Adventurer's Vault Excerpt: Airships

[Primitive Screwhead]

A solution to that problem, an actual solution rather than a copout (which is what the single HP pool is: a copout), that was relatively simple and easy to deal with, would be worthy of being called elegant.

I admit, I wouldn't call the new stat-block an 'elegant solution to the challenges of using vehicles in the DnD game'..

However, I do like how they are presented.
First, this is an excerpt. There may be more rules in the book.

Second, the single hit point pool is combined with rules for requiring crew and rules for degrading capability based on lost hit points....
An relatively accurate and very playable representation that lets me {as either DM or Player} to focus on what I come to the table for... playing DnD.

If I wanted realistic vehicular combat I would play Pheonix Command or Fasa's Aliens and spend 10 minutes tracking the path of a single round to see what it hit and how it affected the vehicle/occupants....


{* yes, I know thats an exaggeration...}

 

[jensun]

I do recall them in Mystara.

As do I.

In fact there was also a very lengthy run of articles in Dragon focusing on the adventures of the crew of one such ship called The Voyage of the Princess Ark.

 

[GnomeWorks]

First, this is an excerpt. There may be more rules in the book.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

I'm not holding my breath. That excerpt is, as far as I'm concerned, as far as they took the idea; there's nothing more to it, until proven otherwise.

... playing DnD.

...

I am sick and tired of hearing that argument. It doesn't mean anything. What you do when you play D&D could be worlds apart from what I do when I play D&D.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I'm not that into the stat block as it stands, though that could change if - IF - more stuff is expanded on. However, that aside, I will say this - it fits 4e rather nicely, and I suspect those that really like 4e will really like it, and those that aren't too into 4e won't be too into this.

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

I am disturbed by how wow'd people are by this solution. Is it simple and easy to run, sure, but you didn't need a book to tell you to do it this way; it is elegant simply by lack of attempting to push the envelope, which - I'd argue - isn't truly elegant. This is a solution that a DM pressed for time or pushed into an unexpected situation would come up with and, while it works, it is not robust.

I'm not seeing any need to push the envelope here; it hits on every important point I think of when I think of implementing airships. It flies. It takes damage. It doesn't work as well when damaged or shorthanded. It drops from the sky when problems arise without plummetting straight down instantaneously. Its implementation is consistent with the rest of the game. It's extensible (as in the aforementioned case of adding cannons).

Everything does exactly what it needs to and nothing more. It hits all of my important parts. That's efficient. That's elegant.

What you are proposing is... nothing really. You have yourself said that you cannot be bothered to come up with something better. As far as I can tell, you haven't even identified a particular complaint beyond "I don't like it." The only word that comes to mind to describe your actions is "whining." And I don't think you're going to garner much agreement by speaking down to us without putting up even the vaguest of support for yourself.

Until you actually mention why this is an incomplete solution or what isn't robust, you're just threadcrapping. And I'd rather like to not have to deal with that.

So on that note, what needs of yours does this fail to fill?

 

[Ahglock]

I wonder if they are going to have rules on how to make them or do the lame for my game, you need a battalion of gnomes its all DM fiat no PCs need to apply system.

 

[Mallus]

People to not regard this as the most amazing innovation in vehicle rules evar?

The only person to invoke the dread 'evar' in this thread is you, kemosabe.

But it's not an amazing solution to the complicated conundrum that was vehicle HP rules.

It's only complicated if make it that way. Can you articulate what you want from a set of vehicle rules?

And that is why design is hard, because the goal would be to have vehicle HP rules that sufficiently model the way a vehicle takes damage (like the sections thing), but without being too complicated or cumbersome.

OK, so you want a system that models the way an impossible vehicle takes damage, often from impossible sources. That's fair. But again, I have to ask why? If it's not terribly important to model a sword striking a specific part of your character's body and the specific effect it has, why does it matter in the case of an airship?

Are there more interesting role-playing scenarios inherent in playing on an airship w/location-specific damage than in playing a body with specific injuries?

Perhaps I should say that I see airships primarily as flying platforms for sword fights and plot devices....

The solution they came up with? Not elegant, because it's freaking obvious.

Obviousness does not disqualify something from elegance. Trust me on this.

 

[jensun]

Are there more interesting role-playing scenarios inherent in playing on an airship w/location-specific damage than in playing a body with specific injuries?

I could see how you might want to run a ship to ship dogfight where your sails/engines/magical thingamajig were knocked out and you had to manage a desperate fight against the enemy while at the same time trying to avoid crashing to your deaths.

Of course you dont need to have lots of different locations to do that. You could just as easily model it as different levels of damage or base it on missing crew members or model it as a skill challenge to land without exploding while holding off the space pirates.

 

[Mallus]

I could see how you might want to run a ship to ship dogfight where your sails/engines/magical thingamajig were knocked out and you had to manage a desperate fight against the enemy while at the same time trying to avoid crashing to your deaths.

Oh sure. In a similar vein, I could also see how it would cool for a PC to fight his way across a battlefield with a broken arm so he can engage the Orc King in a duel, but this is D&D, so arms can't, by the RAW, break. We sacrifice certain things for ease-of-play.

You could just as easily model it as different levels of damage or base it on missing crew members or model it as a skill challenge to land without exploding while holding off the space pirates.

Which is how I would handle things. Never use a system when an ad-hoc ruling (or two) will do.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I am sick and tired of hearing that argument. It doesn't mean anything. What you do when you play D&D could be worlds apart from what I do when I play D&D.

My bad, I will refrain from using that turn of words again... however,

...did you read the sentence that followed that?

Just to save you the time.. I wrote :
"If I wanted realistic vehicular combat I would play Pheonix Command or Fasa's Aliens and spend 10 minutes tracking the path of a single round to see what it hit and how it affected the vehicle/occupants...."

Reading comprehension for my post would lead a reader to understand that when I play DnD, it doesn't involve complex, convoluted rules regarding hit locations, damage quotients, and scanning tables of hit effects.


Hence, the system shown with the excerpt of an airship fully meets the needs I have for the game and I support the new mechanic in favor over the other, more complex and yet to be developed mechanic that gives a more realistic approach to vehicular combat.

I could see how you might want to run a ship to ship dogfight...

The system does that.. each 50 points of damage reduces the speed of the craft. Loss of crew reduces the speed of the craft... Reducing the craft to 0 speed causes a crash..
Sure, the available crunch doesn't explicitly say "a blow to the top mainsail rips the mast in twain and reduces your speed.. the evil pirates are gaining on you!'.... If it did, there would be a different thread here...
After all, it is crunch...