Moving colossal, ultra-heavy objects to another plane?

[rigsmal]

Anything from either D&D 3.5e or PF would be appreciated.

Suppose I have a wizard sitting in a demiplane somewhere building colossal starships (or spelljammers), then he realizes, "Oh, crap, I built all of these on my freaking demiplane, how am I going to move them to the prime material plane?" OK, yes, I know, someone with a high Int wouldn't make this mistake, but suppose further that the wizard has some blind spots (i.e. his player is dumb).

I'm looking for suggestions other than disassembling and reassembling elsewhere.

Edit: The usual suspects do not work. Wish transports creatures, not objects, gate is too tiny, plane shift transports creatures (again, not objects). My first thought was to temporarily give the colossal starships an Int score somehow, turning them into creatures, but how would I do this, since awaken construct specifies humanoid and I assure you my starships do not look like humans.

[zlefin]

n/m, misread

hmm, when Wish transports a creature, that creature keeps its gear/held objects, doesn't it? It doesn't say they do, but in practice I think that's how everyone handles it; so a creature strong enough to lift the object could then be wish-transported.

[rigsmal]

Teleport also takes objects you're carrying (up to maximum load), find a creature that has a suitable max load (after all the str-pumping you can do), and have it teleport should work.
if you can get the numbers high enough;. how heavy are these ships?

8,000 tons. But doesn't teleport explicitly disallow interplanar travel?

[druid91]

You could use the rules from the Stronghold Builders Guide. It'd be expensive but you could imbue the whole structure with plane-shifting magic. Though it's something like 125,000 GP per 20 foot cube. So... A ludicrous amount of GP. But you've got those there resetting spell traps of fabricate right? : P

[Psyren]

Shrink them, have someone pick them up, wish/gate that guy.

(Alternatively, Animate Objects)

[AnonymousPepper]

All teleportation effects allow the creature to carry whatever weight they can carry with them, as I recall, unless specified otherwise. So, either strength pumping shenanigans or shrink object shenanigans would work. The latter would also work with Portals (Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 59), which specify a max weight of 850, if you could get the weight low enough.

[Bronk]

Right, first, make elven spelljammers... they're grown from special trees, and you can awaken them.

You could also use the 'haunt shift' spell to infuse your craft with an undead, then wish or teleport it away.

Planar sails! (Arms and Equipment Guide)

[rigsmal]

You could use the rules from the Stronghold Builders Guide. It'd be expensive but you could imbue the whole structure with plane-shifting magic. Though it's something like 125,000 GP per 20 foot cube. So... A ludicrous amount of GP. But you've got those there resetting spell traps of fabricate right? : P

Ha, please, I've automated my galactic empire factory. A few spell traps of fabricate or wish is nothing.

Thanks for the suggestion, by the way. This is probably the most direct way to handle it.


Shrink them, have someone pick them up, wish/gate that guy.

(Alternatively, Animate Objects)

I don't have enough CL to animate a colossal object, and do not plan on cheesing my CL at this juncture.

I like the shrink item suggestion, and something I can summon with a Str score of 37 would be an elder earth elemental with bull's strength (which can carry 4,000 lbs, the amount my shrunken starship would weigh). This works, though the process looks kind of weird. I guess I already lost my dignity when I accidentally built my starships on a demiplane.


Planar sails! (Arms and Equipment Guide)

Yes, this is the best suggestion. Technically my ship doesn't use sails, or need them, or benefit from them at all, but nowhere in the description of the item does it say planar sails have to fulfill the purpose of actual sails. Thank you!

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

A strong enough Animate Objects spell can make it eligible for Plane Shift. This can be accomplished with a caster level boost from circle magic (Red Wizard in the DMG, Halruaan Elder, etc.). You could also Permanency that, give it an item that grants flight, and it becomes self-propelled.

[zlefin]

it looks to big to be affected by shrink item, due to shrink item's size and weight limits.

a colossal creature with ~70 strength would be needed to lift the full-size version.

[rigsmal]

it looks to big to be affected by shrink item, due to shrink item's size and weight limits.

a colossal creature with ~70 strength would be needed to lift the full-size version.

You're right. But the planar sails are pretty much perfect, since they work on any "vehicle", curiously including proper starships (which otherwise have no use for sails).

[ExLibrisMortis]

You could get a very high carrying capacity quite easily. You need a big quadruped with a high strength score. A belt of wide earth doubles carrying capacity for 8000 gp, the Natural Heavyweight feat does the same. The lighten load spell (Dragon #317) increases your strength score by 1/CL (maximum 10) for the purpose of increasing carrying capacity.

Put it all together: an unmodified summon monster VIII can get you a colossal centipede (27 strength), which, with bite of the werebear and lighten load active (+26 effective strength) would have a heavy load of 24 * 64 * 520 = 798 720 pounds. Adding a belt of wide earth doubles that. That's almost 800 non-metric tons, isn't it? You need to get a point of strength somewhere, which should be as easy as giving the centipede a shot of some drug or other, for that tasty +2 alchemical bonus. Now your ships are plane shifted out of the workshop by giant centipedes on steroids, literally.

[DrKerosene]

I believe there was a Dragon Magazine with a low-level adventure focused on scaling a colossal(+?) "not-brachiosaurus" to fight the hobgoblins in a small fortress on the back of the creature.

When the Party succeeds, the creature ends up returning to it's home plane after a while. I have no recollection which 3(.5)e Dragon Magazine this was in, so I can't say if it was just a hand-waivy thing, or if one of the already mentioned spells (can't be Gate) was used.

[Krobar]

If I recall, Stormwrack has a Planar Helm. It is basically the ship's wheel, and can do a Planar Navigation twice a day.

[RoboEmperor]

1. Animate the object via animate object spell.
2. Usual suspects.

The end.

edit: It seems other people have already mentioned animate object. My bad. Boosting CL can easily be done by a variety of CL boosting shenanigans. Your only options seem to be building a stronghold capable of shifting planes and putting the colossal object inside it, chop the object up, or make a custom spell or item.