Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Phantos 05-10-07, 03:57 PM	My players have this thing to which they are very attached. It is a simple wagon, weighing a few hundred pounds that travels along at a whopping 2 MPH. They have christened this wagon the Mobile Assault Platform, and while it may not actually deserve that title, they have untold amounts of affection for the MAP. My only problem with this situation is that they are about to wade knee-deep into an adventure where they need to cross a large amount of land in as short a time as possible. Are there any spells, items, or alternative carrying-vehicles that could make this process faster but still allow for them to keep their blasted wagon? They're only level five, but believe me when I tell you they would pool all of their resources to buy +1 wheels. Would the speed rely on a faster horse, perhaps? Are there some horse-shoes out there, or some form of magic to keep the wagon rolling past 8 hours a day? This DM just doesn't know what to do! :confused:
Madoffler 05-10-07, 04:19 PM	If they love it this much then you HAVE to let them bring it! teleportation and portals are an option but hardly exciting. You can easily make something up to help them get from place to place faster be it magical horseshoes or whatever. Here's my contribution: Spiners of Time Slowing
Duncfoo 05-10-07, 04:27 PM	Oooh... Wagon Rims of Racing Combined with... Magebred Heavy Horses with Horse Shoes of Speed. Now for the suspension... Seriously, if they put the money into it, let them have it. D&D commonly misses out on enchanting more common items. Just house rule it! Wagon needs to be more stable to handle the heavy bumps at speed, better horses and wheels for movement. All of this takes time and money. It gives you an item to use for or against them as the DM. Have them quest for a horse trader before he sells them his prize draft horse. A mage won't enchant the wagon axle before his home is cleared of imps he accidentally summoned. A metallurgist won't sell them mithrial studded wheels, as he has no mithrial, but boy that duegar and goblin cave might. And then... "A group of bandits ambushes you, curiously they all seems to rush the wagon." "There's that Wagon we heard us about boys!" They will blow every cent and HP they have protecting it.
Phantos 05-10-07, 04:30 PM	Some potent ideas, and I doubt they would mind the Riding Spinna's jokes... But what kind of mechanics would I use? Teleportation and portals are also out since they're a bit too low for that and the adventure rewards players for selecting the best routes and travel methods available to them, none of which really cater to a slow moving vehicle. I really don't mind letting them have the wagon, I would just like to allow them to travel faster with it to meet the standards of the next adventure I have. I win because they don't go slow as paste, and they win because they essentially get to play a pimped out Oregon Trail where they can beat up other people.
Charlym_Zuardan 05-10-07, 04:35 PM	it seems to me that caravans would be interested in various items to give them a speed advantage, less travel time means more buying/selling time. have them talk to some people from caravans in the area or from wealthy merchants who send thier wares across the country. if anyone has something on hand that adds to travel speed without really providing a bonus to anything else, it would be someone like that. some ideas for things to use? shouldnt be too hard to make somethign up, heres off the top of my head... a carrot on a stick :P oil of expeditious travel - grease those wheels up good and the horses wont even know they are pulling a loaded wagon! (allow horses to go a faster speed or something) Tireless Horseshoes - travel longer without tiring your horses (lets the horses travel double the normal amount of time before needing a rest) vitamin enriched oats - give your horse an extra boost when he needs it most (increase speed or constitution of the horses or allow them to go longer distances without rest honestly there are probably a hundred different things you could toss in that would help out with travel time without affecting anything else.
Gottwick 05-10-07, 04:41 PM	I've done some research on wagons for my campaign. The two important factors are fatigue and difficult terrain. If the horses don't need to rest, they can double the distance they travel each day. (Divine casters can 'cure' the fatigue of marching longer than 8 hours a day.) If the draft animals are constructs or something that doesn't need to eat or sleep, they move 24 hours a day. Keep the load down so the animals aren't moving at 2 mph, too. Multiple, stronger animals help with that. Think of the dog races in Alaska! But nothing short of powerful magic can get a wagon over a canyon. At that point, you need to provide maps and/or roads.
alecthemad 05-10-07, 04:44 PM	In eberron they have wagon's bound with earth elementals. This lets the wagon move without an animal and move all the time and through any terrain as the elemental uses its power to just move through earth to propell the wagon. It is likely beyond their power level but it may be an option for you to use some variation of that.
jimpaladin 05-10-07, 04:52 PM	A couple of probably unpopular ideas. If having 2 horses won't make it go any faster, then they can't take it this time. I mean sooner or later they won't be able to take it into a dungeoun correct? Or you could have them hire someone to bring the cart to them in the city. Finally, why do they need to race across the world. I understand the story is written that way BUT can it be modified? Again, if not, have the action take place if they don't get there in time. That way in the future they will know to leave it behind or use the other ideas given. No rewards tends to make the players re-think their really cool stuff:P
Phantos 05-10-07, 06:46 PM	The adventure I am running is actually the Red Hand of Doom, which involves the players moving about the kingdom in a certain amount of days to foil the machinations of a huge army as it makes it's way to the capital city. The sooner the players get their "errands" accomplished, the better. If they ultimately go too slow, the kingdom falls without their aid. There are a few parts throughout the adventure that involve transplanting the characters so I'm having to change things a bit to include the possibility of taking more. For example, at one point some elves riding giant owls take the players to their forest city many miles away, by means of flight. For those characters who are attached to mounts, like my Half-Orc, it can be harnessed and brought. But having four giant owls harnessing a HUGE wagon back to their city is a bit of a stretch, but nothing I can't handle. Eventually they may come to a point where they can't bring their wagon; right now they park it outside of dungeons and keep the riding wolf on duty, but lord knows that roads don't lead everywhere. But this is all just DM stuff that I can mold and fix myself, it's not that hard to deal with. Now, when you get down to mechanics, that's where I fumble. I love the ideas given thus far, and eventually I see them moving to an elemental-based solution but that wont be for awhile (perhaps as a reward for saving the kingdom at the end, eh?), so I may introduce some very... exotic tradesmen into the campaign that do detail work on such vehicles. Stout horses of extraordinary stock, magical spokes and pieces, enchanted feed and horseshoes, or just some good old fashioned grease... I think all of these are good for my players to use and I thank everyone for their input thus far. I am just going to House Rules a lot of the stuff, but does anyone know if there's anything in the books for this sort of thing? I am pretty sure there's rules for magebred horses, and magical horseshoes, out there somewhere.
Vharuck 05-10-07, 06:55 PM	Enchant the wagon using Craft Wondrous Item (or maybe make a new craft feat, Pimp Ride) with a levitate spell and have flying animals pull the cart (hip-hop-ogryphs?).
Phantos 05-10-07, 07:10 PM	Ahaha, that's so terrible! :D I'm going to have to yell at characters to not "Ghost Ride the Wagon" soon... or have them feud with rival pimped out caravans. We may have inadvertantly created an entire new sub-culture in this process, but at last I may have found a good reason to keep them in the towns and roleplay. You want to leave, but your wagon is in the shop still; you just had to get that extra coat of Dragon Red paint, didn't you? I have another question, actually, and it relates to how long horses can go. Now, horses are bred for travel and being beasts of burden, so you'd think they could naturally go for more than 8 hours a day. In the books, neither 3.0 nor 3.5 have any distance rules for horses specifically as it relates to how many hours a day they can go. I am going to assume 8 hours of "marching", but when you wake up at 8 AM and have to stop at 4PM, that leaves a lot of wasted daylight. I could apply the normal forced march to the two horses pulling the wagon, but it seems a bit off. Has anyone ever had this situation before?
SanderJK 05-10-07, 07:19 PM	I would let them meet a some sort of gnome artificer who would give it flames and stripes that indeed do make it go faster.
Madoffler 05-10-07, 08:54 PM	In the books, neither 3.0 nor 3.5 have any distance rules for horses specifically as it relates to how many hours a day they can go. Pg.164 of the players has the information on overland movement as I'm sure you're already aware. The first paragraph states that the actual traval time for a horse is 8 hours. (stateing that the only exception to the 8 hour rule would be watercraft.)
Iver Gearsham 05-10-07, 09:00 PM	Arms and Equipment has wheels that up a vehical's speed by ten ft. for 500 gp. Each I like to go airborn by Suspension 4th lvl levitation spell from Shining South. Horseshoes of the Zepher DMG 3,000 gp let an animal ignore rough terain and go over water/mud/lava if it can take the Heat. Horseshoes of Speed DMG 6,000 gp adds 30 ft. or doubles movment continusly. Adding more horses divides the weight and speeds things up per Arms & Equipment rules. As your party is 5th lvl the third lvl spell Augment Item from Stronghold Builder's gb should greatly increase the wagons durability. Shrink Item can lighten the load on the wagon and speed things up. also it can effect "bridging equipment" to span gaps or you could temporaraly Take it down into big sections and Shrink, Portage and UnShrink.
Johnny_Angel 05-10-07, 09:27 PM	Some potent ideas, and I doubt they would mind the Riding Spinna's jokes... But what kind of mechanics would I use? Teleportation and portals are also out since they're a bit too low for that and the adventure rewards players for selecting the best routes and travel methods available to them, none of which really cater to a slow moving vehicle. I really don't mind letting them have the wagon, I would just like to allow them to travel faster with it to meet the standards of the next adventure I have. I win because they don't go slow as paste, and they win because they essentially get to play a pimped out Oregon Trail where they can beat up other people. I'm sorry, but I have to ask... has anyone come down with Typhoid Fever?
Madoffler 05-10-07, 09:30 PM	I'm sorry, but I have to ask... has anyone come down with Typhoid Fever? FORD THE RIVER! I GOT GOLD TO PROSPECT!
Phantos 05-11-07, 03:28 AM	Oh lord... They're going to caulk the wagon and float it. I better suggest certain precautions... And no, no one has died of typhoid. Dysentery is another matter. :D Thanks for the input everyone, I am looking into Arms and Equipment.
Andorxor 05-11-07, 06:01 AM	A permanented Animate object + Awaken construct(not neccesary,but cool) + black paint = K.I.T.T. They cost of K.I.T.T. : Animate object - 660 Permanency - 15450 -------------------- 16110 They speed of K.I.T.T. : Base speed: 60 ft. Speed with heavy load(A adventurer party): 40 ft. Hustling speed: 80 ft (Unlimited because a construct can't take nonlethal damage) Speed per hour: 8 miles Speed per 24 hours: 192 miles
Phantos 05-29-07, 08:16 PM	Just an update for everyone to suggested different ideas. I posed the various upgrades to the party and they took them very well. The wheels, materials, even armor were all looked over and purchased. The party even got the idea to save up for a permanent Shrink Item cast on the wagon at a high enough level to get the entirety of it all. This way they could shrink and enlarge the item as they pleased; no more leaving it out in the open or pondering what to do when a steep incline comes along. Eventually they may switch over to an Earth Sled because of how cool it looked in one of the store catalogs. Definitely a fun thing to save up for, but I hope they stop with all of the Expansion M.A.P. jokes! :rofl:
Commodore 05-29-07, 08:59 PM	Oh lord... They're going to caulk the wagon and float it. I better suggest certain precautions... And no, no one has died of typhoid. Dysentery is another matter. :D Thanks for the input everyone, I am looking into Arms and Equipment. Caulk and float > fording, forever. Okay... here's my very, very late idea. You could have an expert craftsman who has been in the area of wagon travel and magic, perhaps a retired sorcerer, wizard, tinkerer, or the like, who has been wanting to test his latest, brilliant invention: hover-wheels. They have the Levitate spell cast on it, and the spell itself is solar-powered. He (NPC time) wants to come along for the journey, to see how well they work (protect the NPC time, though he or she may be able to fend for themselves), so the person will equip them to the wagon, and join the crew for their adventure. Now, note the solar powered; this is quite literal. Intense sunlight may make the wagon float higher than anticipated (and drag the draft animals up into the air with it), cloudy weather will impair travel, night-on travel will be impossible (and require guarding of the wagon, seeing as it can't move out of possible danger), and can't be brought into dungeons. This is what I thought of, and I hope it can help you somehow.
jedikuonji 05-29-07, 09:50 PM	The party is a bit low level for this, but they could, later on, staple a flying carpet to the bottom of the wagon. Flying carpets take craft wonderous, overland flights, and permancy. You could create a cheaper version, call it a levitating carpet, that takes craft wonderous, levitate, and permanancy; or even just enchant the wagon with permanant levitate. If the wagon hovers off the ground then its speed is only limited to your horses speed (or whatever is towing the wagon). The fun thing about DnD is: if there isn't a solution in a book, make one up. Who cares if a splat book has some magical wheels or flying wagon, just make something up and get on with having fun with your players.
CCS 05-29-07, 10:54 PM	I really don't mind letting them have the wagon, I would just like to allow them to travel faster with it to meet the standards of the next adventure I have. I win because they don't go slow as paste, and they win because they essentially get to play a pimped out Oregon Trail where they can beat up other people. The great thing is that this is D&D and you're the DM. So, if you (the DM) want to add some sort of haste like enchantment to the wagon, you can simply do it. Just have some wizard (hired, out of gratitude, etc) cast some enrecognizable spell on it that produces the desired effect. If the players insist upon making some sort of ID attempts to learn the exact details simply set the DC at something rediculous like 50 or 75 or whatever suits you. Something that they have no means of matching. If they cast spells to learn more about it just inform them that it's stong alteration magic or whatever and leave it at that. And don't worry about the thing as far as all the wealth by level charts.
Kaldric 05-30-07, 03:22 AM	The way it was done in the old days, not necessarily with this particular wagon, was to add horses. You buy the harness, and pretty soon you've got 6 or 8 horses pulling the thing along as fast as it'll stand. Get a carpenter to reinforce it and add metal springs. It won't be comfortable, but dang it'll move. If they want to go really fast, then they buy a map of the kingdoms they'll be travelling through. They race along the roads from one town to the next, and trade their tired horses for fresh ones, along with a little bit of gold each time. Completely mundane, doesn't cost much, and approximates the result you want. As an added bonus, it doesn't introduce over-powerful magic items to a low-level group.