Rocket Man!

[true_shinken]

Basically, I want a guy that fly through ships. Flight, high AC and hit points, a way to deal enough damage to make a big hole in a (flying) ship with a single hit (I picture it as a charge). Stuff like that, CR 10-ish.
Is it possible? I wanted a humanoid, preferably a human, but I'm guessing it won't be possible. If I could do that without a spellcaster, it would be even better. Idea is that he's the dragon for a revengeful truenamer; this guy's job is basically to take down flying ships single handedly and surviving it. I really have no idea where to start, though.

[Kansaschaser]

Wow, is this for a 3.5 D&D game? If so, you do have your work cut out for you.

If this is for D20 modern or something else, it might be possible.

[Person_Man]

Books allowed?

Off the top of my head, I'm guessing any uber charger with flight will work.

You can get flight via:

• Star Spawn feat. Had some restrictions, and requires Aberration Blood. Lords of Madness.
• Shape Soulmeld & Open Chakra feats for the Pegasus Cloak.
• Another weirder option is to use Shape Soulmeld and Open Chakra to get the Phase Cloak, which makes you ethereal when you move. This allows you to use your base land speed as a fly speed, move through walls, avoid AoO, etc. Only down side is that you would fall in between your turns, so you'd need to pick up some form of flight from another source, or a ring of Slow Fall.
• Tabard of Nimbral Herald: Fly once a day for 5 minutes. No reason you can't by more then one. 5,400 gp, Champions of Valor pg 69.
• Dragonborn and Raptorian get full flight at 12 HD, which is slightly beyond your ECL 10 goal.
• Kobolds can get draconic wings at 6HD IIRC, but they suck. Races of the Dragon.
• Anyone with access to Alter Self can change into a winged form.

[Psyren]

Didn't someone make Iron Man with a Warlock build? (Or was it Binder...) That could be a Rocket Man.

[Gnaritas]

But a Warlock would blast ships, not charge into them.

[Kansaschaser]

Ok, I'm assuming this is 3.5 D&D now.

One of the easiest ways to get flying (sort of) is by playing a Ranger with a Giant Eagle as a pet. Just ride your pet into battle and shoot all the people on the Air Ship with ranged attacks.

Also, you could buy trained animals that can fly. The best option is a Steelwing from Monster Manual 5. It has many useful abilities and you can buy an egg for pretty cheap and train it yourself. If you hire someone to train it for you, I think it costs 20,000 gold.

If you want to fly yourself and not rely on a mount, then listen to Person_Man.

[AyeGill]

take any übercharger build. Max your balance skill. add a flying mount. Fly above the ship. Stand on your mount. Jump high into the air. Have you mount descend with you towards the ship, catching you midair, and finally smack the ship's hull when you collide with it. Make sure you jump long and high enough to satisfy all your feat requirements.

Job done.

[Person_Man]

Didn't someone make Iron Man with a Warlock build? (Or was it Binder...) That could be a Rocket Man.

I made a Iron Man homebrew loosely based on the Warlock, but with the power level pumped up to Tier 3.

You could also just take any Hellfire Warlock build (which often includes 1 level of Binder, to deal with the ability damage) and slap on a good set of armor. A normal Warlock would also work fine, but would deal less damage.

Not sure how you would pull it off with a Binder. There's not a lot of blasting or uber-Charge ability in their arsenal. They're more of a trick class, with a moderately long list of interesting Save or Lose effects and weird combos.

[Kansaschaser]

If your entire purpose is to take out flying ships, there are some practicle ways of accomplishing this.

1) Get an Eternal Wand of Shrink Item(you could get a couple if you wanted).

2) Shrink objects that can be used to destroy ships, such as boulders, vats of burning oil, giant bonfires, vats of acid, or molten laval/metal, etc...

3) Use a flying mount to fly above the ships and rain doom down upon them with your shrunk items.

[Psyren]

@Person_Man
Keep in mind that invocations are subject to ASF, so you'd need Armored Mage or Twilight mithral or something to use them in armor. (Binders of course have no such restriction.)

For Binder blasting, they do have some gems - Focalor gives at will Lightning for instance, no cooldown. Orthos and Amon give breath weapons that scale quite well, even with the cooldown. (And nothing stops you from binding the same vestige more than once anyway, though this is a bit on the cheesy side.) Most importantly though, their blasting effects ignore SR and immunity (since Binder abilities are Su.) That's probably why WotC limited their blasting potential.

[true_shinken]

Books allowed?

Mostly anything 3.5.

Off the top of my head, I'm guessing any uber charger with flight will work.

I like the Pegasus Cloak idea. Will have to check maneuverability and speed, though.

If your entire purpose is to take out flying ships, there are some practicle ways of accomplishing this.

Yeah, but that's not the point, I want a rocket man because it's cool. The best way to stop a flying ship is described in ECS (or was it Explorer's Handbook?) - simply cast Disjunction.

I think of this guy as a loose cannon, ax crazy type. I now have an idea of an Incarnate/Barbarian for this.

[Kansaschaser]

If your entire purpose is to take out flying ships, there are some practicle ways of accomplishing this.

1) Get an Eternal Wand of Shrink Item(you could get a couple if you wanted).

2) Shrink objects that can be used to destroy ships, such as boulders, vats of burning oil, giant bonfires, vats of acid, or molten laval/metal, etc...

3) Use a flying mount to fly above the ships and rain doom down upon them with your shrunk items.

Rocks would be the easiest things to drop on a ship. Granite(one of the most abundant rocks) weigh 168lbs per cubic foot. Shrink Item from a Wand can shrink up to 10 cubic feet for a total of 1,680lbs.

According to the Player's Handbook and the DMG, a dropped item deals 1d6 points of damage per 25lbs if the object is dense. I assume rock would qualify. The 1,680 pound chunk of granite would cause 67d6 points of damage to a ship. You don't even have to be that high above the ship. 50-100feet up should do it.

[Kansaschaser]

Yeah, but that's not the point, I want a rocket man because it's cool. The best way to stop a flying ship is described in ECS (or was it Explorer's Handbook?) - simply cast Disjunction.

At level 10 you don't have access to Disjunction, so I was giving advice for your level.

If you want to do the Binder/Barbarian, you could still do the Shrink Item trick by taking a wand and a few ranks in Use Magic Device.

[Grynning]

Needs moar Hulking Hurler.
Dropping giant objects is one thing, but actually scooping them up and throwing them at ships is another. And nothing would be more awesome than throwing a ship at another ship.

Not sure you can get the strength score you'd need at ECL 10 though.

[true_shinken]

At level 10 you don't have access to Disjunction, so I was giving advice for your level.

If you want to do the Binder/Barbarian, you could still do the Shrink Item trick by taking a wand and a few ranks in Use Magic Device.

It's CR 10-ish, not ECL 10. This is not a player character, it's an NPC. I could just use an adamantine horror and screw them, but a flying charger is something you can fight.
Dropping stones means you need a way to fly above the ship, meaning unless you are invisible you would be detected. It's a nice tactics and one I would use as a player if I wanted efficiency, but as a DM I want a cool, action-driven encounter for my players, and for that I think a human rocket woks better.

[Kansaschaser]

It's CR 10-ish, not ECL 10. This is not a player character, it's an NPC. I could just use an adamantine horror and screw them, but a flying charger is something you can fight.
Dropping stones means you need a way to fly above the ship, meaning unless you are invisible you would be detected. It's a nice tactics and one I would use as a player if I wanted efficiency, but as a DM I want a cool, action-driven encounter for my players, and for that I think a human rocket woks better.

Gotcha'. I was under the impression this was for your PC. Well just because the he's a Barbarian doesn't mean he's stupid. The shrunken granite blocks could be used during combat too.

If I were an NPC barbarian, I would take max ranks in balance and when I was fighting the PC's on the deck of the ship, I would drop one or two of the boulders on one side of the ship, possibly tilting it to the side causing everyone to make balance checks (or even climb check) to not fall off.

Do you intend for the NPC to attack the flying ship from below? If so, maybe give him a Gauntlet of Rust and he can just start rusting the nails/hinges/brackets out of the bottom of the ship.

[Darrin]

I kinda like the idea of a Warforged Flying Warlock, give him a level of Crusader or Warblade to pick up Mountain Hammer. He can use his slam attack to Mountain Hammer right through an airship (ignores DR and hardness).

Another idea would be to use the 4500 lbs of stupid/falling damage rules. Warforged flies above the airship, expands to large/huge size, falls straight down and uses his body to punch a hole through the airship's deck. Or maybe an adamantine battle fist with the Battle Jump or Roof-Jumper feat. (There's a feat/power/ability somewhere that negates falling damage without feather fall, but I can't recall exactly what it was.)

[Person_Man]

I like the Pegasus Cloak idea. Will have to check maneuverability and speed, though.

Pegasus Cloak bound to your Shoulder chakra grants a fly speed of 10 * essentia invested with average maneuverability, plus continuous Feather Fall.

The Airstep Sandels soulmeld bound to your feet chara grants you perfect maneuverability at the same speed if you need it, but it's not a true flight. You can "fly as a move action" and must end your turn on solid ground (or fall).

Astral Vembraces soulmeld bound to your Arm chakra gives you your choice of of one ability from Astral Construct Menu A, which includes a Fly speed of 20 feet with average maneuverability.

If you get a racial fly speed, the Air Heritage feat (Planar Handbook) gives you up to +30ft to fly speed.

Although to be honest, I don't bother with "honest" crunch for my NPCs. I simply write down his abilities and statistics, decide whether or not they're magic, and go. It's a lot simpler. If you want your "dragon" to fly, just give him flight.

[true_shinken]

Although to be honest, I don't bother with "honest" crunch for my NPCs. I simply write down his abilities and statistics, decide whether or not they're magic, and go. It's a lot simpler. If you want your "dragon" to fly, just give him flight.

My problem is arriving at a reasonable CR first and consistency second. Though you do offer sound advice.
I think I'll just add the winged template to a high damage single strike build, add Air Heritage and Flyby Attack and be done with it. ^^

[Kansaschaser]

Make a human with the Half-Dragon template so he can fly. Also, give him an arm or two made of Iron Golem parts. So you could give him the Half-Golem template on top of his Half-Dragon template. That would make for one awesome flying Barbarian.

[arguskos]

Although to be honest, I don't bother with "honest" crunch for my NPCs. I simply write down his abilities and statistics, decide whether or not they're magic, and go. It's a lot simpler. If you want your "dragon" to fly, just give him flight.

I do this too, but then I justify it later when the PCs go "I want to do that!" Always gotta recall that anything the DM does is fair game for the PCs.

[Person_Man]

My problem is arriving at a reasonable CR first and consistency second. Though you do offer sound advice.

Encounter balance varies widely depending on the group. I generally throw easy encounters at the players until I figure out their tactics and resources, and then amp up the difficulty according to their abilities and the plot. I also find that it's very important to broadcast how difficult a non-random enemy might be to the PCs with my good friends, adjectives and foreshadowing. If the PCs know that Bob the Slaughterer is a BBEG who killed the Tarrasque, then they know that they should spend some time leveling up, finding out about him, his Empire/mooks, and what tactics to use against him before fighting him. If they're warned and they just march up to his castle and have a hard time, well then, the dice shall decide their fate...

I do this too, but then I justify it later when the PCs go "I want to do that!" Always gotta recall that anything the DM does is fair game for the PCs.

Answer: Homebrew. If there's something one of my players wants to do, I'm generally fine with it, as long as it's roughly balanced with the resources and abilities of the other players in their party.

[arguskos]

Answer: Homebrew. If there's something one of my players wants to do, I'm generally fine with it, as long as it's roughly balanced with the resources and abilities of the other players in their party.

I also agree with this, but if it's actually reproducible with 3.5's current rule library, might as well use it, right? And I often find that in the source of acquiring what I wanted, I get other cool stuff that tends to play nicely with what I was focusing on anyways (see: the Hexblade fear debuffer I built awhile ago that doesn't use Barbarian levels; he's not max-op'd cause my party would cry, seeing that they still think Monk is a viable choice out of the box using PHB only >_>)

[true_shinken]

I also agree with this, but if it's actually reproducible with 3.5's current rule library, might as well use it, right?

That's how I roll as well.

[Tyndmyr]

Falling Damage.

Hulking Hurler, throwing a ridiculously heavy projectile attached to himself by an adamantine cable. I suggest adding an adamantine hat, for effect. Make use of ways of mitigating falling damage to yourself, preferably.

Provided you stay high enough in the air, you can just keep throwing every round.

Catgirls, I'm sorry.

[The Glyphstone]

I kinda like the idea of a Warforged Flying Warlock, give him a level of Crusader or Warblade to pick up Mountain Hammer. He can use his slam attack to Mountain Hammer right through an airship (ignores DR and hardness).

Another idea would be to use the 4500 lbs of stupid/falling damage rules. Warforged flies above the airship, expands to large/huge size, falls straight down and uses his body to punch a hole through the airship's deck. Or maybe an adamantine battle fist with the Battle Jump or Roof-Jumper feat. (There's a feat/power/ability somewhere that negates falling damage without feather fall, but I can't recall exactly what it was.)

This was going to be my suggestion - abuse falling damage to fly above ships and fall through them.