical items (Alchemist's fire, tanglefoot bags, thunderstones, ninja smoke bombs, whatever). That adds up pretty closely to the 2700gp recommended limit (for an NPC). Yes, the lack of armor is intentional. If they get into a big firefight, they're hosed anyway, as they'd be outnumbered by a zillion to one. The equipment load is designed primarily for stealth and concealability. That's why there's no armor - it's incompatible with the Shiftweave suit, and 2700gp isn't enough for Glamoured armor; the weapons should be reasonably compact as well. If he has to fight, his weapons are fairly likely to disable most opponents in a single round, IF you assume the Average Private Joe Guard-on-Duty is an L1 Warrior (which is fairly reasonable, given Eberron). If you assume these Khorvaire SpecOps guys have at least 1 level of Rogue, they're even more effective (assuming they can get Sneak Attacks off regularly). I forget if you can Power Attack with a ranged weapon in 3.5e (it simulates a "called shot" pretty nicely, in my book), but the Rog/Ftr version could either use that or Rapid Shot to boost his first-volley damage. The 3 Feather Fall tokens are for the insertion (one plus a backup) and one for the escape. And naturally, the CLW potion's utility should be obvious... :)
Beleriphon 02-11-05, 01:18 AM	For fun ideas see the Stonghold Builders Guidebook (despite some glaring typographical errors, not so hot spelling). This book is perfect, since it acutally has rules for building a floating fortress, and rules for creating, and buying, magical type seige equipment. Hand stuff.