3.5/Arming an Airship

[AWiz_Abroad]

So, the party is about to board a formerly House Lyrander Airship that has been heavily weaponized for air piracy.

I'm wondering what the playground would arm it with? It's predominantly designed to engage in air to air combat.

Lets set a budget of 100,000 gold.

Current thoughts.

Right now, I was thinking rod of ropes fore and aft on both sides to allow for boarding actions, a fore and aft mounted Rod of Many wands with fell drained (Metamagic Wand Grip) Magic Missiles (anti-personnel weapons), and finally a clam shell bomb bay/hoist to retrieve loot.

I'm having trouble coming up with heavier weapons systems that are actually effective at long ranges. Any thoughts?

[PraxisVetli]

Spell Turrets, dmg II
can you dig it?

[Dawgmoah]

Heroes of Battle goes into some detail listing seige engines like Ballistas and so on. For an Eberron game you may want to spice it up a bit and use some of the seige weapons out of the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook. Things like Flaming Catapult Stones, Lolth's Egg, Explodestone, etc

You did say arm it: any of these weapons could be replaced be a medium level arcane spellcaster.

Use the airship as a carrier for magical beasts. Let their various defenses and offenses be your weapons. And then the prisoners can either clean up their mess or be fed to them....

Have a caged basilisk handy; good deterrence against in close fliers. Host a flight of griffons or hippogriffs on it. Stirge swarm, Air Elementals, Blood Hawks, etc.

[AWiz_Abroad]

Spell Turrets, dmg II
can you dig it?

While I have some system mastery I am unfamiliar with spell turrets, and away from books. Assuming they are what they sound like, what spells for blowing holes in pursuit/innocent merchants/ attacking dragons?

Any other options from the rest of the playground or is spell turrets the end all be all?

I'm the DM, so creativity is encouraged.

[AWiz_Abroad]

Heroes of Battle goes into some detail listing seige engines like Ballistas and so on. For an Eberron game you may want to spice it up a bit and use some of the seige weapons out of the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook. Things like Flaming Catapult Stones, Lolth's Egg, Explodestone, etc

You did say arm it: any of these weapons could be replaced be a medium level arcane spellcaster.

Use the airship as a carrier for magical beasts. Let their various defenses and offenses be your weapons. And then the prisoners can either clean up their mess or be fed to them....

Have a caged basilisk handy; good deterrence against in close fliers. Host a flight of griffons or hippogriffs on it. Stirge swarm, Air Elementals, Blood Hawks, etc.

The mid grade arcane caster I'm disinclined solely because I don't want the party having him tag along.

I'll review HoB when I get home, if you wanted 360 x 360 coverage, what would you place on the deck vs. blisters vs keel?

Your offensive magic beasties idea is amusing. I wonder which would be more effective.

[Killer Angel]

if you can save some money... hire NPC casters.

[Dawgmoah]

The mid grade arcane caster I'm disinclined solely because I don't want the party having him tag along.

I'll review HoB when I get home, if you wanted 360 x 360 coverage, what would you place on the deck vs. blisters vs keel?

Your offensive magic beasties idea is amusing. I wonder which would be more effective.

To properly "arm" the ship you would need a dozen or so midlevel casters. If they went for a ship with a lot of automation so a very small crew could operate the vessel then spell turrets would work better but are expensive if I remember.

The ammunition for the various weapons in the Stronghold Builders Guidebook can also get pricey. Once the magical critters are caught and trained, they would need to be cared for but wouldn't cost as much as replacing munitions...

The next question is: what is the weaponry for? Is it to defend agaisnt other flying craft or creatures, to attack fortresses, to gain "air superiority" in a given air space, or to be used as a bomber? Or maybe a mixture of all of those?

[PraxisVetli]

Im also AFB.
But, as I recall, they can cast 4 preset spells, as long as they are the same level, spell list, and different schools.
Like Disjunction, Gate, Meteor Swarm, and Dominate Monster.
The turret can be set (I think its an hour process?) to recognize and ignore certain people. The instant something not preset enters range, it begins firing, one spell a round.
On round 5, it automatically repairs itself an amount of damage.

I don't remember them being very expensive, but as I said, I'm afb, so don't quote me on any of this..
I know if I'm not right, I'm awfully close.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Spell turrets are limited to a 120ft detection range, making their usefulness as airship weaponry questionable. You also don't have any immediate control over what they target and when.
Programming new targets takes 8 hours and they'll fire on anything else that enters their range. Unless you're a chaotic evil "kill everything" murderhobo that's a pretty hefty downside.
They're also rather expensive at ~50000gp for a 4th level turret iirc.

[PraxisVetli]

Spell turrets are limited to a 120ft detection range, making their usefulness as airship weaponry questionable. You also don't have any immediate control over what they target and when.
Programming new targets takes 8 hours and they'll fire on anything else that enters their range. Unless you're a chaotic evil "kill everything" murderhobo that's a pretty hefty downside.
They're also rather expensive at ~50000gp for a 4th level turret iirc.
They can be set to trigger on certain creatures types/individuals. so just have a crew member spend a day tuning it to Black Dragons whenever you're over the swamp, or w/e. No big Deal. Whats it cost per day to have an NPC that just does that? 3gp a day lol?

I also once had a set of spells, where you would have two layers to the hull, with the turrets between. The turrets were primed with spells like fabricate and others, to help repair the ship should it take damage.


WOW.
didn't remember them being that expensive..

List may have been along the lines of
Refusal, Major Creation, Wall of Force, Fabricate/ Shape Metal.
Not exact, but you get the gist.
PPPPGHHGFGGHHHH.
4th level one is 14k.
Anyway, pg 45, DMG II.
Theres a few examples. They also are invisible and Nondetection'd until activated, and run off True Seeing. Do you need 30 of em? No. Would one or two be useful? Quite possibly.

[AWiz_Abroad]

With the citation, Spell turrets are certainly an option. What would you suggest as a best option?

Unfortunately in game, the NPCs are arming an existing airship, so double hulling is kinda out of consideration.

Siege equipment's certainly an option, and I'll dig into the special ammo.

Is there any RAW way to stop a dragon from strafe breath kiting the bejesus out of an Airship? I'm wanting to give them some aerial combat experience, but I play my dragons as clever as they should be, and landing on the deck is decidedly not clever.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Stormwrack has some shipboard weapons. Unless your ship is crewed by level 1 NPCs they're not really worth it though since they have long reload times, questionable accuracy and don't really offer a substantial increase in damage over handheld weapons.

Another option may be custom wondrous items of spells like Lightning Bolt, Fireball or similar stuff for the magical equivalent of a cannon. It will certainly improve combat contribution of low-level NPC crew. If your crew only consists of your party, don't bother.

The only way to stop a dragon from strafing you is a spellcaster of a level appropiate to its CR (or equivalent magic items). You won't have much luck with normal Siege Weapons or a crew of NPCs.

Regarding spell turrets: Well, that's cheaper than i remembered. You still need a spellcaster with Craft Wondrous Items to retune them. And needing 8 hours of prep time before one of your spell turrets fires on something is less than useful in most campaigns. You normally don't get that much leadtime on most of your encounters ime.

[Tvtyrant]

Our airship uses light bombards on turrets, which gives us considerable range (E6 so they are actually pretty effective.)

[PraxisVetli]

With the citation, Spell turrets are certainly an option. What would you suggest as a best option?

Unfortunately in game, the NPCs are arming an existing airship, so double hulling is kinda out of consideration.

Siege equipment's certainly an option, and I'll dig into the special ammo.

Is there any RAW way to stop a dragon from strafe breath kiting the bejesus out of an Airship? I'm wanting to give them some aerial combat experience, but I play my dragons as clever as they should be, and landing on the deck is decidedly not clever.
Emphasis mine, added cuz LOL.
One thing to remember is how energy affects materials.
Only Acid and Sonic do normal damage, whereas Fire and Electricity do half. Cold does a measly quarter.

A 14k turret can grant Wingbind, Fell Drain Belker Claws, Sensory Deprivation, and a Bend Spell Shivering Touch.
Does that work? Though its pretty Dragon specific, it'll work on most airborne targets.


Regarding spell turrets: Well, that's cheaper than i remembered. You still need a spellcaster with Craft Wondrous Items to retune them. And needing 8 hours of prep time before one of your spell turrets fires on something is less than useful in most campaigns. You normally don't get that much leadtime on most of your encounters ime.
Hiring a 1st level adept to tune them is literally 2gp a day.. And while leadtime is definately a factor, the group can just park it above city and teleport down while the Adept tunes it.

I do not mean to be annoying with my Turret pitch. I just really like them.

[Werephilosopher]

A custom turret that can fire great thunderclap every round would cost 30,000 gp. It's a medium range spell, so only good if enemies get close. If you only buy one, put it by the helm of the ship or on top of the ring that holds the elemental.

[Prime32]

Fluffwise, I'm fond of the idea of adapting lightning rail technology into a giant railgun.

[Gavinfoxx]

So!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14zilT4WGOyHM0AfpG4-GmD2FkgDg1HZ9HC1cTleQHds/edit

http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1128391

[jiriku]

Put a decanter of endless water behind a check valve opening into a small bottle terminating in a very long, narrow nozzle. Make the valve, bottle, and nozzle from riverine. Cast several permanent wall of fire spells inside the bottle, on its back wall just above the valve opening, with the hot side facing the interior of the bottle. Mount the whole thing on a swivel mount bolted onto a turret on the fore of the ship so you can aim it. When ready, say the geyser command word. The decanter will pump water into the bottle, which will superheat into steam and eventually plasma as the water backs up inside the bottle, unable to escape fast enough. The plasma will emerge from the nozzle at significant velocities. Pressure will regulate the flow of water into the bottle, so you'll get something like automatic fire, rather than a continuous stream of plasma. Try a few different nozzles until you get the right one, and congratulations. Magical plasma cannon.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Price an item as the Sacred Grove Spell Turret, DMG2 p45, which costs 22,500 gp and 1800 xp to create for a market price of 45,000 gp. This casts four 5th level Druid spells of different schools in a set order, one spell per round, and on the fifth round the turret doesn't cast anything but repairs itself. For an airship, it should cast Mass Contagion (SC), Call Avalanche (Frostburn), Summon Nature's Ally V (Large Air Elemental), and Stoneskin (on the elemental).

Note that Call Avalanche creates a ninety-foot-radius of snow, each 5-ft. square of which weighs 500 pounds. Take the number of squares of the enemy ship that the snow would land on, multiply it by 500 pounds, and consider whether that ship would be capable of staying aloft. It also does 8d6 points of (structural) damage and buries large and smaller creatures in snow, which is described in Frostburn. This alone is almost guaranteed to automatically knock any airship out of the sky.

[jiriku]

Note that Call Avalanche creates a ninety-foot-radius of snow, each 5-ft. square of which weighs 500 pounds. Take the number of squares of the enemy ship that the snow would land on, multiply it by 500 pounds, and consider whether that ship would be capable of staying aloft. It also does 8d6 points of (structural) damage and buries large and smaller creatures in snow, which is described in Frostburn. This alone is almost guaranteed to automatically knock any airship out of the sky.

I like how you think. :smallamused: I ran some numbers on some of the ships in Stormwalk and it's generally about 20-50% of a ship's cargo capacity. Thus full hold + avalanche equals trouble! It strikes me that this would be a nice tactic for *ahem) ice pirates, using an avalanche to force an aerial cargo ship to descend, while the damage, burial, and general inconvenience of covering the deck in snow suppresses any return fire from the vessel under attack. Even if the ship is able to remain airborne, its speed might be reduced, and the chaos on the deck would make it easier for the attacker to attempt a boarding operation without taking damage during the approach.


I am also fond of triceratops bombs. Call a celestial triceratops with greater planar binding. Convince it, as its task for you, to submit to containment within a smoky confinement bottle, then attack your foes for, say, one minute after its release. It then need only return to you to complete its contract. Wrap the bottle in clay and mold the clay into a shape like the head of a ballista bolt. Harden it with heat, then affix it to the shaft of a ballista bolt. Now, set aside a store of these weapons, and equip your ship with a couple of heavy ballistas. Fire these bolts at the deck of the enemy ship. The clay heads will shatter, producing instant celestial triceratops rampage! You can do this with things like celestial dire bears too, but I prefer the triceratops for its trample ability, which is excellent for clearing tightly packed mooks on the deck of a ship or in tight-packed troop formations.

*considers*
Really, it's kind of a shame how magic impacts the use of ships in D&D. It's soooo much easier to destroy one than to protect it from destruction.