D&D 5E Vehicles for D&D 5e

[WilliamBosleyDM]

Hey guys, I wanted to make a post here to talk about using vehicles in D&D 5e, and to advertise my vehicle supplements on DMs Guild.

How do you make use of vehicles in combat in D&D 5e? What other benefits do you give your players for using them?

You can see how I do it in my supplement previews, so I'll link to my Various Vehicles series here:
Carriages!
Carts!
Wagons!

I am absolutely trying to advertise my supplements here, but since I'm doing a series I'm also trying to hear how you run vehicles. This may inform how I make my series going forward.
In case you're wondering, these are built off of the official vehicle rules included in Descent into Avernus for the Infernal War Machines, except that I created rules for vehicles drawn by draft animals, and a few other common means of locomotion.

Thanks for coming!

 

[Umbran]

Note: You are totally free to talk about the subject of vehicles here. If and when you decide to advertise, we have a separate Publishers, Promotions, and Press Releases forum for such.

 

[WilliamBosleyDM]

Oh! my bad. I thought I did it right. If you haven't already, I'll remove this thread and post to that one.

 

[WilliamBosleyDM]

I don't actually know how. I'm looking, but I'm new here. Sorry.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

How do you make use of vehicles in combat in D&D 5e? What other benefits do you give your players for using them?

I avoid it because vehicle combat seems complex. Haven't played Avernus, apparently they have good rules?

 

[WilliamBosleyDM]

Yeah, it's less complex than the ship rules in Saltmarsh.

Basically the vehicle has a regular monster stat block that just has "action stations" instead of actions, and each station takes an action to use by someone on-board. So if it's easy to run a monster as a DM, then it's easy to use these rules. It doesn't change the action economy, either, because the creatures on either side of an encounter are giving up their actions to let the vehicle take its action. So it's easy to add in as a DM.

The only complicated bit comes in when you crash, but that's about as complex as grappling, and it doesn't happen all that much.

That's all Avernus, so I'm not plugging my own stuff there. The only downside to Avernus is that the only vehicles are "Infernal War Machines" which run on engines that burn souls for fuel, so there's nothing mundane in there for regular play.