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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6127249" data-attributes="member: 4937">That's odd.   I haven't had that problem, or at least not to the extent that you have had.  I've had the campaign with the two ships of the line trading cannon fire, and it pretty much works.Well, that's possible I suppose.  Still a chariot takes 35 damage or more to destroy it.  At the level where the PC's are facing a normal warlord in his chariot, that's 35 damage not inflicted on the warlord.   At a level where inflicting 35 damage on a chariot is trivial, why would you suppose the warlord has a normal chariot instead of one magically hardened, with magically keen blades on the wheels and perhaps leaving trails of fire (as a wall of fire spell), in its wake?A ship-of-the-line?  You mean a trans-collosal moving fortress bristling with weapons that overcome AC having literally thousands if not tens of thousand of hit points and a hardness around 20 is scarcely a match for a 3rd edition spell?   Even when firing out cannon?  Even with hundreds of marines in its fighting tops?  Do you have any idea how much damage the broadside of an SOL can inflict on an individual character?  If you go straight by the rules its usually a touch attack (in 1e against AC 10), and the average damage if everything hits is usually around 800 h.p.Ok, backing up, I have played this campaign and magic that can start fires (which most 3e fire spells can't) can be a problem.   But, we almost immediately realized that any one building something as expensive a SOL in a fantasy setting would include as a moderate additional cost sails and decks modestl magical protection from fire.   Ditto with things like 'warp wood', although that one is also offset by the fact that a ship with 500 crewmembers has pretty impressive damage control.That can be a problem, though 3e at least specifically addresses it.   In earlier editions, it was addressed by things like having a Gold Dragon as a steed (see Dragonlance).By providing reasonably good statistics for normal vehicles.   A SOL weighs like 1500 tons.  It's 160 feet long, nearly that tall, and its protected by an armor belt of interlocking oak planks that is 2' thick and can bounce cannon balls.   It's of a scale that transcends the scale most D&D operates in.  It's a floating castle.  It doesn't have mere hundreds of hit points.  A PC might can knock a hole in it, because PC's can do that sorts of things.  But it's built to survive having holes knocked in it.  The crew knows how to handle things like that.  It's got pumps for removing water quickly, carpenters for patching holes, and the crew knows how to plug a hole by lowering temporary patches.  Can a group of high level characters storm a castle on their own?  Sure.   But off all the things in D&D I've ever dealt with, a SOL is pretty high on the list of totally ganks highish level PC's in a head on assualt if you use rules as written.  Invisibility for the win maybe, but a broadside of cannon will seriously mess up anything.Maybe you could explain to me exactly what rules issues you are having?   I've glanced at the pathfinder vehicle stats and they seem pretty reasonable, but granted the biggest ships in thier rules are about a tenth the weight and size of a third rate SOL (and consequently, the hit points), much less one of the big 100 gunners.  The only problem we've had are the general problems that relate to the question, "Are castles still relevant in a world with magic?"   The answer is, "Yes, if you assume the builders know about magic and are prepared to deal with it."</blockquote>

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