[3.5/PF] Airship Battles

[Palanan]

In a standard 3.5/Pathfinder world, how would a battle between fleets of airships play out?

Let’s assume non-explosive gas, because otherwise a single cantrip can light up an entire airship. But that aside, and given state-level resources for each fleet, what would it look like?

Would you have casters with wands of Lightning attacking airships protected by rows of Storm Shields? Would you have cavaliers on pegasi making strafing runs while fending off gnomes on giant owls? What spells, tactics, creatures would work best for fleet-level engagements at five thousand feet?

.

[RNightstalker]

If I'm attacking airships, I'm protecting what keeps my ships in the air, and attacking what keeps their ships in the air.

[MisterKaws]

There's a Sea Mage class in Towers of High Sorcery(Not published by Wizards though it's licensed) which lets you consider the whole ship as your body for delivering touch spells and for determining origin and line of effect. If I could get an Air Mage adaptation past my DM(or if I were the DM), I'd get one of those to defend the ship for sure.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by RNightstalker
If I'm attacking airships, I'm protecting what keeps my ships in the air, and attacking what keeps their ships in the air.

Care to elaborate?

In this case, what keeps the airships flying is non-flammable gas, contained inside the body of the ships just like a typical zeppelin. Attacking the gas means attacking the ships themselves.


Originally Posted by MisterKaws
…lets you consider the whole ship as your body for delivering touch spells….

Does this mean the ship would need to come into contact with another ship in order to deliver the spell? That would probably be more useful for seagoing vessels, especially triremes which are built specifically for ramming. Airships are a lot more fragile that way.

Although it does open the prospect of small flyers going after enemy airships with touch spells at the ready….

.

[Stevesciguy]

Care to elaborate?

In this case, what keeps the airships flying is non-flammable gas, contained inside the body of the ships just like a typical zeppelin. Attacking the gas means attacking the ships themselves.



Does this mean the ship would need to come into contact with another ship in order to deliver the spell? That would probably be more useful for seagoing vessels, especially triremes which are built specifically for ramming. Airships are a lot more fragile that way.

Although it does open the prospect of small flyers going after enemy airships with touch spells at the ready….

.

I think the intended use is so that you can buff/heal anyone on the same ship as you. But that is also an interesting prospect.

Are these ships with balloons, or are they kept aloft magically?

[MisterKaws]

Does this mean the ship would need to come into contact with another ship in order to deliver the spell? That would probably be more useful for seagoing vessels, especially triremes which are built specifically for ramming. Airships are a lot more fragile that way.

Although it does open the prospect of small flyers going after enemy airships with touch spells at the ready….

.

You can deliver touch spells to anyone touching the ship, and long-range spells with an origin of anywhere in the ship. It doesn't mean that the target is limited, but, for example, you could shoot a fireball from the mast while you're sitting on your office inside the ship.

[Bronk]

In this case, what keeps the airships flying is non-flammable gas, contained inside the body of the ships just like a typical zeppelin. Attacking the gas means attacking the ships themselves.


Zeppelins aren't really a 3.5 thing... is this more of a Pathfinder thing? Shining South does have the Halruaan Skyship though, plus there are Spelljammer ships from Dungeon 92 / Polyhedron 151, AEG's cloud keel, and the elemental airships from Eberron. Their movement is mostly magic based rather than science based.

[mabriss lethe]

OK. so the thing is, Zeppelins would make for a fairly terrible design in ship to ship combat (yes I know that some were used as bombers during ww1 but that's different. )

You need a lot of lift volume for a very small amount of crew/cargo. close range visibility in any direction but down is practically a joke. early zep gondolas were externally mounted and exposed to the elements (and frankly fairly miserable), later versions had crew and passenger sections built into the balloon itself, much more comfortable, but at the expense of being able to see. the thing to realize also, what you see of a zeppelin isn't the balloon itself but the supportive and protective outer container. lift was provided by several internally mounted balloons.

This is fantasy, however, so you can hand wave all that away. but overcoming those limitations would definitely help you flesh out your design. How you design your ships for your game will give you all the details for how combat should be waged. Is it a sailing vessel with a big football shaped balloon giving it lift? Cut the rigging and watch in horror as the balloon gently rises free of its ship and the enemy plunges screaming to their doom. you get the idea.

Let me see if I can whip up some ground rules:
-Very big ships aren't really directly involved in fights. They're more a part of the terrain than a discreet object. They impose conditions on the battle. (thank you saga edition)
-ships themselves have a few discreet parts no matter how they're made, call it Navigation, Propulsion, and Crew. Do enough damage to the ship as a whole and one part (at random if not specifically targetted) becomes useless. Without navigation, the ship just drifts uncontrollably, Propulsion being down grounds the vessel, maybe fast, maybe slow, Without the crew section, the vessel has to be abandoned.
-A lot of ship to ship combat is done with boarding maneuvers. Ships are expensive even for nations, it's much better to capture a vessel than to down one. Whatever boarding method a nation uses, it needs to be fairly lightweight and and inexpensive. maybe 1/day versions of rings of feather fall, or similar is common for one group, but another nation may recruit almost exclusively among raptorans for their marines.

[King of Nowhere]

what's exactly the level of magic and technology available? how many mid and high level people are available to join the fight? can you, for example, afford to put a wizard with fireball on every ship? how about disintegrate? are those airships as limited in carrying capacity (which includes armor) as real ones? what kind of divinatiion magic is employed in the war?

all those affect the answer. we need more details

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by MisterKaws
You can deliver touch spells to anyone touching the ship, and long-range spells with an origin of anywhere in the ship.

Sounds like an excellent option, definitely helpful for repelling boarders. If only I had that book….


Originally Posted by mabriss lethe
…later versions had crew and passenger sections built into the balloon itself, much more comfortable, but at the expense of being able to see.

We can assume there will be lookouts posted around the exterior, and there’s always Clairvoyance. I would expect each airship would have one lowish-level caster with Clairvoyance running like a periscope to guide the ship.

Also, I would expect high-altitude spotters to be keeping track of the battle, and relaying information to their respective sides via Sending or something similar. There would probably be a smaller-scale battle at higher altitudes, as each side tried to take out the other’s spotters and their escorts.


Originally Posted by King of Nowhere
how many mid and high level people are available to join the fight? can you, for example, afford to put a wizard with fireball on every ship?

High-level would be unlikely, but there are enough low-ish-level casters to have several on each airship. Maybe a handful of mid-level casters per fleet.


Originally Posted by King of Nowhere
how about disintegrate?

Probably there would be a couple mid-level casters able to use this, although its range is only a couple hundred feet or so. These would be the big guns at point-blank range, unless someone tries to drop a caster on an enemy ship.


Originally Posted by King of Nowhere
are those airships as limited in carrying capacity (which includes armor) as real ones?

No armor for the airships, although it would be interesting to have one or more Shield spells over critical points.

As for carrying capacity, they’re essentially as limited as real-world vessels, although we can fudge this slightly by allowing for wooden superstructures in place of aluminum, which wouldn’t be available.


Originally Posted by King of Nowhere
what kind of divinatiion magic is employed in the war?

Anything up to fifth or sixth level spells would be fair game; beyond that it’s less likely. I would expect there would be a lot of divination countermeasures on both sides, but I’m not that familiar with the options involved.


Originally Posted by mabriss lethe
maybe 1/day versions of rings of feather fall….

The trouble with this is, even at the highest caster level (which isn’t likely here) these will only arrest your fall for 1200 feet, and given that this engagement is set at 5000 feet, that still leaves 3800 feet after your ring gives out. For most of the crew involved, 380d6 will definitely sting.


Originally Posted by mabriss lethe
…ships themselves have a few discreet parts no matter how they're made, call it Navigation, Propulsion, and Crew.

Sadly, we can’t always count on the crew being discreet. :smalltongue:

.

[King of Nowhere]

ok, then. even with inert gas (assume they can conjure helium from the elemental plane of air), those things are still very flammable. they are going to be made with wood and cloth. so i expect flaming arrows would be a significant threat. A low level cleric or druid on board would help much with create water. That, can cast bless on the archers as the battle begins. if they have 2nd level spell, they can also cast resist fire on the ship.
I don't know how pathfinder feather fall works. I don't like the concept of "reduce fall by X" indefinitely, because at some point you're going to hit terminal velocity, at around 200 km/h; so if feather fall can cushion you for 200 km/h, it can cushion you at any height. Regardless, keeping a wizard on board is also a good idea. If feather fall won't work at those heights (they may be able to engineer parachutes?), you still want him to cast fireballs or scorching ray (depending on his level). Fireball in particular has long range, would be very effective.

I'd put crossbowmen with flaming arrows as crew. given the limited ship capacity, maybe the wizard, the cleric/druid, a half dozen archers, and whatever crew is needed to manuever.

[Inchhighguy]

Really, whatever you want.

Both D&D and Pathfinder are full of tons of things you can use right out of the books. Plus there are tons of things you can make.


You want rafts tied to ballions with ropes and guys with crossbows....you can do that.

You want flying skyships powered by magic and shooting fireballs....you can do that.

You want a ship that is an animated, intelligent, flying object.....you can do that.

The sky really is the limit.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by King of Nowhere
those things are still very flammable. they are going to be made with wood and cloth. so i expect flaming arrows would be a significant threat. A low level cleric or druid on board would help much with create water.

Fire suppression is definitely vital here. Quench will be the go-to spell, since that covers a much larger area than Create Water.

Fireball would have a slightly longer range, maybe a thousand feet or so, but there’s a catch: if you can block the fiery bead before it reaches your ship, and cause a premature detonation, then you’ve negated that attack.

So the question is, what kind of barrier or countermeasures can you put up to cause that early detonation?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Frostburn has a 5th level Druid spell named Call Avalanche, which drops a 10-ft. per level radius of snow out of the sky onto the target area. That snow weighs 500 pounds per 5-ft. square, which is more than enough to knock an airship right out of the sky.

[RNightstalker]

In this case, what keeps the airships flying is non-flammable gas, contained inside the body of the ships just like a typical zeppelin. Attacking the gas means attacking the ships themselves.
.

Sorry to be so "See Spot Run" simple, as I didn't know what exactly you had in mind when you said airships. That being said, there's a reason zeppelins were discontinued...

[Palanan]

Biffoniacus_Furiou
Frostburn has a 5th level Druid spell named Call Avalanche, which drops a 10-ft. per level radius of snow out of the sky onto the target area. That snow weighs 500 pounds per 5-ft. square, which is more than enough to knock an airship right out of the sky.

Good catch on this one. It’s a hazard, though I’m not convinced it’s an automatic ship-killer.

Also, is there a way to scan for druids?


Originally Posted by King of Nowhere
what kind of divinatiion magic is employed in the war?

To follow up on this, I’m interested in how different divination spells could be used here. Augury has roughly a 25% chance of being incorrect, so I’m not sure if an airship captain would want to rely on that. Arcane Sight only has a range of 120 feet, so not helpful unless you’ve moved into point-blank range.

What else could be useful here?

[magic9mushroom]

In a standard 3.5/Pathfinder world, how would a battle between fleets of airships play out?

Let’s assume non-explosive gas, because otherwise a single cantrip can light up an entire airship.

I feel compelled to note for the record that hydrogen airships aren't as dangerous as often believed. Because the hydrogen is inside balloons, where there is no air, they cannot catch alight unless there's significant leakage and a source of ignition within the zone of leakage (it's believed that the Hindenburg had been leaking for hours prior to its infamous demise). There are recorded cases of hydrogen airships being struck by lightning with no ill effect.

Of course, in a battle "significant leakage" is pretty likely.

[Darrin]

In a standard 3.5/Pathfinder world, how would a battle between fleets of airships play out?


I'm going to reframe the question a bit to "How would an interesting battle between fleets of airships play out?" And by interesting, I mean how would it be interesting to the PCs? Because most D&D characters have a particular set of skills and abilities that only make sense in the context of a battlemat with 1-inch squares with various terrain features and obstacles that can influence how combat plays out.

So when you look at it in that context, then you can safely disregard some of the more problematic consequences of what an airship battle might look like. For example, we don't want to get too much into the technology or physics involved. Some examples of difficult questions we want to avoid: Do they use helium or "aetheric vapors"? Can spellcasters destroy an airship with just a single well-placed cantrip? Do they just pummel each other with cannons at long range? Are there an elaborate system of countermeasures that carefully negate various tactics so that only a small list of tactical options are still viable? These questions can mostly be dealt with by various amounts of Handwavium.

So, back to my main point: what would make for an interesting battle for the PCs? Presumably you already have access to battle maps that include various sailing ships: galleons, frigates, cogs, etc. And those have interesting terrain features: decks with different elevations, stairs/ladders, cargo hatches, maybe a few ballistas. But airships don't have to deal with the same level of drag as sailing ships, so the airships can have much more elaborate deck plans. In fact, you can probably take any small fort or building floorplan, erase the terrain outside, add some anchor points for the airbag ropes, and call it an airship. Cut or crop the map so the airships can be plopped down on a larger empty battlemap, and then the airships can fly in formations, swoop in for a broadside, pull alongside for grappling hooks and boarding parties, and so forth. This allows the PCs to still be important and use most of their combat abilities. The terrain has new things for them to worry about: getting pushed off the side is obviously bad, should they take some precautions against that? Is attacking/defending the anchor ropes important? How much damage can they sustain before the lifting bag detaches? Is attacking the crew or the structure of the airship more important? These are the issues the PCs can explore, and they are still in an environment where their decisions and abilities can have an impact.



Would you have casters with wands of Lightning attacking airships protected by rows of Storm Shields?


There are two important questions to ask here. The first one is are the PCs involved? Are they the ones wielding the wands of lightning, firing the cannons, casting spells, or holding the storm shields? Or are they watching a bunch of grunts blast away at long range, and the PCs don't really have any way to contribute? If so, then I'd steer away from this one.

Second question is if they are involved with either the blasting or the defending, can the PCs make decisions or use abilities that affect the outcome of the battle? In other words, are they just the nameless grunts waiting for the DM to roll the dice and tell them what happens or which lightning bolt eventually gets through the static defenses? If that's the case, then you say the airship crashes or gets through the battle and you move as quickly as you can to the next encounter where the PCs have some control over the outcome.



Would you have cavaliers on pegasi making strafing runs while fending off gnomes on giant owls?


All of that sounds like an interesting encounter, or an interesting twist to add to an airship encounter. You'll need to put some more work into planning the encounter, though... you're going to want to take a very careful look at all of the abilities of your "strafers" and figure out what sort of attacks make sense for an airship encounter. Some mounts have breath weapons, SLAs, and special attacks that could be very effective in an aerial battle, and some attacks might not be so useful (such as multiattack, improved grab, constrict, swallow whole, etc.). You'll have to put more thought into what tactics your "strafers" are going to want to employ, and what they might do if those tactics either work or don't work. Are these units trying to attack the structure of the airship? Can they do so in a way that the PCs can reasonably respond and prevent that from happening? Are these units just delivering boarders that the PCs can fight normally? Are these units trying to snatch crew off the deck and then drop them for an auto-kill? Do the PCs have a reasonable chance or can use a counter-strategy to avoid an auto-kill?

You want to avoid any creature or special attack that the PCs have absolutely no counter for. For example, a dragon can fly above an airship and breath down at it, completely destroying the lift bag and sending the entire airship to the ground for a TPK. The crew on the airship has no way to target the dragon because the lift bag blocks LOS. Moral: don't f*ck with dragons, they will kill you. Unless the entire party can fly and has a reasonable chance to take down or drive off the dragon before the dragon can destroy the lift bag... well, then that could be an interesting encounter.



What spells, tactics, creatures would work best for fleet-level engagements at five thousand feet?


Every creature/PC/NPC should have an effective ranged attack of some sort. However, there are some caveats... D&D is not designed to handle combat at extreme ranges. There's a reason the game expects most combat to take place on a battlemat that fits reasonably well on a kitchen table. To avoid the mechanics of the game breaking down into horrendously absurd lopsided battles, you'll want to emphasize ranged attacks but remember that almost all weapons/special attacks in D&D assume that the combatants are within 30' to 60' of each other, and when combatants get separated by more than 100' or 200', combat might stop making sense. So you'll want to bring the airships in close enough so that the PCs and their enemies still have meaningful things to do with each other. If there's a tactical strategy that is particularly effective against an airship, such as "Wizard casts lightning bolts at the lift bag until it explodes", then make sure the other side has an effective counter-strategy, like "let's swing over with grappling hooks and kill the wizard before he destroys our airship!"

Don't be afraid to throw around Handwavium. If a well-prepared wizard could completely destroy an airship from half a mile away without breaking a sweat, then all the airships have counter-measures to prevent that: magically fire-resistant wood/cloth/ropes, anti-magic spellclocks that counter long-range blasting spells, etc. If you need to, hang a lampshade on it: "Yes, of course I could blast it out of the sky with a maximized meteor swarm, but where's the fun in that? And besides, Brutus there would never get a chance to try out his Vorpal Glaive-Chucks, so I'm going to save my spell-slots and close into boarding range."

Avoid fleet-level engagements if you can. Deal with something the PCs have control over: one or two airships vs. a handful of other airships. If there is an entire fleet-level engagement going on in the background, that's fine, but D&D doesn't really handle large-scale battles that well, nor should you expect it to.

[MisterKaws]

I feel compelled to note for the record that hydrogen airships aren't as dangerous as often believed. Because the hydrogen is inside balloons, where there is no air, they cannot catch alight unless there's significant leakage and a source of ignition within the zone of leakage (it's believed that the Hindenburg had been leaking for hours prior to its infamous demise). There are recorded cases of hydrogen airships being struck by lightning with no ill effect.

Of course, in a battle "significant leakage" is pretty likely.

I guess maybe that's why Eberron's Cannith/Lyrandar Artificers started to use Air Elementals for lift instead of flammable balloons.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Darrin
I'm going to reframe the question a bit to…how would it be interesting to the PCs?

…Avoid fleet-level engagements if you can.

I appreciate all your commentary, and I always enjoy your posts for the wealth of useful information they provide.

:smallsmile:


Originally Posted by MisterKaws
I guess maybe that's why Eberron's Cannith/Lyrandar Artificers started to use Air Elementals for lift instead of flammable balloons.

For in-world reasons I’m avoiding the bound-elemental angle; it’s just not the direction I’m interested in. Eberron also cheats a little with soarwood, which I’d also rather not get into.

As for the lifting agent, the simple truth is I haven’t decided what it will be. The one thing I do know is it won’t be hydrogen.


Originally Posted by magic9mushroom
I feel compelled to note for the record that hydrogen airships aren't as dangerous as often believed.

Actually they were. (https://www.airships.net/hydrogen-airship-accidents/)

I count twenty-six airships destroyed by hydrogen ignition before the Hindenburg. In the seven airship accidents where a death toll is given, a total of 192 people were killed. There are a number of other accidents in which no specific toll is given, but it’s clear that entire crews were lost. Each of these accidents was due to ignition of the hydrogen. That’s not a good safety record.

And note in particular that L-17 and L-24 were both destroyed by a single lightbulb.

[SirNibbles]

D&D makes the most potent lifting gas possible: a vacuum. You would probably need some persistent force effect to keep the vacuum seal but if you get it working pure even better off than hydrogen in terms of lift.

Maybe a modified Telekinetic Sphere would work.

[King of Nowhere]

I'm going to reframe the question a bit to "How would an interesting battle between fleets of airships play out?" And by interesting, I mean how would it be interesting to the PCs? Because most D&D characters have a particular set of skills and abilities that only make sense in the context of a battlemat with 1-inch squares with various terrain features and obstacles that can influence how combat plays out.


I made experience on that since I pushed my campaign world into a massive war where the players are the strongest people in their team, but still just a party among large numbers. So I think you may be interested by the way I dealt with massive battles with thousands of participants .

First I talk strategy, troop placement and general plans. I describe how the battle evolves. this is mostly fluff, and there are no rules involved. I can cut it short if the players don't want to participate in that. How well they handle the battle determines how difficult will be the next part, and the final outcome.
then we reach a pivotal moment in the battle, and I isolate the party and an enemy task force sent to deal with them specifically. Generally it's the enemy elite team, but could be a larger force of weaker opponents if I feel like doing something different.
Of course it is assumed that there are other people fighting all around, but it is equally assumed that their reciprocal efforts are neutralizing each other. I have a random table of effects to reinforce the idea that there are people around - from "an enemy throws a fireball against you" to "an ally cast mass cure light wounds on you" to "an archer shoot someone with +X to hit and Y damage". I put together a few dozen effects, and each one can be positive and negative (as in, an enemy archer attacks a party member or an allied archer attacks an enemy). I can roll that from once per round to every time someone makes his turn, depending on how big I want the battle to be; the biggest the battle, the more random effects.
the outcome of the encounter decides the battle. If the pcs win, their army managed to break the enemy and force them to retreat. If the pcs lose, their army also have to flee. then I describe outcome of the battle, generally in terms of resources lost by both sides.

So, it's mostly descriptive, but you CAN have a big engagement of ariships while giving the party a meaningful encounter.
Of course it requires a bit of trust, as there are no rules for deciding how the battle goes you must try to be fair, and your players must accept your judgment. But it can bring a really epic feeling to a campaign.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by King of Nowhere
So, it's mostly descriptive, but you CAN have a big engagement of ariships while giving the party a meaningful encounter.

…it can bring a really epic feeling to a campaign.

Very much so. Let’s face it, fleet-level engagements can be pretty awesome in their own right, and still leave plenty for the PCs to do:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZq53GloUhw

:smalltongue:


Originally Posted by SirNibbles
D&D makes the most potent lifting gas possible: a vacuum. You would probably need some persistent force effect to keep the vacuum seal but if you get it working pure even better off than hydrogen in terms of lift.

Maybe a modified Telekinetic Sphere would work.

This is a very cool idea, and very creative. I’ll have to tinker with this and see where it goes.


Originally Posted by King of Nowhere
I have a random table of effects to reinforce the idea that there are people around….

Do you happen to have that table handy? I’d love to take a look.

[Bohandas]

Zeppelins aren't really a 3.5 thing...

Though they are covered briefly around page 54 of the Arms and Equipment Guide

[Alexvrahr]

Lighter than air craft are very big and most of the time they won't be flying inside dense clouds. Unless you like crashing into mountains anyway. With altitude even the horizon is further away. This means they can see each other from far away; miles for sure, sometimes tens of miles. Without major differences in speed either side can avoid combat for hours or days. I think you're going to need some sort of short range fighters which do have those major differences in speed to force a combat in a reasonable timeframe. Whether those are pegasi-mounted strike teams or something like a Sopwith Camel is up to your setting.

Assuming that's expensive and/or heavy enough to noticeably reduce payload on the airship you have a real use for small, elite bands of protectors; call them 'adventurers'.

[Ramza00]

I appreciate all your commentary, and I always enjoy your posts for the wealth of useful information they provide.

:smallsmile:



For in-world reasons I’m avoiding the bound-elemental angle; it’s just not the direction I’m interested in. Eberron also cheats a little with soarwood, which I’d also rather not get into.

As for the lifting agent, the simple truth is I haven’t decided what it will be. The one thing I do know is it won’t be hydrogen.



Actually they were. (https://www.airships.net/hydrogen-airship-accidents/)

I count twenty-six airships destroyed by hydrogen ignition before the Hindenburg. In the seven airship accidents where a death toll is given, a total of 192 people were killed. There are a number of other accidents in which no specific toll is given, but it’s clear that entire crews were lost. Each of these accidents was due to ignition of the hydrogen. That’s not a good safety record.

And note in particular that L-17 and L-24 were both destroyed by a single lightbulb.

As weapons of war they were a kid of being safe and unsafe with the WW1 London bombers. Early WW1 they were hard to shoot down, and then due to different tech and tactics they were easy to shoot down.

What happened was the move to different types of bullets. Early bullets were designed for range and penetration and even when you hit the balloons they did not explode only with holes popped through them. The bullet was moving too fast and the same bullet could not provide a spark.

So moves of different types of bullets such as bullets that have a small explosion on impact, shatter on impact, inciderary etc were tried.

What was found to be most effective was the same gun firing multiple rounds in an alternating fashion. Certain bullets poked the balloons full of holes, while other bullets were better at lighting the leaking balloons on fire / explosion.

------



And blimps after world war I had smoking rooms where a trained staff gentleman would light your cigarette while you filed the Zeppelin and remained in a specific area during the trip.

So Zeppelin's are both safe and unsafe. You can do all these engineering tricks to make them more safe but there will always be inherrent risk and accidents happened more often than they should. They were always a mess / bad tech in my mind, but also kind of cool.

[King of Nowhere]

Do you happen to have that table handy? I’d love to take a look.

I do, and I did write it in english (which is not my native language) just in case it was useful on this forum.

However, it won't apply much to your case, because my campaign was very different. In my case, high level characters figure prominently into the war, because even if they are rare, there's half the world involved in the war and plenty of people are touched personally, so there are a few thousand people of level 11+ which go around teleporting and doing guerrilla stuff. So, my battlefield assumes everyone involved to be high level.

You should, however, be able to adapt the table easily by swapping spells for lower level versions (ligthning bolt for chain lightning, dispel magic for greater dispel magic, scorching ray for disintegrate...) and lowering attack rolls.

Instructions:
- Roll a d10 for the effect. It's normally positive if the dice rolls 5 or less, negative otherwise. However, if one side is gaining the advantage, the chance may be increased to have more random effects for that side. All written effects are negative, but they can easily be inverted for positive.
- Roll a d40 (d4+d10) for the effect. If the effect makes no sense in the context of battle, roll again.
- If you want to have a greater amount of martials or caster effects, you can subtract 1 on a roll between 30 and 40 if it does not belong to the desired category.

1) an enemy fighter 13 joins the fray. Max 1 per side
2) a random pc is targeted by disintegrate (ranged touch +10, CL 12, saving throw DC 23)
3) the whole party is targeted by a greater dispel magic (CL 14), area effect
4) a random pc is targeted by greater dispel magic (CL 14), single target
5) an enemy casts empowered fireball (CL 12, saving throw DC 21) as effectively as he can
6) A random pc is targeted by three arrows with sneak attack (attack bonus +35/+30/+25, including bard song and other circumstances. damage 7d6+12)
7) A random pc at the border of the fray is attacked in melee (attack bonus +40, including bard song and other circumstances. damage 2d6+25, slashing). Assume that the attacker moves away after attacking
8) all enemies are healed by mass cure light wounds, augmented (1d8+21)
9) the pcs are hit by mass inflict light wounds (CL 11, 1d8+11, saving throw DC 22). Any undead enemy in the area is healed by the spell
10) a random pc is hit by greater dispel magic (CL 13) to suppress one of his magic items. Favored picks are those granting buffs to saving throws and AC
11) haste (CL 12) is cast on the enemy party
12) the area is affected by a prayer from an enemy (CL 11)
13) the most damaged enemy is healed by heal (harm if undead) (CL 12). Assume that the healer moves away afterwards
14) an enemy casts blade barrier (CL 11, DC 23) as effectively as he can
15) an enemy casts empowered magic missile (CL 11) on a random pc
16) an enemy casts cone of cold (CL 14, DC 23) as effectively as he can
17) an enemy casts shout (CL 12, DC 21) as effectively as he can
18) an enemy casts lightning bolt (CL 13, DC 20) as effectively as he can
19) an enemy casts maximized acidic arrow (CL 12, +10 ranged touch) on a random pc
20) an iron golem joins the enemies. Max 1 per side
21) a random enemy is buffed with a choice between protection from energy, heroism, stoneskin (CL 13). Assume that the buffer moves away afterwards.
22) a random pc is hit by dispel magic (CL 11), single target
23) the party is hit by dispel magic (CL 11), area effect
24) a summoned elephant tramples the party.
25) a monk tries to trip a random party member with improved trip. +30 to hit (including bardic music and other circumstances. +12 to opposed trip check. 2d6+15 damage on follow-through attack). Assume that the monk moves away after attacking.
26) the area is affected by a prayer from an enemy (CL 11)
27) the most damaged enemy is healed by heal (harm if undead) (CL 12). Assume that the healer moves away afterwards
28) a random pc is hit by greater dispel magic (CL 13) to suppress one of his magic items. Favored picks are those granting buffs to saving throws and AC
29) A random pc is targeted by three arrows with sneak attack (attack bonus +35/+30/+25, including bard song and other circumstances. damage 7d6+12)
30) an enemy casts empowered fireball (CL 12, saving throw DC 21) as effectively as he can
31) A random pc at the border of the fray is attacked in melee (attack bonus +40, including bard song and other circumstances. damage 2d6+25, slashing). Assume that the attacker moves away after attacking
32) the pcs are hit by mass inflict light wounds (CL 11, 1d8+11, saving throw DC 22). Any undead enemy in the area is healed by the spell
33) an iron golem joins the enemies. Max 1 per side
33) the whole party is targeted by a greater dispel magic (CL 14), area effect
34) a monk tries to trip a random party member with improved trip. +30 to hit (including bardic music and other circumstances. +12 to opposed trip check. 2d6+15 damage on follow-through attack). Assume that the monk moves away after attacking.
35) an enemy casts cone of cold (CL 14, DC 23) as effectively as he can
36) A random pc is targeted by three arrows with sneak attack (attack bonus +35/+30/+25, including bard song and other circumstances. damage 7d6+12)
37) a random pc is targeted by greater dispel magic (CL 14), single target
38) A random pc at the border of the fray is attacked in melee (attack bonus +40, including bard song and other circumstances. damage 2d6+25, slashing). Assume that the attacker moves away after attacking
39) the party is hit by dispel magic (CL 11), area effect
40) an enemy fighter 13 joins the fray. Max 1 per side


D&D makes the most potent lifting gas possible: a vacuum. You would probably need some persistent force effect to keep the vacuum seal but if you get it working pure even better off than hydrogen in terms of lift.

Maybe a modified Telekinetic Sphere would work.

Actually, vacuum is only marginally better than hydrogen or helium, because those gases are already much ligjhter than air.
Air at STP has a density arounnd 1.22 kg/L. Hydrogen has 0.09 kg/L. Helium has 0.18. So a balloon of hydrogen lifts 1.13 kg/L, one of helium 1.04, one off vacuuum 1.22 because vacuum has no mass. So using vacuum you only gain 17% moore lift over helium, and a mere 8% over hydrogen. I don't think it's worth the extra hassle to contain it.

[Karl Aegis]

Charge with bayonets to capture the enemy's engine when the opposing airship inevitably runs out of ammo. You should probably have a munitions depot somewhere behind your airships where smaller, lighter craft, such as airvans or starfish, can refuel and reload between harassing the enemy airships. Capturing the engineers and engines should be more important than destroying the hull.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Bohandas
Though they are covered briefly around page 54 of the Arms and Equipment Guide….

Nice catch, thanks.


Originally Posted by Alexvrahr
…most of the time they won't be flying inside dense clouds. Unless you like crashing into mountains anyway.

Well, unless you’re over flat terrain, with no mountains to be seen, in which case disappearing into a cloud can have its advantages.


Originally Posted by Alexvrahr
Without major differences in speed either side can avoid combat for hours or days.

True, if the fleets are shadowing each other across a border, or if neither has a specific objective.

But I’m assuming that one side will be inbound with malice aforethought, likely to rain misery onto a fixed target like a city that the other fleet will be defending. In that case the aggressors need to determine if they can press the attack or if they should disengage, and if the latter, the defenders need to decide whether to pursue.


Originally Posted by Alexvrahr
I think you're going to need some sort of short range fighters…. Whether those are pegasi-mounted strike teams or something like a Sopwith Camel is up to your setting.

Actually my setting has both, or close enough.


Originally Posted by King of Nowhere
…here’s the table….

Outstanding, many thanks—not least for writing it in English.

It’ll take some tinkering to bring it into my campaign’s current range, but that shouldn’t be too difficult. Very much appreciated.


Originally Posted by Karl Aegis
…lighter craft, such as airvans or starfish, can refuel and reload between harassing the enemy airships.

What are these?

:smallconfused:

[Alexvrahr]

Well, unless you’re over flat terrain, with no mountains to be seen, in which case disappearing into a cloud can have its advantages.
Navigational disasters can and do happen if you're traveling a long way without landmarks. Unless that's Kansas underneath I guess.

True, if the fleets are shadowing each other across a border, or if neither has a specific objective.

But I’m assuming that one side will be inbound with malice aforethought, likely to rain misery onto a fixed target like a city that the other fleet will be defending. In that case the aggressors need to determine if they can press the attack or if they should disengage, and if the latter, the defenders need to decide whether to pursue.
Airships or their equivalent are very very expensive in any D&D material I've seen. Engaging in combat won't even slow the enemy down, so the defenders need to consider whether engaging is a good idea too given likely losses. There's even auguries and divinations to help. I think that quite often one side or the other would choose not to fight and having a means to press the attack without traveling a thousand miles or more, or to intercept such an attack before it gets to your very expensive airships, would be all but essential. The fact it makes for a role for PCs makes it something to support rather than oppose IMO.

Actually my setting has both, or close enough.
Cool.

[Bohandas]

I feel compelled to note for the record that hydrogen airships aren't as dangerous as often believed. Because the hydrogen is inside balloons, where there is no air, they cannot catch alight unless there's significant leakage and a source of ignition within the zone of leakage (it's believed that the Hindenburg had been leaking for hours prior to its infamous demise).

Also the exterior coating contained oxidizing chemicals

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Alexvrahr
Engaging in combat won't even slow the enemy down, so the defenders need to consider whether engaging is a good idea too given likely losses…. I think that quite often one side or the other would choose not to fight….

This depends on the situation, but if there’s an enemy fleet coming at your capital, which can’t be stopped unless you deploy your own fleet, then it’s imperative to engage.

There are plenty of corner-case scenarios where combat might be avoided, but for the purposes of this thread I’m interested in the tactics of how that combat would play out, once the decision to engage has been made.


Originally Posted by Alexvrahr
There's even auguries and divinations to help.

So, this is the question I had earlier: how? How exactly would Augury or other divination spells help in a battle? Especially when the other side is also auguring and divining for all they’re worth?

As I noted earlier, Augury is only about 75% accurate, which seems a little vague for combat operations, and with a casting time of one full minute it’s not the best for rapid decisions. I’m not seeing much else in the low- to mid-levels that would be helpful, although I’m just looking in the CRB.

Are there other divination spells that would be useful under these circumstances? And if so, are there counters to them?


Originally Posted by Karl Aegis
…lighter craft, such as airvans or starfish….

Asking again, in case the question was overlooked on the previous page:

What are these? Especially…starfish? Is this a term from a game, or is this an autocorrect error?

[Lord of Shadows]

You should probably have a munitions depot somewhere behind your airships where smaller, lighter craft, such as airvans or starfish, can refuel and reload between harassing the enemy airships.


Asking again, in case the question was overlooked on the previous page:

What are these? Especially…starfish? Is this a term from a game, or is this an autocorrect error?

From the context, I would guess these are ship types from a particular game, or type of game. Just guessing, airvans might be some sort of small troop transport, and starfish a small 1- or 2-person scout or fighter type ship. Hopefully someone more familiar can respond...
.

[Grek]

Have you taken a look at Ships of Skyborne? It has rules for airships (and other custom vehicles) designed to fit with the Pathfinder system.

[noob]

Sounds like an excellent option, definitely helpful for repelling boarders. If only I had that book….



We can assume there will be lookouts posted around the exterior, and there’s always Clairvoyance. I would expect each airship would have one lowish-level caster with Clairvoyance running like a periscope to guide the ship.

Also, I would expect high-altitude spotters to be keeping track of the battle, and relaying information to their respective sides via Sending or something similar. There would probably be a smaller-scale battle at higher altitudes, as each side tried to take out the other’s spotters and their escorts.



High-level would be unlikely, but there are enough low-ish-level casters to have several on each airship. Maybe a handful of mid-level casters per fleet.



Probably there would be a couple mid-level casters able to use this, although its range is only a couple hundred feet or so. These would be the big guns at point-blank range, unless someone tries to drop a caster on an enemy ship.



No armor for the airships, although it would be interesting to have one or more Shield spells over critical points.

As for carrying capacity, they’re essentially as limited as real-world vessels, although we can fudge this slightly by allowing for wooden superstructures in place of aluminum, which wouldn’t be available.



Anything up to fifth or sixth level spells would be fair game; beyond that it’s less likely. I would expect there would be a lot of divination countermeasures on both sides, but I’m not that familiar with the options involved.



The trouble with this is, even at the highest caster level (which isn’t likely here) these will only arrest your fall for 1200 feet, and given that this engagement is set at 5000 feet, that still leaves 3800 feet after your ring gives out. For most of the crew involved, 380d6 will definitely sting.



Sadly, we can’t always count on the crew being discreet. :smalltongue:

.
The trick for feather falling rings is like for parachutes: you wait before using it.
For airship propulsion the simplest way is probably guards and wards's windy corridor which can make a lot of energy and some backup system of propulsion if you have the money for it.
then for lifting your airship you can probably use Suspension or some other similar spell or a balloon if the gases for creating them are not too expensive.
while using magical ways makes the ship deeply vulnerable to dispelling you should not forget some dozens of arrows or ballista bolts can deeply damage the balloon for the same effect and using cheaper resources.

[Lord of Shadows]

The trick for feather falling rings is like for parachutes: you wait before using it.

Anyone who pops a 1200 ft Featherfall at 5000 ft... well... survival of the fittest.. LOL
.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Grek
Have you taken a look at Ships of Skyborne? It has rules for airships (and other custom vehicles) designed to fit with the Pathfinder system.

Interesting, thanks. Unfortunately it’s out of my price range for a casual look.

According to the somewhat disjointed review (http://endzeitgeist.com/ships-skybourne/) on Endzeitgeist, it seems this leans heavily on the rules from Fire As She Bears, but doesn’t do nearly as good a job in presenting them—the reviewer called it “counter-intuitive,” which doesn’t sound promising. But I do like the idea of the altitude bands.


Originally Posted by noob
…for lifting your airship you can probably use Suspension or some other similar spell….

Good catch on that spell, it’s been a while since I’ve looked through Shining South. This wouldn’t work for an airship, at least not for a single casting, but it could certainly be an option for a small cargo tug, especially one shuttling between airships in a fleet.


Originally Posted by noob
For airship propulsion the simplest way is probably guards and wards's windy corridor….

I’ve been thinking for a while of using Gust of Wind for a turbine equivalent, since that gives reasonable thrust. The problem is how to control a permanent version, since closing off the end of the turbine will just generate reverse thrust—or tear the turbine apart.

Another option would be Darsson’s Cooling Breeze, also from Shining South, which has less thrust but would be easier to manage. What would be ideal is a version of either spell which can be dialed up or down, from 0% to 100% thrust. Not sure if anything like that exists, though.

[SirNibbles]

I’ve been thinking for a while of using Gust of Wind for a turbine equivalent, since that gives reasonable thrust. The problem is how to control a permanent version, since closing off the end of the turbine will just generate reverse thrust—or tear the turbine apart.

Another option would be Darsson’s Cooling Breeze, also from Shining South, which has less thrust but would be easier to manage. What would be ideal is a version of either spell which can be dialed up or down, from 0% to 100% thrust. Not sure if anything like that exists, though.

I don't think you need to worry about Gust of Wind having too much thrust.

I'm not 100% sure that my maths are correct here, so if anyone with better knowledge of physics wants to jump in, please do.

A 60-foot line is 60' x 5' x 5' = 1500 ft3. 1500 ft3 of air has a weight of 121.05 lbs. 50 mph is 73.333 ft/sec. So if you're displacing 121.05 lbs 73.333 ft/sec, which gives you 8,877 lb*ft/sec. 550 lb*ft/sec per horsepower gives you 16.14 horsepower from a Gust of Wind spell. The Goodyear Blimp uses three 200-horsepower engines to move up to 73 mph, according to Goodyear's official site. It weighs about 20,000 lbs thanks to being made out of carbon fibre and aluminium- things which may be a bit more accessible to us today than in D&D.

Either way, it's looking like Gust of Wind isn't going to be too powerful for an airship- quite the opposite.

[MisterKaws]

I don't think you need to worry about Gust of Wind having too much thrust.

I'm not 100% sure that my maths are correct here, so if anyone with better knowledge of physics wants to jump in, please do.

A 60-foot line is 60' x 5' x 5' = 1500 ft3. 1500 ft3 of air has a weight of 121.05 lbs. 50 mph is 73.333 ft/sec. So if you're displacing 121.05 lbs 73.333 ft/sec, which gives you 8,877 lb*ft/sec. 550 lb*ft/sec per horsepower gives you 16.14 horsepower from a Gust of Wind spell. The Goodyear Blimp uses three 200-horsepower engines to move up to 73 mph, according to Goodyear's official site. It weighs about 20,000 lbs thanks to being made out of carbon fibre and aluminium- things which may be a bit more accessible to us today than in D&D.

Either way, it's looking like Gust of Wind isn't going to be too powerful for an airship- quite the opposite.

We have Carbon Fibre. They have molecular-width Riverine sheets. Pretty sure it's gonna weight LESS than a modern-day Carbon Fibre blimp.

[SirNibbles]

We have Carbon Fibre. They have molecular-width Riverine sheets. Pretty sure it's gonna weight LESS than a modern-day Carbon Fibre blimp.

True. Even so, we're going to need a bit more power. An Enlarged Gust of Wind doubles the horsepower.

[AnimeTheCat]

mathematics and engineering of fantasy flying fortresses aside, I think that any aerial navy would definitely benefit from a wide range of versatility. As highly established fleet of airships would likely have a multitude of different ships ranging from small, fast moving gunships to large, slow castles of defense and destruction in the sky. These largest would probably be capable of sustaining multiple of the smaller ships and serve as an in-transit means of maintenance and repair. Additionally, these largest (and likely slightly smaller) ships would probably boast an air force of sorts consisting of soldiers mounted on flying creatures. Then you've also go boarding crafts. I would say you've probably got to have a blend of a space age armada and a modern one. Here's how I would break it down:

1x Mothership - This is the beating heart of the force. Here you're going to have a way to grow/produce food, store materials for maintaining your other airships and crews, and train your crew. This ship alone will likely be the size of a large city, perhaps larger. It will be heavily armed and armored, but is unlikely to ever be found on the front lines due to how important it is to the sustainment of the force.

3-4x Carriers - These ships are likely to also be heavily armored, but not so heavily armed. Most of the crew and storage space will be utilized with stocks and sleeping arrangements for one or two small airships (for scouting and fast attack), two or three landers, and aerial cavalry for harrassing, taking control of, and destroying enemy airships, cities, armies, etc.

3-5x Destroyers - These ships will have the heaviest and most weapons in the fleet (short of the mothership). They should be able to attack both air and land targets. Combinations of ballistaes, spellcasters, archers, catapults, cannons, magic cannons, etc. Every heavy weapon imagineable should be on these ships and they should be superior at taking out enemy ships.

10-20x Corvettes - These ships will have small crews, and lighter weapons, but should be able to move about fast enough to evade heavy weapons attacks and would likely be targeting crew members and other light ships rather than trying to take out ships themselves. More attempting to hinder than destroy. These could possibly serve to counter enemy landers if used defensively, or take out key command units if used offensively.

10-15x Landers - These ships exist purely to dock on enemy ships. They should be heavily protected and have very limited weaponry. Maybe a ballistae, more likely just heavy repeating crossbows on pintle mounts. They should be able to hold 15-20 soldiers and boast more than one method of docking (side, front, and potentially rapelling from the bottom). Battles are most likely to be won based on how quickly and efficiently these can dock with the enemy vessels and remove them from the fight.

50-60x Mounted Soldiers - approximately 20 should be back with the mothership (unless forward deployed) and then a complement of 10 per carrier to accompany the landers and corvettes on their attack missions. Each unit should probably have a mix of melee, ranged, and magic support. Something of a ratio of 4:4:2 (leaving space for one divine and one arcane).

A force like this would be insanely powerful and has a vast number of tactics at its disposal. The added benefit is that this would leave tons of space for a party of PCs to be inserted anywhere, likely on a Cruiser, but also possibly as the crew of a corvette, an eliete landing team, part of a unit of mounted soldiers, or leading a destroyer. The crew could even be an advanced team based out of the mothership that does things outside of the battles.

With a diverse force, airship battles can look however you want. Your lightweight ships could fly above cloudcover after launching before the enemy is in sight for a surprise divebomb attack or whatever you can think of. Not every force even needs to look like this (and probably shouldn't unless the world you're playing in makes sense for it). It's more likely that one carrier will be accompanied by maybe one or two destroyers.

In my mind, that would be the most fun for airship battles.

[noob]

mathematics and engineering of fantasy flying fortresses aside, I think that any aerial navy would definitely benefit from a wide range of versatility. As highly established fleet of airships would likely have a multitude of different ships ranging from small, fast moving gunships to large, slow castles of defense and destruction in the sky. These largest would probably be capable of sustaining multiple of the smaller ships and serve as an in-transit means of maintenance and repair. Additionally, these largest (and likely slightly smaller) ships would probably boast an air force of sorts consisting of soldiers mounted on flying creatures. Then you've also go boarding crafts. I would say you've probably got to have a blend of a space age armada and a modern one. Here's how I would break it down:

1x Mothership - This is the beating heart of the force. Here you're going to have a way to grow/produce food, store materials for maintaining your other airships and crews, and train your crew. This ship alone will likely be the size of a large city, perhaps larger. It will be heavily armed and armored, but is unlikely to ever be found on the front lines due to how important it is to the sustainment of the force.

3-4x Carriers - These ships are likely to also be heavily armored, but not so heavily armed. Most of the crew and storage space will be utilized with stocks and sleeping arrangements for one or two small airships (for scouting and fast attack), two or three landers, and aerial cavalry for harrassing, taking control of, and destroying enemy airships, cities, armies, etc.

3-5x Destroyers - These ships will have the heaviest and most weapons in the fleet (short of the mothership). They should be able to attack both air and land targets. Combinations of ballistaes, spellcasters, archers, catapults, cannons, magic cannons, etc. Every heavy weapon imagineable should be on these ships and they should be superior at taking out enemy ships.

10-20x Corvettes - These ships will have small crews, and lighter weapons, but should be able to move about fast enough to evade heavy weapons attacks and would likely be targeting crew members and other light ships rather than trying to take out ships themselves. More attempting to hinder than destroy. These could possibly serve to counter enemy landers if used defensively, or take out key command units if used offensively.

10-15x Landers - These ships exist purely to dock on enemy ships. They should be heavily protected and have very limited weaponry. Maybe a ballistae, more likely just heavy repeating crossbows on pintle mounts. They should be able to hold 15-20 soldiers and boast more than one method of docking (side, front, and potentially rapelling from the bottom). Battles are most likely to be won based on how quickly and efficiently these can dock with the enemy vessels and remove them from the fight.

50-60x Mounted Soldiers - approximately 20 should be back with the mothership (unless forward deployed) and then a complement of 10 per carrier to accompany the landers and corvettes on their attack missions. Each unit should probably have a mix of melee, ranged, and magic support. Something of a ratio of 4:4:2 (leaving space for one divine and one arcane).

A force like this would be insanely powerful and has a vast number of tactics at its disposal. The added benefit is that this would leave tons of space for a party of PCs to be inserted anywhere, likely on a Cruiser, but also possibly as the crew of a corvette, an eliete landing team, part of a unit of mounted soldiers, or leading a destroyer. The crew could even be an advanced team based out of the mothership that does things outside of the battles.

With a diverse force, airship battles can look however you want. Your lightweight ships could fly above cloudcover after launching before the enemy is in sight for a surprise divebomb attack or whatever you can think of. Not every force even needs to look like this (and probably shouldn't unless the world you're playing in makes sense for it). It's more likely that one carrier will be accompanied by maybe one or two destroyers.

In my mind, that would be the most fun for airship battles.

That is possibly fun but it is a really inefficient fleet.
It is hard to make a less efficient fleet.
Due to how physics works making giant ships is a really bad idea because they are much more vulnerable(easier to hit with varied falling objects and to ram with prismatic cubes).
And in dnd making a ship that is 3000 times bigger costs 3000 times more unless using stronghold building rules but then if you are using those rules a teleporting castle is much better and barely costs more.
Furthermore food creation does not needs a lot of volume(what is needed to feed 20 men forever fits within a small box) and you do not need to carry materials if you have casters that can cast repair spells or magical items with those spells.

And in space the optimal is the smallest size which allows to fit whatever you want to fit in the ship so for war fleets the optimal is swarms (with ships really far away from each other so that a single nuke does not destroys multiples) of small ships carrying a single weapon each(or being a weapon such as a nuke) all using ai.

[AnimeTheCat]

That is possibly fun but it is a really inefficient fleet.
It is hard to make a less efficient fleet.
Due to how physics works making giant ships is a really bad idea because they are much more vulnerable(easier to hit with varied falling objects and to ram with prismatic cubes).
And in dnd making a ship that is 3000 times bigger costs 3000 times more unless using stronghold building rules but then if you are using those rules a teleporting castle is much better and barely costs more.
Furthermore food creation does not needs a lot of volume(what is needed to feed 20 men forever fits within a small box) and you do not need to carry materials if you have casters that can cast repair spells or magical items with those spells.

And in space the optimal is the smallest size which allows to fit whatever you want to fit in the ship so for war fleets the optimal is swarms of small ships carrying a single weapon each(or being a weapon such as a nuke) all using ai.

Party pooper...

Not everyone (namely me) necessarily want or use magic as the answer to everything. My idea is specifically to be a magicpunkish play on the concept. Vast numbers of tiny ships with no method of maintenance is also not efficient.

Further, a ship that size might also have magical defenses for your magical attacks, including potential force walls to prevent falling weight. Or maybe it is constructed in such a way that falling weight is shed off to the sides and doesn't ever come to bear sufficient downward force. There really are endless possibilities.

Lastly, considering we have never waged war in space, how do we know at all what is optimal for space based combat? There really is no analog for it in current warfare. For all we know, real space battles are won by star destroyers light years away firing weapons that are so large in their area of effect that they are unavoidable and so fast that they cover lightyears in a matter of moments. We really just don't know.

[noob]

Party pooper...

Not everyone (namely me) necessarily want or use magic as the answer to everything. My idea is specifically to be a magicpunkish play on the concept. Vast numbers of tiny ships with no method of maintenance is also not efficient.

Further, a ship that size might also have magical defenses for your magical attacks, including potential force walls to prevent falling weight. Or maybe it is constructed in such a way that falling weight is shed off to the sides and doesn't ever come to bear sufficient downward force. There really are endless possibilities.

Lastly, considering we have never waged war in space, how do we know at all what is optimal for space based combat? There really is no analog for it in current warfare. For all we know, real space battles are won by star destroyers light years away firing weapons that are so large in their area of effect that they are unavoidable and so fast that they cover lightyears in a matter of moments. We really just don't know.

Such kind of weapon you are talking about does not follows any known rule of physics.
Even worse: with such described weapon time travel is possible("traveling light years in a matter of moments" allows to send information in the past) thus meaning that with such technology the best use is not hitting the opponent but travelling through time as far as possible toward the past: else if your opponent have a similar technology your opponent would also travel toward the past and get further away in the past and prevent your creation.

The weapon most similar to what you describe that is possible with known rules of physics is the Dyson sphere lazer that not only is not a space ship(it is surrounding a star and can not move) but it also is so much expensive that for similar costs you can send a whole lot of ship toward many star to start building more dyson spheres.
and it is very limited in angle(else it can not hit other dyson spheres with enough energy to deal any damage) meaning that it does not do much against spread drone swarms.

As for magic dependency I can tell you: a city sized airship needs tons more magic for being defended than the cost to create one magical item that creates food per small ship of the example fleet.
simply the only solution against prismatic rams is other prismatic walls and spell clock spam and if you make something big you need to spend way more money to get the same density of such defences as the density of equivalent offence/defense on a small ship(amounts that are so huge that you would be able to make armies of 1000000 ice assassins of level 21 wizards for the cost of one city sized ship).
Also if you use defences lower than full prismatic walls then it gets killed by voidstone warheads.

One permanent prismatic wall (anything less does not defends against prismatic rams) costs 4000 xp which is worth 20000 gold.
One magical box which makes food for 15 persons costs 2000 gp.
If you want to protect your city sized fortress against stuff you probably need a few thousand prismatic walls which will cost more than 20000000 gp.
with that cost you can make enough feeding magical items to feed 150000 people and still have a lot of extra money to buy tons of items that repairs stuff and/or those constructs which can cast a few spells that you pick at creation.(for repairing in a vastly expensive way if you are into that)

[Karl Aegis]

From the context, I would guess these are ship types from a particular game, or type of game. Just guessing, airvans might be some sort of small troop transport, and starfish a small 1- or 2-person scout or fighter type ship. Hopefully someone more familiar can respond...
.

The Last Exile brought to you by Studio Gonzo. Airvans are airplanes, but a van. Smaller and airships can fit quite a few of them. They usually have a pilot, a navigator and a gunner at most. Starfish are combination walker-airfighters meant to take out unfortified locations, like villages, and airvans, usually piloted by a noble and their bodyguard. Starfish usually can't take fortified locations as they have no room for bombs or missiles, but that's why their carrier airship has main batteries.

[Bohandas]

"traveling light years in a matter of moments" allows to send information in the past

Only true superlumonal velocity allows that, and superluminal velocity isn't strictly required for moving lightyears in a matter of moments. Expansion of the universe for example; the distant galaxies are receding from us at more than the speed of light, but they aren't actually moving, space is - therefore time still moves in the correct direction

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by MisterKaws
They have molecular-width Riverine sheets.

I don’t see anything about Riverine being one molecule thin. It can’t really be “compressed” if there’s only a monomolecular layer to begin with.

More importantly, Riverine is 2000 gp per pound, and trying to cover an airship with this material would be astoundingly expensive. The cost alone would be completely prohibitive.


Originally Posted by AnimeTheCat
As highly established fleet of airships would likely have a multitude of different ships ranging from small, fast moving gunships to large, slow castles of defense and destruction in the sky….. Here's how I would break it down:

This is some great fleet design, really well thought-out. Some of this is beyond what I’d been assuming was possible for my setting, but now you’re giving me all sorts of ideas.

Now I’m thinking of a roving aerial nation, with several homeships and a fleet based on what you’ve described. And everyone else struggling to defend against them. It's almost a campaign in itself, if not a whole new setting.


Originally Posted by noob
And in space….

In space, no one can hear you starting a separate thread for this. :smallsmile:

Seriously, I think you raise some interesting ideas, and I instantly thought of a counter for your AI gunboat fleet, but that discussion really deserves a thread of its own.


Originally Posted by AnimeTheCat
My idea is specifically to be a magicpunkish play on the concept.

Booyah. This exactly.


Originally Posted by Karl Aegis
The Last Exile brought to you by Studio Gonzo.

Excellent, thanks. I’ll have to check that out.

...Why do I have a feeling that the starfish are seriously creepy...?

.

[MisterKaws]

I don’t see anything about Riverine being one molecule thin. It can’t really be “compressed” if there’s only a monomolecular layer to begin with.

More importantly, Riverine is 2000 gp per pound, and trying to cover an airship with this material would be astoundingly expensive. The cost alone would be completely prohibitive.

Riverine has Hardness: infinity, which means even when turned into molecule-thin they'll retain their shape and remain unbreakable. That means you can effectively make a blimp out of ultra-thin Riverine, and then it would take no more than a couple dozen pounds.

You'd have to weight the damn thing down so it doesn't just float away from how light it'd be.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by AnimeTheCat
10-15x Landers - These ships exist purely to dock on enemy ships. They should be heavily protected and have very limited weaponry. Maybe a ballistae, more likely just heavy repeating crossbows on pintle mounts. They should be able to hold 15-20 soldiers and boast more than one method of docking (side, front, and potentially rapelling from the bottom). Battles are most likely to be won based on how quickly and efficiently these can dock with the enemy vessels and remove them from the fight.

I like your idea for heavy boarding craft—but these would be prime targets for the defenders, so they would need some sort of escort as they made their approach, aerial cavalry or something along those lines. I assume that's what you meant by the mounted soldiers in the next paragraph?

If you ever watched the rebooted BSG, these landers sound like the Raptors, able to clamp onto a target vessel and deliver a strike team as required.

Now I'm trying to think of a spell to allow the defenders to run upside-down along the outer skin of the airship, laying down fire as the landers try to maneuver for a lock. I feel like there must be a reverse-grease spell that I just can't call to mind.

[SirNibbles]

Riverine has Hardness: infinity, which means even when turned into molecule-thin they'll retain their shape and remain unbreakable. That means you can effectively make a blimp out of ultra-thin Riverine, and then it would take no more than a couple dozen pounds.

You'd have to weight the damn thing down so it doesn't just float away from how light it'd be.

That's true of most airships.


mathematics and engineering of fantasy flying fortresses aside, I think that any aerial navy would definitely benefit from a wide range of versatility. As highly established fleet of airships would likely have a multitude of different ships ranging from small, fast moving gunships to large, slow castles of defense and destruction in the sky. These largest would probably be capable of sustaining multiple of the smaller ships and serve as an in-transit means of maintenance and repair. Additionally, these largest (and likely slightly smaller) ships would probably boast an air force of sorts consisting of soldiers mounted on flying creatures. Then you've also go boarding crafts. I would say you've probably got to have a blend of a space age armada and a modern one. Here's how I would break it down:

1x Mothership - This is the beating heart of the force. Here you're going to have a way to grow/produce food, store materials for maintaining your other airships and crews, and train your crew. This ship alone will likely be the size of a large city, perhaps larger. It will be heavily armed and armored, but is unlikely to ever be found on the front lines due to how important it is to the sustainment of the force.

3-4x Carriers - These ships are likely to also be heavily armored, but not so heavily armed. Most of the crew and storage space will be utilized with stocks and sleeping arrangements for one or two small airships (for scouting and fast attack), two or three landers, and aerial cavalry for harrassing, taking control of, and destroying enemy airships, cities, armies, etc.

3-5x Destroyers - These ships will have the heaviest and most weapons in the fleet (short of the mothership). They should be able to attack both air and land targets. Combinations of ballistaes, spellcasters, archers, catapults, cannons, magic cannons, etc. Every heavy weapon imagineable should be on these ships and they should be superior at taking out enemy ships.

10-20x Corvettes - These ships will have small crews, and lighter weapons, but should be able to move about fast enough to evade heavy weapons attacks and would likely be targeting crew members and other light ships rather than trying to take out ships themselves. More attempting to hinder than destroy. These could possibly serve to counter enemy landers if used defensively, or take out key command units if used offensively.

10-15x Landers - These ships exist purely to dock on enemy ships. They should be heavily protected and have very limited weaponry. Maybe a ballistae, more likely just heavy repeating crossbows on pintle mounts. They should be able to hold 15-20 soldiers and boast more than one method of docking (side, front, and potentially rapelling from the bottom). Battles are most likely to be won based on how quickly and efficiently these can dock with the enemy vessels and remove them from the fight.

50-60x Mounted Soldiers - approximately 20 should be back with the mothership (unless forward deployed) and then a complement of 10 per carrier to accompany the landers and corvettes on their attack missions. Each unit should probably have a mix of melee, ranged, and magic support. Something of a ratio of 4:4:2 (leaving space for one divine and one arcane).

A force like this would be insanely powerful and has a vast number of tactics at its disposal. The added benefit is that this would leave tons of space for a party of PCs to be inserted anywhere, likely on a Cruiser, but also possibly as the crew of a corvette, an eliete landing team, part of a unit of mounted soldiers, or leading a destroyer. The crew could even be an advanced team based out of the mothership that does things outside of the battles.

With a diverse force, airship battles can look however you want. Your lightweight ships could fly above cloudcover after launching before the enemy is in sight for a surprise divebomb attack or whatever you can think of. Not every force even needs to look like this (and probably shouldn't unless the world you're playing in makes sense for it). It's more likely that one carrier will be accompanied by maybe one or two destroyers.

In my mind, that would be the most fun for airship battles.


That is possibly fun but it is a really inefficient fleet.
It is hard to make a less efficient fleet.
Due to how physics works making giant ships is a really bad idea because they are much more vulnerable(easier to hit with varied falling objects and to ram with prismatic cubes).
And in dnd making a ship that is 3000 times bigger costs 3000 times more unless using stronghold building rules but then if you are using those rules a teleporting castle is much better and barely costs more.
Furthermore food creation does not needs a lot of volume(what is needed to feed 20 men forever fits within a small box) and you do not need to carry materials if you have casters that can cast repair spells or magical items with those spells.

And in space the optimal is the smallest size which allows to fit whatever you want to fit in the ship so for war fleets the optimal is swarms (with ships really far away from each other so that a single nuke does not destroys multiples) of small ships carrying a single weapon each(or being a weapon such as a nuke) all using ai.

Agreed with noob. You can't carry over a lot of things from real life because of magic. Also, the firepower needed to damage, let alone destroy a ship, is much more than a crew could reasonably pack into the ship itself. If you've got a ship made of force effects, you're looking at Disintegrate or Mage's Disjunction being needed, meaning 6th level spells minimum. If you've got a force-built ship with antimagic fields protecting the ship, only Mage's Disjunction will work, and even then not every time.

It's easier for a single high level mage to make a handful of ships that will be hard to break than it is to make some half-baked ships and then man them each with high level spellcasters.

__

What is the point of having an airship?
1. Transport. Boats are great but require water. Airships remove that requirement.
2. Aerial bombardment. This isn't as important since the weight of any projectiles will make staying aloft a pain. Low level casters raining down Molten Strike or other such spells could work.
3. Stopping transport. If other groups have airships, you'll want airships to be able to go near their airships. Whether you're a pirate trying to steal cargo or another military force, you'll probably need an airship to reach another airship.
4. They look cool. Hey, status is important.

1 and 3 are going to be the two main points.

Firstly, if you're doing cargo transport, Teleport spells are better. A Wizard will be casting that by 9th level, meaning they can transport themselves (with a full load) as well as at least 3 medium creatures. Bags of holding being used as shipping containers would probably be used for both airships and Wizards. Let's just say you've got two mules, each able to carry 690 lbs. Toss some Type III/IV Bags of Holding on your mules; let's say 8 Type IV and 2 Type III bags per mule. That's a capacity of 14,000 lbs, or 7 short tons. The Wizard himself can probably take another 1,000 lbs, for 15,000 lbs/7.5 short tons. Cost: 16 gp for the mules, 94,800 gp for the bags, total of 94,816 initial investment to move 7.5 tons up to 1,200 miles in 6 seconds. Let's say it takes about 45 minutes for both loading and unloading, giving us 90 minutes and 6 seconds for the whole operation (one way).

On to the airships.

I'll use vacuums for lift with the Stronghold Builder's Guide's rules to design the airship. The goal is a 10 ton (20,000 lb carrying capacity). That means we need to displace at least 248,000 sq ft of air. A prolate spheroid will provide a reasonably aerodynamic shape. Our envelope will be 160' x 28' x28'. That gives the outer envelope a surface area of 23,154 sq ft. In order to prevent the entire ship from going down because of a single puncture, it's a good idea to split the envelope into smaller pieces. See the picture below for the proposed design.

The envelope borders add another 27,000 sq ft of force walls, for a total of 50,000 square feet. I rounded because we ended up with a nice number. The volume is equal to 65 stronghold spaces. It costs 40,000 for a wall of force per stronghold space. That's 2,600,000 gp. Alternatively, we can use the 4,000 gp per 100 sq ft price which gives us a cost of 2,000,000 gp. In order to make the airship more practical, let's just use the lower cost.

At this point, we may as well use force walls for the gondola too. 3,900 square feet more costs another 156,000 gold, for a total of 2,156,000. The gondola volume is 32,000 cubic feet with a 2,000 square foot floor. The capacity is 21,201 lbs, or about 10.5 tons.

https://i.imgur.com/Uv3eQuo.png

I can't be bothered to calculate propulsion now.

[AnimeTheCat]

There's no guarantee that the ships are made or held together with force effects. They could be wood or metal ships that are then enchanted with flight in some way or are powered by some form of refined propulsion such as the airships that the dwarves in age of sigmar fly. They use some refined gold dust stuff to power their ships.

High level casters are hard to come by with natural world creation, so in my suggestion I wasn't assuming any higher than a level 7 or 8 spell caster on a larger ship, and a level 3 to 5 spellcaster on smaller ones.

Because airships in general are not really published, they really can exist however you want them to in your game. If in your game they are anti magic forceboats that require deific intervention to stop, make them that way. I got a different impression from the OP, so I responded based off what I thought would be cool, what would create interesting narratives, and what gave the most creative freedom to the individual creating the scenarios and world.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by AnimeTheCat
I got a different impression from the OP, so I responded based off what I thought would be cool, what would create interesting narratives, and what gave the most creative freedom to the individual creating the scenarios and world.

Yes to all this. Your notion of a “magipunk” aesthetic is very much what I’m going for, and your subdivision of the fleet by combat role is excellent. I just finished sketching a catamaran design for an airship tender based on some of your ideas.


Originally Posted by AnimeTheCat
High level casters are hard to come by with natural world creation, so in my suggestion I wasn't assuming any higher than a level 7 or 8 spell caster on a larger ship, and a level 3 to 5 spellcaster on smaller ones.

And this is also right along the lines I’m thinking.


Originally Posted by AnimeTheCat
*Age of Sigmar*

And I'll definitely check this out, thanks.

[MisterKaws]

That's true of most airships.

Yes, but they float kinda slowly. Could probably go way faster when it's 1% of the density of everything around. Probably not Escape Velocity fast, but you still could go pretty far.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by AnimeTheCat
…in my suggestion I wasn't assuming any higher than a level 7 or 8 spell caster on a larger ship, and a level 3 to 5 spellcaster on smaller ones.

To follow up on this, I haven’t worked out the exact distribution of spellcasters in a typical fleet, but I wouldn’t expect anything more than eighth or ninth level, tops, and that would likely be one or two “senior warmages” or something who would be on the command vessel.

Smaller vessels likely wouldn’t have more than third- or fourth-level casters onboard, although they would be specialized for combat, likely graduates of an Imperial War College for Magical Practitioners or something like that.

Beyond this, I’m not sure what the best classes and strategies would be, although I assume spell selection would be weighted towards ranged attacks. Sorcerers, wizards and clerics would likely be the most common spellcasters, with druids, oracles, witches, etc. much less common or absent.

Given this, what would be some interesting lower-level spells that might see action during an airship engagement, both from attackers and defenders?

[SirNibbles]

To follow up on this, I haven’t worked out the exact distribution of spellcasters in a typical fleet, but I wouldn’t expect anything more than eighth or ninth level, tops, and that would likely be one or two “senior warmages” or something who would be on the command vessel.

Smaller vessels likely wouldn’t have more than third- or fourth-level casters onboard, although they would be specialized for combat, likely graduates of an Imperial War College for Magical Practitioners or something like that.

Beyond this, I’m not sure what the best classes and strategies would be, although I assume spell selection would be weighted towards ranged attacks. Sorcerers, wizards and clerics would likely be the most common spellcasters, with druids, oracles, witches, etc. much less common or absent.

Given this, what would be some interesting lower-level spells that might see action during an airship engagement, both from attackers and defenders?

Molten Strike (Heroes of Battle, page 127) is a 2nd level AOE Sorc/Wiz spell with Long range. The damage isn't overwhelming, but the fact that you can use it well before your enemy can attack you makes it worth it.

Undeniable Gravity (Miniatures Handbook, page 40) is another useful long range 2nd level spell, this time grounding a flying creature (Will negates), whether it's using wings or the fly spell.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by SirNibbles
Molten Strike (Heroes of Battle, page 127) is a 2nd level AOE Sorc/Wiz spell with Long range. The damage isn't overwhelming, but the fact that you can use it well before your enemy can attack you makes it worth it.

Undeniable Gravity (Miniatures Handbook, page 40) is another useful long range 2nd level spell, this time grounding a flying creature (Will negates), whether it's using wings or the fly spell.

These are good catches, especially Undeniable Gravity. That'll be the bread-and-butter spell for both attackers and defenders. It's even humane.