What's life like on a walking fortress?

[unseenmage]

For the purposes of this thread I'm talking about bipedal bigger than giant walking fortresses like those linked in the spoiler.

I would very much like to incorporate golem-esque fortresses like these into an upcoming Eberron game.
Edit: The players will be able to build them eventually too.
I'm curious how the Playground would DM these.

Things like:
- What kind of Balance check would it take the inhabitants to perform basic actions?
Reverse Gravity False Gravity (SC) Mythal (anyone care to stat one up?)
Creative application of Magnificent Mansion would help with this too, at least for crew quarters and such.

- What size category are these things really at anyway? Colossal? Colossal+? Colossal ++!?!

- How much Strength should they really have? By RAW even.
For now just using an epic Colossus, possibly Advanced.

- How Advanced an epic Colossus would it take to make them like these guys?

- How would you stat one of these out?
Again using the epic Colossus, from either ELH or Dragon.

Just straight Stronghold Builder's Guide or would Magic Item Compendium style combining Stronghold Spaces into the epic Golem Colossus be more the way to go?
Or even the Dragon Magazine #336 page 88 Primordial Colossus?

Or should it be repeated casting of Animate Objects and a mass order to become one of these things?
Though funny, no.

- What measures could be taken to protect the inhabitants when two of these things throw down?
Walls of Riverine, the windows and open spaces are really creatively applied Invisibility.

Any other thoughts or suggestions welcome. Additionally if anyone knows of other images of ginormous walking fortresses links to such would be appreciated.

Thanks regardless Playground.


http://24.media.tumblr.com/8805d5787ba5aa77e78b2cf3a3906ec3/tumblr_mqhdb0nxup1rtdsh3o6_1280.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CIwbkAmKIAQ/Ue7m0uBfuiI/AAAAAAAACkg/Wz_4ao9yWfM/s1600/002_large.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w7Tai7cHm_0/UhEWrjaRCZI/AAAAAAAABRk/m0Q9utY49XE/s640/kotaki%2520kekai.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RcwJfcm5ztI/UhEerT-AAYI/AAAAAAAABS8/R2oBNDfApQ8/s640/kekai+kotaki+arte+independiente.jpg

Warning, this pic is very big.
http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/121/c/7/old_rivals_by_jordangrimmer-d5yiyuz.jpg

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/248/1/a/wayfaring_temple_by_one_vox-d5dqieu.jpg

http://eshatos-lib.ru/sites/default/files/pictures/Fan.jpg

http://th08.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2012/295/5/8/alexande_by_terrylh-d5iklw4.jpg

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120318123007/finalfantasy2/de/images/7/74/Alexander-Blood-of-Bahamut.jpg

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130514032109/finalfantasy/images/f/fd/Alexander_FFIX_Concept_Art_2.jpg

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/3c/55/62/3c55624210c16d8f0ef426c998bf05d3.jpg

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/2e/f6/e7/2ef6e79db0d96f2ce15a18859108cc37.jpg

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/83/e8/13/83e81365dc0f614aeca131a2a97990d7.jpg

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/19/2d/2e/192d2eb153cef41e9a012b99b11536f8.jpg

http://www.enworld.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=59309&d=1382382347

http://images.4chan.org/tg/src/1384398378766.jpg

http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs5/i/2004/348/2/8/Dragon_Mech_I_by_karichristensen.jpg

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/f8/dd/c8/f8ddc8cda0bf190cc58b92bb413c4774.jpg

http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnqf9yGsYO1qhttpto1_r1_1280.jpg


Thanks EVERYONE for the suggestions so far!

[Chilingsworth]

Well, there's more-or-less a walking city called Greede (http://whiteknightchronicles.neoseeker.com/wiki/Greede) in the game White Knight Chronicles.

You might be able to find more info about it.

[Asheram]

You might want to look up "DragonMech" for D20 systems. The 5 major cities are "Walkers" in that system, giant mechs wandering the wastes of the world.

[unseenmage]

Well, there's more-or-less a walking city called Greede (http://whiteknightchronicles.neoseeker.com/wiki/Greede) in the game White Knight Chronicles.

You might be able to find more info about it.

No dice, looks like the city doesn't move under it's own power but is carried around on the back of this thing (http://dengekionline.com/data/news/2006/9/29/image/14333_n20060929_shirokishi_39.jpg).

Still cool and topical though. Added to my other idea bin, S'tuff living on the back of stuff and going to war.' :smallsmile:

[Magesmiley]

You might try digging up a copy of the old Earthshaker! module from the BECMI D&D line.

[Maginomicon]

I'm reminded of those scenes from Mary Poppins where the dumbass firing a cannon all the time caused the protagonists' house to shake and move things around. It became routine to keep things from falling over. :smallbiggrin:

In my main campaign setting, I created two bigger size categories called "Stellar" and "Astronomical". They basically scale up from Colossal in all the expected ways. Thus, by "RAW". an astonomical quadraped with Strength 50 has a flight capacity of 408.576 short tons and a walking capacity of 1228.8 short tons (twice that weight if its walking is reduced to staggering).

As I recall, there's also a RAW-legal rolling fortress statted-out somewhere.

[unseenmage]

I'm reminded of those scenes from Mary Poppins where the dumbass firing a cannon all the time caused the protagonists' house to shake and move things around. It became routine to keep things from falling over. :smallbiggrin:

In my main campaign setting, I created two bigger size categories called "Stellar" and "Astronomical". They basically scale up from Colossal in all the expected ways. Thus, by "RAW". an astonomical quadraped with Strength 50 has a flight capacity of 408.576 short tons and a walking capacity of 1228.8 short tons (twice that weight if its walking is reduced to staggering).

As I recall, there's also a RAW-legal rolling fortress statted-out somewhere.

Yeah, the Draconomicon goes into the Colossal+ and Colossal++, etc size categories I mentioned in the OP.
The Stronghold Builder's Guidebook (also mentioned in the OP) also has fortress mobility, including flying, swimming, burrowing, planeshifting, and crawling.

There's also The Moving Tower (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070423a) from a web supplement which is built with the Craft Construct feat.

It's Golem-like mega castles that've caught my imagination for now though. I've been-there-done-that with Death Star-esque super fortresses for a long time now. :smallcool:
Edit: PS, Earthshaker! looks awesome! Definitely giving it a read over.

[Maginomicon]

It's Golem-like mega castles that've caught my imagination for now though.Fortress mobility doesn't really have the same "style" as a golem-like mega-castle. Colossal+ and Colossal++ also don't really do justice to how immense these things are. I use Stellar and Astronomical for muthaf***in' spaceships (quadrapedal constructs).

For bipedal golems, an astronomical bipedal creature with strength 75 has a walking capacity of 26214.4 short tons, which is enough to carry ~13 12-floor buildings (roughly speaking).

[unseenmage]

Fortress mobility doesn't really have the same "style" as a golem-like mega-castle. Colossal+ and Colossal++ also don't really do justice to how immense these things are. I use Stellar and Astronomical for muthaf***in' spaceships (quadrapedal constructs).

For bipedal golems, an astronomical bipedal creature with strength 75 has a walking capacity of 26214.4 short tons, which is enough to carry ~13 12-floor buildings (roughly speaking).

Agreed that Colossal+ or even ++ aren't astronomical in scale. My point was that the Colossal+ system doesn't top out anywhere. It's even called out that the Dragons could potentially keep growing forever. Even to astronomical Gurran Lagan scale.

[Maginomicon]

Agreed that Colossal+ or even ++ aren't astronomical in scale. My point was that the Colossal+ system doesn't top out anywhere. It's even called out that the Dragons could potentially keep growing forever. Even to astronomical Gurran Lagan scale.
There's also an article in Dragon Magazine #336 page 88 that's inspired by Shadow of the Colossus. It stats out a "primordial colossus" (which is, in this case, a bipedal construct with 48 Strength).

[unseenmage]

There's also an article in Dragon Magazine #336 page 88 that's inspired by Shadow of the Colossus. It stats out a "primordial colossus" (which is, in this case, a bipedal construct with 48 Strength).

Ahah! I'd forgotten about that one. I'll add a reference to it in the OP.

[Ruethgar]

I would suggest that the golem technically be carrying the city(even if it is inseparable) as opposed to actually being the city so you can treat the two separately and so condemned houses won't hurt your ride when you demolish them.

Create food and water traps are a staple of mobile cities without farmlands and prestidigitation becomes a very common spell to flavor and color the bland food to taste.

I am not great at defense, but being immune to magic, your golem could have a shell that comes over the city to block incoming spells, a lead shell of course for more protection. A spherical city lends well to this kind of shield and it could solve the balance issue by putting the whole thing in a gyroscope to keep it level.

[unseenmage]

You might try digging up a copy of the old Earthshaker! module from the BECMI D&D line.

I wonder, does anyone know if Earthshaker! converted to 3.x anywhere? Homebrew conversion even?

If not, where can I go to find someone willing to convert it? I'd myself but I've only ever played 3.x and 4E.


I would suggest that the golem technically be carrying the city(even if it is inseparable) as opposed to actually being the city so you can treat the two separately and so condemned houses won't hurt your ride when you demolish them.

Create food and water traps are a staple of mobile cities without farmlands and prestidigitation becomes a very common spell to flavor and color the bland food to taste.

I am not great at defense, but being immune to magic, your golem could have a shell that comes over the city to block incoming spells, a lead shell of course for more protection. A spherical city lends well to this kind of shield and it could solve the balance issue by putting the whole thing in a gyroscope to keep it level.

That the Golem is built into the Fortress and the Fortress is built into the Golem is the defining characteristic of the creatures pictured. Separating the two defeats the purpose for this exercise.
(Though an epic Golem who literally picks up and carries normally immobile constructions would be an awesome concept for an epic game.)

[Mnemnosyne]

I'd say the movement is going to cause serious problems because of the shaking. Plus, some of those pictures have structures on arms or other parts that are definitely going to have a major incline as the fortress moves, possibly even a vertical incline or even upside-down, depending on just how much range of movement the fortress has (especially if it's expected to engage in combat).

The only solution to this is to have the fortress produce its own objective directional gravity that overrides that of the planet/plane it's on. I don't know if RAW specifies a way to accomplish this. I would probably go about it by creating some sort of mythal effect attached to the fortress producing objective directional gravity toward a specific type of material, then make sure that all walkable surfaces on the fortress are made of that material.

If you don't have a solution like this in place, life becomes very, very difficult. All furniture, items, and so on for the fortress needs to be either bolted to the floor or designed so that it can be moved and then locked in every time it's put down. Tables are basically going to have lots of holes in them in order to stick pegs through, and everything will have pegs on it to stick into the tables. The pegs will probably even have to have spring-loaded 'latch' mechanisms, kind of like those quick-release key gizmos.

If the things actually wrestle and fight each other, unless the walls of buildings are made out of riverine, people are going to get crushed as the things grapple. There's pretty much no way around that, unless the buildings were all internal. If one of the things gets knocked on its back, there goes the entire...settlement. There aren't going to be any civilians on these things, and any military there is probably going to have to be given the equivalent of hazard pay, because serving on the thing is horribly dangerous.

The inhabitants will not be able to perform actions if the fortress is moving around vigorously and there's no gravity solution in place. Resetting traps of spider climb are an option, one supposes; everyone must constantly be under a spider climb effect at all times during battle. When the fortresses are at rest or simply walking, it'd be easier, but just walking across the room, if you don't have a gravity solution, would probably require a DC 15 or higher balance check in order not to fall, depending on where exactly on the fortress the room is situated and how stable it is.

[unseenmage]

I'd say the movement is going to cause serious problems because of the shaking. Plus, some of those pictures have structures on arms or other parts that are definitely going to have a major incline as the fortress moves, possibly even a vertical incline or even upside-down, depending on just how much range of movement the fortress has (especially if it's expected to engage in combat).

The only solution to this is to have the fortress produce its own objective directional gravity that overrides that of the planet/plane it's on. I don't know if RAW specifies a way to accomplish this. I would probably go about it by creating some sort of mythal effect attached to the fortress producing objective directional gravity toward a specific type of material, then make sure that all walkable surfaces on the fortress are made of that material.

If you don't have a solution like this in place, life becomes very, very difficult. All furniture, items, and so on for the fortress needs to be either bolted to the floor or designed so that it can be moved and then locked in every time it's put down. Tables are basically going to have lots of holes in them in order to stick pegs through, and everything will have pegs on it to stick into the tables. The pegs will probably even have to have spring-loaded 'latch' mechanisms, kind of like those quick-release key gizmos.

If the things actually wrestle and fight each other, unless the walls of buildings are made out of riverine, people are going to get crushed as the things grapple. There's pretty much no way around that, unless the buildings were all internal. If one of the things gets knocked on its back, there goes the entire...settlement. There aren't going to be any civilians on these things, and any military there is probably going to have to be given the equivalent of hazard pay, because serving on the thing is horribly dangerous.

The inhabitants will not be able to perform actions if the fortress is moving around vigorously and there's no gravity solution in place. Resetting traps of spider climb are an option, one supposes; everyone must constantly be under a spider climb effect at all times during battle. When the fortresses are at rest or simply walking, it'd be easier, but just walking across the room, if you don't have a gravity solution, would probably require a DC 15 or higher balance check in order not to fall, depending on where exactly on the fortress the room is situated and how stable it is.

I like it, that is exactly the kind of breakdown I was looking for and you even hit on some issues I hadn't thought of yet.

So in the Construction section for the statblock for these things is a gravity spell and a Mythal at least. Probably Reverse Gravity False Gravity (SC).

For the Stronghold Builder's Guide style construction section it will need a cost for Riverine walls, at the very least on the outside.

Encasing the entire thing in a Walls of Force forcefield isn't a bad idea either. That or Invisibility creatively applied to the Riverine walls.

So Reverse Gravity False Gravity (SC), Invisibility, Wall of Force, Riverine as a wall material, all woven through a Mythal or two onto the body of an advanced epic Colossus which has had Stronghold Spaces built into it with the Combining Magic Item Rules.

I like it. I like it a lot.
My next question is how advanced? What size are these things really? Assuming the Colossal+ system is in place, of course.

[Lightlawbliss]

the FALSE GRAVITY spell from SC 87 may be a good starting point for enchanting stuff. Use that as a base spell for having the thing be enchanted so stuff treats gravity differently.

another option is hand waving. It can be amazing what people will accept in a DnD world without asking questions.

Edit:

My next question is how advanced? What size are these things really? Assuming the Colossal+ system is in place, of course.

depends on a few things:

How big is the city itself?
What parts of this thing are city and what parts aren't?
What race is it for?
What is the creator's budget (if one exists)?

[unseenmage]

the FALSE GRAVITY spell from SC 87 may be a good starting point for enchanting stuff. Use that as a base spell for having the thing be enchanted so stuff treats gravity differently.

another option is hand waving. It can be amazing what people will accept in a DnD world without asking questions.

Edit:

depends on a few things:

How big is the city itself?
What parts of this thing are city and what parts aren't?
What race is it for?
What is the creator's budget (if one exists)?



The game terms for cities are Small, Large, Metropolis, and Planar Metropolis.
Assuming a large volume of mechanical material, these look like they're between Small and Large cities.
But it'd be nice if Metropolis and Planar Metropolis versions were possible.
Looks like any art of the construct could be part of the city. Especially so if they're to be player created, leave as much creative freedom ope as possible.
Assume the normal Stronghold Space scale which means a race between Small and Large size.
Epic Construct building combined with epic Stronghold construction combined with Mythal creation (are Mythals epic?). So High epic low deity budget it looks like.
Unless they're an Artificer, in which case it's built by exactly level too soon. :smallsmile:

[Lightlawbliss]

ok

In that time, a 1 or 2 room house was not uncommon. Let's say the people on the moving city are slightly better off then most people of the time and average 15000 Cubic feet per citizen. To get you your large city, let's say 20k citizens. That would net us 3(10^8) Cubic feet.

a medium creature gets a 5x5 sq and is about 5 ft tall, so lets call it 125 cubic feet. Times 8 per size category. That nets us about 6 size categories of increase, let's give the creature 7 since the city doesn't get the entire cube.

medium to Colossal is 4. So we are looking at Colossal+++.

[Chilingsworth]

If you want some reference points for mobile cities, you might want to look at large ships. Both aircraft carriers and large cruise ships can carry and support thousands of people.

[Hytheter]

Bipedal seems like an intrinsically bad idea. A quadruped (or higher) with well co-ordinated legs would be much smoother for the inhabitants, and more stable overall.

[Lightlawbliss]

Bipedal seems like an intrinsically bad idea. A quadruped (or higher) with well co-ordinated legs would be much smoother for the inhabitants, and more stable overall.

It's called coolness factor. That and showing off. Those are the only reasons any construct is Bipedal.

And if you can make a construct that big, making the ride smooth seems a small issue.

[Ruethgar]

That the Golem is built into the Fortress and the Fortress is built into the Golem is the defining characteristic of the creatures pictured. Separating the two defeats the purpose for this exercise.
(Though an epic Golem who literally picks up and carries normally immobile constructions would be an awesome concept for an epic game.)

That's why I added the qualifier of even if it is inseparable. Consider the golem to be a skeleton with the city built on it and into it. They are still two separate entities, but they may be intertwined such that you cannot remove one without harming the other. Think of it like armor that is welded on, still not part of the golem, but inseparable.

[avr]

One way of resolving the shaking problem might be if the construct could levitate, but uses legs for a more secure form of propulsion. This also helps with the problem of getting stuck in soft ground.

[unseenmage]

Bipedal seems like an intrinsically bad idea. A quadruped (or higher) with well co-ordinated legs would be much smoother for the inhabitants, and more stable overall.

It's called coolness factor. That and showing off. Those are the only reasons any construct is Bipedal.

And if you can make a construct that big, making the ride smooth seems a small issue.

The golems in the first picture look like they might be tripodal or quadrupedal.
And yeah, agreeing with Lightlawbliss on this one. Otherwise all the constructs in D&D would look like Big Dog (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unO0r_uIQoI). :smalleek:


One way of resolving the shaking problem might be if the construct could levitate, but uses legs for a more secure form of propulsion. This also helps with the problem of getting stuck in soft ground.

How much soft ground would there have to be for one of these things to get stuck??
I mean, a normal mchanical horse might get it's foot stuck in a gopher hole, a normal golem might get bogged down in a bog.
But for one of these things a gopher hole would be more like an entire underground aquifer, and a bog would be more of a coastline.

[Alabenson]

How much soft ground would there have to be for one of these things to get stuck??
I mean, a normal mchanical horse might get it's foot stuck in a gopher hole, a normal golem might get bogged down in a bog.
But for one of these things a gopher hole would be more like an entire underground aquifer, and a bog would be more of a coastline.

The problem is, given what the weight of these things would be, "soft ground" would essentially be anything that isn't bedrock. Walking on normal ground for something like this would be like a normal person walking through foot thick mud.

[unseenmage]

The problem is, given what the weight of these things would be, "soft ground" would essentially be anything that isn't bedrock. Walking on normal ground for something like this would be like a normal person walking through foot thick mud.

Okay, but in game, how much muck is enough to hinder movement? Is foot thick mud enough to hamper combat, movement, or running?

If so, is there an existent system of rules to account for this? A way to know when these guys are or aren't walking through muck?

Or would it be easier to assume their feet are designed with a wide area which allows them to not completely ruin the very lands they're stomping across to conquer.

[Lightlawbliss]

Okay, but in game, how much muck is enough to hinder movement? Is foot thick mud enough to hamper combat, movement, or running?

If so, is there an existent system of rules to account for this? A way to know when these guys are or aren't walking through muck?

Or would it be easier to assume their feet are designed with a wide area which allows them to not completely ruin the very lands they're stomping across to conquer.

By RAW, Collosal+++ would care as much as a medium creature about any given terrain. The only exceptions that I can remember are jumping and depth for wading.

[unseenmage]

By RAW, Collosal+++ would care as much as a medium creature about any given terrain. The only exceptions that I can remember are jumping and depth for wading.

An excellent point.

I wonder, can a Mythal be applied to a "City" or is it called out as only being applicable to an area of terrain?

[Lightlawbliss]

An excellent point.

I wonder, can a Mythal be applied to a "City" or is it called out as only being applicable to an area of terrain?

That depends on how you define terrain. A city could be terrain, it could be stuff on the terrain, it could be something near terrain, it could be unrelated to terrain, or combinations of the above.

If you use some definition in which the city is terrain, then applying something to an area of the city is the same thing as applying it to the same area of terrain.

[gomipile]

[LIST]

But it'd be nice if Metropolis and Planar Metropolis versions were possible.


Assuming super strong materials so that walls can be thin, we can ignore wall thickness. The smallest apartment size allowed in San Francisco is 220 square feet. If we give every person 10 foot high rooms, that means 2,200 cubic feet of living space per person. So, let's triple that number to get the volume of the city, to make room for ventilation, public spaces, shops, etc. That gives us 3*2,200*25,000=165,000,000 cubic feet. Taking the cube root, we can fit all that volume in a cube 548.5 feet on a side.

That sounds quite doable to me.

If you want lightweight walls for the rooms in your city, magically reinforced paper has 51 HP and a break DC of 21, which is comparable to 5 inches of wood, but without the hardness.

[Lightlawbliss]

Assuming super strong materials so that walls can be thin, we can ignore wall thickness. The smallest apartment size allowed in San Francisco is 220 square feet. If we give every person 10 foot high rooms, that means 2,200 cubic feet of living space per person. So, let's triple that number to get the volume of the city, to make room for ventilation, public spaces, shops, etc. That gives us 3*2,200*25,000=165,000,000 cubic feet. Taking the cube root, we can fit all that volume in a cube 548.5 feet on a side.

That sounds quite doable to me.

If you want lightweight walls for the rooms in your city, magically reinforced paper has 51 HP and a break DC of 21, which is comparable to 5 inches of wood, but without the hardness.

First: I hope you realize San Fran has significantly larger homes then most people had before America was founded. Granted, this just makes it smaller and more doable.

Second: A golem doesn't fell a cube. It has distinguishable limbs and is able to move via moving those limbs.

Third: you are finding the living spaces only, you seem to have overlooked streets. This is something I also forgot about at first (and am now thinking about how to calculate).

Fourth: If your going for the city floating in the golem idea. 550 ft on a side would require a massive golem. The city Itself is Colossal +++ in the cube shape.

Edit: With a bit of looking around, Roads in dnd would be about 10 feet wide per lane. Homes of the time rarely went past 2 stories, plus basement. Adding in alleyways, which cityscape gives as 5 feet or thinner, we can remove the need for some roads. All told, I feel safe saying that with my numbers, the increase in size category at the end will also include roads. Especially since some roads might be locations on the golem you just couldn't build on.

[gomipile]

First: I hope you realize San Fran has significantly larger homes then most people had before America was founded. Granted, this just makes it smaller and more doable.

I used San Francisco solely because I found that they recently reduced their minimum allowed apartment size. I make no claims about average domicile size in any city. I am simply making the (reasonable, I think) assumption that their city code would set a minimum apartment size which is reasonable to actually live in. I am also assuming that some mobile city builders in a fantasy world might want to build very compactly so as to make the most of limited volume. Even if the mobile city builders could go larger, they still might want to make the city as small as practical so as to make navigation easier, and to be able to find parking more easily when trading with other cities, etc.



Second: A golem doesn't fell a cube. It has distinguishable limbs and is able to move via moving those limbs.

Sorry, I was using a cube to give a sense of scale for a three dimensional space. I was using it in the same sense as, for example, when a math teacher teaching estimation shows a class that all the human blood on Earth would only fill a cube about 1050 feet on a side. Also, if, say, the city makes up the torso of a construct, a cube is a reasonable approximation.



Third: you are finding the living spaces only, you seem to have overlooked streets. This is something I also forgot about at first (and am now thinking about how to calculate).


In my post, I said: "So, let's triple that number to get the volume of the city." I think triple the living space is a more than reasonable approximation to include streets, etc. Of course, I am imagining something like a mobile Kowloon Walled City, so your mileage may vary, literally.



Fourth: If your going for the city floating in the golem idea. 550 ft on a side would require a MASSIVE golem. The city Itself is Colossal +++ in the cube shape.


I don't think I'd call that all-caps MASSIVE. After all, one of the Kaiju in Pacific Rim was 596 feet tall, so we're only talking something within a factor of two of the length scale of that.



Edit: With a bit of looking around, Roads in dnd would be about 10 feet wide per lane. Homes of the time rarely went past 2 stories, plus basement. Adding in alleyways, which cityscape gives as 5 feet or thinner, we can remove the need for some roads. All told, I feel safe saying that with my numbers, the increase in size category at the end will also include roads. Especially since some roads might be locations on the golem you just couldn't build on.

Yeah, I'm assuming something more like Kowloon Walled City, or an arcology. For reasons stated above, if I were designing a walking city, I would make everything as compact as feasible, not try to make it feel like a regular open-air city.

[Lightlawbliss]

I used San Francisco solely because I found that they recently reduced their minimum allowed apartment size. I make no claims about average domicile size in any city. I am simply making the (reasonable, I think) assumption that their city code would set a minimum apartment size which is reasonable to actually live in. I am also assuming that some mobile city builders in a fantasy world might want to build very compactly so as to make the most of limited volume. Even if the mobile city builders could go larger, they still might want to make the city as small as practical so as to make navigation easier, and to be able to find parking more easily when trading with other cities, etc.

Americans live in very large spaces compared to what people used to live in, and what many parts of the world live in today. This may be in part to technology that better supports larger spaces and also in part to us wanting bigger spaces. You can fit at least 3 people, with essentials and in modest comfort, in 220 sq ft. I can see why you chose the numbers you did, not sure that is the best numbers for dealing with the time in question. There is also the fun fact that some people will want big homes.


Sorry, I was using a cube to give a sense of scale for a three dimensional space. I was using it in the same sense as, for example, when a math teacher teaching estimation shows a class that all the human blood on Earth would only fill a cube about 1050 feet on a side. Also, if, say, the city makes up the torso of a construct, a cube is a reasonable approximation.

ok. Seams some miss-communication occurred. When I read that post it seemed you were just calculating the cube the city would fit in in game on the chassis and all.


In my post, I said: "So, let's triple that number to get the volume of the city." I think triple the living space is a more than reasonable approximation to include streets, etc. Of course, I am imagining something like a mobile Kowloon Walled City, so your mileage may vary, literally.

ok, I didn't see streets in the list on your original post. I dare say the city would be very compact if x3 of a decent sized house covers everything, including parks, temples, streets, city government, shops, industry, defenses, transport, and so on.


I don't think I'd call that all-caps MASSIVE. After all, one of the Kaiju in Pacific Rim was 596 feet tall, so we're only talking something within a factor of two of the length scale of that.

First off, not sure why I did all caps massive: that has been fixed.
Second: I don't think we are within a factor of two of that (assuming you mean the standard, 1/2 to 2x use). To compensate for any motion that golem could make, the opening the cube is in would have to be a sphere with diameter larger then the diagonal of the cube. Then the golem has to be big enough to be able to make bipedal motion with that big of a sphere as part of it's body. Imagine a fat guy with a big enough gut that the thinnest part of his gut is half his height, how easy can he walk let alone fight?



Yeah, I'm assuming something more like Kowloon Walled City, or an arcology. For reasons stated above, if I were designing a walking city, I would make everything as compact as feasible, not try to make it feel like a regular open-air city.
Walking cities IRL tend to be open air cities with large walking paths and/or networks of walking paths.

Never been to Kowloon Walled City, but what I'm reading of it would definitely make it very compact and would likely require technology that if available at the time would be very expensive imo.

[gomipile]

Walking cities IRL tend to be open air cities with large walking paths and/or networks of walking paths.



By "walking city" I meant a city which walks. I'd be designing it so as to make the most use of the available volume.

If the city's culture is militaristic and/or slave based, it could be a lot more compact, as a large portion of the population could live in barracks.

[Ashtagon]

You might want to look up "DragonMech" for D20 systems. The 5 major cities are "Walkers" in that system, giant mechs wandering the wastes of the world.

I second this. DragonMech was specifically written with humongous mecha as its defining characteristic.

[Incorrect]

We need to remember that this is a fortress, a military installation.
Personally I would base the living space on something like a nuclear submarine, its cramped, but the entire crew are soldiers or experts doing their duty and getting paid to be there. Honestly, I think a submarine or a warship is the closest we can get to a IRL comparison, it can also give the OP an idea of what life aboard the fortress is like.

I would calculate 4 m3 personal space for each person.
Increase that to 10 m3, to include sanitation, dining halls, hallways, and so on.

But how many people are needed?
To control a giant golem? One.

To invade and hold a city using giant golem as warmachine and transport?
A lot more! But it really depends on the task of this fortress.



When the walking fortress stops, or "docks"; a camp of tents can be created around it to increase comfort, do maintenance, resupply and so on. This camp might lead to some interesting roleplaying opportunities, as the crew trades with the locals, spies sneak in, crew go missing etc.
Personally I think its more interesting to have some tasks done without magic, as opposed to resetting traps of food, water, and repair. Why even have soldiers when you have resetting traps of summon X.

[gomipile]

I like the idea of researching a permanent version of Magnificent Mansion, and using that on lots of the walls inside the fortress.

[unseenmage]

I second this. DragonMech was specifically written with humongous mecha as its defining characteristic.

Has anyone actually used Dragonmech for a game and could lend some advice or notes on how to run it? Especially on how to combine it with a 3.5 Earthshaker! conversion?


I like the idea of researching a permanent version of Magnificent Mansion, and using that on lots of the walls inside the fortress.

I like that idea too, at least for the Crew Quarters.
Heck, Planar Ring Gates (PlH) could even be used to connect the pilot's/captain's Mag Mansions to the deck of the City Golem.

[LOTRfan]

Out of curiosity, how much XP do you think it would cost to make the magnificent mansion spell permanent? Phase Door, another 7th level Wizard spell, goes for about 3,500 points of XP. Does that sound reasonable?

[unseenmage]

Out of curiosity, how much XP do you think it would cost to make the magnificent mansion spell permanent? Phase Door, another 7th level Wizard spell, goes for about 3,500 points of XP. Does that sound reasonable?

Actually yeah, that does sound fairly reasonable. I use Shrink Item as a comparable spell to the Augment Object spell from SBG when I want a Permanency version of it.

[unseenmage]

Anyone have any bright ideas on exactly how a DM should go about adding a floorplan into the statblock for one of these creatures?

I was thinking about only mentioning the city structures that afford the creature weakness of strength, that is only including the structures which could be expressed as Special Attacks or Special Qualities.

The Main Gate(s), Spell Turrets, Ray-attack-through-able windows among them.

[Icewraith]

Your main objective when designing large mobile fortresses is to prevent a semi-unique medium sized blue construct from infiltrating your fortress, slaughtering its inhabitants with his arm-mounted energy weapon, slaying your ruler, using the ruler's life essence to upgrade his own formidible capabilities, and causing the whole thing to self-destruct after escaping.

Additionally, loss of central motive or magic power should not immediately cause the whole thing to explode or plummet from the sky and kill most of the inhabitants.

[Fouredged Sword]

Then you cast hardness on the paper to give it the hardness of 10. Best of all worlds really.

[unseenmage]

Then you cast hardness on the paper to give it the hardness of 10. Best of all worlds really.

Um, what?




It occurs to me that building a couple of these nonmagically and strategically positioning them along one's border could be a neat ruse to dissuade invasion. Especially if there're a couple of actual Walking Cities/Forts scattered among them.

[Scow2]

220 ft2 is only 13'x12'.

Also - while a cube may be less than a 600' on a side, you really can't turn that into a Walking Fortress, and halving one dimension requires doubling another dimension. Getting it into anything close to resembling humanoid proportion would require much, much more.

As for life - While False/Reverse Gravity might help - does it also counter the acceleration and motion of the machine? I figure that, optimally, it would be quite disorienting (But not dizzying) to live on a limb, as the world outside your 'block' is constantly going topsy-turvy.

[Mnemnosyne]

I think the effect would be kind of like carsickness. You would not feel any motion, but you would see it, so your brain would think it should be feeling it.

[unseenmage]

I think the effect would be kind of like carsickness. You would not feel any motion, but you would see it, so your brain would think it should be feeling it.

Ooh! That's a good one.
How to emulate Carsickness in D&D 3.5 though...

[TuggyNE]

220 ft2 is only 13'x12'.

It… actually isn't. It's 11'x20', or, if you want something a bit more squarish, 16'x13'9". 13'x12' is only 156 ft2.

[Mnemnosyne]

Ooh! That's a good one.
How to emulate Carsickness in D&D 3.5 though...
Have anyone that isn't used to the fortress roll a save every hour vs. being nauseated? I imagine people would be able to get used to it after being aboard for a long time, so once you make X number of consecutive saves, you gain immunity to the effect.

[Lightlawbliss]

Have anyone that isn't used to the fortress roll a save every hour vs. being nauseated? I imagine people would be able to get used to it after being aboard for a long time, so once you make X number of consecutive saves, you gain immunity to the effect.

I would call that fair, at least for the "car sickness" like effect.
If your new to the city, the DM may also want to consider a panicked effect of similar. How scared would you be if you looked down the road and saw the ground and a part of the city lifting up and drifting over the ground to then get set back down again? If your used to it, that's one thing; most people aren't used to it though.

[unseenmage]

I would call that fair, at least for the "car sickness" like effect.
If your new to the city, the DM may also want to consider a panicked effect of similar. How scared would you be if you looked down the road and saw the ground and a part of the city lifting up and drifting over the ground to then get set back down again? If your used to it, that's one thing; most people aren't used to it though.

Could treat is as a disease, that would give you the right timeframes and ability checks to 'get used to it'. just call it a mental disease. Also means not everyone would get over it without medicinal assistance. Make natives born there immune.

Imagine a commander who secretly visits the clerics every so often for a quick Remove Disease, it is his secret shame.