Re: Mammoth -> Horseshoe Crab

In <URL:news:local.spelljam> on Wed 14 Dec, jamesriley wrote:
> 
[snip]

> More than twenty miles to nearly thirty miles. That _is_
> impressive!
> 
> I would be interested in anything more that you are prepared to
> say about the magical 'technology' you are using for such good
> sensors. Also the fire-and-forget weapons. Are merchant ships as
> well equipped?
>       The nuts and bolt of it is pretty complicated, but the gist of them
> is based on crystal balls and every type of detect spell listed from the
> various AD&D books and supplements. Next the old AD&D spell list included
> three very useful spells that if interpreted generously can increase range,
> area of effect and duration of any spell lower level than themselves. If
> your players are enterprising enough to do the spell research, they can add
> another spell that will adjust damage or alter a spell effect. Check out
> Augmentation I,II,III; Extension I,II,III; and Expansion I,II,III for ideas.

Thanks!

The joys of metamagic!

I assume some of those are from the "Tome of Magic", which I've
not read.


> If these spells are laid into the magical matrix of an item then you get
> longer range, effects etc...(e.g. an augmented wand of magic missles will
> produce MMs that fire 480 yds instead of 240 yds). A crystal screen (ball)
> that has one augmentation, expansion, extension, alteration and the
> applicable detect spells equals a MK 1a sensor that has a range out to about
> 500 yds.(actually 480, but enough magic goes into it I felt justified for
> rounding it up.) 

Do you need to add extra "control" enchantments to allow a
non-mage to use these? Or, some sort of illusion magic to make an
image of the detected things appear on a screen for all to see?

Or, do you assume that details like that are folded into the fact
that it is an enchanted item?

Roughly how many different detection spells do you assume go into
this item, or are you wrapping it all up into a grand "detect
everything we're interested in" spell?


> Expensive? If you're working with a feudal economy, YES. Oh
> God Yes. Hard to produce? If making magic items is done by some lone cottage
> hedge wizard, impossible. It takes the full effort of a coordinated team of
> mages of significant level in a laboratory "clean" room with unlimited
> resources working round the clock shift work about 1 1/2 months to make a MK
> 1a., but Henry Ford would be proud, the same team can also work on more than
> one at a time.

That is still pretty impressive!

I was trying to work out what was involved in building one of
these, using the more conventional cottage industry enchantment
systems.


> Now to get military grade sensors you have to enchant
> multiple augmentations (for further reference all the spell altering spells
> will just be called "augmentations") per device. The funny thing is that one
> augmentation doubles the spell effect, but two quadruples it, and three
> multiplies by 8 and so on, sort of like a doubling cube. You may need to set
> some kind of limit on this, I stopped the doubling when they got to about
> 50,000 yds. Just too expensive even for my economic base. We are talking
> about military vessels that cost the gp value of its equivalent modern Navy
> warship, Millions, even though the hulls cost only a few hundred thousand.

Your economy must be pretty impressive to support this sort of
thing. Mind you, some of the richer adventurers that I've heard
of seem to chuck around sums of hundreds of thousands of gold
without thinking about it _too_ much!


>       The missiles my warships use are like torpedoes. If you can accept
> magic batteries and over sized accelerators then they are doable within the
> SJ context. Each one is made of a big steel tube with multiple small magic
> batteries in series linked to a drive unit (pick your favorite, I use
> gravity drives). The drive is controlled by the enchantments for the seekers
> (ref the seeker ballista bolts and arrows of seeking). The missile is
> stabilized by an arrow of direction keyed to the primary star of the system.
> Add the warhead of your choice,(augmented fireball, lightning bolt,
> prismatic spray, anti-magic shell, etc...) and you have a highly destructive
> weapon ready to launch. I figured these missiles to have the thaco of a 5th
> level fighter (you may wish to do your own calculations for thaco). The MC
> on these is A and the SR varies by helm type, but I can't fit more than 128
> spell levels of batteries in the tube. Hit damage is equivalent to 2 heavy
> catapults plus the warhead damage. A near miss (within 240 yds) still gets
> the warhead damage, but not the impact damage. These are less than one hull
> point but have one hull point worth of hit points due to mass. AC/AR on
> these missiles worked out under 2e rules to 2/4. 

Interesting design! Sort of like a self-guiding Flitter ramming
people, loaded with Greek Fire. Only, more so.

So, every time you fire a missile a one-shot Helm is used-up, and
the equivalent of half-a-dozen one-shot magic items. Conventional
D&D would probably make each missile worth tens of thousands of
gold each, then.


>       Merchies only get what they pay for. And most don't want to pay for
> more than minimal comm. equipment and a MK1a sensor suite.

What sort of comm is the 'standard'? Do you go in for protection
from interference/jamming? Distress beacons? Video comms?


> How rugged is this equipment - does it need regular magical
> 'maintenance'? Or, a skilled magic-user to run it? Maybe with a
> specialised NWP/skill?
>       The sensors and comms aren't very rugged, you wouldn't want to take
> it off the console and try to carry it around, it would shatter. Leave it in
> the console and as long as your sensor room doesn't take a direct hit your
> OK. Ship shaken criticals don't require a save nor does hull holed unless
> the hit is in the sensor room. I mean after all, for the kind of cash you
> shell out for one of these, they will shock mount it for you. Anybody can
> use them. A mage will get better results. A low level mage can take care of
> all the fine tuning or tweaking required, but anyone can keep them clean.
> Semi annual maintenance is included in the price, but amounts to inspections
> mostly.

So 'lookout' consists of someone on the sensor screen, and
someone using the Mark I Eyeball.

Presumably the low-level mage just does the installation and
initial testing of the system, probably pulling the whole module
to do repairs, and sending it off to the specialists to see what
can be salvaged.

I would assume that your repair crew would be sort of magical
technicians, rather than full-blown enchanters. What sort of
skills and spells would you expect them to use?


> The souped-up wands of enemy detection would be of interest as
> well - is all this automatic, or does this mean that there needs
> to be a crewman on sensor duty?
>       Yes, there needs to be a sensor watch, but this does not require the
> total concentration that is normally required when using a crystal ball.
> 
> A standard Wand of Enemy Detection uses charges - this sounds
> like a permanent enchantment. Expensive!
>       Like everything else in my game, but then again I'm not crippled by
> a feudal economy. Just for info, you can siphon off spell power from your
> engines to recharge shipboard charged items, provided they are permanent
> fixtures. That's how I keep my 20mm magicguns (like the one the Hummingbird
> has) charged up. 

Now that is interesting! One house rule I have is that unless the
creator of an enchantment deliberately made it difficult to
recharge (or used a 'not rechargable' method to cut costs)
charged magic items like wands are rechargable. It isn't cheap,
but it's do-able.

Ah. The Hummingbird weapon that makes a Magic Missile spell do
triple damage (D4+1 = 3.5 HP on average, x3 equals the 10 HP
needed to do one hull point of damage).


> Someone who could subvert this sensor and detection scheme might
> be able to do a lot of damage to unprepared captains who depended
> on it. 
>       This is true. Woe be unto the unprepared captain. That's why
> captains have brains, they are supposed to use 'em once in a while.

Speaking historically unprepared captains don't seem to be that
uncommon! [grin]

I assume that in your campaign merit rather than buying a
commission is how you get officers!


> Or, evade the 'fire and forget' tracking system, maybe by
> subverting the IFF - think about the UK problem with Exocet
> missiles in the Falklands War - sinking HMS Sheffield and the
> Atlantic Conveyor.
>       This is how most combats go in my sphere. That's why we have 20mm
> magicguns for last ditch ship defense against missiles and such.

Interesting. Do you rely on the Magic Missile auto-hit, or is
there some way to confuse the targetting on this? From what you
say above I assume augmented missiles for better range.

I will admit a fondness for the pre-AD&D, Original DnD, Magic
Missile spells, which were conjured +1 arrows - they didn't
auto-hit (most DMs allowed the mage to count as a fighter for
targetting them, and apply their DEX missile bonus).

But then Magic Resistance was useless against them, and a few
arrow holes could be less suspicious than magical burns. And,
they could form an interesting basis to scale-up for better
missile spells - I've seen more than one Mage of Missiles.


> I suppose it depends on the mechanism that the enemy detection
> works by - if it detects 'hostile intent' then some sort of mind
> shield might work, or something without a mind or that just
> (re)acts without hostility... Or some sort of long ranged monster
> summoning... Or, implanting a suggestion in a crew member to
> disable the defences when they get a special signal or at a
> certain time...
>       Undead and automatons are the one real weak point in the FRN. They
> lend a whole new meaning to "VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE! Bearing 070! Z -30', Range
> 1200 yds and closing fast!" The FRN usually only carries one midlevel priest
> and one acolyte aboard each warship. So yes, undead and mindless things do
> have an advantage there. Besides the enemy detection is usually concentrated
> strictly on the ship itself to identify hostile boarders and terrorists that
> try to sneak aboard it covers the whole ship (that's the souped up part).
> The only other use of it is a single shot spell set as a proximity fuse for
> the long range missiles (where its detection range is actually reduced so it
> will fire the warhead closer to the enemy vessel).

So the long range missiles don't work on ships crewed by undead
or mindless things.

Would an amulet of protection from ESP work, do you think? I'm
not sure about "minds so alien you can't tell anything about
them", which some people seem to claim for mind flayers.


> If I wanted to crack those sorts of defences then I would set an
> illusionist to work out ways around them, or a mage specialising
> in detection. Boarding parties of automata or maybe undead that
> travel without a ship from outside the detection range might be
> considered - the standard SJ sensor systems ignore things below a
> minimum size, and would you want scavers to keep setting off
> alarms? 
>       Where there is a will there is a way. If someone wanted in bad
> enough they could do it. but that doesn't mean it has to be easy for them.
> Yes the standard SJ sensors work that way and we set ours to work just like
> them, with one exception, scavers do show up on the close in sensors, but
> don't set off any alarms and are identified by the sensor screen that
> detects them. A bad guy with a blank mind willing to swim with the scavers
> could easily sneak up to the ship and probably board her. If he was carrying
> a bomb he could even damage the ship. I did that 5 or 6 sessions ago with a
> self hypnotized terrorist from Harpers world. The other ships in the group
> killed him. The damaged ship was repaired. And the dead sailors were buried
> with honors. The Council whined about me cheating until I said "USS Cole."

I assume that the PCs have something to do with the Council.

Traditionally speaking, if an assassin is prepared to die while
murdering someone, it is supposed to be nearly impossible to stop
them. Explosives take a single assassin into the mass murder
stakes.

This is one reason that explosives have never worked in my
campaign (that and I didn't want guns in DnD), though I suppose a
one-shot ground-zero Fireball item would be an (expensive)
alternative.


> I'm sure you can work out all sorts of scenarios to make things
> interesting for the PCs! [grin]
>       [evil grin back]
> 
> It sounds as though they are very well defended against almost
> all conventional attackers - but with all that magical automation
> I wonder how much of a mess a beholder anti-magic ray would
> cause? Or, a few well-placed Dispel Magics, or even the odd use
> of a Rod of Cancellation.
>       Devastating, ain't it great!
> With those sorts of defences it sounds as though the FRN is
> setting itself up for some really serious enemies, like those who
> make use of skrying, instant travel, or even things like demons.
>       Beholders in thousand ship fleets. The alien from Aliens. The Vodoni
> with stolen technology (from us). The Kzinti who are berserker
> Ragshashas(you know, the tiger mage guys). And worst of all...Politicians!

Messy!

I would have thought that Rakshasa were bad enough, without
mixing in Larry Niven's Kzinti! I remember a character class
built on them, where at high levels they became really nasty
Illusionists - you never knew where you were around them!

As for politicians ... no lawyers? [grin]


> Jim Riley "Sailorguns" FC2 USN.

-- 
Dreamer
dreamer@??????.?????.??.uk
http://www.romsys.demon.co.uk/