Airships

[Ghostwind]

While some choose to sail the seas and oceans seeking trade, adventure, and fame, others are more daring and sail the skies of their worlds. Discover the wonders of flight and the beauty of sailing the winds from many different methods and in many different forms. After all, no one race dominates the skies…save those that need no ships and jealously guard their skies. Like sea captains traversing dangerous waters and unknown menaces, airship captains must face the wrath of the aerial realms in the forms of dragons and other invisible dangers that pose great risk to their airships

Airships provides all the rules necessary to bring flying ships into any campaign setting. Construction rules, combat, aerial and 3D movement, and other essential information is all covered. Also included are deck plans and specifications for a number of ships. Airships will bring new heroes to the fore when a village under siege cries "Look! Up in the sky!"

 

[GameWyrd]

Airships is a superb book. Okay, Airships is a superb book if you want make heavy use of magical, high fantasy airships in your campaign world. If you think there’s any chance, any chance at all, that airships will fit in your campaign then US $24.95 for the 96-paged colour book is well worth it. Airships isn’t an Oathbound book, not as such. It just so happens that Bastion Press’s capstone campaign setting, Oathbound, does make use of airships and it just so happens that Airships is extremely Oathbound friendly. One of the sample airships in the book is an Asherake vessel and there are notes to remind us that the anti-gav option is the one used by Oathbound ships.

The first chapter is all about construction. This is heavy with the numbers but it gives you plenty of options. There’s a wide choice of hull construction materials, type of engine and then all those airship enhancing extras that players are bound to want. It’s cheaper to build your airship out of bone than it is mithral but the latter material has some obvious benefits. It’s not just the matter of cost and toughness, manoeuvrability is also vital and some materials have other specific merits and flaws. The choice of engine also involves finding the right balance between cost, power, material and special abilities. You don’t want a necrotic engine that eats dead flesh to power the airship if you’re good aligned or have a sense of smell. Bottling a fire elemental or channelling magic directly from a mage are two other possible options from the long list. That’s just the basic; afterwards you might want to modify your hall (so it can land in water, for example) and add all sorts of extra components. You guessed it. There’s a long list of these too.

Then there’s the matter of crew. If you’re building a large airship then you need a large crew. Crews cost money and come with different amounts of airship experience. There are certain key positions within the crew that carry extra responsibility and deal with specific issues and this is something that the second chapter spends some time looking at. There’s a vast amount of money involved in building the airship. You could make a campaign out of the PCs’ money raising efforts alone. You could just ignore all the number crunching of the construction and just stick together bits and pieces that you like. This is good. I like having the option.

Once the airship is finally complete it’ll want to take off and fly around. Airships are funny that way. There’s a chapter that handles all of this and translates all the manoeuvrability and acceleration that the airship designers paid good money for into more meaningful numbers. There are rules for crashing in here but not for running into storms or other meteorological effects. Weather and navigation come in a chapter of their own after airship combat but I think they would have been better off bundled with this one.

Yeah, there’s a whole chapter for airship combat. It costs money to fix airships and it takes ages. In some ways having chunks blown out of your lovely airship is far more painful than having a sword through your arm. Any old cleric can heal the latter but the airship damage will be a bugger to fix. There’s lots going on in airship combat but this chapter makes a good job of explaining all your options clearly. Airships can ram one another; there’s a silhouette diagram showing the various angles a ramming airship can hit their target. The relationship between the airship’s speed and its armour class is explained, as are hull point damage and critical hits to the craft. Crews can try to board one another’s vessels and if the crew just happen to be flying creatures in their own right then this is extremely handy for them. Of particular interest to me is the effect made to involve characters and their actions into combat. It’s genuinely hard to keep the players the focus of attention when there are two or more crews battling it out with these fantastic airships. This section does a good job of keeping the actions of the PCs relevant without unrealistically skewing the mechanics in their favour.

When we return to more mundane business of flying the airship around we discover that it’s not so mundane after all. Airship crews would rather fly over a swamp than the ocean. Ocean landings are just that bad. With the weather effects a GM can surprise players with more subtle features than the stereotypical lightening storm. Geography lessons have never been so interesting as we read how currents of hot air, thermals, can help or hinder aircraft flight and how mountain ranges can direct these gusts of air. Similarly the subsequent chapters on aerial equipment and aerial trade aren’t boring, aren’t just another pair of typical chapters found in every other book. They’re both an enjoyable read – if only because magical fantasy airships are so refreshingly untouched.

There’s rarely a real reason to include yet more new skills, feats and prestige characters in supplements these days but once again Airships makes the most of its rarely explored territory. The book serves up a treat and produces original and crunchy goodies. An airship saboteur isn’t just a rogue, he’s an exclusive, highly skilled and rare professional – and that makes for a prestige class. The ship mage and ship theurge earn their place as prestige classes too. There are virtually no aerial feats in vanilla 3.0 and there virtually no navigational feats either; Airships’ half dozen feats cut to the quick and give you just what you need (Engine Savant, Aerial Tactics, Rigging Combat, etc) without resorting to scraping the barrel just to pad the book out a little more.

Even the penultimate chapter of the book, with its collection of new spells, manages to be worthwhile and different. For a start the chapter doesn’t just jot down a new host of spells, it takes the trouble of re-visiting the spells in the Player’s Handbook and examining how they might work when cast hundreds of feet above the ground. Then it jots down some new spells.

Even the example airships are worthwhile. No, wait, I take that back. The example airships are gorgeous. They enjoy quality illustrations, deck plans (which Airships stresses are vitally important) and customised airship character sheets. The book concludes with a blank copy of the airship character sheet for photocopying.

Airships is crunchy and I prefer flavour. It’s not a problem here though. The crunchy numbers don’t do my head in and the atmosphere that I look for in every RPG supplement comes together as you read through the different aspects of airship construction, combat and flying. The flavour builds from the game mechanic pieces in the same way the airships themselves come together from the hull choices and engine types. Sam Witt, who’s really making a name for himself, has done exceptionally well here. The book could so easily have been a "if you really need it" and is "buy it so you can play with airships" instead. Airships is a superb book if you want make heavy use of magical, high fantasy airships in your game. If you succumb to temptation and buy Airships (which is a serious risk if you even just flick through the book) then it seems most likely that you will want to use magical airships in your campaign.

* This Airships review was first published by GameWyrd.

 

[Simon Collins]

This is not a playtest review.

Airships is an accessory detailing flying ships from Bastion Press.

Airships is a 96-page colour softcover product costing $24.95. There are a few chunks of white space here and there, but generally layout is tight, easy to read, and different types of information clearly defined. The art is poor to good, but all of it better than the front cover, the middle third of which shows three flying ships surrounded by flying creatures with Freddie Krueger-like digits, half-feather-half-bat wings, a skeletal draconic head, and a bottom half resembling a furry albino kangaroo. Writing style is good, as is editing, with only a few minor errors.

Airship Construction
This chapter covers building your own airship including hull, engines, rigging, piloting and navigational components, weapons, optional extras, and some advice on mapping out the ship for gameplay. There is also a table showing manoeuvrability and armour class in relation to size and tonnage, along with advice on airship tonnage (using a 10ft cube) and purchasing an airship that has already been built. Most notably, different building materials are discussed (including crystalline, bone, and gemstone) and different types of engine power (including arcane, elemental, and vampiric forces) in relationship to airship construction.

Roles Of Airship Crews
Looks at different authority levels in a standard airship crew, as well as what each type of crewmember actually does. It also includes details of their standard pay, and working hours. There is also advice for calculating the number of crewmembers required for the airship, linked in with the details given in Chapter 1.

Aerial Movement
Begins by looking at movement scales and rates, and basic aerial manoeuvres such as ascending and descending, turning, and acceleration. It then moves on to more extreme manoeuvres such as plummeting descent, and pushed acceleration, as well as mishaps in the sky (including crashing and fires). A useful table shows speed versus movement per round, minute, and day. All these areas have solid game rules attached to them to keep things in balance.

Airship Combat
This chapter runs through the sequence of events in airship combat in a similar progression as standard combat with surprise, attack rolls, damage, AC, hull points (instead of hit points), as well as information on speed and manoeuvring during combat. The rules diverge somewhat from standard combat for ramming (which includes a diagram showing various ramming angles related to damage from ramming) and boarding (which require a succession of skill checks with rules for possible immobilisation of the enemy airship). There is also discussion of winged creatures and their relationship with the preceding ruleset, and advice for ways to track airship combat, including using a d20 on a representative counter to show the relative altitudes of airships in combat. The chapter ends with some more specific rules for crewmembers in combat, such as attacking from the rigging, and the drop attack (from a height).

Overland Travel By Air
Discusses different methods of navigation (including geographical, celestial, and maps). The chapter goes on to look at hazards of airship travel, such as getting lost, weather, and thermals (with accompanying game rules). The chapter ends with a look at the influence of terrain on airship travel, with discussion on the dangers of mountains, sandstorms, and crash landing in the sea (unless the airship has been also designed to float).

Aerial Equipment
Explains the uses of various equipment found on airships, notably airman wings made of spider webbing that can be used to glide between ships.

Aerial Trade
This chapter gives a fairly complex look at trading using airships - the aspects that make for good and bad trading routes, the influence of salesmanship on the price of goods, and a number of factors influencing the trade in a whole variety of goods (from alcohol to weapons). Two useful tables are included in the chapter for those who wish to ply the trading routes of the skies. The first looks at purchasing power of the populace in standard communities and amount of surplus goods produced that could be bought by traders. The second looks at different product categories in terms of unit sizes and costs, a DC for buying and selling for a profit, and availability on a monthly basis. There is a brief discussion of piracy in relation to trading.

Aerial Characters
This discusses some of the profession and craft skills surrounding airship travel, and gives eight new feats related to the subject such as aerial balance, engine savant (get the most out of your engine), and rigging combat.

Prestige Classes
Four 10-level PrCs designed with airships in mind:
* Airship Saboteur - explodes airship engines secretively using covert skills and powers.
* Ship Mage - forges magical bond with the airship to improve performance.
* Ship Theurge - forges magical bond with airship to provide repair and protection.
* Sky Slayer - expert at fighting in the air, either aboard an airship or using airman wings.

Magic In The Air
Includes five or so pages discussing existing spells and the way they can be used in airship travel and combat. Also has eight new spells, including becalm, engine jolt (brief improvement in engine performance), and storm prow (provides additional lightning attack when ramming). Also has three magic items including incense of navigation.

Sample Airships
Five sample airships with various drawings on the left hand page and a stat sheet on the right with a critical hit table. There are more avaialble on the Bastion website. These are nicely done.

The book ends with an airman's lexicon and a photocopiable Airships Record Sheet for showing Airship stats and diagram.

Conclusion
This book really lives or dies on whether you're interested in introducing airships into your campaign. If you are, this seems like a detailed and solid resource, and will be particularly pertinent if you're running the Oathbound campaign setting, which features airships as a standard part of the setting. It would also be pretty useful if you were running a d20 conversion of Earthdawn (perish the thought!). On the whole, well written material backed up with game rules for airship travel, trade and combat. Definitely fits the cliche - 'don't judge a book by its cover'.

 

[Psion]

Airships

Airships is a rulebook is Bastion Press' line of d20 System fantasy supplements, providing details for designing and using floating ship-like vehicles in a campaign. Airships is written by Sam Witt, who also wrote Bastion's Spells & Magic, as well as a number of titles by Mongoose.

A First Look

Airships follows the format typical of Bastion rules supplements: a full color 96-page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $24.95. As with all books in this line, the color makes it pricier than books of comparable size with black-and-white interiors, which are typically under $20.

The cover of the book is illustrated by Todd Morasch, and depicts a number of flying ships and winged creatures.

The interior is color, and features art by Alexander Leonard, Andrew Baker, Christopher Pickrell, Jason Walton, Michael Erickson, and Todd Morash. The art varies in quality from mediocre to good, and includes a few full page paintings. The art is generally not up to the quality of Bastion books such as Spells & Magic and Plains of Pennance. The best art in the book is, perhaps, the deckplans and ship perspectives of the pre-made ships.

The interior body text is dense and the paragraphs are single spaced, making up for some of the high price per page of the book. The book uses a fancy calligraphy-style font for headers, which can sometimes be hard to read.

A Deeper Look

The book is split into ten sections and a glossary (or lexicon).

The first major section dives right into the subject of the book with Airship construction. The book defines ships in terms of tons; these tons don't seem to correspond to any real-world measure of weight. Rather, it seems to reflect (very roughly) a 10' x 10' x 10' cube. Ships are also classified into size conventions from "Fine" to "Colossal+." These size conventions have the advantage of familiarity to those familiar with the d20 System, but do not directly correspond to d20 System sizes. A "Fine" airship, for example, includes airships up to 2 tons, which would be Huge on the standard d20 scale.

Airships are built by selecting the size, building materials, engines, and other features. The features selected determine the characteristics of the ship. For example, adamantium is much more durable than wood, but is also more costly and requires more skilled craftsmen. The skill of craftsmen is important in these rules. Unlike more typical cut-and-dried magic item creation rules, the rules for shipbuilding are detailed with skill DCs and workmen requirements and hearken back more to the normal item crafting rules than the magic item creation rules. This level of detail may be more than some want or need for their games, but is not too difficult to bypass if you assume a "used model" or that the shipbuilder takes care of all of the details.

Like hull materials, the selection of engines is important to ship design. A number of different methods are available for moving such a craft through the air, much reminiscent of the "helms" in the old 2e Spelljammer setting. Arcane and divine engines are powered by expending spell slots to power the engine; this is similar to the concept of a basic Spelljamming helm except much less debilitating. Other concepts include wood or oil burning engines, energy or fiendish engines that draw powers from another plane, elemental engines that draw powers from elementals, and necromantic or vampiric engines which uses corpses or living creatures as a resource. This provides the DM with a variety of angles of how to handle airships in a campaign.

All engines have power factors. The ship must have more power factors than its size (in tons) to even fly; this is a reasonable assumption. However, to determine the acceleration of the airship, you directly subtract the size of the ship from the power factors. This creates the odd situation that rather large airships have the potential to be faster than small ships, since they can afford larger or more engines.

Airships may be further defined by selecting templates. Templates reflect finer design considerations that affect the capabilities of the ship. Some templates, like armored, can be added after the initial design. As with the choice of engine and materials, there are advantage and disadvantages to each template.

Other ship components let you add things like sails, propellers, and weapons, among others. The design sequence also has detailed considerations for crew requirements and their living space.

While the first third of the book is dedicated to how to build airships, the next third covers how to use them, with details like movement, combat, overland travel and navigation, equipment, and trade.

The movement and combat rules, similar to vehicle rules by other d20 System publishers, is basically an adaptation of the basic d20 System combat rules, with necessary additions such as turn limitations, ramming rules, combat damage, and vehicle damage rules. The last of these, the vehicle damage rules, is different from standard damage rules in that critical hits are randomly applied to specific components of the ship, which makes ship-to-ship combat a bit more detailed than the rather abstract person-to-person d20 System combat rules.

I was (pleasantly) surprised to see the trade rules. The idea of monetary systems in d20 System fantasy games that bypasses levels and creatures may fly in the face of basic d20 System assumptions, but with the right DM and right sort of campaign this can work as a compelling basis for a campaign.

The trade rules bear a great resemblance to the classic Traveller commerce rules. Each town is assigned a number of needs which they are willing to buy, and the players hope to buy low at the source of a good and sell high at the destination. The section provides a number of trade goods and classifies them according accrding to the unit size and cost, buy and sell DCs, price variance, and availability.

Most of the remainder of the book introduces new character options necessary to integrate airships into d20 System fantasy games.

New profession and craft skills are introduced. Notably, none of the airship profession skills (Airship Sailor, Airship Navigator, Airship Pilot, and Engineer) overlap with sea ship skills; it is not safe to assume a sea crew could perform all the tasks needed on an airship. While I can see this point to some extent, it seems that some tasks like rigging sails (in ships so equipped) would be able to use either skill, and perhaps a synergy bonus is appropriate.

Similarly, a number of new feats are provided for characters who master the building and operation of airships.

There are airship oriented prestige classes for each of the four cardinal d20 system fantasy character types. The Airship Saboteur, most appropriate for rogues, is specialized in sneaking aboard airships and disrupting their operations or crew. The Ship Mage has impugned spellcasting ability, but moderate combat advancement and class abilities that allow the mage to assist in ship operations; the Ship Theurge is a divine version of the Ship Mage. Finally, the Sky Slayer is a warrior type that is "in his element" while fighting aboard an airship.

The magic section is split into two parts. The first part provides a reference for effects of a number of core d20 System spells on an airship. Some of these rulings provide specific rules for handling specific spells in an airship environment, while others are only commentaries on how a clever spellcaster might use such a spell.

The remainder is a section on new magic items and spells. As you might expect, these spells are particularly effective in an airship environment. Some like summon thermal assist operations of the ship, while others like earthen conversion are particularly dangerous when used against an airship. Many of the spells fall into the trap of being mentioned as part of pre-existing clerical domains with no guideance on how to adjudicate such a situation.

The last section of the book includes a number of pre-designed airships and blank forms. The pre-designed airships each have two facing pages. The left hand side shows deck plans and side or perspective views of the ship, while the right hand page has all of the ship statistics and components.

Conclusion

Existing products with airships (like Goodman Games' Ariel Adventures Guide) take a more setting oriented approach. Airships on the other hand, is a more toolkit-style approach. This may make the book of less use to you if you don't know what to do with it, but it should make it much more useful if you know where you want to go with the concept of airships and/or do not want to tack on a bunch of new setting assumptions to your setting of choice.

Overall, I was rather impressed by the thorough approach of Airships, and consider it (along with Oathbound and Spells & Magic) to be one of Bastion's more worthwhile products.

-Alan D. Kohler

 

[Arnwyn]

Trade rules! Sold and sold!

 

[JoeGKushner]

Airships is Bastion Press’ latest entry into the d20 market. Like previous books in this vein of all-purpose d20 supplements, it boasts the red spine, 96 pages in length and full color interiors.

To put it simply, if you’re interested in creating unique and useful flying ships for your campaign or want to tie in some of the material already in use in Oathbound with more details, this book is for you.

Want to make your ship out of a unique type of material? Many different styles ranging from iron and wood to diamond and mitrhril are covered. Looking for a good power source? You’ve got choices ranging from arcane and divine engines, similar to the old Helms from Spelljammer that feed on spellcasting ability, to engines that use elementals as fuel and good old fashioned oil burning and wood-burning.

Some are never happy with just having the standards customized and want more like templates for ships. What an armored ship? How about a tribute to the old Total Annihilation Kingdoms with the Dirigible? Of course we can’t forget about little things like the rigging, which can range from square sails to panel sails.

In addition to the above, there are other things to add on or tinker with. What type of navigational components will you have? What about piloting goods? Will you have altitude crystals and engine syncs? What about turbines or airspeed monitors? Razor launchers and ram spikes? Fire throwers and lightning bombards? Where does it end?

In short, you can have a very customized ship.

Now there’s more of course. What type of ship you have will determine what type of crew you’re going to need and the book does a good job of providing the roles that need to be filled out in the offier ranks and the standard crewmen. The bigger the boat along with the most modifications, generally requires a larger crew. Titles are listed along with duties so you can tell the difference between a chirurgeon (ship’s non-magical healer) and the Signal Master. Between the landsmen (greens who aren’t too hip to the whole airship thing) to airmen to veterans.

Still, that’s not enough. You’ve got the ship and the crew, but what about all of those other ships and crews out there? That’s right, you need combat information and the book provides numerous options and details ranging from spot DCs to initiative to hull points and maneuverability. What happens with hull points and hardness? What special combat maneuvers can a ship do? What about ramming angels? Would a page of illustrated ramming angels make you happy? I hope so because it’s included here.

Of course other airships aren’t always the only issue airships. What happens when you hit high winds or get lost? How do you map from altitude and what’s over the next hill? Need to know about air trips over the desert or the sea? Need to know how to fly through the heart of a storm? You’ve covered.

Players on the other hand, may not find most of this information useful if they don’t plan on being captains. That’s why we’ve got equipment, skills, feats, prestige classes, spells and magic items. Bastion knows what their readers want.

The feats range from bonuses to Balance Checks to using airship weapons. Useful but nothing that stuck out or strikes me as vital. While it’s nice to have Aerial Command to provide a morale bonus or Natural Pilot to get a bonus to Airship Pilot skills, it’s not going to make or break a player’s purchase decision.

Now the prestige classes on the other hand, have some interesting twists. The Airship Saboteur is a master of destroying airships either though crippling the engines, planting explosives or using his dreaded ‘ship killer ability that allows him to destroy the engine of a ship. Being a high magic concept, no book on airships would be complete without having its own Ship Mage or Ship Theurge, a divine spellcaster who ‘heals’ damage to the ship. A master of the rough and tumble world of airships, the Sky Slayer is a competent fighter more at home in the air than on the ground and even more dangerous on the deck of a ship than on land.

The spell section here did something different too. Not only are there new spells but many standard spells and their uses are listed out. Want to know how to use Wall of Fire or Reverse Gravity? You’re covered. The new spells are like the feats, specific to the airships like Engine Jolt where you increase an engine’s effectiveness but could destroy it to Raptor’s Wings where the ship gains a bonus to its maneuverability.

Now for some, the sheer amount of information in crafting and creating a ship may be too much. That’s why we’ve got example ships. How about the Asherake Sunshadow, run by the beings first introduced in Minions and now in Oathbound, this Necrotic powered ship uses whirling ballista and lightning bombards to bring its foes down even as the Dwarven Waraxe uses Fire Throwers and Ram Spikes to crush its foes. What book of magical airships would be complete without an elven presence? The Elvish Cloudleaper isn’t armed with standard weapons but relies on the mages aboard to take out the enemy while the Fleshtalker, an undead style ship also powered by a necrotic engine, uses razor launchers and dart launchers to take out its enemies. Lastly, the Dragonship is a perfect pirate vessel and uses fire, in the forms of Fire Missiles and Fire Throwers to take out its foes.

For those more brave and wishing to add their own ships, they get two blank pages to copy and start their own path to world conquest.

One thing that stood out was the lack of an index. There’s a ton of information here and the inability to quickly flip to an index and find what you need is a little frustrating. Another is the art. Because most have different taste in art, it’s difficult to say with final authority that there’s some below grade art here but I didn’t enjoy several illustrations like the winged asherake on page 30 or the zombie on page 79. On the other hand, the illustrations for the ships included are fantastic.

In addition, while the full-page illustrations were nicely done, I’ve heard enough complaints about the price to wonder if illustrations instead of more text are the way to go. Others have compared these books to the Secrets series and other books from the L5R and Swashbuckling Adventurers line and found the paper here much thinner than those books.

The paper density may be a serious issue for some, but the other issues are subjective and are really minor issues. In the end, the book does an excellent job of providing the GM the means to use airships in his campaign. I know that in the Scarred Lands, I’ll be looking at this information for the Pirates of the Toe Islands and my own little raiding parties.

Those unsure on the value of airships need to check out e-Ships, also designed by Sam Witt and edited by Greg Dent. It’s a 36-page preview-expansion and should help you make up your mind right away.

 

[coriolis]

Is there really a full page of ramming angels, or is that a typo for "ramming angles"?

 

[JoeGKushner]

Ah, the dreaded typos. Yes, ramming angles. Curse the spell checker and it's wicked ways!

 

[Messageboard Golem]

By John Grigsby, Staff Reviewer, d20 Magazine Rack

Sizing Up the Target
Airships is a 96-page, full-color offering from Bastion Press, written by Sam Witt, with artwork from Alexander Leonard, Andrew Baker, Christopher Pickrell, Jason Walton, Michael Erickson, and Todd Morasch. The cover is done by Todd Morasch and retails for $24.95. A 36-page PDF expansion (e-ships) is available free from the Bastion Press Airships web site.

First Blood
Airships is a book about, well, flying ships. Technically, an airship is any vessel designed to fly on currents of air. This book is intended to introduce airships to a campaign, providing rules for construction, aerial combat, and new feats, prestige classes, and spells that will be of use to airship crews and captains.

Mr. Witt has put forth a lot of effort into this work and it shows. There is a great amount of detail, reminiscent in many ways of the old SPELLJAMMER material from TSR, and in fact, this work could easily serve as base material for a new SPELLJAMMER campaign. But beyond serving as a well-written reference work on the construction of flying ships and aerial combat, Airships is written intelligently, using a blend of fantasy and science that gives an air of authenticity.

There are several means by which an airship can be powered, for example. Beyond the obvious (magic) and the realistic (wood or oil), the options are extended to include energy (which draws power from an extra-planar source), necrotic (which increases the rate of decomposition in dead flesh and converts this process to energy), elemental engines (power provided by a summoned elemental), and even vampiric engines (which are powered by the blood and life-force of living beings). Detailed rules for the creation and installation of the engine are also provided, and these things will become important when the PCs try to build their own, unique airship.

Airships can be templated, such as a dirigible (both gas-filled and anti-grav, common in the Oathbound campaign setting from Bastion Press), armored, or aquatic (equipped for water-landings). Each template carries a specific cost, advantage, and penalty. Armor, for example, increases defense, but at the cost of maneuverability. Likewise, the rigging is just as important a choice (for airships equipped with sails, which most are). The better the rigging, the faster the speed and maneuverability, but the greater the cost, crew requirements, and complexity.

Piloting and navigational components are an essential part of airship construction, as are weapons (if you want your vessel to be defensible). Weapons may be deck-mounted or turret- mounted, and there are rules for handling each case. Miscellaneous defense, landing gear, and other essential items are also discussed in detail, with accompanying rules regarding the use in play.

The next section breaks down the role of different crew members on the vessel. Crucial roles are defined, as well as the penalties associated with not having a necessary crewmember aboard, and the average daily pay for each type of crewmember is given, so that PCs don’t have to take on every single aspect of handling the vessel. This section also handles the issue of space required by crew members and how many crew are needed to handle a specific size category of vessel.

The section on aerial movement is very finely detailed, with rules for nearly any situation that might arise. The section on aerial combat is also beautifully laid out. There is so much detail here that it is easy to get lost amid the influx of information. Surprise, attacks from varying altitude, and ramming are all outlined in both great detail and with a critical eye towards realism.

Naturally, when a vessel is boarded, some of the more daring crew members (read: player characters) will not be content to stand and fight from the relative safety of the deck. For those who would risk all for their vessel, there are rules for handling this sort of swashbuckling activity as well; attacking from the rigging, bull rushing opponents with intent to drive them off the deck, and grappling (and then tossing them overboard) are all examined as viable tactics (and accompanied by helpful game mechanics).

Even simply going from point A to point B by air has its attendant problems. Severe weather, updrafts and downdrafts, and different types of terrain have different effects on an airship’s capabilities. Mr. Witt has taken this into account as well. The section on air travel covers all of these topics, as well as others likely to arise during play or just to give the characters something to do while en route. After all, if they were traveling by ground, they’d be suffering random encounters (though these are certainly not out of the question).

One question that begs to be asked is, in a world where tourism is relatively unknown and no regular mail service exists, what reason is there to spend time and money constructing these massive airships? There are actually several answers that come to mind, but the one we will examine here is trade. In any fantasy setting, trade is likely a very lucrative business. Even the most desirably-positioned fiefdom lacks some important resource and thus, will be looking to open trade routes. Overland trade routes are dangerous and require extensive journey, often at risk of losing goods to raiders, lost caravans, or environmental hazards. With air travel, these effects are greatly lessened, making it an essential part of trade.

It stands to reason, then, that trade would be a topic that Airships covers. Marketable goods, shipping weights, costs, value, and variance are all blanketed under this heading. Any DM worth the title will recognize the value of this information even in a campaign in which airships are not included. Of course, if you’re going to purchase the book anyway, you might as well make use of all the goodies, right?

A brave new frontier such as aerial adventuring calls for new feats, new prestige classes, new skills, and new equipment and Airships offers plenty of each. The skills are really just additions to the Profession and Craft skills. The eight new feats are: Aerial Balance, Aerial Command, Aerial Tactics, Engine Savant, Instinctive Navigation, Natural Pilot, Rigging Combat, and Weapons Proficiency (airship weapons). Note that a few of these, with some minor modification, could easily be adapted to a naval campaign setting as well. There are nine new pieces of equipment and a few, like the spring quiver, are useful even outside of a strictly aerial setting. There are also four new prestige classes: the airship saboteur, the ship mage, the ship theurge (a divine version of the ship mage), and the sky slayer.

Of course, a new setting also calls for some new spells. There are only eight to be found here, but there is also a large section on the way that existing magic is modified for an aerial setting and ways in which certain spells see use on airships. The eight new spells are: becalm, call thermal, earthen conversion, engine jolt, harvest of the winds, pyrrhic withdrawal, raptor’s wings, and storm prow. Add a few magical items to round out the requisite “new crunchies” and the result is an excellent sourcebook that is sure to enhance any campaign.

All that’s left is a sampling of vessels to demonstrate how they are constructed and arrayed. An elven ship, a dwarven vessel, a pirate raider, an undead ship, and an Asherake vessel are stated out on a sheet like those included for photocopy and diagramed. The book finishes with an Airman’s Lexicon, to help bring the feel of flight to your campaign.

Critical Hits
This is a wonderful example of the detail that can be achieved when a book is devoted to a single topic. Everything in this book deals with the subject matter in some way and the level of detail that is included is nothing short of fantastic. With Airships, you get exactly what you pay for. As stated, the detail is what really makes the book shine. It might have been enough, for example, to say that a ship needs such-and-such crew and list their wages, but instead, Sam delves into the little things, detailing each crew member’s role on the vessel, and providing information on shift hours and what it means to be a ship’s captain, or an airman, or an engineer.

Critical hits take on a new meaning with Airships. Instead of simply doing double or triple damage, critical hits against an airship may damage vital components of the vessel, which could leave it defenseless… or worse. It really adds something to a combat when you see that critical come up and it dawns on you that one more hit to your engine might send you plummeting to the ground.

I also like the way that the book is laid out. Instead of being divided into conventional chapters, the book is laid out in sections, each section header printed in red script (and about three font sizes larger than the rest), and each sub-section headed in green script (two sizes larger). Further divisions are done in black script one size up from the base text. While unconventional, I find it actually makes reading easier.

Critical Misses
It’s hard to find fault with Airships because it is so detailed and well written. Everything seems to be balanced, the layout of the book is well done, and it manages to stay right on topic. If anything was left missing or hanging (no pun intended), I can’t find it.

Coup de Grace
Airships is a book that brings a touch of the fantastic to fantasy campaigns. I’m hesitant to add such things, feeling that there’s a fine line between fantasy and modernization, but Airships manages to skirt right along that line without falling into the “modern” zone. It’s realistic enough to be playable, but still fantastic enough that you never forget you’re in a fantasy universe.

The book is chock-full of Open Game Content (everything except the artwork and graphic elements) and all of it seems to be compliant with current d20 standards. It isn’t for everyone, but if you are looking for a touch of the fantastic for your campaign, you should keep an eye out for this book. Not only is it a unique perspective on a popular element of fantasy, but you just might learn a little something. *gasp*

To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

I agree with this review, and the other great reviews about Airships on this site. I only had one problem with the book. There are the great pics of various airships in the back of the book, but there is no info on them(other than the stats on the airship "character" sheets). I want to know who owns the Ashrake Sunshadow and what it used for! The same with all these other delightful pieces of artwork.

Other than that, it is one of the best gaming books I own.