Vehicle: Mining Cart

The vehicles in Adventurer's Vault are a nice step in the right direction, and provide a starting example of how to slap some vehicular mayhem into your game. However, I think that vehicles are underused and underappreciated. Here's the first part of how to do a good mining cart chase scene, just like in Indiana Jones and teh Temple of Doom.



Step 1: Draw a combat map of 2-square-wide mining cart tracks, seperated by 1 square in between.

Step 2: Hand your PCs a couple of mining carts.

Step 3: Profit.

When running encounters with these vehicles, it's critical to keep things in relative motion and distance from each other. The base assumption is that all of the carts and their occupants are flying down the tracks at high speed. The important part, and the only part you need to map out, is where they are relative to each other. In this sense, upcoming hazards at the tracks are more coming at the carts, rather than the carts speeding towards the hazards. This isn't any new advice here or anything, the chase scene idea done this way is pretty old, but I thought I would be remiss if I didn't mention it.


Mining Cart                        Large Vehicle
HP 70
AC 3; Fortitude 10, Reflex 3
MOVE ACTIONS                                                                  
Speed Up/Slow Down + At-Will (1/rd.)                                
Effect: Move the mining cart 3 squares in either direction on the track.
Lean Over + At-Will                                                              
Effect: You lean the cart over to get a little closer to the enemy. The reach of your melee attacks increase by +1 until the start of your next turn. At the end of your turn, each occupant of your cart must make a DC 10 Acrobatics check or fall off the cart.
MINOR ACTIONS                                                                
Switch the Tracks + At-Will                                               
Attack: Make a ranged basic attack against AC 17, Reflex 15 or Fortitude 15.
Hit: One mining cart of your choice moves laterally to a track adjacent to it.
IMMEDIATE ACTIONS                                                        
Ram + At-will                                                                           
Trigger: The cart ends its turn adjacent to another cart.
Effect (Free Action): Both carts takes 4d10 damage and all occupants are subjected to the following:
Attack: +9 vs. Fortitude
Hit: 1d8+5 damage, and the target is knocked prone.
Fall Off + At-will                                                                    
Trigger: You would be pushed, pulled or slid out of the cart.
Effect (No Action): You stay in the cart, and hang on to the edge for dear life. Your feet scrap against the fast-moving tracks as you struggle to get up. You take 2d10 damage and are knocked prone in the cart.
Destroyed                                                                                
Trigger: The cart drops to 0 Hit Points or less.
Effect (No Action): All creatures in the cart are thrown out, take 5d10 damage and are knocked prone. The surviving occupants of the cart then move onto the next combat encounter.