D&D 5E ideas for an attack on an airship / making the next adventure fun

[animal chubs]

Aarakocra air pirates!

Many-Arrows orcs riding giant ravens!

A cambion!

A wyvern!

An amorous swarm of very confused flumph who think the airship is the hottest thing ever.

Stirges who think they're going to be feeding on a rare, slow-moving air whale.

A gynosphinx, who doesn't attack, merely lands on the deck and gives everyone the willies.

Grell, that come floating down from the moon silently in the dark.

-The Gneech

the gynosphinx would so be attacked but it would be awesome to watch that one play out! XD

 

[was]

Creatures with a flyby attack would be interesting. You could also have winged humanoid archers or spearthowers.

 

[animal chubs]

Creatures with a flyby attack would be interesting. You could also have winged humanoid archers or spearthowers.

yeah i was planning on having wing suits. the town that i made is hardcore gnome tech. i mean the whole town walks

 

[JesterOC]

Toss a dragon at them. We had an epic fight with a Dragon vs an Airship. The PC's don't have to kill the dragon to defend themselves from one. If the PC's do enough damage 1/4 or 1/2 of its original hp, just have the dragon fly off (not before telling them that he/she will be back when they least expect it).

Nothing like making a dragon enemy to make each trip across the skies worrisome.

BTW in our game the dragon ripped out the power source of the ship and flew off with it.

 

[Scorpio616]

More foes, not stronger foes are what you use when a player is a kill machine. Give em more to kill than their pre-set kill limit (Actions per round). Don't be shy about raining bolts in with a score of Crossbow mercenaries (Bandits), and then driving in a squad of hired spears (Guard). And try burying the party up to their necks in a morass of CR0 critters once in a while to ensure everybody has lots to kill.

 

[Magistus71]

i think i can make this work if i have the captain say something like "Harpies! Secure yourselves!" Then point out that there is a few things of rope tied to the ship. Just so players can tie themselves to the ship so no one bitches about falling off to their deaths XD.

Tying off to the ship is great thing to do. My rogue was the only character to not fall off a ship in a storm Because I was smart enough to tie myself to the ship, (And my dex saves helped).

 

[Bayonet]

Attacked by an airship full of Cultist casters.

Attacked by maniacal druids on a nearby mountaintop, who rain lightning down upon the airship, which they see as an abomination to the natural world.

Maybe make one of the wings break, and one of the PC's with high STR needs to make continual strength checks to hold the ship together. (Keeps the barb out of combat, but still contributing to the groups survival.)

 

[aramis erak]

I tent to think more low level...

Perytons

Sprites

lazy ravens - not a real threat, save for large numbers of very nosy birds trying to raid everything on deck. And if you actually attack, they're going to fly off... and come back at you.

A swarm of bees. Not in and of itself that big a deal... until you have to adjust the rigging while they're hive building...

Giant Vulture - as a follow on to any other attack where a crewman is downed.

Specters or Wraiths.

Winged Kobolds... just for shiggles and gits.

Plus Gneech's list

 

[Paraxis]

Specters or Wraiths.

This anything with incorporeal movement will be a blast, have the creature go between decks on it's turn. In fact the variant of Specter, Poltergeist would be great fun. It is invisible, and shoves things over on people, and people off the flying ship. There could be a mystery as to how to remove the poltergeist once and for all because when they defeat it, the next night it just comes back, they have to find some haunted object or guilty person on board and get it/them off the ship.

Also, a magical storm that randomly strikes the deck and when it does summons ice mephits or air elementals.

A curse, something like dragon sickness gets to the crew, they want to mutiny for some reason the PC's are immune.

Go classic, undead airship pirates that attack at night when they don't need any light sources and can climb up from the bottom of the ship and kill the crew as they sleep.

A mad man in a magic box just lands on the deck and starts asking questions.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

Winged housecats that have decided to use the airship as a mobile scratching post and don't appreciate taking No for an answer.

Weird weather conditions are also very good encounters. Look up razor hail. Or, maybe, make it even weirder, like raining frogs.

Even more fun? A mage experimenting with a custom jump enchantment for boots who accidentally crashes through the bottom of the ship. Boots are destroyed in the process.