APC's, IFV's, and Tanks

[Chilingsworth]

Hey Playground!

This is another idea-bouncing/soliciting thread in my quest to arm an evil empire to the teeth.

So far, the best Ideas I've got are purpose built gargantuan animated objects, and skeletons made from huge or larger creatures (equpied with barding and using the ribcage as a passenger compartment.)

I have few ideas about how to arm these vehicles, though.

Requirements (all)

Must be easy to control (i.e. not require a high level spellcaster to control them, those have better things to do than ferry infantry around.) Actually, that makes animated objects unsuitable, unless someone knows a way to grant control of them to someone else? The undead can be controled by the command undead spell.

If possible, should be producable without using XP. This is because my DM uses Pathfinder's method of awarding XP (i.e. fixed amount for any given creature/challenge, rather than differing by level) but 3.5's XP costs :smallfurious: No, shinnenigans to avoid XP costs are unlikely to work.
(Hmm, this also makes animated objects unattractive.)

Also, alternative movement types (climb, swim, burrow, fly) are a big plus, but not a requirement. All terrain capability is needed, however (aka, must be able to travel without roads with little difficulty.)

Requirements (APCs):

The more troops they can carry, the better!
Must offer significant protection to the troops they carry.
Faster is better!
Armament (wheather added on, or attacks the vehicle can make itself) is of secondary importance at most.

Requirements (IFVs):

Willing to sacrifice carrying capacity for firepower
speed is still desireable
protection is also still desireable

Requirements (Tanks):

Carrying capacity is all but irrelevant.
Must be as durable as possible.
Must have massive firepower.
Speed is still desireable.

[Kane0]

I once tossed around an idea of a tank made by dwarven artisans and permanently animated by a mage, with one guy in control of movement and a low level caster (warlock best for longevity, sorc for more firepower) on one end of the barrel. A third and final occupant operates the gun port and is in charge of most other things. The tank fires by opening the 'gun' port through which the caster fires his spell that he has readied to cast.

No idea if that helps.
A good apc would be a big creature (if it can fly even better) and has the swallow hole ability, and equip its passengers with acid resistance and that alchemical item that forces a creature to regurgitate swallowed targets (no save!)

[Chilingsworth]

I once tossed around an idea of a tank made by dwarven artisans and permanently animated by a mage, with one guy in control of movement and a low level caster (warlock best for longevity, sorc for more firepower) on one end of the barrel. A third and final occupant operates the gun port and is in charge of most other things. The tank fires by opening the 'gun' port through which the caster fires his spell that he has readied to cast.

No idea if that helps.
A good apc would be a big creature (if it can fly even better) and has the swallow hole ability, and equip its passengers with acid resistance and that alchemical item that forces a creature to regurgitate swallowed targets (no save!)

Well, that offers one means of arming my vehicles. That definately helps. Unfortunately, afaik the original caster has to control any animated object, so I'd have to find a way overcome that problem.

As for the swallow whole apc, it's definately an idea I hadn't considered. Still, I'd need a way to protect against the bludgeoning damage that tends to accompany the acid in such creatures' stomachs. (the creature would also have to be reliably trainable. Hmm, wonder if I could convince my dm to add "vomit on command" to the list of teachable tricks with handle animal.)

[Andreaz]

This strikes me as one of those things where magic should be an enhancer rather than the prime source. Can't you really use chariots and boats, cannons and bolts?

[Morph Bark]

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/33144208.jpg

[WaylanderX]

The Landlord Feat plus Spell Turrets is what I use to build my tanks/giant flying airplane carriers of mass devastation. :smallamused:

[mistformsquirrl]

I once used the Stronghold Builder's guide to do something like this...

Created a crawling 10' by 10' room made of adamantine, then homebrewed a giant wand of Fireball to be the 'main gun'. Granted the end result looked more like a tank destroyer than a tank... but technically it worked! Could of course just use a Ballista instead I suppose. I'd have to look it up, but I'm fairly certain anyone can control these.

That said I think it would cost XP and significant gold as well. (You can do similar things for your APCs and IFVs, just increase the number of rooms to increase storage space and remove the giant wand of fireball.

Another option would be to train some dinosaurs, give them barding armor, and strap ballistas and such to them.

Dino-Riders! >.>

[Andreaz]

I once used the Stronghold Builder's guide to do something like this...

Created a crawling 10' by 10' room made of adamantine, then homebrewed a giant wand of Fireball to be the 'main gun'. Granted the end result looked more like a tank destroyer than a tank... but technically it worked! Could of course just use a Ballista instead I suppose. I'd have to look it up, but I'm fairly certain anyone can control these.

That said I think it would cost XP and significant gold as well.With that thing's cost you could probably build a B-2 Spirit out of it...

[mistformsquirrl]

Eh, it's not that bad, if I'm reading it right it's about ~56k before armament/crew - though that doesn't include things like making it airtight (so you can be NBC sealed) or any other extras other than adamantine walls and a 10 mile an hour movement speed.*

I mean certainly it's not cheap, but we are talking about a weapon that's a thousand years before it's time realistically >_> you can't put a price on progress like that!

*That may sound slow, but it's as fast as a stronghold can go - and 10mph isn't that bad for an early tank really.

[JeminiZero]

The undead can be controled by the command undead spell.

Look up the Night Caller Whistle (Libris Mortis 79). It allows any soldier who can blow a whistle to animate a zombie under his command. And he can have up to 2 zombies at once.

Note that the item is badly worded. Losing the whistle does not result in loss of zombies, so you can pass 1 whistle around the entire army, and give EVERY soldier 2 pet zombies EACH.

As a result, some DMs may rule that the wistle can only have 2 zombies at once, and the holder of the whistle controls the zombies.

Also, there is no explicit HD cap on the zombies (beyond the 20 HD cap imposed by animate dead, which is somewhat circumvented by Dragon zombies). So this 7k gp item can give you some rather powerful undead.

Again, some DMs may rule that since the item CL is 5, it can animate at most 10 HD zombies (original creature limited to having 5 HD).

Anyway, once you have access to zombies that can be controlled by common soldiers, it unlocks all sorts of possibilities. Like Zombie Pegasi airborne riders. Of have a flock of Zombie Pegasi strung together, and carrying a box as troop transport.