Manning an airship.

[ExHunterEmerald]

I'm playing an Eberron game where I'm looking into windwright captain-still a long ways off, but I'm planning my build ahead.

Looking at the stats for an airship, it requires a watch of 20 and has a typical crew of 150.

My plan so far is to move through my prereqs for windwright, and take Leadership so I can run my own crew rather than use the house Lyrandar experts provided with the ship a windwright captain.

Fortunately, a high Charisma and a few circumstance bonuses get me partway to a large number of followers, but still not enough to really run a ship.
So, are there any feats, like in Stormwrack, for making Leadership oriented for assembling a crew? And any advice in lieu of that?

[MrNexx]

So, are there any feats, like in Stormwrack, for making Leadership oriented for assembling a crew? And any advice in lieu of that?

I quote the great sage, Mr. Terry Gilliam:

"Money, Money, Money makes the world go round!"

Where loyalty will not avail you, hire people. At the core, you will have a loyal crew who will follow your orders. The rest will be loyal to your money (and, hopefully, to you because you're a good leader, and to your ship because she's "their ship", in aeronautical terms).

[silvermesh]

I would go with the old "chain of command" method.

your cohort has leadership as well and his followers follow you because he tells them to.

[jlousivy]

I definitely agree with silvermesh on this one. A nice DM wouldn't find that bad at all, especially since most of the followers will be too low of level to do anything other than man the ship.

[Joran]

Jayne: You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til you understand who's in ruttin' command here.

Yup, you could always hire/kidnap a crew to work your airship. Might be a bit of fun for the GM to roleplay a portion of the hiring process.

"Do you have both hands, feet, and eyes?"
"Yes."
"Good, you're hired."

[ExHunterEmerald]

Not a bad idea! I'll run it by him and see what I can see.
Thanks, guys.

[RandomNPC]

its even more levels, but the dread pirate (good or evil tree) can recruit a group of cronies specifically for crewing a ship. they either respect or fear the captain enough to not mutiny.

[ExHunterEmerald]

Well, by the time I take Leadership, I'll be pretty high level, so I'll have a lot of low-level followers. Short of a LOT of natural 20's, most mutinies wouldn't work so hot. Of course, if the cohort and all his followers schism, then that'd be interesting...

[MandibleBones]

Alternately, Heroes of Battle has the "Extra Followers" feat for double the number of followers.

[ExHunterEmerald]

Someone suggested that, yes, but the problem is my feats are rather tight, as is. With my dragonmarks, I probably won't be taking leadership until ninth level, and by twelfth, I'd have a high enough score so that I could man my ship as-is.

[MandibleBones]

Why not take levels in Dragonmarked Heir to free up the feat slots you're spending on dragonmarks?

[ExHunterEmerald]

Hmmmm...
On the one hand, that DOES do the job nicely, and earlier, too.
But on the other, by the time I actually can take it (I need the Favored in House feat), I can just take my dragonmark without the class dip.
But, windwright captain levels stack with dragonmark heir levels for caster level.

Not sure where to take this one...

[Jack Mann]

The Legendary Captain Prestige class helps your leadership.

[ExHunterEmerald]

Gah, so many prestige classes...
Well, I've decided to rework the character sheet, since the game hasn't started yet--I'm pitching Legendary Artisan, (didn't sit well on the sheet anyway, and I like my fluff and crunch happily coexisting. Like a zen gaming sandwich.) replacing it with Favored In House, and taking this baby to Mexico! looking into taking dragonmark heir. That gets me my lesser mark of Storm, and frees up a feat for later use.

Thanks for the assist, folks. When Cap'n Ennet starts crafting wands of fireball for his crew, he'll steer around your buildings. :D

[paigeoliver]

Just HIRE your crew. Pay twice the going rate. Few DMs could possibly argue that you would have a hard time getting crewmembers if you went into port to sign people up at double the standard rate, which is still small change for a high level character.

[jlousivy]

what skill is required to pilot an airship? or is there not one?

[icedrake]

What's your build for the character?

In all seriousness, talk with your dm, you might not even need to spend all that much money on a crew if you try to role-play most of the situtaitons anyway. Besides, if you're playing a Wind-wright captain, Lyrandar's giving you your shipr anyway right? Until you find your own, they're going to take a cut of your profits anyway and so you might as well just take the extra 5 or 10% it costs to rent the crew. From personal experience, I played a wind-wright and feats are tight and hard to find especially with the new DM book out.

Convince your dm to let you get your crew through role-playing the scenes and at a minimal cost. If the party's using your ship as a base, it should come out of everyone's shares b/c they're living on your boat. You might also want to look into getting a smaller airship, less crew means less money spent on hiring them.

[ExHunterEmerald]

what skill is required to pilot an airship? or is there not one?

You make profession(sailor) checks to control the elemental bound to the airship, and thus move the ship.
The elemental itself can only be commanded if you have a lesser mark of storm. That means that all windwright captains are half-elves of house Lyrandar.
As for the ship, it's run by a crew of 20 at all times, with a full staff of 150. The sailors given with the airship you acquire are level one experts with maxed ranks of Profession(sailor).

What's your build for the character?

Currently I'm a third-level artificer; I'm moving into dragonmark heir next, followed by some ranks in warblade, and then on to windwright captain. From there I'll finish out the dragonmark heir levels, alternating with artificer and warblade levels.

In all seriousness, talk with your dm, you might not even need to spend all that much money on a crew if you try to role-play most of the situtaitons anyway. Besides, if you're playing a Wind-wright captain, Lyrandar's giving you your shipr anyway right? Until you find your own, they're going to take a cut of your profits anyway and so you might as well just take the extra 5 or 10% it costs to rent the crew. From personal experience, I played a wind-wright and feats are tight and hard to find especially with the new DM book out.

Yeah, it took a bit of shuffling to arrange my feats, but it went well. We've talked a bit, and so far it looks like the crew will grow as I do, to reflect increasing fame and ability. Statistically, it'll be my Leadership feat I'm going to take at sixth. He decided that having an airship would be a bonus for my Leadership score, and combined with a high Charisma, my crew should be fairly large.

Convince your dm to let you get your crew through role-playing the scenes and at a minimal cost. If the party's using your ship as a base, it should come out of everyone's shares b/c they're living on your boat. You might also want to look into getting a smaller airship, less crew means less money spent on hiring them.

Yeah. I may not charge the other PCs, but I might have them aid the crew in running things to account for crew vacancies. As for the airship, I'm happy with the standard 92,000 gold model.