Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Kerrus Mar 11, 2009 3:13:56	This idea struck my fancy, but as I'm not the DM, I need to figure out a way to accomplish it using the rules at hand. Available Books: Core 3.5 Complete Warrior Spell Compendium A and B series (3.0- ie: Tome and Blood) What's the goal if you haven't already guessed? I want to build a starship/spelljammer. Moreover, I want it to be able to reach atmosphere under raw power. No fly spells or levitation, except for stationkeeping. And for that I'd like ideas. Ideas for everything, be it atmospheric control, defence, offence, or the like. For the record, the current two methods of getting it into the sky are tied at either Decanters of Endless Water en masse or an Orion Pulse Drive, minus the nuclear warheads and plus whatever I can economically make as an equivalent (either Fire Seeds or Explosive Runes, currently)
#2 kouk Mar 11, 2009 3:23:49	The best way of course, would be to work it out with your DM. The DM can veto perfectly logical ideas, or approve of ridiculous ones and attribute it to 'magic'. Maybe he can just let you find an "actual" spelljammer and take the campaign that way.
#3 Kerrus Mar 11, 2009 3:26:16	Well obviously. But I want to actually build one. An epic feat of roleplaying. The DM's viewpoint on it at the moment is basically if we can come up with a way to do it IC, we can build one. But he's not going to give us one right out. It's also something for the future, and he's a huge fan of weird and wacky ideas.
#4 prince_of_parkness Mar 11, 2009 13:26:41	Wall of stone made into a sphere (I think thats legal) + persistent telekenises and loads of plants? That will allow you to fly up there. Then you could start building a satelite via maniplutaing spells such as magehand. If you build it at the right hight it should stay in the orbit for a while. The occassional magical push would be all you should eed to keep it up there. Sorry, I was a bit unclear on what you meant by no magic, if this isn;t good feel free to ignore. Alternativly: zomebie wyverns, mounted by commoner zombies. They don't need to breath and never tire. (The DM might rule they are vulnerable to blugeoning atmosperic winds or something. in this case you will need to make sure they have fast healing somehow. The wyvers then fly up carrying raw material and the commoner zomies then get to work building. Once they build an air tight structure within orbit you can follow up (or get enough wyvern zombies to keep the thing afloat without it being in orbit). Bring plenty of plants for food and oxygen, and an Decanters of Endless Water.
#5 rodolfomaxi Mar 11, 2009 14:27:26	Bablery about plants and oxygen, no use to the OP Plants do not produce oxygen out of nothing. All they would be able to do is filter part of your carbon dioxide. And even then it is dangerous to have lots of plants for they breath the same air as you do...thus you could die along with them if the oxygen inboard isn't sufficient to both lifeforms. Actually, just in the peaks of sun light is that a plant can filter more oxygen than she consumes.
#6 SteelMirror Mar 11, 2009 14:37:12	Can you use the fortress builder's handbook? If so then it's laughably easy to do. Wall of force+permanancy for the walls, give it the flying and planeshifting proprties and you're done! not only is it mobile and able to cross planes, it's immune to damage!
#7 Kerrus Mar 11, 2009 16:42:38	I don't think I actually specified no magic- I just didn't want suggestions like "teleport it into space" or "Stick overland flight on it" enchanting it for survivability and otherwise using magic is entirely fine- in fact, suspect you couldn't do it without magic. I just want a ship that can work relatively mundanely, even if it uses magic to accomplish that goal. So rather then using a fly spell or teleport, it uses a rocket. A magic powered rocket, sure, but a rocket nevertheless. Rooms are equipped with bottles of air to produce air. They'd probably be wondrous-ized with Leomund's Tiny Hut, for temperture control and the like. Anyways, no, I can only use the books as specified in the op. Walls of force are one of the main ideas for fortifying it, but a ship made entirely out of force effects will suffer the quandry of a well placed disintegrate killing everyone on board. EDIT: Decanters of Endless Water mounted in gyroscopic fixtures around the ship to provide maneuvering capability.
#8 doomsought Mar 11, 2009 17:25:19	Better yet: captured large fire elemental + decanter of endless Water = steam jet engine ad a air elemental binding, or some gear work valves and you have control and maneuverability, the air elemental can also retain/freshen atmosphere if you so choose. Your better off having a narrow tower with the sphere at top, three valves on the sphere let steam jets out. Then you just need a mass reducing enchantment, use force walls instead, or a load of Bags of Holding. (BoH method, means the thing is a closet like thing, with shelves full of rooms, the sphere up top is just big enough for the elemental and valve works.
#9 Kerrus Mar 11, 2009 17:27:19	I like it. But I think we'll include the Orion pulse engine for a mundane contingency, incase we're hit with an AMF weapon and need to control ourselves with hydraulics an concussive force.
#10 crossblade Mar 11, 2009 20:04:09	Eberron's airships might be a starting point. Excerpt. They use binding fire or wind elementals for propulsion. Instead of soarwood, you could have a permanency of fly cast on whatever you use as a ship. Then you just need it to be airtight. Edit: My gf has my phb, so I'm not sure on the exact rules, but cast Animate Object on the 'ship', twist the rules on Awakening some and you have an instant "on-board computer." (If awakening doesn't allow for speech, cast that Mouth spell on it, or give it a class in Sorceror/Bard so it can cast Ventriloquism) And before take off, make sure the cake isn't a lie.
#11 gregt_314 Mar 11, 2009 20:36:18	Note that under 4e Manual of the Planes, you can breathe just fine in interplanar "space", so bringing an oxygen supply isn't an issue. Also, spelljamming ships don't have to leave the gravitational pull of a planet to travel between planes. So as far as the spelljamming part goes, it's as simple as building a vessel that can planeshift. (There's a small amount of 4e rules for these in the Manual of the Planes, but not so much as to actually be useful.) A spaceship's a different question. There's plenty of magical solutions, but they're all very silly and expensive. If you're able to acquire the sort of magic necessary to break the gravitational pull using force alone, then you're probably in a position where you can just wish for your spaceship. D&D really isn't made for that kind of thing, so I'd strongly recommend that your DM say no to space travel and restrict you to planar travel, the D&D equivalent.
#12 Kerrus Mar 11, 2009 21:32:46	Well, this is 3.5, and right now it's mainly a hypothetical concern. If we really wanted to go visit other planes, we could all get rings of planar shift or something. I want to build the Weatherlight, but with a rocket drive. I want to build something nobody in universe has ever seen before- even if they've glimpsed spelljammers before. Cost, as a hypothetical theoretical discussion, is of no issue. While I would naturally want the most efficient use of resources, in general, we're going to be handwaving a lot of stuff. Rather then calculate the number of explosive rune books we'll need for the Orion Pulse Drive, we're just going to do some RP 'testing' on a smaller scale, and have the artificers that'll actually build it scale it up. Also, we're mainly doing this because it's something not done before. The DM is using his own setting- I mean, yes, technically we're on the material plane, but most of the material is original, or archetypical. DnD might not be meant for space travel, but I've found the DM to be fond of the crazy wacky ideas that nobody else would think of. And as he's not a really heavy railroader, except in situations where the party gets horribly out of control, his campaigns are designed to fit the party. If the party changes their goals mid campaign, it's not as if everything falls apart, because the universe is adaptable to what we do. Basically, enough with the criticisms of 'you shouldn't do it' or 'you shouldn't be allowed to do it' because we're basically going to do it. I want suggestions on how to do it, and refinements to the ideas those suggestions put forth. But all this talk about not doing it in this way, I just don't care for. Will we ever use the ability to fly into space? Hell if I know. But if we do, it'll be wicked, crazy fun. But I don't want to have to come up with all this when the campaign takes a turn for 'Space Ninjas have totally kidnapped the president and taken him to their secret base in the middle of the sun. Are you a badass enough halfling to go rescue him?' out of nowhere.
#13 prince_of_parkness Mar 12, 2009 2:34:24	Basically, enough with the criticisms of 'you shouldn't do it' or 'you shouldn't be allowed to do it' because we're basically going to do it. I want suggestions on how to do it, and refinements to the ideas those suggestions put forth. But all this talk about not doing it in this way, I just don't care for. Just remeber, you're DM may, and quite rightly, want to know why you're the first to try this. I mean there are loads of people in your world with genius level IQs, so why haven't they done this already.
#14 Kerrus Mar 12, 2009 2:39:06	Because they're not crazy enough. And from a mechanical standpoint, because they're NPCs.