So I'm trying to compare and contrast the many many many many options for making a flying ship in D&D. Could you all read this little quick guide I wrote up, and add any comments as to the pros and cons of each method? Also, have I missed anything?
Getting it Aloft Options:
Option 1:
That Flying Ship in the Forgotten Realms book "Shining South"
Pros: Traditional to FR. Looks like a ship -- A Wondrous Item
Cons: Needs a Huge Crew. Wooden, and normal wood even. Expensive. Slow. Looks like a ship... uses Wind Power to move. Utterly vulnerable to natural antimagic area.
Option 2:
Eberron Style Flying Ships -- a Wondrous Item, uses alchemically treated "Soarwood", and a bound elemental in a ring
Pros: Fast. Traditional to Eberron. Relatively Inexpensive. Lighter than Air -- will float, even in an antimagic area.
Cons: That type of elemental binding likely isn't ethical. Soarwood isn't too terribly durable. Locomotion doesn't work in a natural antimagic area, just the floating. Probably needs a crew too (will have to check)
Option 3: Enchanting a Stronghold Space using the Stronghold Builder's Guide rules
Pros: Can be made of lots of interesting materials--not necessarily wood! Gives movement for interplanar options. Can be quite fast. Gives swimming/earthgliding/etc options
Cons: If you use these rules for the main way of doing locomotion, then the price starts adding up real quick. Very vulnerable to a natural antimagic area.
Option 4: Making the ship an Effigy
Pros: Self Locomotion! Can follow orders! Can look like an animal or wyvern with added hit dice (and thus size) or whatever! Can fly on it's own power! It can fly and move about in antimagic area!
Cons: Has a low number of hit points, so it can be 'killed' with direct hit point damage. Arguably not a con -- most of the rules for vehicles have them with low hit points anyway for some reason. It's not necessarily a smart ship at this point. Will need to flap it's wings to stay aloft. Might need some house rules to get the right form of an effigy. Will need silly template stacking to not be too vulnerable. Might be targeted by intimidated people.
Option 5: Using the actual spell in Shining South that is the basis of their ships, maybe in a Spell Clock or something
Pros: Really, Really cheap. I mean, a schema or wand or whatever of this would be REDICULOUSLY cheap. Can get very large amounts of weight aloft. Did I mention cheap?
Cons: Suppressed in an area of natural antimagic. It requires spells to be actively cast, either by a person activating a wondrous item, or casting the spell from their list, or a Spell Clock automatically casting it, which removes lots of the 'really cheap' benefit.
Locomotion Options not part of the above:
Option 1: Get some tireless flying creature to pull it
Pro: You get a few flying effigies to pull your swank flying boat! Awesome! They can keep it moving in an antimagic field, cool!
Con: They can be targeted, and are vulnerable. Also the cables or ropes connecting them to the ship can be targeted. Also, having separate creatures from the ship providing movement to it gives miscellaneous problems of their own.
Option 2: Decanter of Endless Water + Riverine Nozzle + Maybe something to heat it to steam or something
Pro: THRUST. LOTS AND LOTS of thrust. Like, if you do things right, maybe Space Shuttle level of thrust (really!)
Con: You are spewing lots of water (or steam, if you added some bits to it to heat it) behind you. This might upset people / the weather / the Druid / certain creatures. Suppressed in Antimagic area. Also, someone generally has to interact with this item to get it to do stuff. Also, problems with aiming the thrust.
Getting it Intelligence
Option 1: Haunt Shift
Pro: An easy way to get it intelligence.
Con: Evil, uses negative energy. Makes it, you know, haunted. Might not always let the inhabiting spirit have full control over everything. Requires some intelligent undead to start with. To bypass these issues (ie, get a Deathless / positive energy version), will need LOTS of DM Fiat / Custom spell research / questing. Probably supressed in antimagic.
Option 2: Embedding a Sentient Magic Item in the structure/workings somewhere
Pro: Fairly easy to accomplish. Gives it Sentience.
Con: Will probably only work well with the Effigy version, and only if there's some way to link the commands of the magic item to what the Effigy does. Might not give it control over all the ancillary aspects of the ship, unless it has access to lots of unseen servants / mage hand / etc. sorts of things. Probably supressed in Antimagic.