A Tank in High Fantasy!

[yennico]

That tank would soon be the target of many, many Heat Metals.

Or Transmute Metal to Wood.

Or transmute earth to mud under the tank

 

[The_Universe]

Another concept to keep in mind are the Warjacks from Iron Kingdoms. They're steam-powered mechs with magical cortexes.

Do the iron kingdoms books (character guide, world guide) have D20 stats for these things? I know that only the deathjack appears in Monsternomicon.

 

[GimbleRaulnor]

High fantasy, huh?

Have you thought about binding elementals to power and / or protect your tank?

The treads are powered by two bound earth elementals, perhaps a fire elemental is bound into whatever you're going to use for a cannon, etc.

Fire elemental + water elemental = lot's of steam.

 

[Aeric]

Do the iron kingdoms books (character guide, world guide) have D20 stats for these things? I know that only the deathjack appears in Monsternomicon.

I don't think the IK books have stats for the steamjacks, but they can be found here: http://privateerpress.com/ironkingdoms/default.php?x=rules/steamjacks. No stats for warjacks yet, although I'm sure you could figure those out easily enough.

 

[Shadeus]

Fire elemental + water elemental = lot's of steam.

I think he was thinking along the same line I was of binding an air elemental to the tank to allow it to hover or fly even. Or somehow having an ooze or jelly at the base to have it "ooze" along instead of rolling. You almost want an animate objects spell that you can control; that could work.

The golem idea is a good one too. Think of a golem shaped like a tank that you can hide in. And instead of a canon, it could shoot fireballs or whatever. Or whoever is inside the tank can use a wand of fireballs. You just need a 1st-level wizard to do that.

 

[werk]

However, the golem idea is a really, really cool one... (sort of makes me think Battlestar Galactica, now...) Almost more of a living vehicle powered by magic...
Anyone know of anything like this?

There are constructs in MM3...something mauler and eviscerator. They are basically juggernauts but only have melee capabilities.

 

[GimbleRaulnor]

The golem idea is a good one too. Think of a golem shaped like a tank that you can hide in. And instead of a canon, it could shoot fireballs or whatever. Or whoever is inside the tank can use a wand of fireballs. You just need a 1st-level wizard to do that.

Transformers anyone? )

 

[Cyberzombie]

One of my favourite ways to make a fantasy tank is to use undead. They never need to stop, so they can keep moving constantly. Yeah, yeah, in 3.5, even mindless undead are evil, and animating them is evil, but no one with any sense enforces that, so even a good character can use 'em to make a tank. Okay, not a cleric of Pelor or a paladin, but most characters.

Get the strongest undead you can find. Put them on a treadmill and have them use rowing machines to add in their arm strength. You only need enough space for them to move -- undead don't get claustrophobic or need to breathe. If you get enough of them, you should be able to get a tank up to 30 feet/round movement. Not great, but enough to be useful.

I'm not sure what the most effective weaponry would be, but I haven't really thought about this since 2e.

 

[Eolin]

Steam generates power.

There's a high fantasy world a friend of mine made, with a lot of help from the rest of us.

In that world, dragons were created by man -- wizards -- as instruments of war. I could see the dwarves of that world having tanks. Overtly not as awesome as dragons, but still really useful. In this world, the humans were the empire builders, but never did quite conquer the dwarves.

But yeah, dragons as tanks instead of tanks as tanks.

 

[moritheil]

Clockwork horrors, suckers! Only . . . without the world-devouring malevolence. And change the lightning attack to fire, I imagine.