Adventurer's Vault Excerpt: Airships

[That One Guy]

It works. I would not call it elegant or efficient. A HP grind is not something I'd call elegant. It somewhat fits into the simple easy to use rules of 4e, but that does not make it elegant. And it does not make it fun or dynamic, it just makes it a boring HP slog. Who dies through attrition first would not be a catch phrase I'd want to hang onto my new airship combat rules.

And voicing disagreement does not seem like threadcrapping to me.

Y'know... I could see this as an HP grind. But, I think it's really something that falls into the hands of the dm. Are the PCs crew or are they the cannons? Is the combat between two smallish freight ships like this or this one versus a bunch of smaller more maneuverable pirate ships? Do the pirates have ranged spells/weapons that they're taking out the ship with or are they killing the crew so that the air ship will collide with the ground in a giant fireball?

This reads like 4e. 4e READS AWFUL. But, in play it is (in my experience) quite fun. Thus, I really think someone should run a mock battle or two. Vary some things up and say how it turns out.

Edit:
"An out-of-control airship moves forward at half speed. Each round, it has a 50% chance of descending. It descends 5 squares for the first 10 rounds it is out of control. After 10 rounds, it descends 10 squares per round. An out-of-control airship that hits the ground after descending more than 20 squares is destroyed."

I interpret this as for the first ten rounds it has a 50% chance to descend 5. After ten, it automatically drops 10 and the 50% is no longer figured in. Does this sound correct?

Edit 2: Cascade of Light... I assume I can give the ship a vulnerability that effectively is saved against on... the pilot's turn?

Edit 3: If a ship's init is synched to a captain's (hypothetically), can a rogue sneak attack the ship? I haven't seen anything in my handy DMG to say they're immune, but I don't have errata memorized or anything.

 

[RichGreen]

Hi,

I liked this excerpt: simple airships look cool to me. I really liked the Alchemy excerpt too - Adventurer's Vault is shaping up nicely.

Cheers


Richard

PS I love Final Fantasy!

 

[That One Guy]

I hope they have rules for ramming. The hobgoblins leveled their ship to the merchant vessel, after peppering it with arrows. Two minions jumped across. They were in no way ready for the group of PCs I had sitting around (3 of them half made, one a few levels too high). The wizard and fighter(who was really scary when he easily leaped the small distance and started putting the hurt on things) who were both level 2 were way too good. At this point, the best option for the captain (who is flanked by said fighter and a level 6 rogue I play) is to try and ram the casters on the deck and try to get rid of the crew on board so the merchant ship will have to surrender as it spirals out of control. I'm going to look through the DMG for ideas on Actions/attacks the rules don't cover. But, IMO, if the crew on board are minions, it is much easier to decrew the ship and steal it than try to take the whole bugger down. I'll do some experiments where that's actually the goal (the goblinoids want the cargo, so actually crashing the ship is against their goals in this scenario). But, it's been pretty swashbuckley in this minitest.

Edit: I went with level 1-3 medium limited damage expression, Hit: Knocked off (Save vs., of course). Miss: Push to beyond the width of the ship. This killed a few of the crew, displaced the ones it didn't kill, and knocked the wizard and cleric prone at the edge of the ship.

I think airships can be really fun.