The Orcish War Wagon

Dungeon Mastery written by BEN THOMPSON illustrated by BRIAN SNODDY the orcish war wagon he ground rumbles violently as terrible through a cloud of dust and thick smoke bursts Treverberation resonates across the valley, forth a mechanical monstrosity unlike anything chattering your teeth and ripping through the you’ve ever witnessed. A behemoth wheeled vehicle skies with the horrible sounds of screeching metal of some sort, clearly Orcish in design, cobbled and clanking gears that accompany it. Suddenly, together from scavenged plates of metal and planks of wood. It hurtles through the ravine, belching level 5-7 when they encounter this monstrosi- black smoke behind it, bearing down on you with ty, and they’re going to need to think quick to a fearsome bladed iron plate bolted to the front avoid a pretty gruesome demise. of the war machine. A guttural, blood-curdling If the party somehow manages to defeat battle cry emerges from the Orc manning a heavy the crew and take the War Wagon intact, it ballista turret mounted atop the machine. Next can make for a very fun session where the to his firing position, an enormous iron crane just party can take it into combat against large high above the vehicle, brandishing a fearsome hordes and powerful enemies. As the DM, mechanical claw. you will, of course, need to take this thing away from the party at some point, and there The Orcish War Wagon is an unstoppable will be a few options available to you — fuel, juggernaut of destruction, designed with repairs, and upkeep are all expensive, hard scavenged parts and jury-rigged together to find, and not available in the wilderness, through various Orcish feats of engineering. or you can force your party to enter a space Standing roughly the same dimensions as where the Wagon does not fit (and if they a modern-day military Infantry Fighting come back for it later, it’s gone, stripped of Vehicle, this frightening construction carries a parts, or destroyed). Either way, this is a mini crew of five and features a heavy ballista turret Death Star, so you really don’t want to give it and a large terrifying metal claw arm that out to the party without a plan for using it, can be used to grab, crush, and drag anything a battle the party can fight while driving it, unlucky enough to be within twenty feet of and a solid idea of how you’re going to take it the vehicle. It’s powered by coal, steam, and away from them. weird alchemical magic, and presents a very formidable enemy to even some of the more The Orc War Wagon advanced adventuring parties. Huge Land Vehicle When the War Wagon is first encoun- Size 20ft long by 10ft wide by 10ft. high tered, it is manned by a crew of Orcs — four (plus a 10ft crane) sergeants with 3-5 levels of Fighter or Rogue, Cost 50,000gp and an officer with 5-7 levels of Fighter. The Wagon’s tactics are hopefully pretty AC 20; touch AC 2; Hardness 10 straightforward — charge the enemy firing hp 1,800 the ballista and arrows, then use the claw to Base Save +3 snatch anything that doesn’t get flattened by Maximum Speed 90 ft.; Acceleration 30 ft. the front bumper. The party should be at least Propulsion coal / steam 2 dungeon mastery Driving Device throttle and two levers function. The propulsion crewman is in an inte- Required Crew 2 (driver and propulsion) rior position which provides full cover, granting required for operation +8 to AC and +4 to Reflex saves. Additional Crew 4 (claw operator, deck gunner, interior gunners) Claw Operator The claw operator is in a fixed hardpoint on the Passengers all interior space is utilized by driv- deck of the War Wagon, behind iron shield- er, propulsion, and the two interior gunners. ing that offers partial cover (+4 AC and +2 to The exterior of the vehicle has the hardpoints Reflex saves). The Claw has a Reach of 20’ and for the claw operator and deck gunner. Up has a full 360-degree range of motion around to 4 additional characters can “pile on” to the the vehicle. The claw can attack any creature exterior of the vehicle, though they receive no within its reach, using a CMB modifier of +12, benefits from any cover and do not gain any and it has a Strength score of 18. If the foe is bonuses to AC or Reflex saves. grappled, he takes 1d8+4 points of bludgeoning damage and gains the grappled condition. Each CREW round on his turn, the claw operator can move Driver the grappled foe anywhere in the claw’s reach The driver uses the character’s Knowledge and can choose to constrict the enemy for an (Engineering) skill any time they wish to make additional 1d8+4 damage. The CMD for the a complicated or difficult maneuver while purposes of escaping this grapple is 25. The driving. If driving into a square occupied by claw has an AC of 20, a Hardness of 10, and another creature, the driver makes a melee 200 HP. touch attack against all creatures inside those squares using the driver’s Engineering as an Deck Gunner attack modifier. A hit deals 8d8 bludgeoning There is one heavy crossbow hardpoint on the damage. The driver is in an Interior position aft deck of the wagon, with iron shielding that which provides full cover, granting +8 to AC offers partial cover (+4 AC and +2 to Reflex and +4 to Reflex saves. saves) for the gunner. The gunner uses their Ranged Attack modifier (-2 if the vehicle Propulsion is moving). The weapon deals 3d8 points of Shoveling coal into the boiler is a Full-Round piercing damage, criticals on a 19-20, and has a Action that provides power to the War Wagon range increment of 120’. for 1d4 rounds — without power, the vehicle cannot move and the claw arm will no longer thompson | snoddy 3 Interior Gunners There are two interior fire points inside the System Reference Document 5.1 Copyright tank that provide full cover, granting +8 to 2016, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors AC and +4 to Reflex saves. Ranged weapons Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, such as crossbows and longbows can be fired Rodney Thompson, Peter Lee, James Wyatt, through the arrow slits (at a -2 modifier if the Robert J. Schwalb, Bruce R. Cordell, Chris vehicles is in motion), though thrown weapons Sims, and Steve Townshend, based on original cannot due to the size of the arrow slit and the material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. cramped confines of the vehicle’s interior. Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Reference Links: Document. Copyright 2011, dungeonmasteryshow.com Paizo Publishing, LLC; patreon.com/dungeonmastery Author: Paizo Publishing, LLC. facebook.com/dungeonmasteryshow Instagram: @dungeonmasteryshow Document Design: Twitter: @masterydungeon dQniel Kaufman Email: [email protected] Special Thanks: Clay Thompson Greg Merrill Thaís Melo The Open Gaming Network (opengamingnetwork.com/) Copyright Notice: Open Game License v 1.0a Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, LLC. 4 dungeon mastery.

Load more