PDA

View Full Version : Building a tank with Wondrous Items (3.5)



theMycon
2008-11-12, 02:09 PM
I'm in a campaign that looks like it's going to go on for a long, long time. I like my character, quite a lot, but not that much. In a few months, I may choose to retire him to try something else.

For reasons that make perfect sense if you know the character, he's going to build a war gazebo, then spend the rest of his days sailing the lands with the evil sorceress he loves. Sa-Matra, the invincible battle platform of the holy church of... yadda yadda yadda. Since he's retiring from adventuring (and going to have a tank), XP is no object. Time is essentially limitless. Money matters, but he's probably going to have most of his last two level's wealth sitting around (glancing at the table, this is usually 1/2 expected WBL).

The only real limitation is that the main frame must be built from wood, it has to be big, and it has to be mobile.

So, when can/should he retire, how should he build it, and what crazy ideas do you want to see other people work out for you?

My Concrete Plans, so far- Folding Boat (Gazebo shaped, still 3,600 to craft), with some means of levitation (from 4-6K), with a pair of Decanters of endless Water for propulsion (9K), and three bags of tricks (Tan, 9450) & a handful of Necklaces of Fireballs (call it... 10K?) as weapons.

It's a floating tank that fits in your pocket and breathes lions and tigers and bears... and fireballs and rhinoceri. Max necessary CL 11, max cost 38K- doable WBL 11-WBL 9. Just barely.

My ideas: Reinforcing it somehow. I have no idea how to do Mithril/Adamantine shutters/plating/barding, and that may make it too heavy (if magic goes out over water, a wooden Gazebo would float. One decked out in metal would sink.). That can be covered by a necklace of adapatation(4.5K). However, since I have at least two more feats in me before I retire, I could theoretically treat it as armor and fortify/spell resist it. Better options?

Is there a better (bigger, cheaper, or stronger) way to make the base, other than a folding boat? I want it to have some kind of security, so they don't have to worry about leaving the RV unlocked with the keys in the ignition every time they go out to eat.

Are there weapons, aside from the bags of tricks, that don't run out? Or are easy to maintain?

Looking at the armor enchantments... If I added "bashing" (+1 enhancement), the gazebo'd count as a Colossal or Colossal+ item, 4d6 or 6d6+weight damage on a collision. More interesting ideas?

And, finally, if this is a where they're going to live out the rest of their lives, it should be comfy & self-sufficient. Is there a way to make it cast "create food & water" and "mending" at will (or 1/day), and a non-dispel-able unseen servant to clean up after them? Maybe Hero's Feast & Make Whole once a week.

Telonius
2008-11-12, 02:20 PM
Warforged Warlock, wooden body, make "Enlarge Person" permanent, ride around in the chest compartment. Permanent mobile tank! :smallbiggrin: Of course you'd have to somehow gain control over the Warlock, but with unlimited time and XP you should be able to find a way to do that. Or, just get Leadership and have him be your cohort.

BRC
2008-11-12, 02:28 PM
Using Decanters would work for propulsion in the water, but not so well on land. My group built a tank once with Permenancy and Animate Objects.


Anyway, if youve got the cash, a bowl of controlling water elementals would give you permenant control over a huge water elemental which could push your gazebo around and attack with it.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-11-12, 02:28 PM
Wall of Iron, Fabricate, Animate Object, Wand of Fireball.

TempusCCK
2008-11-12, 02:33 PM
Look through the trap rules on resetting traps, for instance a resetting trap of fireball with a lever for a trigger, if you're a rules nut. If your DM is more sane, you can probably do this kind of cool stuff without a bunch of lame-ass rules lawyering.

Decanters of endless water are a silly method of propulsion, and floating is as easy as having access to polymorph any object. "Polymorph air balloon into helium balloon!" If you don't have access to that, enchat several pieces of the tank with levitation, a even a moderate level, many many individual levitations on particular parts of the tank will end up having enough power to support it's weight overall.

A good spell for propulsion that I used when designing an airship for a campaign I was in was a spell from the spell compendium that was fifth level and produced what was essentially a sideways tornado that you could shoot at people and performed like a bullrush. Have that bound into a metal tube with a propellor inside and shutters on each end. You can use the shutters to control the intake of air and therefore the speed.

Also, don't forget wands, wands are your very best friend when it comes to needing many spells on the go, and since your character no longer gives two poops about adventuring, go ahead and blow all the skills you can in UMD.

As for your armoring problem, you need to find a friendly druid who can cast Ironwood on your tank. Other methods of good protection are things like items of entropic shield, items of wind wall, items of reflect spell and be sure to have lots and lot of mending on hand.

Prometheus
2008-11-12, 02:36 PM
If you're not sold to the Folding Boat, I recommend a regular boat. It will be bigger, sturdier, cheaper, and easier to reinforce. Similarly, sails might just be better off than endless decanters of water. Alternatively, you can roll the ship, the levitation, and the propulsion all in one by getting a Carpet of Flying

Arm's and Equipment Guide has a lot of magic items for tricking out vehicles and Stronghold Builder's Guide has a lot of rules for reinforcing walls and tricking out forts. Unfortunately, they are both unrealistically priced.

Deck of Illusions (8.1 k) might be a good investment.

monty
2008-11-12, 02:43 PM
a handful of Necklaces of Fireballs

Do you have a death wish? Get wands; they won't blow up in your face.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-12, 02:44 PM
Take a look at the stronghold builders guide. They have rules for exactly this sort of thing, and you can even make the inside of your gazebo larger than the outside.

Meat Shield
2008-11-12, 03:01 PM
Or you could just grab Baba Yaga's Hut from second edition and call it done.

bosssmiley
2008-11-12, 03:07 PM
Get "The Book of Wondrous Inventions" from paizo or rpgnow. That had mobile steam castles, djinn-driven tanks, dragonfly gunships and walking ATVs.

Or you could take a leaf from the "Dark Sun" playbook and spam animate dead on a few hollowed-out giant beetle carcasses. :smallwink:

Suzuro
2008-11-12, 05:20 PM
Get "The Book of Wondrous Inventions" from paizo or rpgnow. That had mobile steam castles, djinn-driven tanks, dragonfly gunships and walking ATVs.

So it's just the RPG of Howl's Moving Castle...?


-Suzuro

theMycon
2008-11-12, 05:53 PM
The more I plan this, the more it resembles an RV with weapons...



Anyway, if youve got the cash, a bowl of controlling water elementals would give you permenant control over a huge water elemental which could push your gazebo around and attack with it.

First, thank you for not suggesting something, like permanency, where all the specialness goes away forever the moment someone decides to cast dispel. Second, this is Brilliant. I like to embrace the silliness of this all.

I fail to see why decanters would work any differently as propulsion if you're floating over solid or liquid... but they popped into my head first only because I understand how a twin-engine yacht works well enough to simulate it, and they're available off the shelf in core. And, if I do decide to make the railing a giant Necklace of Adaptation, I'd have a ersatz sub/spaceship.

Monty, that should be obvious. However, your input is still valuable if he gains some semblance of sanity at any point in the next few levels. And I do like the "short, skinny cannons" mental image I have. Problems are 1: I don't craft wands yet, I'm not sure I'd take the feat before I retire, especially since calling it armor & giving it SR keeps sounding better & better; and 2: Like the necklace, they run out eventually.

Have anything that goes forever?

Prometheus, I'm not sold on the folding boat, or the gazebo shape, and all those advantages you list are good ... But a regular boat is hard to fold up and take with you/Lock up. A Flying carpet, while luxurious, isn't big enough, nor does it have a railing in case The Evil Sorceress I Love rolls around in her sleep.

(Heh... just got the idea to strap two actual folding boats to the bottom for sea travel, so it'd float there pretty much no matter what I do to it.)

And... is there a non-dispel-able way to Ironwood the whole thing? CCK has a decent idea, it's just impractical to do for something that'll obviously be over 100 lbs. A 1/day item of Ironwood might work, continuously reinforcing a rotating chunk of Sa Matra.

DownwardSpiral
2008-11-12, 06:17 PM
I like my character, quite a lot, but not that much.


.....0.o


....Anyways, I think the necklaces of fireballs are kind of a liability. You should try to think of something that doesn't explode violently, especcially if you didn't turn it into some sort of metal(even if you did, it still probably would be bad). Also, you'd run out of them really fast.

Second, I'm not a physics expert, but 2 decanters of endless water surely wouldn't make that boat go too fast in the water.....right?

Jansviper
2008-11-12, 06:29 PM
So it's just the RPG of Howl's Moving Castle...?


-Suzuro


What? Howl's Moving Castle had a lot more to it than just a moving castle, and didn't have any combat capabilities that I'm aware of (other than Howl himself).

Then again, I read the book, didn't watch the movie.

*ahem*

As for this idea, the elemental control items are your best bet for large things. On a more practical scale, portable holes make a great deal of open space on relatively small surfaces.

paddyfool
2008-11-12, 06:44 PM
Hm... you could have a wood golem based on the equine golem from the arms and equipment guide. The original was faster and more agile than a regular golem, but less durable. You'd have to customise it so as to allow a protected cavity for you (perhaps the golem could be larger than usual, or you could muck about with extradimensional spaces if you prefer), plus mounting whatever armament you'd feel might be necessary. The main advantages of the golem in this instance with be the self-propulsion, DR, SR, basic AI, and a solution to the dispel problem that would hit some of the above models.

Hey, maybe someone should do an arena thread for D&D 3.5 tank combat? Tank to be crafted by a character of a given level, with no outside assistence, and a set XP/GP budget using only specified sourcebooks. The PC would be forbidden to cast spells (other than to direct attacks by the tank), make melee or ranged attacks, meaning that the only attacks permitted would feature arms and armament mounted onto the tank, although these could be directed by the PC; victory would come from disabling or destroying the opposing tank. To count as a tank, the entry should be capable simply of carrying one PC in an enclosed cavity and motion (obviously, you'd also want it to have some combat ability); arena to be picked at random, but could feature urban combat, aquatic combat, woodland combat, subterranean combat etc.

Triaxx
2008-11-12, 06:55 PM
Nogger that. What you want is the Land Barge. I don't have my exact specs so I'm building from memory:

Land Barge
Cost: 15K-35K
Description: A land barge consists of the hull of a barge, mounted with two large crystals underneath. Each crystal is capable of lifting 40 tons. Most times the barge does nothing more than hang a few inches off the ground, giving it maximum lifting power. Barges are capable of not only crossing over water but floating in it, and can be of any size, though a usual template is 15' by 30'. Designed at first to carry cargo, they were quickly adapted for use as troop carriers, and later on as ground vehicles, by mounting wheels. Two crystals on a wheeled barge can propel it at a speed of 30' per round and at a top speed of 120' round over a flat surface such as a city street. An air born barge may simply be a wheeled barge floating above the ground and not resting on it's wheels. At full load, 78 tons, the barge can be propelled at 20' feet per round and at it's empty weight can maintain a speed such as to keep pace with full size airships. Barges often use massive folding sails, consisting of huge ribbed wings, used both for propulsion, and steering.

Lifting Crystals
Cost: 10K-50K

The secret behind 224's marvelous airships comes from a plant like crystal, with the innate power to defy gravity. Size is important when determining how high, and how low it can go. While great magical power is required to generate propulsion from these crystals, smaller crystals use smaller amounts, and can be used for fine manuevering. Many underground rail systems use lines and nodes, with small crystals drawing power from them.

Crystals are grown in three application specific versions.

Large Size: 15hp/square inch, 8 hardness. Lift capacity: 40 tons. 50K in places where they have to be imported extra dimensionally, 20K when grown natively.

Medium Size: 10hp/square inch, 6 hardness. Lift capacity: 15 tons. 35K Import, 17K grown

Small Size: 5hp/square inch, 4 hardness. Lift capacity: 1 ton. 25K import, 10K grown.

Large crystals are 15' long, and 4' wide at the widest point. Medium crystals are 7' long and 2' wide. Small crystals are 7" long, and 3" wide. Most are of a peanut shape, wide on the ends, and small in the center, which is the generally accepted size and shape.

Raging Gene Ray
2008-11-12, 07:00 PM
What class is your character? Because if he's an artificer, you can take a feat (Legendary, Extraordinary, or RatherGood Artisan, I can't remember which) that reduces gp costs by 25% each time you take it (yes, it stacks with itself). If time and xp really are no factors, you might should invest in those.

You might should also check out this table (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm#tableEstimatingMagicItemGol dPieceValues) to figure the price of adding new abilities. It gives the forumula for making up your own magic items and figuring their prices:

(Spell Level * Caster Level * 2000) / 5/(5/Num. Charges per Day))

According to this, a wondrous item (say, a table) capable of casting Create Food and Water 1/day (3rd Level) at Caster Level 5 would cost 6000 GP

To make it capable of casting Hero's Feast at CL 11 would cost 26400 GP

I guess all I'm trying to say is you can pretty much make up anything whether or not it's in any book. Just slap more spell effects on it.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2008-11-12, 07:16 PM
Animate Object + Permanency. A 1/day item that automatically casts Extended Overland Flight caster level 12 on it each day. A 1/day item that automatically casts Ironwood caster level 11 on a different portion each day in an 11-day cycle. A 1/day item that automatically casts Extended Greater Mage Armor caster level 12 on it each day. A 1/day item that automatically casts Extended Magic Vestment caster level 12 on its Greater Mage Armor each day. Get that stuff commissioned from NPC spellcasters, or just hire them contribute the necessary spells and caster levels while someone else contributes the rest of the creation requirements and costs.

The Gazebo itself can weigh as much as you want it to, it can fly under its own power thanks to Overland Flight so its own weight is irrelevant. Only how much it is capable of carrying would matter, which should be quite a bit considering its size and the fact that a Gazebo is typically hexagon shaped and has six "legs" supporting it, so its carrying capacity will get the multiple legs multiplier.

Since an Animated Object is a creature, it should be able to wear magic items. An appropriately sized Animated Tower Shield that it always uses as cover would be good, it would be a hovering wall that orbits the structure, blocking attacks from whichever side you want.

Brock Samson
2008-11-13, 02:16 AM
As far as food and water go, if you do decide to use a decanter of endless water, well, there's your water. Otherwise there is something akin to an Everlasting Waterskin in the Magic Item Compendium, and for food there's also something like Everlasting Trail Rations in the compendium also. Otherwise there's always a ring of sustenance.

paddyfool
2008-11-13, 05:12 AM
Meh. I still think you should stat your gazebo as a larger, 6-legged equine golem.

bosssmiley
2008-11-13, 05:30 AM
So it's just the RPG of Howl's Moving Castle...?

No. It's a book that was published when D&D still had a sense of humour about itself. :smallamused:

Telok
2008-11-13, 01:39 PM
I would suggest a large number of animated tables bolted to the bottom of an armored pleasure barge.

All you need to do is summon a few efreeti and make them whistle up the tables for you and fix them to the bottom of the boat. The first couple of genies won't want to cooperate, kill them. Cone of Cold works well, or Ray of Frost since you don't have a time limit and aren't using your 0th to 2nd level slots for anything else. Once you have three or four dead efreeti nailed to your wall the others become much more helpful. Now you have a vehicle that can't be dispelled. Time for defenses.

Take the Leadership feat and pick a cleric for your cohort, Half-Golem him (brass or iron). Stick a Helm of Brilliance on him and you've got your main gun, plus food, water, and healing.

Load up a harem and you're good to go.