I believe that stats and details about them are available in the DMs guide, but for the most part they're pretty open ended in how they work. Out of combat they mostly reduce travel time... a distance that would take 2 days to walk by foot might take only one day when traveling by cart. It also often works as a place for characters to store items they're not actively using so that they don't have to carry all their treasure with them at all times (until your DM gets tired of having to track that sort of thing and just gives you a bag of holding).
In combat is a bit trickier, since it depends a lot on how your DM plays. It basically creates a mobile platform on the playing field that moves at the rate of speed as the mounts its attached to. One character generally has to steer, and it's easier if they have proficiency with Land Vehicles. It's essentially mounted combat, except all the characters are mounted in the same place instead of mounted on separate steeds.
Any kind of modifications would mostly be a form of homebrew, but I think there are rules for such things in the DMs guide (sorry that I dont' have more information on that... I'm not a DM so I haven't purchased the guide), but you could potentially increase the armor class and maybe attach weapons or other items to your vehicle that could logically be attached. But in general there aren't a lot of hard and fast rules about such things, as far as I'm aware.
Decent into Avernus has a rule chapter for the war machines (land vehicles) introduced in that adventure. Combat rules and actions are very similar to the sea vehicles combat rules/actions from Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Both can be a decent framework for basic land vehicles in combat for a DM, should a player wish to pursue it.
For example, if my players wanted to get a decent sized wagon and turn it into a "war wagon" with a ballista mounted on it, I could model it after the Avernus war machines. Give the reigns/steering mechanism hit points, as well as the wheels, body, and ballista. Assign it a damage threshold, crew number, actions in combat, etc.
Bottom line, using a basic vehicle like a wagon in combat is some homebrew, some using the rules in the adventures as a guide, and all up to the DM.
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How do they work?
Various Carriages, Wagons, carts
in and out of combat
plus can you make modifications to you vehicle as time goes on?
I believe that stats and details about them are available in the DMs guide, but for the most part they're pretty open ended in how they work. Out of combat they mostly reduce travel time... a distance that would take 2 days to walk by foot might take only one day when traveling by cart. It also often works as a place for characters to store items they're not actively using so that they don't have to carry all their treasure with them at all times (until your DM gets tired of having to track that sort of thing and just gives you a bag of holding).
In combat is a bit trickier, since it depends a lot on how your DM plays. It basically creates a mobile platform on the playing field that moves at the rate of speed as the mounts its attached to. One character generally has to steer, and it's easier if they have proficiency with Land Vehicles. It's essentially mounted combat, except all the characters are mounted in the same place instead of mounted on separate steeds.
Any kind of modifications would mostly be a form of homebrew, but I think there are rules for such things in the DMs guide (sorry that I dont' have more information on that... I'm not a DM so I haven't purchased the guide), but you could potentially increase the armor class and maybe attach weapons or other items to your vehicle that could logically be attached. But in general there aren't a lot of hard and fast rules about such things, as far as I'm aware.
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There aren't good concrete rules for land vehicles in combat. Their primary purpose is increasing the carry capacity of mounts.
Thanks you two
Decent into Avernus has a rule chapter for the war machines (land vehicles) introduced in that adventure. Combat rules and actions are very similar to the sea vehicles combat rules/actions from Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Both can be a decent framework for basic land vehicles in combat for a DM, should a player wish to pursue it.
For example, if my players wanted to get a decent sized wagon and turn it into a "war wagon" with a ballista mounted on it, I could model it after the Avernus war machines. Give the reigns/steering mechanism hit points, as well as the wheels, body, and ballista. Assign it a damage threshold, crew number, actions in combat, etc.
Bottom line, using a basic vehicle like a wagon in combat is some homebrew, some using the rules in the adventures as a guide, and all up to the DM.