D&D (2024) Eberron - skycoaches and bastions

[pukunui]

Hi all!

So skycoaches are a common sight in Sharn. They’re like flying boats that work thanks to the magic of the Syranian manifest zone in which the city is situated.

And yet, no Eberron book has ever provided any game mechanics for them as vehicles. All I can find is a “map” of one as part of a larger map in Rising. Not even the 3.5e book, Sharn: City of Towers provides any mechanics.

Keith Baker even wrote a blog post about skycoaches (IFAQ: Skycoaches of Sharn) without providing any mechanics – other than to say that they require a magical medallion.

What that blog post does make clear, though, is that KB (and I guess WotC) thinks of skycoaches as being like NYC’s yellow cabs. Namely, that PCs will only ever take rides in them – and maybe have fights in them – but won’t ever own one themselves.

And yet several official and semi-official adventures not only include skycoaches being privately operated but also make it easy for them to fall into the PCs’ hands. (Examples include the sample 1st level adventure in Rising from the Last War as well as the Oracle of War DDAL adventure “Song of the Sky”.)

As you can guess, my PCs have acquired a skycoach. Since I have no rules for how they work, I’ve told the players it will just be a narrative device to get them around the city quickly until I can figure out actual mechanics. They decided that the artificer would operate it, and they would install a skycoach dock on their home base.

Yesterday I got to thinking: what if I created a custom bastion special facility for the skycoach? Then they can have a hireling who maintains it. The question is: what sort of benefit would this facility have, what should the minimum level be, how much space should it take up, and so on?

Would anyone like to help me a) figure out some vehicle mechanics for skycoaches and/or b) figure out some bastion rules for a skycoach dock special facility?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

For mechanics, I would treat it as a large flying carpet.

Not that 5e handles any sort of flying well.

I don't have the bastion rules, but upgrading the coach so it can operate beyond Sharn, and transport the party over greater distances seem like ideas.

 

[Remathilis]

I'd probably use the stats for a rowboat (Ghosts of Saltmarsh) but with a flying speed and magic rather then oar propulsion

 

[MarkB]

To be fair, I don't think we have mechanical stats for horse-drawn carriages either. The closest equivalent to a sky coach would probably be a stagecoach with built-in propulsion equivalent to a team of horses.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Use the destroyable object rules (I assume they are in the new DMG).

 

[DragonLancer]

The upcoming Forge of the Artificer book has a bastion option for airships if I remember right. Depends if you can hang on until then for that. As for the flying boat itself, I'd go with what @Remathilis suggested.

 

[pukunui]

Thanks everyone!

Use the destroyable object rules (I assume they are in the new DMG).

They got moved to the PHB.


EDIT: For reference, here's the skycoach map from Rising (I extracted it from the Sharn Heights map in Chapter 4).

So it's ~ 10 x 40 feet, not including the bits that stick out.




The GoS rowboat is too small (5 x 10 feet), and all the other ships are too large. The ships in the Spelljammer book are all too large as well. If I use the GoS/Spelljammer vehicle mechanics, I'll have to make a custom version for the skycoach.

The largest Carpet of Flying in the revised DMG is 6 x 9 feet, so about the same size as a rowboat. It merely requires a Magic action to command, which is nice and simple, though. No need for "Vehicles (air)" proficiency or anything like that.