Airship Combat

[Behold_the_Void]

So I'm looking to running an airship battle in my campaign, which will involve the PCs running around flying the airship through a narrow crevice, blasting other airships and flying units as they go. I don't have, nor do I have the money to procure the Eberron sourcebook, so I'm looking for a bit of help on the quick and dirty stats and how it should be conducted.

Currently, the airship they'll be using is 100 ft. long and 70 ft. wide, with several mounted cannons with which to engage their enemies. I'll likely be using a 50 ft. square for the airship combat map. I'm trying to figure out the speed, hit points, hardness, and cannon damage I should be looking at.

Right now I'm thinking somewhere along the lines of 300 HP and 10 hardness. The cannons are going to probably do something to the effect of 5d10 damage, giving a decent average of 27.5 damage, or 17 damage on each hit. Of course, with casters and the like, things get more interesting, but that's neither here nor there.

The other (enemy) airships will be smaller, probably weighing in at half the size and hp.

Cannon range I'm looking at around 100-200 ft. range increments. Ship speed is looking to be somewhere along the lines of 50-100 feet, and I'll let the pilot take either a double-move action with the ship (concentrating on getting the full amount of speed out of the ship) or let them move once and take a standard action.

Anyway, any imput would be much appreciated.

[Assassinfox]

Might wanna check out www.spelljammer.org and adapt their ship-to-ship combat rules to your situation.

[Jasdoif]

D20 Modern has rules for vehicle combat, you could read it in its SRD (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/msrd) and adapt it as needed.

Coincidentally, the "chase scale" meant for longer ranged vehicle situations uses 50ft squares, like you suggested.

[Behold_the_Void]

I actually do own D20 Modern and am modeling some of this after it.

[Duraska]

Also, d20 Future contains rules for space battles (starship vs starship).

[Bryn]

There are also rules for ship-to-ship combat in Stormwrack (if you have it), which could be adapted to regard airships.

[magnar]

The Arms and Equipment guide has lots of material on this topic...
Is it legal to scan in the pages and post them here? It's kind of like letting you borrow it.

[Macrovore]

this is one of those times where it would be much easier to shell out 30 bucks for stormwrack than to figure out how to do it yourself. Explorer's Handbook (best. eberron supplement. ever) actually has the stats of the airship in the stormwrack ship stat block format, but you can just bring a notebook to borders for that one.

[ExHunterEmerald]

Since I'm angling an artificer/windwright captain build, the material is fairly fresh.
Basically, a ship has a bunch of compartments, and you need to destroy X amount to bring down the vessel, usually a quarter of the whole, and there are usually around a thousand.

[Duraska]

The Arms and Equipment guide has lots of material on this topic...
Is it legal to scan in the pages and post them here? It's kind of like letting you borrow it.

Yes, this would be a copyright violation, and it could bring down the wrath of WOTC on the Giant (case in point: notice how Youtube is being punished for user-submitted videos). Therefore, I would urge you not to do it. You'd be hurting yourself, and all the other users of this fantastic website.

That said, I believe that the d20 modern SRD is considered to be open license, so the OP could always look that up on the web. If you wanted more advanced rules however, purchasing the product is the only legal way to go about it.

[Behold_the_Void]

Stormwrack is a book I've looked at, as is Eberron, but I just don't have the money right now, nor do I have the time to run down to Borders and start copying stuff.

The component thing looks a bit too hard to manage. My friend suggested using the Victory Point system from Heroes of Battle and having just the standard mooks working the cannons, but I'm not sure if that'll quite work in my case. I think I'm doing a basic, flat HP total for destruction since I don't think the one airship will be easily brought down.

How does Stormwrack combat basically work? I think a summary is fine by board rules.

[TheDarkOne]

Yes, this would be a copyright violation, and it could bring down the wrath of WOTC on the Giant (case in point: notice how Youtube is being punished for user-submitted videos). Therefore, I would urge you not to do it. You'd be hurting yourself, and all the other users of this fantastic website.

That said, I believe that the d20 modern SRD is considered to be open license, so the OP could always look that up on the web. If you wanted more advanced rules however, purchasing the product is the only legal way to go about it.

I'm not so sure that this is entirely true, but it doesn't matter because it's also against this forums rules.

[Nerd-o-rama]

It's close enough.

Anyway, I've been running an airship combat in a play-by-post game I run. Let me say that Stormwrack/Explorer's Handbook isn't the best system to use if you want your characters to be members of the crew and be involved in the combat. It's cinematic and easy, sure, but there's not necessarily a whole lot of skill or tactics involved, especially since Airships have a fixed maximum speed and no "rigging components" to disable. Also, the sample airship in Explorer's Handbook is wombating huge, especially for a passenger/cargo ship. Bigger than a Greatship in Stormwrack by a large margin.

[Macrovore]

basically, every ship has a certain number of hull sections (essentially, a section is equal to a 10ft cube), each with the same number of hit points and hardness. you need to destroy 1/4 of a ship's sections to have it start sinking.

that's about as simple as you can get those rules. they're pretty good, and translate to airship combat fairly easily.

[Begle1]

I would think that boats and dirigibles would have quite a vital of difference in hull integrity, though. You can armor a boat and it still floats, armoring a balloon is more difficult.

Unless you want to go for the Magic: the Gathering type of airship that shoots magic phasers, is protected by magic shields and flies by magic. Or use ballistae instead of cannon.

Because, depending on what kind of ships you have in your campaign, different combat systems would probably be more effective.

[Macrovore]

Begle, in eberron, airships aren't dirigibles. they're basically big boats with fire elementals bound to them (which i never really understood. how does a fire elemental help it fly. but i digress).
and behold_the_void, if you're playing eberron, there aren't any cannons.

[ExHunterEmerald]

Begle, in eberron, airships aren't dirigibles. they're basically big boats with fire elementals bound to them (which i never really understood. how does a fire elemental help it fly. but i digress).
and behold_the_void, if you're playing eberron, there aren't any cannons.
Think like a jet engine's "fire" propelling its vessel.

[Macrovore]

ya, probably. whatever.

[Behold_the_Void]

It's not Eberron, but a homebrew based on Disgaea (see signature), so it's got a rather interesting mismash of technology.