Elemental Airship (3.5e Monster)
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| Elemental Airship | |
|---|---|
| Size/Type: | Colossal Construct (Air, Earth, Fire, Vehicle, Water) |
| Hit Dice: | 12d10+80 (200 hp) |
| Initiative: | +0 |
| Speed: | fly 100 ft (poor) |
| Armor Class: | 18 (+16 natural, -8 size), touch 2, flat-footed 18 |
| Base Attack/Grapple: | +9/+12 |
| Attack: | Three Advanced Light Ballista +9 ranged (4d8, 20/x2) or Two Advanced Light Ballista +9 ranged (4d8, 20/x2) |
| Full Attack: | Three Advanced Light Ballista +9 ranged (4d8, 20/x2) or Two Advanced Light Ballista +9 ranged (4d8, 20/x2) |
| Space/Reach: | 30 ft/20 ft |
| Special Attacks: | Ram |
| Special Qualities: | Armory, Crew, Darkvision 60 ft, Extraordinary Health, Hardness 5, Heavy Lifting, Low-Light Vision, Massive Object, Multi-Target, Overland Speed |
| Saves: | Fort +4, Ref +4, Will +4 |
| Abilities: | Str 17, Dex 10, Con -, Int -, Wis 10, Cha 1 |
| Skills: | - |
| Feats: | HoverB |
| Environment: | Any |
| Organization: | Solitary |
| Challenge Rating: | 8 |
| Treasure: | None |
| Alignment: | Always True Neutral |
| Advancement: | 13-24 HD (Colossal) |
| Level Adjustment: | — |
This boat sailed through the air as if traversing an ocean, a ring of flames propelling the ship held on by nacelles, a large pair of balloons above for lift, huge fabric wings controlled by hydraulics, and vents of steam coming from within its hidden power core.
The elemental airship is a sort of magical wondrous architecture which is also a construct, of sorts. It is build of wood, stone, steel, and fabric and imbued with multiple elementals which provide thrust, heat air for lift, provide wind under their wings, reinforce the structure, and generate steam for its engine. Straddling the line between magic item and creature, the elemental airship has no will of its own and requires a crew to direct it.
The airship is capable of dim autopilot, being able to be set to a course and running this course on its own with its own ability scores. It is capable of understanding common, aquan, auran, ignan, and terran but does not speak. It is about 70 ft long and 20 ft wide, and weighs 10,000 lbs.
Combat[edit]
The elemental airship is rarely a fair fight for creatures on the ground, not because the ship is strong but because it comes with a crew capable of launching attacks off the side, typically siege weapons and spells. Such fights are often long range encounters, and the focus is on the defeat of the crew, not the ship. The ship itself poses no threat on its own.
Armory: The elemental airship has no attacks of its own, but it can be loaded with crew and siege weapons. The elemental airship has enough deck space for up to 20 ft of siege weapons on the front and back, and 60 ft of siege weapons on the side. Unlike most creatures, the elemental airship has facing. Typically it is facing the direction in which it moved last. Unless the siege weapon can swivel, the weapon can only aim in a 45 degree arc on whichever side the weapon is placed.
In practice, this allows for 3 light ballistas on the port and starboard, and 2 light ballistas on fore and aft directions. The example above assumes this loadout, with a crew with a BAB of +6 and a Dex score of 16.
Because these are technically actions taken by the crew, the airship retains its own actions allowing it to move. Crew takes penalties as if riding a creature.
Crew: The elemental airship only needs a single creature to pilot, but has an ideal crew of 7 creatures running it. It can carry up to 21 creatures safely before space becomes scarce. The CR does not account for the crew.
Beyond the crew, the elemental airship has a bay for storage. It has a hold big enough for a 20 ft by 20 ft by 10 ft high space.
Extraordinary Health (Ex): An elemental airship always receives maximum hit points per hit die.
Hardness (Ex): The elemental airship is a composite of wood, stone, metal, fabric, and other materials. They count as an object made of stone wood and metal for the purpose of interacting with spells and effects. They have hardness 5, and halve all damage (even fire damage), and quarters cold damage before hardness. Only sonic damage deals full damage before hardness.
Heavy Lifting: For the purposes of carrying capacity, the elemental airship can carry the weight of a medium sized creature x100. This accounts for their size bonuses already. The example craft has a carrying capacity of 8600 lb. or less (light), 8601-17,300 lb. (medium), and 17,301-26,000 lb (heavy).
Massive Object (Ex): The elemental airship is treated as a magical object, not a creature, for the purpose of interacting with spells and effects with the exception of disintegrate, which deals damage as normal and causes an instant breech on a failed save (see multi-target's hull entry).
Multi-Target (Ex): Like a hydra, an elemental airship has individual parts which can be targeted at a -4 penalty on attack rolls. These pieces are Control, Engines, Hull, and Lift. They represent various mechanics from propellers to jet engines, lifting blimps to hovering pads, and other bits. Whatever form these portions take, they all have 1/3 the ship's total hit points (round down, or 66 hp for example). When one of these sub sections breaks, the following penalties apply.
- Control Broken: Maneuverability drops to clumsy, and there is a 20% chance the ship simply cannot change direction in this round.
- Engines Broken: The ship's speed is cut in half, and there is a 20% chance the ship's speed drops to 0 ft for in this round.
- Hull Broken (Breech): The ship has holes and its interior is exposed, allowing creatures to board the ship through the walls. Creatures inside by the outer walls of the ship only have cover instead of total cover if targeted directly.
- Lift Broken: The ship cannot ascend. It can descend, but cannot ascend until the lifting mechanism is repaired.
These penalties apply until repairs are made with a DC 20 Craft check over 10 minutes, or restoring all of the sub section's hit points. Half the damage (and half the healing) done to a sub section is also transferred onto the ship's total hit points.
Overland Speed (Ex): The elemental airship's overland speed is higher than normal, moving up to 60 mph (or about 3 times as fast as normal for its speed).
Ram (Ex): An elemental airship can intentionally crash into a target, dealing damage but taking damage as well. Ramming requires at least 10 ft of movement and a touch attack as a full round action, entering the target's square as part of movement. Use the pilot's BAB and Dexterity score for the purposes of ramming.
The airship deals 1d6 points of bludgeoning damage for every 10 ft it moves, to a maximum of 20d6 at 200 ft. It takes half this damage to itself (to a maximum of half the target's hp). For example, if it hits a bird with 14 maximum hp, it will only deal 7 damage to the ship.
For each size category smaller the target is, the touch attack takes a -4 penalty to attack rolls. Thus trying to ram a medium sized creature is at a -16 penalty.
Construction[edit]
An elemental airship is sculpted from 10,000 pounds of wood, stone, iron, and fabric costing at least 2000 gp, and bound with four elementals (one of each type) via lesser planar binding. Assembling the body requires a DC 25 Craft (shipbuilding) check or a DC 25 Knowledge (engineering) check.
CL 9th; Craft Construct, lesser planar binding x4 (one for each element), Magic Circle against Alignment; Price 20,000 gp; Cost 11,000 gp + 720 XP.
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