Help encounter building

[Sir cryosin]

So my party of 3 paladin, bladelock with some death cleric, and a battlemaster fighter. Have accepted two jobs. The first one was to clear out magical creatures that a wizard was experimenting on the wizard lost interest in those experiments and are now running amok. And he's leaving town he gave them the key to the house. And two pieces of paper one with the city and address to we're he will be. The other one is for them to write down that they are finished and wrap the key up onto it it get magicaly transported to him. Now the have cleared to rooms before they called it a day they fought in room one two black pudding's and a gelatinous Cube. With ****tiy rolls on my part and help from a gem of summon water elemental they did pretty good. Next room was a little tougher the paladin had to go so he was out they fought two displacer Beast and took a lot of damage but killed them. They called it a day and had the water elemental carry the to beast out of the place were they had them skinned, tan and then going to get cloaks made. But thats going to take a few weeks so they went back to there favorite taven and was offed a job as guards on a air ship guarding a shipment of ale for the tavern own. Do y'all have any ideas to do while on the Journey.

[CaptainSarathai]

Well, what level are they?

Obviously, flying creatures are going to replace the usual bandit raid, if you're on an airship.

I typically run ship adventures as being less about combat and more about skills. Malfunctions are common, and need fixing. Weather becomes a problem (especially when trying to fix malfunctions). The social aspects and intrigues of being on a confined space are also interesting. You're in a microcosm when aboard a ship - and the captain's word is law. On the one hand, you can't just kill a man or lock him in the brig, because you need crew. On the other hand, discipline must be maintained. A mutiny is like a rebellion or civil war, but fought between maybe a dozen people.

Another really cool idea I've always had rattling around, is to have a zombie outbreak in a very enclosed space like that. More an idea for a horror movie or something, like on a cruise ship or airline. You could do that. Give them a reason that they can't just land the ship (malfunction) and then unleash an undead plague on the crew. The situation suddenly becomes closer to 'Alien', or 'The Thing', or 'Event Horizon.' Could be really fun to play in.

[sithlordnergal]

As the Captain said, use things like mechanical problems and weather. I can think of few things as terrifying as flying through a terrible thunderstorm in an airship that likely has a giant balloon perfect for popping. Also, how common are airships in this campaign? I bet a pirate attack from another airship would be pretty cool. And if they do land: Flying Bullets. Well...more like Bullets that can jump really well. Our group lost our airship due to a pair of Bullets popping the balloon that allowed us to fly during a moment when we landed.

Also, don't have the enemies charge right in. Is the airship getting attacked by pirates? Why not send a caster on a Pegasus through some cloud cover to soften the ship up a bit. Depending on the level of the party, a Fire Ball to the deck of the ship could be devastating to both the party and the ship itself. Then the caster could swoop down under the ship, hiding safely away from any counter attack. Oh, and make use of the feats in the player's handbook. It'll make the encounter harder, but I think it'd make everything much more fun in the end since the party would have to work around that.

[Ronnocius]

I like the ideas above of using skill encounters rather than combat encounters. Obviously on an airship the encounters would be flying, unless they stopped to refuel or there was a traitor on the ship. Some ideas I have are:

- The airship passes through a massive tornado-like dust cloud infested with dust mephits.
- Harpies or a wyvern attack the airship.
- Winged kobolds.
- Griffons.