Armored Land Vehicles

[Lord Kristivas]

If my character wanted to make (carpentry tool proficiency) or buy a "War Carriage", such as your standard carriage from the PHB but with some armor plating and maybe a mounted heavy crossbow or two on top and.. assuming you were the DM and inclined to allow me to do it.. How would you work out the price for construction/purchase and statistics?

[Grynning]

Well, there are some baseline rules for crafting in the game, and based on how long it takes you to craft a suit of plate armor, an armored wagon would take quite a long time (like, months to years) and quite a lot of money. In the end you wouldn't have something that was much more effective as a piece of cover than a standard wagon, since, y'know, cover is cover, it would just have more hit points if someone actively tried to destroy it instead of you. It would also be very slow, and the horses pulling it would still be vulnerable to getting shot. Armored carriages did exist, but had these same limitations and weren't very popular until we invented combustion engines and called them tanks.
Once we get magic item rules, it may be possible to start dreaming bigger. Something like this could easily exist in Eberron, for example, powered by elementals or drawn by undead horses or something. However, it would get even more expensive and time consuming to build. Your character would essentially be out of the campaign to work on this crazy project, and you'd have to play a different one and maybe have your original character show up with his crazy fantasy tank as a plot device later on, but that's as far as I'd let it go.

[Kerilstrasz]

Back in the 3,5 days i managed to design and craft an armored "bus-like" wagon, using the builder's handbook..

it's not much of a big deal really but you need enough money for the materials.

You could go with wood and cut the costs significantly but some well aimed oil flask and torch would make it a flame death trap.

Since i don't have those plan saved somewhere at this point, let me try to describe it..

imagine a bus , but only the shell.. no engine, floor, windows, or other mechanical parts. Just the metal "shell".
4 horses inside the shell , tied in it. 4 or more wheels at the proper height to support the "shell" so the horses do only pulling and no lifting.
that leaves you with about 1/3 of the bus space to do whatever you want with it. Now.. since i don't have my plans & i'm kind bored to recreate, upload & include a blueprint,
be creative and add on the above plan.
About the cost.. get the raw material and hire a wiz to cast fabricate as needed. You may struck a deal , to leave him your "bus" plans for his later use and do the "fabcraft" for free.

[Stan]

Try looking up Hussite war wagon, from the 15th century. A group of them were used as a mobile base to raid from. If they saw the enemy coming, they'd take off the horses and circle the wagons, like in the cowboy movies.

They were probably similar to hay wagons with a few minor adjustments. You probably wouldn't need metal, maybe hides soaked in pee or vinegar like what was used as a defense against Greek fire.

[Lord Kristivas]

Try looking up Hussite war wagon, from the 15th century. A group of them were used as a mobile base to raid from. If they saw the enemy coming, they'd take off the horses and circle the wagons, like in the cowboy movies.

They were probably similar to hay wagons with a few minor adjustments. You probably wouldn't need metal, maybe hides soaked in pee or vinegar like what was used as a defense against Greek fire.

That's very, very helpful. Thank you.

[Slipperychicken]

Well, there are some baseline rules for crafting in the game, and based on how long it takes you to craft a suit of plate armor, an armored wagon would take quite a long time (like, months to years) and quite a lot of money.

That's what Fabricate is for.

EDIT: Also, A&EG has the "Halfling War Wagon" and many other sorts of vehicles. They may be of interest.