Eberron Airship Handbook discussion thread

[ksbsnowowl]

Discuss the Handbook here.

[Garryl]

With the proposed stats for an air-skiff, couldn't it fly at increased speed for 7 hours 59 minutes worth of time and then throttle back to the indefinite flight time with 5-foot speed, and thus not worry about the whole running out of power entirely and falling out of the sky bit?

[ksbsnowowl]

Yes, if you had a stopwatch running.
But at those speeds, a horse would be faster (unless terrain was unfavorable to land travel) even going 10 feet (hustle at 20) you are going about half the speed of an encumbered heavy horse.

[Frogman55]

Do you have any plans to extend this guide? There are PRCs, feats, etc. that a character can take that help pilot an airship.

Additionally, it might be nice to see some ranking of the different addons and magic items that you can get for airships too.

[SorO_Lost]

I love the effort and appreciate the rule citations but I'm going to be a little hard on you because the topic needs introduction, explanations, and clarifications instead of disorganized notations and opinions on rule's content.

(click to show/hide)

General introduction to Airships

1. What is speed? And these two exact ships do X?
Am I to think only 2 ships were ever printed? Can you just say that right off the bat instead of waiting half a page to learn other wise? If it can endlessly Hustle (source?) then can it Run in a tactical environment? Since you claim it's a Creature does that mean it can use overland flight movement rates like a creature?

2. Carrying Capacity, less confusing please.
More Firesled, *sigh*
I'm looking for some information in this explanation area, you talking about a specific ship really doesn't fit. Is the Firesled Large per specific text or Large because SW says so or because the entry simply says so? And as I can see above it's Colossal? You just said it's large twice. 

I'm sure you mean the entry from before, but the reader shouldn't walk away from an explanation with more questions than they started with. Like instead of playing the pronoun game, take a second to actually spell the name of the ship you're saying is Colossal. And I know you have some kind of fascination with the Firesled but how about leaving it out of every single section to talk about the topic at hand ok?

3. Maneuverability, more talking about the Firesled.
*sighs*

Also 'You want info? Go read the DMG.' Is not a good way to go about things. People visit Handbooks to understand and make good choices, not to be told to read 7+ other supplements and obtain total system mastery. You don't need to list details to acomplish such a goal but I mean you can to a certain extent, *cough* Realmshelp & D&D Tools WotC doesn't care it's just forum policy not to post entire chapters.

4. Controlling the Elemental
Explorer Handbook has Airship specific rules as an updated supplement. Anything is says has priority over the ECS, any contradictions between them you ignore the ECS not the EH. You also forgot you need to call the elemental via Planar Binding and should clarify that the helm is an item out of the ECS that you can purchase to "upgrade" your Airship so to speak.

5. Steering the Airship
Less opinions on which rules you think are right. Reserve your opinion explaining good or bad choices with the available options.

6. Airships, Firesleds, and Air-Skiffs, oh my!
For ramming damage cite EH28 instead of SW. This is also a great section to list all stat-block provided Airships in the standard Handbook color codes and where your opinion(s) can greatly contribute to your guide.

7. Attacking an Airship
It's a given requirement.

8. Price
If I craft my own what's the discount?
What is a House Lyrandar airship? It's the first time you've mentioned it. 

2nd Post

9. Weapons!
Show off the awesome armaments you can buy.

10. Upgrades!
Everyone loves even more shiny candy!

11. Feats!
Can we deal more ramming damage somehow?

12. PrCs!
That guy's ship maybe a creature, but I want mine to be goddamn facehugger that slams into it's target and leaves behind seamen. How can I make this a reality in my game? And what options are amazing or traps?

13. Examples!
Now put it all together and show us why we want to buy one.

Chunks of it really just boil down to proof reading before submission. But I'm bored (and generally cranky anyway).

[joekatana]

Hey I LOVE the info on airships...just a couple of comments.. I agree the price in the books makes NO sense. a couple of points I would like to make. First I don't think airships are as fragile as you think for mid-high lvl threats. I.E. your example about 120d6 dmg from a ram to your airship is right on....BUT you are not thinking of scale. The average damage for that ram is 420hp's. That would destroy sections outright...and weaken another surrounding 12.... total of 18 destroyed or weakened...now just 232 more sections to destroy to get the ship to crash......so If it was rammed at FULL speed another 13 times you could cause it to crash.....and even if the ramming direction were head on you are only talking about 240d6dmg..(840hp's dmg).so you would have to ram another ship head on five times to take it and your ship out...(crash) according to Stormwrack rules. Using the other common damage type (FIREBALL) that would be a real threat, for a 10d6 fireball (35hp's dmg avg) you would have to hit it twice in the same spot to take out a 8000cuft space (another 42 fireballs un-dispelled in the same general location) could crashit....so they are a lot more survivable than you think.

[joekatana]

One further thing on dmg...the 12d6 dice dmg listed would be for each 10 speed DIFFERENCE...meaning if they were impacting at a 45 degree angle it would lessen the speed difference dramaticlly. And if you are using the manueverability rules it would be very difficult to actually manage to ram unless a pilot flubbed a roll. Only small skiffs/sleds would have a good chance to ram and they would do far less dmg and could take far less before they all out of the sky. Basically if they ram they would destroy themselves....quickly. Now a DRAGON ramming would be greatly different......;-).

[joekatana]

One comment on the cost of airships....with the sled and skiff costs the airship cost doesn't come anywhere close to being right....I mean...you are right to assign it a much higher cost but I would just add a 0 to the total cost. making it 920,000gp..... instead of only 40% more than a sled? I mean...It's 300feet LONG and 90 WIDE (not to mention 50ft high at the deepest part of the hull. (1,350,000 cu ft hull space (Appx)) vs 2,000 cu ft (appx) for a firesled. I mean that's 600 times the amount of Soarwood!. (Mabye the wood isn't the most expensive cost but it still must be significant). So you are right that the cost is off I just think it's an order of magnitude off.

[phaedrusxy]

In one crazy game I was in (DMd on the old boards by Bozwevial), the PCs all took the Landlord feat and applied it to one of these... The results were pretty ludicrous. (It didn't help that my character claimed the ship as his Item Familiar, and then had himself Haunt Shifted into it ). Linky, but be warned that the old boards were taken down because of viruses...

[joekatana]

On the rules for a Skiff I love what you based it on and agree completely with your stats...the only thing to remember would be that you could increase cargo by reducing passengers....i'd think 200lb /passenger but mabye 100lb/small or 400lb+ for large.....so being realistic in what you could transport would reduce or enhance your cargo capacity....being totally realistic in the days of sailing ships if you had to transport large creatures (horses or the like) you could only transport one per trip....(they were unsteady in a small boat and would panic if crowded too much.....) but there is always magic....lol

[Gavinfoxx]

Might want to include some of the options from my airship guide thing...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14zilT4WGOyHM0AfpG4-GmD2FkgDg1HZ9HC1cTleQHds/edit

I mostly focus on trying to make things which fly super-cheap, mostly... I took a different route than you.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Hey look , it's Gavinfoxx 

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

Aside from everyone's secret, burning desire to play Setzer in D&D, why would you want an airship? Is it really worth 92k?

[Gavinfoxx]

...why would you want an airship? Is it really worth 92k?

Which is why I focused on inexpensive options!

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

is there a RAW option more expensive than 92k? Sorry if I skimmed.