Sylph Rotodyne

It sounds easy right? I will put machinery into my game… then come the interesting requests and builds that can reshape your view of the game, or so you think. 

Following is the answer to my player's request and build for a flying bus. It needed to be fast and carry the players along with a platoon of troops. Lucky for me the British had already invented a gyro plane that fit the bill so I drew heavily on the Fairey Rotodyne as a template.

Sylph Rotodyne

This gargantuan aircraft is over sixty foot long and is capable of lifting more than a platoon of troops and equipment over long distances at high speed. The design was commissioned by an Endjinn Soldat working with her Gnomish Artisan retainer to enable them to explore the far reaches of the Valed lands and uncover the secret origins of the Endjinn. Initial designs did not require armament, but it was later retrofitted to the chassis to allow the machine to defend itself from attack.

The airframe itself is built out of gnomium alloy, though between its metal ribs, the solid body is covered only in tight canvas sheet to keep out the wind but retain light weight. It has two forward facing propellers to drive its forward motion in addition to the free rotating rotor to maintain lift. Using an ingenious set of meteor powder (gnomish gunpowder in my setting) rockets the aircraft is actually able to obtain vertical takeoff. Once activated, these wing tip thrusters allow the aircraft to ascend or descend vertically. The effect is similar to a Catherine wheel or pinwheel but only lasts for a short period before they must be replaced.

It carries three light ballista turrets mounted in bubble like canopies on the fuselage. One is mounted at the front under the cockpit canopy with the other two are mounted either side of the passenger section towards the rear of the craft. These weapons deal 1d10 damage each as light ballistae but the rapid fire and turret mounts reduce the overall range to 150 ft. Given the speed of the vehicle, this limitation is easily overcome. It normally carries 60 ballista bolts for each weapon mount taking up 30 stone of its carrying capacity.

Its crew compartment requires a pilot and co-pilot to operate the craft, with seating for 40 additional passengers. The seating is far from luxurious, consisting mainly of wooden benches. Two main disembarkment doors on either side allows the passengers, often troops, to exit the craft rapidly. Rope lines above the doors allows troops to belay down from the cabin if the craft chooses to hover and not land. The rear storage cabin has space for 130 stone of cargo after accounting for the ammunition above.

The Rotodyne can be built by a level 5 mechanist at a +9 build penalty taking 50 days and a base construction cost of 42,500gp.

Sylph Rotodyne Skybus
Hit dice: 10 (40 HP, save F5)
Armor class: 5
Move: fly 480’ (160’)
Weight: 1,000 st.
Carry: 1,000 st. (42 passengers, 180 light ballista bolts, 130 stone cargo)
Attacks:
3 Rapid fire light ballista launchers (1d10 damage, range 150’)
Positive abilities (total): 
Automaton immunities *, Increased move (fly +420’) #### ***, Mechanical special ability (1 turn full Hover, replacement cost 800) -, Movement mode (flying, stationary hover, replaces ground) ##, Passengers (64 max, only using 42) #### ###, Ranged attack (15' multiplier) ###. (**** **)
Negative abilities (total): 
Requires ammunition ####, Requires operator (mechanist or learned) *. (* ####)
Cost (net abilities): 42,500 gp (**** ####)

Machinery and judge approval

Key to all mechanist items is judge approval. This probably needs to be emphasized heavily as not everyone want designs like the above in their game. I discuss this more below.

One specific thing I have noticed with vehicles that can avoid or stay out of combat is players are keen to save a buck and trade away the armor class, I generally don't allow this. If armor is traded away I would generally ask for a reason that goes into the design description text as was done with the aerostat in machinery to the max.

For this vehicle it was not requested, but maybe a flimsy wooden frame could be a reason, but I would still not allow it to go down to zero, generally the few thousand you save given such an expensive build has minimal effect outside simply optimising for cost.

Your hex crawl is too small and Flying saucers are too slow

So this blows the old several hexes a day thing for a hex map. It can clock up 32 six mile hexes, most of a region map, in a day. Plus it’s faster than most monsters you can encounter in the air. Here is a summary of the monster speeds you can generally encounter while flying, noting that at top speed only the upper category can even keep up with the Rotodyne above.

Fast flyers (over 200' exploration):

• 480' - Hawk, Pegasus, Roc, Rotodyne
• 450' - Giant Hawk
• 360' - Air elemental, Autogyro, Griffon, Hippogriff
• 300' - Flying saucer scout
• 240' - Aerostat, Djinni, Dragon, Efrreeti, Lammasu, Pterendon, Wraith, Wyvern
• 210' - Flying saucer abductor

So all monsters other than the fastest will get only a round at best in a head on joust before this thing rides off into the sunset.

Initially I was shocked by this, but then I went through all the stages of grief… and then I realised, a group with the spell summon winged steed can access this movement rate anyway (level 5 mage). And to resource this Rotodyne build the players need substantial wealth (mine built it at levels 7-8, but many a fortune point was used on rerolls).

So far the game has become less about the hex crawl and more about sites, rumours and clues. For levels 4 to 7 thoug,h my players favoured traveling by boat so they were already moving faster on the map limiting travel to waterways and sites near them.

So I think my players had a bit of a hex crawl phase but are growing out of it early, and I'm sort of ok with that. Time to move to the campaign map anyway I think.

Finally I realised I had a problem, and a solution. Flying saucers are too slow! Now I expect a fast interceptor to be able to catch an abductor, but not a scout. The solution is I give all alien vessels the following special ability for no cost:

Power to engines

All flying saucers have this ability. The flying saucer can double its movement rate by diverting power from its weapon systems to its engines. When this is active they double their movement but are unable to utilise weapon systems such as plasma weapons, tractor beams or bomb launchers.