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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Skavvan" data-source="post: 5284901" data-attributes="member: 93949">Elemental Vessels 101This is just my take on elemental vessels in general with airships as the focus. The first thing you need to know about an elemental airship, as well as an elemental galleon and the lightning rail coach, is that the cost given in the Eberron Campaign Setting (ECS) is only the cost to enchant the ship not including the cost of the ship itself (if you don't believe me compare the cost of an airship to the whirlwind armor property ECS pg266). The next thing you need to know about an elemental airship is that it is a construct similar to a golem in that an elemental is the animating force as such it can hustle continuesly allowing the speed of 100ft given in the Explorers Handbook to translate to roughly 20 miles per hour (more accuretly 22 and 24/33 mph). It can also run but the soarwood hull can't take the stress and would quickly tear itself apart. The third thing you need to know is that soarwood is not lighter than air (because the ECS pg127 states that it has 75% of the wieght of normal wood as opposed to the Explorers Handbook) but has a sympathietic/synergistic property with Air element based magics I.E. Air Walk (which is probably why airships cost 28,000gp more than elemental galleons). Like I said the vessel is a Costruct and the fact that it's made out of soarwood allows it to be a legal target for air walk but doing this has the negetive effect of making it carry weight as opposed to pushing the weight like a galleon does. Now we get into carrying capacity and speed effects. As stated in the ECS an airship has a carrying capacity of roughly 30 tons and 15 crew. Ignoring the crew for now it still carries 30 tons which is 60,000 pounds. The airship is treated as a colossal quadruped for the purpose of carrying capacity so 60,000/24=2,500. Now looknig at pg162 in the Players Handbook we compare that to Table 9-1. The closest without going under is a strength score of 34 with a heavy load being 1,865-2,800 lbs. But lets not forget the weight of the crew and just to be nice their belongings as well which we'll say is 300 lbs. So 15 crew at 300 lbs. each is 4,500 lbs. Divide that by the colossal quadruped multiplier of 24 and we get 187.5+2,500=2,687.5 lbs. which is still under the max weight for a strength score of 34. You could attempt to carry more than this but you risk both stagger speed (5ft per round or 1/2 mph) and hull breaches. Next is speed affected by wieght. Consulting pg162 of the PH, pg20 of the DMG, and pgs146-7 of Secrets of Xen'drik we see that it maintains speed and maneuverability while carrying a light load (22,368 lbs. or less [11 tons]). While carrying a medium (22,369-44,736 lbs. [11-22 tons]) or heavy (44,737-67,200 lbs. [22-33 tons]) load its speed is reduced to 70ft per round or roughly 14 mph (more accuretly 15 and 10/11 mph). If carrying a heavy load its maneuverability is reduced to clumsy but can still hover thanks to the air walk effect. Elemental galleons are esentially the same but they push their load's and according pg162 of the PH this allows them to adjust weight capacities by a factor of 5 thus a light load is 111,840 lbs. or less (56 tons or less), a medium load is 111,841-223,680 lbs. (56-111 tons), and a heavy load is 223,681-336,000 lbs. (111-168 tons). Lightning rail coaches follow the same rules as elemental galleons but are built sturdier and ride along conductor stones. This serves a dual purpose of increasing its load capacity by a factor of 8 and allows the coach to run instead of hustle. This means carrying a light load it can move up to 45 mph, carring a medium load it can move up to 32 mph, and carrying a heavy load it move up to 24 mph. or if you want you can clean it up a bit so that it encompasses the ECS speed refferences (pg126 & pg267) 30 mph for a medium load and 25 mph for a heavy load. As I said though this is just my take on elemental vessels and you can feel free to change whatever aspects you like. P.S. For vessel construction for airships and galleons find a vessel in Stormrack or something similar and multiply the cost by 4 for soarwood construction. As for lightning rail coaches you're kind of on your own.</blockquote>

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