High Magic Spells

[CraigM]

Originally Posted by JMason

If the goal is to get a flying ship for your party... and the GM is ok with that goal... why not get the Research and/or Carousing (or other social) skills... and ask the GM if you can go looking for rumors of any legendary lost flying ships... perhaps ones that were trapped in a cave in... and are now guarded by a dragon... that needs slaying?

I'm only half kidding here. If you really want to "do it yourself", there are ways to do that... but it is almost certainly easier to either (1) be fabulously rich and have others do it for you, or (2) go on a quest!

Seconded.

Unless you're in a superpowered campaign, an item like a flying ship isn't just a piece of equipment. It's a significant feature of the gameworld; it completely alters the sort of adventures your characters are able to have.

If your GM doesn't want you to start with a flying ship, it's likely because he's planning adventures in which a flying ship would be inappropriate. The best way to get a flying ship in that game is to let the GM know that you'd like to find one, then go adventuring.

Your ship will appear when the GM thinks you've earned it, or when he comes up with an idea for a cool adventure that requires a flying ship.

[starslayer]

Gadgeteering is not a bad option actually, as long as you can either access 130 energy for quick enchantment or don't mind undead.

This just reminded me of a 3e campaign I was in where my character built a flying ship. My character had just raised 60 goblins as zombies. I noted that the power to weight ratio of skeletons was fantastic, and after some fun applied calculus realized that a ship made of mummified shark skin, with essential metal ribbing and gearing, using da Vinci airscrews and the goblins as a power source would actually fly.

GM checked my math, pc made a lot of crafting rolls, 1 year game time later, airship (airships were already an in game thing but used massive powerstones and a wizard casting from the stones rather than a hold filled with skeletons)

Having gadgeteering would turn that 1 year into a much more palatable timetable, and perhaps let the pc actually invent some things.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Culture20

But considering manastones, they would work well as end-runs around slow-and-sure casting due to lack of Energy Reserve (either because no rule books with ER or against the gameworld rules). With enough wizards who know manastone (despite its hefty prerequisites), you could get some biggish manastones with acceptable quirks fairly easily, and then if each wizard uses such a manastone for the intended enchantment of X square feet, all with quick-and-dirty enchantment...

It's true, they do have potential there. (I wasn't sure they were legal in Q&D enchanting, but they expressly use all normal powerstone rules except as noted.) I prefer enormous One-College Powerstones, but that does involve a higher level of capitalization.

Not sure what you mean about hefty prerequisites - Manastone only requires Enchant, although granted Enchant has somewhat significant requirements.

[Culture20]

I always look at the whole tree, and Enchant is a spell that requires more than most apprentices might have. The biggest benefit of manastones for enchanting is they're full of power immediately after being enchanted, unlike powerstones which have to sit for days to fill up.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Culture20

I always look at the whole tree, and Enchant is a spell that requires more than most apprentices might have. The biggest benefit of manastones for enchanting is they're full of power immediately after being enchanted, unlike powerstones which have to sit for days to fill up.

That doesn't seem much of a benefit for making huge things like this. If you just needed to whip up a couple 10-point stones for a moderate-sized enchant, the potential time savings seems more useful than when you need 50 or 100-point sources...

[pestigor]

There has been some people saying that the player and GM need to discuss the nature of the flying ship in the campaign. I agree, but to take it further I think the PC and GM need to get on the same page about campaign tone. When a GM sets up a campaign he should fully consult the PCs playing and shape the game from those discussions. If an ability is in the game and has unforeseen consequences that's fine because they PCs have already told the GM what they want to do and the kinds of adventures they want to have and the tone they want the game to take so they aren't going to go against something they helped establish.

Basically tell your GM what you want to do, if he's a adequate GM you'll get it, hopefully in a creative way that will build on the campaign as a whole. If you have to use the system to get something from the game then you're going about this in a slightly adversarial way (I'm not trying to get personal but you and the GM should have discussed this and the repercussions long before the dice start rolling).
A player should be able to go to a GM and say I want to play in a game with "X" tone and "X" power level, in that game I want "X object" the GM says well I had "Y" in mind, lets figure out how we can get what we both want from the campaign. I'm not saying Kumbaya, but a dialogue where the players have as much input to the game as anyone else. Instead of asking these forums "How do I get my player "Thing X" it should be your GM asking " I want my players to have "X" hows the best way to get it and stay with my tone or how do I shift gears to make object X work better in my campaign.

OPEN Dialogue was something that was scarce in the early days of gaming.

Now if your GM isn't interested in you having X, then you both need to compromise or else find new groups.

I'm on the autism spectrum so if I came off too harsh I'm sorry but people having to go to mechanics to get what they want instead of going to their GM is something I'd like to see less of in role playing .

[TimTimmy]

OK bear with me. I've got one last idea:
My char spends most of a year creating a 200 point power stone.
This powerstone will be used to create 1' tiles of metal for the magic carpet (each costs 200). He does this once per day.
So how do I recharge the powerstone, you say, since it needs 1 day per charge?
Use the Timeout spell. powerstones don't recharge there by themselves. But the powerstone charge spells lets me charge them at a cost of 3fp per charge. Since my FP does recharge in a timeout, I can do this in one day.
Sure, each real day would cost me like a week, but I think this works.

What do you think?
Flying ship in a bout a year's time. (if this trick works)

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by TimTimmy

OK bear with me. I've got one last idea:
My char spends most of a year creating a 200 point power stone.
This powerstone will be used to create 1' tiles of metal for the magic carpet (each costs 200). He does this once per day.
So how do I recharge the powerstone, you say, since it needs 1 day per charge?
Use the Timeout spell. powerstones don't recharge there by themselves. But the powerstone charge spells lets me charge them at a cost of 3fp per charge. Since my FP does recharge in a timeout, I can do this in one day.
Sure, each real day would cost me like a week, but I think this works.

What do you think?
Flying ship in a bout a year's time. (if this trick works)

First-off, are you really expecting to get a usable 200-point powerstone in one year of enchanting? Have you done the math on that? (First-and-a-half, do you have a year? I thought you were stuck in an intensive adventuring schedule.)

Secondly, casting Charge Powerstone hundreds and hundreds of times on your powerstone is going to pile on quirks and/or destroy the stone. You're probably casting it about 50 times per round of use?

Side note: you may not be able to cast Charge Powerstone inside the Time Out effect, though you can at least use it to refill your FP.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Secondly, casting Charge Powerstone hundreds and hundreds of times on your powerstone is going to pile on quirks and/or destroy the stone. You're probably casting it about 50 times per round of use?

Interesting sidenote, while Luck cannot be used to change the outcome of Ceremonial Magic, and thus cannot prevent failures while creating a Powerstone from quirking or destroying it, Charge Powerstone is a Regular spell...

[sir_pudding]

If you really want to make, not find or buy, a flying ship, not a boat or or gazebo or something that is manageable with a modest circle and S&S, then I think there are a few possibilities but all of them require that your GM introduce some options into the campaign (which makes sense because a flying ship is a pretty big deal).

1. Flying carpet is less efficient when the object is flimsy. Maybe your GM can rule that it is more efficient when the object is especially structurally sound.
2. Or maybe there exists (or could exist if you invent it) a Flying Ship spell that has Flying Carpet as a prerequisite, but requires that the target be a vehicle capable of supporting its own weight. It probably also could be justifiably cheaper if it just provides lift and not control or propulsion. Maybe I will write this up for my blog. Although I feel like there was already a Pyramid article about this kind of thing.
3. Some kind of anti-gravity material exists in the gameworld. Quest for floating trees.

Although if you are really that reluctant to hire people, you might have a problem with ships in general, given the crew requirements.