Dropship Idea

[kalos72]

So my guys brought up an idea about designing a troop dropship, something where troops can be dropped from altitude by our Spelljammers in atmosphere, maybe 5-10 of them in each?

Or the other idea was a "gate ball", someone throws a glass ball on the ground, it explodes and creates a temporary gate for the troops to run through.

Any ideas on how we could accomplish either?

[Nifft]

Troop Ships: a big box with feather fall cast on it.

Gates: cast gate while in a ship?

[DrMotives]

I don't know existing items for either, but to custom make it I'd go for a feather fall effect. As a level 1 spell, it'd be cheaper than the dimension door you'd be looking at for the gate ball. Non-magically, hang gliders are fairly affordable at 300 gp each. They give a flight speed of 30 (poor), and if you only need to pack them up after combat is done, they can be broken down into a foldable form to return to the ship. If you have a big enough budget though, ornithopters can power themselves back up to your deck.

[kalos72]

Feather fall is too slow, but i guess you could just not cast it until your 60 feet up or something. I am seeing a giant stone teardrop shaped "box" with standing belts to tie your troops to in flight. Like in the Gears of War series... :)

Imagine the site of 10 of these giant "shards" falling from the sky and out pop 100 soldiers!!!

Not sure Dimension Door would work because the troops would be back home or on the ship above in "atmo". Guess it could be the troops cast it to land near the person versus the person on the ground initiating the "door".

Imagine a tunneler type vehicle digging from above Menzoberranzan and dropping in from above that way? I always though why not dig a big tunnel and flood the whole cavern with sunlight. :P

[Vogie]

YMMV, but I'm thinking you could create some sort of fairly-indestructible box with at least 1 open end, key a teleportation circle to that box, then toss the box off the airship. Anyone who enters the circle would then be teleported to the box, which would then happen to be wherever it landed.

If you're flying low, soldiers could rope trick from the deck of the airship, hang out in the extradimensional space until the ship passes by, then slide down the rope. RAW says you only get 30ft of rope, so depending on the distance to the ground you may need to have some feather fall shenanigans so they don't splat.

Playing off THIS IDEA (http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/78894/how-do-i-handle-my-players-killing-things-by-catapulting-a-folding-boat) of using a folding boat as a siege weapon, you could also add some wind resistance calculations to see what your soldiers would have to do to survive using it as a landing craft

[Ruethgar]

The Hummingbird side effect can be even cheaper and faster than Feather Fall, plus you get the full falling speed to land in just a few rounds rather than several.

[kalos72]

I like the teleport idea, sort of the idea I had with the gate globe or whatever. Throw it down, opening a portal...to a specific location on the other side where troops are standing by.

Whats the Hummingbird effect?

[Cerefel]

I like the idea of troops using feather fall close to the ground. It somewhat reminds me of HALO (High Altitude Low Opening) troops in the real world. As for not splatting, immediate actions can be used even during other actions e.g. the free action of falling