Category: DM Cookbook

I am starting to feel better about my little passion project here.  We wrapped up Part 3 with some stat blocks and now we need to sort out Crew Actions and some of the parts that make up our Caravan.  Direct comparison to the Saltmarsh ships is not something that is in the cards at this scale, but there is a lot to learn and apply at this scale.  Lets start with actions the vehicle can take, when crewed of course.  In our case being crewed is just a matter of a single capable creature at the reigns.  I think the best way to rule is it as: “On its turn, It can’t take these actions if it is not Crewed.”  

Well I was going to start talking about what actions it can take, but the bigger question is when?  With one crew member it feels logical that is should fall to their initiative.  With some thought on what those actions could be,  all that makes sense is maneuvering actions of a driver.  So lets stick with the idea that the driver takes a vehicle action at the start of their turn and then proceeds with their own action and bonus actions, essentially trading their movement to function as crew for that round.  There should also be a limit to a single action per round.  Just a little CYA in case a “Creative” player finds a way to attempt additional actions.  So lets make an amendment: “At the start of the Crew’s turn, a single vehicle action can be taken for that round.  These actions cannot be taken if it is not Crewed.” 

Bam

Ok so let us talk maneuvering actions and starting with the simplest one, the “Move” action.  Glamorous I know…  but its an essential one.  We discussed the movement speed in the last part being directly drawn from the animal that is pulling, but we didn’t talk Range of Motion as it applies to a turning radius.  Do we dive into physics of the pivot point of this four wheeled vehicle or do we have an in game reference?  I had no luck finding one, but we learned that I may not be as thorough in my reading as I could be…  But I was thinking about how cumbersome it would be to take turns moving at full speed.  Then it hit me, perhaps the “Move” action should be handled less as an action, and more like movement.  The direction I was originally going for was to have actions determine the maneuver taken by the driver and the impact it would have on movement speed and direction.  Lets consider the following movements:

Flat-out:  Move in forward arc (cone) up to the full movement speed

Turning:  Expand forward arc to 180 degrees, and move up to half of the movement speed.

Evasive: Move in forward arc (cone) up to half of the movement speed, +4 AC for vehicle and riders

For the most part this makes sense to me, the thing that will determine the standard turning radius of a vehicle would be the movement arc I mentioned in all 3.  I noted cone for now with the logic of 90 degrees of turning (45 degrees left or right).  To make a harder turn, you have to be going slower.  But I have some thoughts on that as well I need to hash out as well.  Being able to expand that arc to a full 180 degrees makes sense and keeps the meticulous details to a minimum but opens the question, could it make a hard turn in a single space?  Maybe hard turns like this would need some kind of check for the driver to maneuver the horses, or perhaps the vehicle makes a CON or Damage Threshold Save against the strain?  The concept of DT playing a part here makes the most sense, but why not have that paired with Driver “Skill”.  For some reason my mind draws a parallel to drift racing, where a drivers skill could be the deciding factor in a successful maneuver and disaster.  Let us apply that logic here, a Vehicle Handling check.  This should not be locked in to a specific ability score, DM discretion and Player ingenuity.  An intelligent character may quickly analyse the situation and use terrain to their advantage, where as a brutish one may just use athleticism to force the horses to bank.

Well… Having said that I feel like that brute force method just may cause excessive strain and would, against the intent of having a check first, auto fail and move on to DT.  I don’t like it but I might have to determine what skill really applies here.  I touched on the terrain as well which will play a part as well.  crap.  We are going in circles a bit.  I think that we take skill out of the equation, mostly.  We don’t have values for DT yet but perhaps the best way to approach this is to take Vehicle Proficiency (Land) as a means to “boost” the DT for maneuvers but the drivers proficiency bonus.  Downside here is that we are entering the realm of convolution.  Perhaps its for the best if we just stick to what I laid out above and revisit this when we are ready to polish.

Lastly the Evasive movement is something I am happy with, representation of defensive driving to make the vehicle (and passenger) harder to hit.  I picture this as still moving full speed with some bobbing and weaving.  Not much else to say about this one, unless we question the AC bonus.  This feels right since the vehicle is still a fairly large target, and this is just generalized.  I plan to dive into the different parts of the vehicle in the next part to figure out the AC, HP and DT of each.  If for example the AC of the main body is 10, this becomes a 14 when being evasive.  Quite the bump.   Let’s also say the AC of the wheels is 14, making this 18 by being evasive is not as dramatic but still significant.  

I think that gets us to a solid point as far as actions and how they are used.  We may need to expand on this further but let us count this as a victory and move on! 

See you in the next part!

I think we need to take a step back and really evaluate what research we need to do on this topic.  The thought process behind Part 1 and 2 was that I had a short supply of time to get something that I wouldn’t regret, knowing what the group was looking for.  During the session that followed, the group was debating how they wanted to proceed more than anticipated and ended up looking for a cheaper “Caravan” which I just made some quick assumptions.  With more time until I need to actually have a plan, I can slow down and figure out something more reasonable.  Because of the rush I was in prior I may have overlooks some important information:

“An animal pulling a carriage, cart, chariot, sled, or wagon can move weight up to five times its base carrying capacity, including the weight of the vehicle. If multiple animals pull the same vehicle, they can add their carrying capacity together”  https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/phb/equipment#MountsandVehicles

Well…. how did I miss that!?  We don’t need to worry about the maths here, we just need a simple x5 for their capacity like this:

That was easy, and solves one of our problems.  Now I can spend less time doing the hard math.  I will still need a real world analog for the “Caravan” my players now own and to get an equipment card of sorts to reflect it and the stats I have been drafting.  During our session the group took a look around the “lot” for all the new and used models, and the group Agreed upon the 400gp Bow-Topped Caravan I had there and let them use their three Riding Horses to pull it.  I even incorporated some upgrades which I will touch on later.

We have real world examples of this type of wagon, but I am on the hunt for historical/period numbers for the weight.   I did find this site where one of the “facts” they called out was the weight of 750kg (1653.47lbs).  Another modern analog was found on this site and calls out a weight of 1300lbs.  Just from looking at images of these I can tell that there is potential gains and losses for modern materials used for the structure in the weight department.  Until I find more accurate data, which I will look for, I am going to stick to the top end of what I have seen rounded up a bit for being lower “tech”: 1800lbs.  I also got a statistic on these as far as maximum capacity of around 4000lbs.  There are varying dimensions I have found so I will look for the closest fit.

Now we have some data….   Lets lay it out….

Aside from travel pace, which would depend on the animal pulling, we have some solid facts. The cargo capacity feels a bit off, but I feel like this is a good starting point.  Crew and Passenger weight would use up that weight, not just “cargo”.  Thinking about my player’s situation, having more than enough towing horsepower (ha this won’t get old), I started thinking about ability scores.  The Saltmarsh ships have them, so it would not be a “complete” item without them in my mind.

This particular vehicle is meant to be light, which would keep STR and CON on the low side but about “average”.  The excess of horsepower could add some fun bonuses to DEX since it can make more drastic turns and maneuvers since the horses are far from encumbered.  Mental note for the next article.  Here is where I ended up:

Feels right, not much science here, just thinking about materials and construction.  One last thing for tonight, Damage and Condition Immunities.  This is an inanimate object so I think we can “cheat” and use the same specs the Saltmarsh ships use.  This leaves us with the following:

This is so far feels reasonable for 400gp.  The 100gp Carriage would be close to this, but the Caravan has a few things that set it apart (some not captured yet):
1. Sleeping space for three (four in tight quarters and no need for personal space).
2. A stove that can be used for food preparation and warmth (hmmm survival checks?).
3. Space for a workbench of some kind.
4. Not directly called out in #1, an actual bed or two, for injured party members to rest.
5. Secured Cargo space inside a door
6. Some god damn statistics (although still early Alpha)

I am sure there is more we can point out, but now I wonder if I made it too cheap?  For now its not much of a concern since the party decided to pay “out the nose” for the fancy hotel/inn in town, but something I should think more about as we move through this series of articles.  Next up we need to take a closer look at each part of the Caravan as well as the Crew Actions that can be taken. 

See you then!

In my last post on the topic I covered the need to delve into vehicle rules and pointed out the disappointing lack of rules for land vehicles in Dungeons and Dragons: 5th Edition.  I am here back with Part 2 of my quest to make some sane land vehicle rules and options for the games I run. Click here to check out part 1.

So far the goal remains the same but the RV equivalent of mundane fantasy land vehicles is pretty much confirmed to not exist. That doesn’t mean we are dead in the water, we need to find something that we can use on a different end of the spectrum. My initial thought was to take a look at some other sourcebooks that have vehicle rules, namely Acquisitions Inc. and Ghosts of Saltmarsh. I have taken a good look at the ships in the saltmarsh content before but revisiting it now made a few things click.

I needed another analog, something above the mark I am trying to hit. This is where the sailing ship comes in. I won’t fully quote rules as written here since there is a lot but let’s call out of key points we did from the carriage, with some “assumptions”:

Sailing Ship
Type: Vehicle (Water)
Cost: 10,000 gp
Weight: No clue…..

It is worth noting the price of the ship comes from the equipment list and the rest from Ghosts of Saltmarsh. The question becomes, why were these not merged in dndbeyond? Wizards of the coast tend to have good book keeping as far as uniquely named items being identical, or at least making it obvious if something is different with some change to its name. I have to assume these two things are one and the same and it is more a matter of having a reason to buy Saltmarsh? Not ideal, but logically sound considering the link from the Mounts and Vehicles page links to Saltmarsh.

Tangent complete, back to the ship…

Aside from the items above there is clear rules on how the vehicle functions, can be equipped and its passenger/crew capacity. These are all important things to take into consideration. Right now our range, price wise, is 100 – 10,000 gold. Quite a broad range but this might be good for us. Having something that is overkill and underkill gives us a distinct top and bottom end to restrict us to. We also have the keelboat as a reference point once we get some data.  Yesterday when I was wrapping my head around what is the RAW Carriage I called it a wrap once I realize how low it ranked.  But we are going back down that road to get some common parameters, more specifically overlay what we have for the carriage over the specs of the sailing ship one section at a time.

Lets look at the end result, followed by my path to get there (spoiler alert not conclusive… yet)

So.. we have some numbers here.  I included the Draft Horse as de-facto source of “horsepower”.  Puns aside before we could figure out movement speed we needs some maths.  I got a lot of data from Charleston Cares when I found it yesterday including this handy page.  Yaaaay Physics.  This is a great resource for calculations we need to do.  However there is an important flaw in our application, coefficient of friction is not part of their calculations since they are relying on near zero values.  Lets give a visit to my friend the Engineering Toolbox to get some data.  If we look at the Wood and Clean metal statistics we see a coefficient of 0.2 – 0.6.

Damn, a range.

Well we can make assumptions around craftsmanship to get a more refined value here.  Ideally axles would be constructed as efficient as possible, which makes be think its fair to say a value of 0.3 could logically apply here.  Near perfect but not quite.  I considered a value of  0.2 but this felt too good for “primitive” technology.  There is also the argument that the construction would involve the best possible materials and raw surface friction would not be the mechanical operation of choice.  All that rambling considered we should lock in at 0.2 and call it the best of the worst. There is another coefficient we need for the wheels on terrain.  So we consult the data and wood wheels on stone is 0.2 – 0.4.

Damn, another range.

Well this one I have already had some preconceptions.  But is my madness reaching a point of being a lost cause?  We have a lot of data thanks to Charleston Cares and not a lot of solid answers just guesses.  That page already confirmed another data point we needed to solve, the travel speed of 3 mph.  I am going to have to table my math on this for another day, I have read to many papers on rolling friction than I care for this evening.  Back to CC there is a statistic that rings home, “1.8lbs to a 200lb person”.  This would take a 600 lbs carriage to be 5.4 lbs of strain on the horse?  Sounds too good to be true but lets run with that 9:1000 ratio.  Assuming we have three 200 lb riders we double it to 10.8 lbs.  Then assume a physical cargo capacity on this vehicle as another 600 lbs of cargo (if the cart doesn’t reach a break point under shearing forces) we are at 16.2lbs  as a sustained load, more so for starting load.  

That feels low…  We may have to solve for proper friction coefficients…

We need some kind of conclusion on this and I think we focus on travel speed since we are still at “back of napkin equations”.  I mentioned the travel speed of 3 mph referenced, but consider the DND math around the Draft horse: 40 ft. per round equates to 4.54545455 miles per hour.  Essentially the horse would not be impeded by this load, we are not even close to 540 lbs, so there is no need to make any changes to travel speed.  Even if we consider the coefficient applied in the equation at a higher speed, there is no way a carriage loaded to its physical capacity is hindering our faithful steed.  The horse dragging the carriage without wheels is right at its capacity.  Considering a Draft Horse can be “burdened” with a load of 540 lbs I see no need to limit its speed when not burdened and the stats for the draft animal is fine… for now.

So what did we gain from this, pretty much nothing related to the carriage besides the concept that the carriage would potentially break under load of cargo before be burden the horse.    I am starting to think we need more information to get where we need to be to understand how many horses will be needed to haul a vehicle.  Like I said before, lets put a pin in this until I can make some more concrete calculations.  CC was giving us some useful math, but I feel the numbers don’t add up.  The sailing ship was a bit pointless in this exercise since we are not trying to sort out cost as of yet.  Next Part will not be finished before the next session so no need to find out how we want to size this fantasy RV.   Depending on the results of the session we may shift gears a little bit and enjoy this confusing math nugget.

See you then!

When my group of players got their first big haul of treasure and were splitting up the funds, I wasn’t surprised they added an additional “share” for a group fund. What caught me, for lack of a better word, unprepared was that the called it the “Wagon Fund”. With the group heading to the nearest town I knew some quick research was needed. In between social encounters and shopping my research brought me to the Carriage.

The group had a discussion on what they wanted in their potential land vehicle, nothing too surprising:

Cargo space
Security
Room for all four members and their extra creatures
Shelter at night

None of these items were outlandish or anything, but the carriage description was not going to make the process easy. Before I jump into a tangent let’s talk about what a Carriage is in dnd5e, Rules as Written: 

Carriage
Type: Vehicle (Land)
Cost: 100 gp
Weight: 600 lbs

Aside from some notes on proficiency, that’s it…  Now you can picture my disappointment.  Luckily for me, the party got distracted with a little “domestic” matter among themselves and we wrapped the session before it was resolved.  So I had a week to get a plan.  Initially I did find a lot of homebrew rules that I found interesting, but nothing consistent.  In the interest of having something new and interesting for my players, and the fact I enjoy wrapping my head around these kinds of puzzles, I decided to write my own rules around this.  The first step was going to be consuming as much official content I could to keep it aligned to the rules that do exist.

So the question is, “Where do I start?”

The answer really simple and something I found in my initial search, The players handbooks section Mounts and Vehicles.  The text in this content provides some context, but its the tables that have the crunchy numbers we need to evaluate.  The problem that I have with them is that we are still stuck understanding what a Carriage is.  From the rules above, all we know is it weighs 600 lbs.  Trying to get an idea of a real world analog lead me deep into equine sources, but still nothing to tell me what a 600lbs Carriage truly is.  But there was a piece of information that became very relevant, “The average large carriage weight is in the neighborhood of 1800 lbs. However, the wheels and design make the load on the horse lighter.”  I have not gotten to the point where I need to start doing the towing calculations, although this will be something to consider later, but this page provided some useful information and further context.  My idea of a Carriage is way off from what one really is.  My expectation is “Small Living Space” but the reality is “Sitting Room Only”

Well Shit.

This is not the right direction, but not the wrong one either.  We accomplished something here, just not what we wanted to.  We have a real world analog of something that is relative to our target vehicle.  We have our Honda Civic as a baseline, we just need to work our way up to more of an RV.  There is still value in having some rules for a Carriage, but not for this week.

Stay tuned for Part 2, where this experiment continues.