Skypirates Campaign- Some Questions

[Razjah]

Rel, thanks for giving some feedback. I love the idea of a skywhale as a workhorse. I was planning to haven the ships themselves be what governs the speed: build, crew, riggings, wind, etc. The heart only controlled the but I will need to play around with the idea of the ship size making the heart sluggish.

 

[Relique du Madde]

Rel, thanks for giving some feedback. I love the idea of a skywhale as a workhorse. I was planning to haven the ships themselves be what governs the speed: build, crew, riggings, wind, etc. The heart only controlled the but I will need to play around with the idea of the ship size making the heart sluggish.

A ships size is itself an aspect of the ship that would govern speed and maneuverability. Case in point: A galleon vs a modern day racing yachte. A racing yachte is capable of going faster and has better maneuverability even though it has less sail yardage. The reason: They are less massive and are built for speed.

If you were to motorize that yachte you would be able to travel faster and be able to maneuver better then it would on sails alone (well, to a point). Unfortunately, by adding an engine if you increase the ship's mass and depending on how massive the engines are, you can negatively affect its maneuverability or speed.

So in effect, the heart would be "an engine" in terms of providing lift. Also, like larger engines would require more "fuel" and require more space dedicared to its supporting substructures which would potentially make using a dragon heart on an aeral lifeboat unfeasible.

 

[Razjah]

Hmmm... I never thought about that. Excellent point. I'll need to go over the engine concept with the ships.

Would chart on light-medium-heavy ships and the speed and manueverability be the best way to do this? A griffin heart can handle up to X tons and requires a minimum of Y for the heart matrix. A light ship A-C tons has a good maneuvarability, medium ship with D-F tons has medium manerverability. and heavy at G-I tons has poor maneuverability.

This lets the party have a good amount of custimizability options while staying fairly simple.