To balance that out, I want him to have the coolest airship known to man and elf, and on the cheap, too.
The plan: using the stronghold builder's guide, buy four or so SS spaces (barracks, storage, ?, ?) and pay to make it float, costing a whopping 15k a space. Then I take Undead Leadership and hauntshift a bunch of Necropolitans into propellers and ballistae (or possibly Scorpions, from HoB) and my cohort, a lv8 (I'm taking improved cohort) necropolitan human cleric into the ship itself. I get him spellstitched, so he can cast wall of iron, and he sort of builds the airship with that.
The Problems: A) Friggin' expensive. B)can't find any rules for this sort of thing, how many necropolitan-powered-propellers does it take to lift a big iron airship? C)If I haunt a siege weapon with a crew of two, do I need to haunt in two undead, or just one? D)Really Frigging expensive.
All splatbooks are open, and I haven't built my character yet, so go wild. I don't care at all if the amount of feats necessary to build and buy this machine make it so my character is worthless. It's better that way, heck, I might even give him Endurance.
Now, for the airship part, have you ever thought of the PrC Sharn Skymage?
Had to put the barracks in enveloping pits because the engine generates so much thrust we needed to be able to shunt personnel into extra-dimensional spaces.
How do you propel your airship?
I skimmed through the Skymage thing, and it doesnt seem like it would help me make a massive chunk of iron fly, unless I missed something.
Yeah, that thread is what drew me into this forum in the first place, it's so **** cool. However, my DM's eyes glazed over when I tried explaining the star drive to him, and when I tried polymorphing a rock into 3 cubic feet of protons (to destroy the solar system) he categorically banned anything that could not be explained using grade eight physics.
I think I am going to wind up RPing my cohort (thrall) and followers as much as my main PC, though. :P It's kind of hard to RP the guy who is just a voice in the background controlling a flying rock and a giant airship. :heehee
Also, yes there is at least one alternative to Haunt Shift, and it does not require you to be undead. It is a lot more complicated, though, and more subject to interpretation.
Basically, you take whatever object you want to inhabit, Polymorph Any Object on it to turn it into a creature. The next step varies a bit. You can make an Astral Seed, die, and then Mind Switch with the "creature", and then crush your Astral Seed. Or you could Mind Switch with it, then manifest Astral Seed. According to some interpretations, Astral Seed recreates the body you curently inhabit if you die and come back after that point.
Then there is another alternative: Polymorph yourself into an undead somehow (I think PaO again), and then be Haunt Shifted. Spells only check for validity of the target at the time of casting, so it doesn't matter that you're not eligible for Haunt Shift after the Polymorph effect ends.
Any ideas for killer offensive power? I could always use siege weapons, but I'm looking into spell turrets right now. A sonic lance blaster could be devastating, but I'm sure there's better.
The major issue with a hauntshift is the HD max on the hauntshift spell, which means you may want to shift yourself up pretty soon.
You can use negative levels to cheese your way in later. :P
Any ideas for killer offensive power? I could always use siege weapons, but I'm looking into spell turrets right now. A sonic lance blaster could be devastating, but I'm sure there's better.
Our airship has spell turrets, and... heck, I don't even know what all it has. Like 5 people took Landlord feats to build it. It is worth an insane amount of money. I'd just look through that thread. Bowen is OCD over this kind of crap. You wouldn't believe how much stuff he put on it. :P
See if you can't get the Motion Amplifier through to your DM. If you can, 1 pair of ring gates and a permanent gust of wind later, and your ship flies regardless of size.
If not, then do it the hard way and try to ask for a magic building material with negative mass.
Failing that, you can do it the harder way with reverse gravity. Although that'll take some CO to get it to last all day even with multiple castings.
Permanent Gust of Wind in a box will help lift your ship.
See if you can't get the Motion Amplifier through to your DM. If you can, 1 pair of ring gates and a permanent gust of wind later, and your ship flies regardless of size.
If not, then do it the hard way and try to ask for a magic building material with negative mass.
Failing that, you can do it the harder way with reverse gravity. Although that'll take some CO to get it to last all day even with multiple castings.
Or you could... you know... use the printed rules on how to make ships fly... instead of trying to make up some abomination of real world physics and contorted rules interpretations.
Seriously, you're actually suggesting this pseodo-science BS that you and Rocktopus made up to someone looking for suggestions for a real game?
Or you could... you know... use the printed rules on how to make ships fly... instead of trying to make up some abomination of real world physics and contorted rules interpretations.
Seriously, you're actually suggesting this pseodo-science BS that you and Rocktopus made up to someone looking for suggestions for a real game?
Hrum, I mean, it's actually more expensive than a normal elemental airship from eberron. And pseudo-science it may be, but it's also fun and fairly cool as these things go.
The eberron airship, by the way, is 92K, and roughly the size of a small cruiseliner. I believe that was the jump-off point used by Bowen, and it can be snaggared with dragon cohort from the draconomicroNoNoNoNo + landlord&&landlord trick. Landlord also matches any investments you yourself make, so if you want to be really useless but simultaneously REALLY cool, go ahead and burn your whole EWL into it as well. Eberron actually makes provisions for basically laying your character out as a pilot, and it's pretty easy to allow that to consume your entire character. Useless without being useless. If you have any spare space in the character, I suggest making him a deeply charismatic individual so that you can still have fun during the parts of the game spent in town.
Besides, this makes you a ex-paladin and his dragon friend as the the captain and first mate of an enormous airship.
The basic Eberron Airship is in the Eberron Campaign Setting. The Explorer's Handbook has a little bit of extra info on it.