The easiest way to transport a galley 200 miles?

[Jon_Dahl]

In my game, I have some empty galleys inland which are far away from seas, waterways or major bodies of water. They just sit in the middle of nothing. The kingdom wants to find the easiest way to transport them without destroying them. Some damage is acceptable, such as cutting the masts.

Any ideas? Do they have to pull them across the kingdom with donkeys? Would someone have a bit more elegant solution?

[DeTess]

Well, I'mot sure this counts as 'more elegant', but if your GM rules that you can target a specific body of water (or if you just don't care), you could cast 'planar navigation' twice. Planar Navigation is a 9th level spell that allows you to plane-shift an entire ship+contents (and, if one is present, it'll allways end up in a body of water, preferring oceans), which can be found in the Stormwrack supplement.

[Elkad]

15 to 50 tons for medieval ones.
Str 60 to have the lighter version be a light load and just carry it.
Str 40 if you are collosal.
10:1 for an easy drag. More with wheels.

If you build wheels for them (and have something road-like), draft horses will move them just fine.

Someone find a teleport at will creature that can light load them...

Edit. Oops. You can teleport at Max load. So str 30+ for a collosal quadruped. How early can we turn into one and cast Teleport?

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Jon_Dahl
Some damage is acceptable, such as cutting the masts.

Masts can be unstepped without damaging the ship. This is true for just about any ship, and especially for ships like galleys and triremes that depend on oars for combat maneuvering. The ancient Greeks sailed their triremes to the theater of operations, then unstepped the masts and left them ashore while they rowed out to meet the enemy.

As for transporting your galleys, I’m sure ninth-level spells are flashy and whatnot, but the simplest thing to do is find a local river and follow it to the sea. In a natural landscape this won’t be difficult. If your campaign is in some kind of unnatural landscape, with an unnatural absence of tributaries, then it shouldn’t be that difficult to rig up a large wheeled wagon for each galley.

Not elegant, but probably cheaper than paying for a ninth-level spell for each separate galley. There’s no reason why hauling them with wagons would cause anything more than very minor damage, and of course you transport them unloaded.

[heavyfuel]

Lots of high (ish) level spells being suggested here.

Do you even have access to such magic within the party? Can you pay for spellcasting services, or are they out of the picture?

[Telonius]

Disassemble everything you can, and cast Shrink Item on the pieces. (You're probably not going to get a big enough caster to shrink the whole boat).

[legomaster00156]

Hire some strong creatures (humanoid or otherwise) and roll them on logs. It's how people actually moved ships when there wasn't any nearby water.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by legomaster00156
Hire some strong creatures (humanoid or otherwise) and roll them on logs. It's how people actually moved ships when there wasn't any nearby water.

This, although two hundred miles would be a bit far for this option.

But it’s good for relatively short distances, as Ragnar Lothbrok proved in Vikings.


Originally Posted by Jon_Dahl
…I have some empty galleys inland which are far away from seas, waterways or major bodies of water. They just sit in the middle of nothing.

Also, I have to question why vessels built for seafaring would be stored so far away from water in the first place. Usually ships laid up in ordinary are close to water, and in the ancient world triremes were stored in huge ship-sheds right on the harbor.

So, what’s the deal with these landlocked galleys? Were they originally stored next to a river that has since dried up or been diverted? Did someone think hiding them was a good idea? Were they victims of a plot-convenient interdimensional rift?

In short, why are perfectly good ships being stored in a region that makes it incredibly difficult to use them when they’re needed most?

[Jon_Dahl]

This, although two hundred miles would be a bit far for this option.

But it’s good for relatively short distances, as Ragnar Lothbrok proved in Vikings.



Also, I have to question why vessels built for seafaring would be stored so far away from water in the first place. Usually ships laid up in ordinary are close to water, and in the ancient world triremes were stored in huge ship-sheds right on the harbor.

So, what’s the deal with these landlocked galleys? Were they originally stored next to a river that has since dried up or been diverted? Did someone think hiding them was a good idea? Were they victims of a plot-convenient interdimensional rift?

In short, why are perfectly good ships being stored in a region that makes it incredibly difficult to use them when they’re needed most?

It was one of the most epic moments in my campaign when six galleys full of efreetis and their fire elemental soldiers fell from the sky and immediately started to invade the world. These are fireproof galleys that came from the Sun and traveled through the space until finally finding a good spot for slaves and conquest. The galleys lie empty all around the kingdom. Something could and should be done about them.

[D+1]

It was one of the most epic moments in my campaign when six galleys full of efreetis and their fire elemental soldiers fell from the sky and immediately started to invade the world. These are fireproof galleys that came from the Sun and traveled through the space until finally finding a good spot for slaves and conquest. The galleys lie empty all around the kingdom. Something could and should be done about them.
Like turning them into themed restaurants.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I don't have any particular suggestion that hasn't been given already. That said, have you looked into how they got there in the first place? Might be an answer on how to get them back to the see if you know how they got away from it in the first place.

If they've been there since an old sea dried up, don't bother. They'll crumble the moment you try to apply any serious pressure to the hull if they haven't started to decay already. Dry rot is a thing, my dude.

[Telonius]

fireproof

As in, totally immune to the effects of heat? (Seems like it would be if we're talking sailing through suns). That changes things significantly. Start hacking them apart and using Fabricate to make armor (since melting them down isn't going to be an option). Recruit a few pyromaniac sorcerers who no longer have to worry about collateral damage.

You are now the Fire Nation. You know what to do.

[Segev]

You are now the Fire Nation. You know what to do.

Change everything?


More seriously, have you considered casting grease on their hulls and dragging them?

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Jon_Dahl
These are fireproof galleys that came from the Sun….

It would have been helpful to include this in the OP. Until now everyone has been assuming these were ordinary wooden galleys, built by ordinary means to fight ordinary wars.

Sky-falling sun-galleys crewed by fire elementals? That’s completely different, and it would have been nice to share this up front.


Originally Posted by Jon_Dahl
These are fireproof galleys….

We still need some information here:


1. What exactly are the galleys made of?

2. What is the level of the party? What books are allowed?

3. How much money do you have to burn on this project?

4. Where precisely are the ships being stored? High-altitude paramo? Arid rift valley? Vast dry lake?

5. What exactly is the terrain like over these two hundred miles the ships need to be moved? Steep mountain slopes? Dense boreal forest? Thick swamps and wetlands?

Finally, do you really need these ships in the water? Do you need these ships for a specific military or policy objective, or do you just feel like it might be nice to have them sailing around?

Depending on their material, they’re likely to be heavy, and they may just sink right to the bottom of the sea. They will probably be too heavy to teleport without a colossal expense.

So you may want to do a cost-benefit analysis and decide if it isn’t cheaper just to build new ships right on the coastline. Unless you’re in an area where trees are scarce, it shouldn’t be too difficult to get the lumber, and if you have any kind of existing navy then you should have skilled shipwrights already working for you.

Given that, determine how much it would cost to have them simply fell trees, work the wood, and build you new ships, as opposed to spending tons of gold on premium spellcasting for crazy elemental ships that might not even float.

.

[tyckspoon]

If you have enough money to use, you could try to scrounge up a caster with a high enough CL to Animate Objects + Permanency on the ships; put wheels or attach rollers on the bottom and they can take themselves across the land that way. There's also a couple of magic items in Stormwrack that can help, although they're expensive - one magical figurehead that can make the ship fly or be Ethereal for a limited amount of time per day (reasonably speaking you probably don't want to go this route, as the figurehead would be a permanent installation on the ship and you'd have to have another one made for each galley) and a helm wheel that can cast Planar Navigation on the ship, which could potentially be transferred to another one after use.

Just getting a bunch of laborers and making a rough road/dragging them across the land is probably the simplest approach. If you have magical assistance you could look into doing something like digging a ditch/canal and using magically-created water to float the ships, and there might be some way you could reduce the weight of the ship or levitate it to make it easier to move.

[DeTess]

If these ships came from the sun in the first place, it might be worthwhile to see if you can't fix those spelljamming helms or whatever other mechanism they used to fly and get them to the see that way.

[unseenmage]

Animate Objects + Greater Teleport if you've the CL for it.

Conjure up a very big creature, have them lift the ship, then Greater Teleport also works.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by DeTess
If these ships came from the sun in the first place, it might be worthwhile to see if you can't fix those spelljamming helms or whatever other mechanism they used to fly and get them to the see that way.

This is an excellent suggestion in itself, but it does raise a question:

If these ships can fly, what’s the need to bring them to the sea? Presumably flying ships don’t need to be sailed anywhere.


Originally Posted by unseenmage
Conjure up a very big creature, have them lift the ship, then Greater Teleport also works.

I mean, I guess this could work, but I’d have thought you’d be using a horde of your interdimensional crawling claws or something.

:smalltongue:

[OrbanSirgen]

A carefully worded Wish...

[unseenmage]

...

I mean, I guess this could work, but I’d have thought you’d be using a horde of your interdimensional crawling claws or something.

:smalltongue:
Shrink Item -> Animate Objects -> Minute Form -> activate Shrink Item
Should be small enough now to easily Crawling Claw through a set of Planar Ring Gates.

:smallwink:

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Earth Keels and/or Sky Keels (both from the Arms & Equipment Guide) are the most badass way to get this done, though probably also one of the most expensive.

[Arbitrarious]

As has been mentioned, do you even know if these can operate in water? I don't think either efreet or fire elementals have much desire to navigate oceans of water.

[Shpadoinkle]

Hire some strong creatures (humanoid or otherwise) and roll them on logs. It's how people actually moved ships when there wasn't any nearby water.

This is pretty much my first thought. The services of a 1st level warrior for one month are pretty cheap, I forget the rate exactly, but I think it's 6 GP per month? (The PFSRD says a warrior hireling costs 3 SP per day, so that's 9 GP per 30 days, the 3.5e DMG says it's 2 SP per day, so that's 6 GP per month.) And this would pretty much be unskilled labor (cutting down trees and cutting the branches off, tying sturdy knots, and pulling ropes aren't really things you need special training to do.) Hiring 50 1st-level warriors for a month only costs 300-450 GP, depending on which ruleset you're using. And being warriors, they'll probably have decent Strength scores, probably around 14ish.

[OrbanSirgen]

Hire something huge, such as a giant, to dig a canal with a Mattock of the Titans, and fill it with a Decanter of Endless Water... Then row to open water...

[unseenmage]

Hire something huge, such as a giant, to dig a canal with a Mattock of the Titans, and fill it with a Decanter of Endless Water... Then row to open water...

Hire an undead bard to ceaselessly play a Lyre of Building to make a canal to your destination.

Or a cadre of said tireless musicians to both construct and deconstruct the canal as you go.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Arbitrarious
As has been mentioned, do you even know if these can operate in water? I don't think either efreet or fire elementals have much desire to navigate oceans of water.

Once again, it would really help to get some clarifying input from the OP.

[Jay R]

They have flown before, and have never been in the water. I would either:

a. research flying ship spells (starting with using Detect Magic on the ships and Identify on everything that was magic), or
b. test them to see if they are water-proof before trying to move them mundanely.

[JNAProductions]

As in, totally immune to the effects of heat? (Seems like it would be if we're talking sailing through suns). That changes things significantly. Start hacking them apart and using Fabricate to make armor (since melting them down isn't going to be an option). Recruit a few pyromaniac sorcerers who no longer have to worry about collateral damage.

You are now the Fire Nation. You know what to do.

I like the sound of this plan.

[nedz]

It was one of the most epic moments in my campaign when six galleys full of efreetis and their fire elemental soldiers fell from the sky and immediately started to invade the world. These are fireproof galleys that came from the Sun and traveled through the space until finally finding a good spot for slaves and conquest. The galleys lie empty all around the kingdom. Something could and should be done about them.

You could just go with a pair of oversized ring gates and sail them through.

Although; given such an epic origin; you probably should go for an equally epic solution ?

Have some Druids just hitch them to the moon and fly them over.

[bekeleven]

15 to 50 tons for medieval ones.
Str 60 to have the lighter version be a light load and just carry it.
Str 40 if you are collosal.
10:1 for an easy drag. More with wheels.

If you build wheels for them (and have something road-like), draft horses will move them just fine.

Someone find a teleport at will creature that can light load them...

Edit. Oops. You can teleport at Max load. So str 30+ for a collosal quadruped. How early can we turn into one and cast Teleport?
You can always use the wild shape Uhaul trick. Pick up your max load in one form (maybe a dusk giant), then turn into a different form (eagle), causing everything to meld with your form until you change back.

[Oberron]

Well if you want a "that guy" RAW answer a easy way would be to pick it up since a galley's weight is listed as '-' means it's weight is negligent or not worth noting. (Something that not many dms would let happen in the first place but the land of raw is a silly place)

A bit of cheese answer would be if it could be given the flying enchantment somehow or have a constant reverse gravity under it and use the sails to fly through the sky.

[Jay R]

Ships that fly through the air are rare and really cool. Ships that sail through the water are commonplace and ordinary. I would spend my time trying to make their really cool function work, rather than spending lots of money and effort transporting them to where they can be commonplace and ordinary.

Yes, I understand that they are fireproof, and that is a useful property. But it is less necessary at sea than, well, anywhere else.

[Malphegor]

How much does it weigh? A few castings of Suspension from Shining South and some sails to control your direction and get thrust should serve you well.

Why drag when you can fly?

[47Ace]

Ships that fly through the air are rare and really cool. Ships that sail through the water are commonplace and ordinary. I would spend my time trying to make their really cool function work, rather than spending lots of money and effort transporting them to where they can be commonplace and ordinary.

Yes, I understand that they are fireproof, and that is a useful property. But it is less necessary at sea than, well, anywhere else.

For the record fire at sea is very dangerous as there is no where to run.

[Jay R]

Oh, sure. You’re absolutely right. That’s what I meant by saying it was a useful property. I should have spent more time developing nuances.

Nonetheless, throughout most of maritime history, ships were not, in fact, fireproofed. These are ships whose primary advantage is one most ships never had, and whose two biggest weaknesses are overwhelming.
1. We don’t know if they are waterproof. There was never a reason for their original owners to waterproof them.
2. They are 200 miles from the water.

[nedz]

Even if they are waterproof that may not be enough. If they displace less water than they weigh: then they are going to sink anyway.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by nedz
...then they are going to sink anyway.

That was my concern, and without any further input from the OP it seems likely these things aren't suited for water travel at all.

Sure wish we had some grenades clarification from the OP, but he seems to have abandoned this thread to a cold, gurgling plunge down to the darkest deeps of the sea.

[Jay R]

These are (or were) flying ships. Trying to get them to the water to be sailing ships seems like trying to turn a Flaming Burst Longsword +3 into an ordinary longsword.

[Jon_Dahl]

That was my concern, and without any further input from the OP it seems likely these things aren't suited for water travel at all.

Sure wish we had some grenades clarification from the OP, but he seems to have abandoned this thread to a cold, gurgling plunge down to the darkest deeps of the sea.

I'm sorry, but the conversation in this thread has convinced me that the kingdom will have the ships flying in space again. I didn't want to do that, because I am not ready for Spelljammer, but what the heck... My players will ignore any chances for Spelljamming anyway...

[OrbanSirgen]

I'm sorry, but the conversation in this thread has convinced me that the kingdom will have the ships flying in space again. I didn't want to do that, because I am not ready for Spelljammer, but what the heck... My players will ignore any chances for Spelljamming anyway...

Eh, I'd say more like Eberron...

[Jon_Dahl]

Eh, I'd say more like Eberron...

To be honest, I don't know anything about Eberron. I don't know why, but I guess I have always been to lazy to figure out what is the big deal about Eberron or what it is about.

[Telonius]

Short and vastly oversimplified: Eberron is D&D Steampunk, set in "totally not post-WWI Europe." Includes dinosaur-riding halflings, Warforged, Shifters, and Kalashtar.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Jon_Dahl
I'm sorry, but the conversation in this thread has convinced me that the kingdom will have the ships flying in space again.

THE OP LIVES!!

Now maybe the OP can answer some of our key questions, in particular whether these ships were ever designed to float in water, whether they are in fact heavier than water, and why anyone would want to drop them in water when they're flying ships.


Originally Posted by Jon_Dahl
To be honest, I don't know anything about Eberron. I don't know why, but I guess I have always been to lazy to figure out what is the big deal about Eberron or what it is about.

Eberron is very consciously a "noir setting," so it strives for a different tone than the relatively generic fantasy of other settings like Forgotten Realms or Kalamar. There's an emphasis on using magic to replicate technological elements like railroads, and of course the setting gives us the Warforged, which seems to be the most popular race from the setting.

I've never been drawn to the setting as a whole, but there are plenty of interesting tidbits in the sourcebooks, some of which I've used in my own campaigns. Certainly worth a look.
.

[Jon_Dahl]

THE OP LIVES!!

Now maybe the OP can answer some of our key questions, in particular whether these ships were ever designed to float in water, whether they are in fact heavier than water, and why anyone would want to drop them in water when they're flying ships.




.

They are designed to float, although there is one issue. The efreeti were afraid that they might be forced to land into water, which could have insta-killed all their fire elemental troops, so the ships are meant to float. The efreeti don't know much about water, so they were unable to design the ships in a way that would allow them to land safely into water from a high altitude, but they managed to avoid water altogether in the invasion attempt, so this problem never came up.

[Palanan]

So, nobody knows if these ships will actually float, because they were designed by creatures with no practical knowledge of water, and these ships have never actually been tested in water.

It’s your game, and I assume you know one way or the other if they’re seaworthy; but I would be astonished if these things didn’t immediately fill with water and gently drift down to the seafloor.

[Jay R]

I'm sorry, but the conversation in this thread has convinced me that the kingdom will have the ships flying in space again. I didn't want to do that, because I am not ready for Spelljammer, but what the heck... My players will ignore any chances for Spelljamming anyway...

Certainly if I were a player, I'd be trying to make them fly.

If you don't want that, then declare that the ships could never fly; that the efreets from the sun merely used them just to carry their troops.

[Then watch your players try to get some efreets to fly their ships. Yeah, I think you may be stuck running potential space adventures.]

[Maat Mons]

You could always try out the cosmology used by a friend of mine, where there's no outer space to go to and the "sun" is, in fact, just a portal to the elemental plane of fire, roving around in the upper atmosphere.

[Jon_Dahl]

So, nobody knows if these ships will actually float, because they were designed by creatures with no practical knowledge of water, and these ships have never actually been tested in water.

It’s your game, and I assume you know one way or the other if they’re seaworthy; but I would be astonished if these things didn’t immediately fill with water and gently drift down to the seafloor.

You do have a point there.

[OrbanSirgen]

THE OP LIVES!!

Now maybe the OP can answer some of our key questions, in particular whether these ships were ever designed to float in water, whether they are in fact heavier than water, and why anyone would want to drop them in water when they're flying ships.



Eberron is very consciously a "noir setting," so it strives for a different tone than the relatively generic fantasy of other settings like Forgotten Realms or Kalamar. There's an emphasis on using magic to replicate technological elements like railroads, and of course the setting gives us the Warforged, which seems to be the most popular race from the setting.

I've never been drawn to the setting as a whole, but there are plenty of interesting tidbits in the sourcebooks, some of which I've used in my own campaigns. Certainly worth a look.
.

I was referring to the airship system...

[Palanan]

Actually I was following up on Telonius’ thumbnail sketch of Eberron as a campaign setting, since the OP said he didn’t know much about it.

[Yahzi Coyote]

The efreeti don't know much about water...
Then they're useless. While a fireproof ship would be a huge advantage, a vessel that merely floats is called a "raft." Ships are carefully designed to function in water, based on their size, weight, shape, and materials. These flying galleys are going to be as useful in the water as a swimming Pegasus.

Also, the cost of transporting them likely approaches the cost of just building new ones in the water.

Themed restaurant is your best bet. :smallbiggrin:

[OrbanSirgen]

Themed restaurant is your best bet. :smallbiggrin:

Best of all, the chef can't burn it down with a nat 1 on his cooking check... Lol

[Jay R]

Then they're useless.

I agree completely with your main point. But you're over-stating it. They are worthless in the water.

You are absolutely right -- they will be somewhere between inferior and useless as sea-faring ships, and there's too much work to get them to the water.

But these were flying ships. The primary goal should be to fly them again. First, use Detect Magic all over the ships -- especially the helms, if the DM ever read Spelljammer. Then use Identify wherever magic was found. It may be easier to get them to fly again than to move them to the sea.

This is a fantasy game. Go with the fantasy.


Themed restaurant is your best bet. :smallbiggrin:

OK, I have to admit it -- that's a fun idea.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Jay R
It may be easier to get them to fly again than to move them to the sea.

This is almost certainly true, unless the DM has something very specific in mind.

I'm not sure why moving them to the sea was ever under consideration, since DM and players alike seem to have known that these were built for fire rather than water.

[nedz]

Themed restaurant is your best bet. :smallbiggrin:

Or an Efreeti themed cocktail bar — bring your own fire resistance.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Yahzi Coyote
Themed restaurant is your best bet. :smallbiggrin:

Since there seem to be a lot of these fire-ships scattered around, clearly this will be the kingdom's first restaurant chain.

:smalltongue: