Re: New helm being Submitted to Compendium

 This subjects seems to have your panties in a wad :)

> Yes it is a serious question. I never liked the 100 ton rule and I
> know that
> others on this list have had ships in there campaigns that are above
> 100
> tons.

<<<<And that's supposed to mean what to me?  The helm was posted as an idea
for Compendium, which anyone who's read the guidelines thereon knows is
supposed to fit with the SJ rules as they are.  This does not in any
way shape or form.  Period.>>>

I thought that this was a discussion about helms.


 I don't see 500 tons as being a "impossibly crazy amount" and
> with
> ship critical hits it is possable to cripple a large ship like this.

<<<<Ahh.  So if you fire 20 shots and this behemoth has an AC more than -50
(that's less than 60 to you 3e players) you might get one critical hit
that would do about 5% of the ship's hull points in damage.  Wooo.  I'm
impressed.>>>

First off where did you get the -50 (60AC for 3rd edition?)
And second the 500 ton ship is suppose to be harder to destroy.



> You
> just have to keep in mind that the bigger the ship the more
> expensive.

<<<<Not necessarily.  That's what slave labor and conquesting empires are
all about.  You now have a cheap, ultra armed and armored dreadnought
roaming space that's immune to everything but the Spelljammer itself or
a ramming attack from another ship of the same size.  And since a
normal helm costs 100,000 to 250,000 gp and you only spent 50,000 gp on
this helm even someone that pays for their ships will be able to build
a big ship and put lots of nice stuff on it for the 200,000 gp savings
due to the SJ economics that make ships so much cheaper than helms.>>>>>


A few questions here.

Is there a DM running this campaign? Does the Empire in question have
unlimited resources?
Will a 500 ton ship in this campaign really cost so little? If the Empire in
question does not have unlimited resources (and they should not) then are
the resources they have going solely to build these 500 ton ships? (I think
not) Remember it takes money to run an empire no matter what type it is.
They have to field an army (navy) pay it's bureaucrats. (Possibly bribe
officials of other nations) Pay the Leader/King/Emperor/Big Man in charge.
It is not easy. If you have every ran Birthright or any other game based on
actually running a nation you would see that the money and resources can be
a little tight.

 So
> the nation building these ships may not have the funds to make a
> fleet of
> 500 ton ships.

<<<They don't need a fleet.  But see above for why you've assumed wrongly
anyway.>>>

I looked above but still don't see that I "assumed wrongly."

 Hell they may not have the funds for many 100 ton
> ships.

<<<<Because 100 ton ships (used to) use 250,000 gp helms.>>>

I was referring to the same type of Helm that the 500 ton ship would be
using (the Merchant helm)
Now if you are referring to a full fledge helm comparable to that used by a
normal 100 ton ship but expanded to accommodate a 500 ton ship then the cost
for this 500 ton ship will be a lot more than the price of the 100 ton helm.


 Also
> because they are not very manuverable (and large) they are suseptable
> to
> smaller (faster) ship attacks.

<<<<<I won't get into the fighter versus capital ship debate here.  See
above for the ludicrousness of this argument with 500 ton capital
ships.  At least with 100 ton ships uber-rare and only 100 tons a large
swarm of fighters used to have a chance against them.>>>>

I saw your above argument and questioned it's numbers, see above.

The fighters would have a chance against a 500 ton ship. Let me ask you
this. Let's say that a campaign allowed 500 ton ships but they were rare
because of cost (and they were slow and not very maneuverable) Now the only
helm that could move a ship this big was a merchant helm as described in the
previous post. What would an Empire build this ship for? What I mean by this
is what would be it's primary mission? Would it be a Battleship
(Dreadnought) which would be effective against capital ships? Would it be a
Carrier type ship? or a Troop/equipment transport? Would this ship be built
solely to combat fighter type ships (unlikely.)
If it is built to combat larger ships then it won't have as much room for
the light weapons to take on fighters because this space would be used for
the Larger weapons design to take on the larger ships. If it is a carrier
type then most of the room will be taken up by fighter craft. If it is a
troop/Equipment ship same thing. And yes these ship will have some Light
weapons to combat fighter but not on the scale that you envisioning (Unless
it is built to solely combat fighters in which case it is more susceptible
to capital ships.)




 They would make a great target for
> fighter
> attacks escpecially if the fighters had some fire based attacks.

Oh, yeah.  Fire is sooo helpful against metal and stone.  As long as
we're discussing non-standard SJ rules (see your first statement) I've
always felt the idea of greek fire doing damage to all ships, while a
rules balance (presumably) was not thought out.  Quite simply, hosing
down the underside of a dwarven citadel (ie, solid rock) should net the
attacker nothing (well, maybe a reduced air supply for the victim).

If it is made of metal or stone then your right fire won't be of much use
but I was assuming other material like wood or perhaps a living (or dead)
plant/animal.
Again a metal/stone ship would probably cost a lot more. More than likely
however a ship of this size would be build of different material such as
wood and metal in which case fire would be useful. Note the construction of
Battleships during the WW1 and WW2 era.