Siege Railgun (3.5e Equipment)

A wonder of science and magic, the siege railgun is a giant cannon which uses powerful electric spells and magnetic materials to project items out to massive range. One could compare it to a sniper rifle, but the energies and weight involved dwarf anything portable. In fact, the weapon is so heavy it requires deconstruction and reconstruction elsewhere whenever it needs to move, or to be mounted on a sufficiently durable mobile platform. It has a base footprint as large as a Gargantuan creature (20 x 20), and a barrel that extends a further 30 ft out for a 50 foot long barrel in total. Because it can breach the stratosphere, some have considered using more powerful siege railguns as a method to reach the moon! If only they could figure out how to prevent the pilots from liquifying on launch...

The siege railgun ignores hardness and DR except DR/-. The shot is fired with extreme force, and causes a sonic boom that deafens all creatures in 30 ft of the path of the projectile for 1 minute, DC 20 negates. The projectile leaves a trail of plasma in its wake, and hits with such force the projectile (if not already melted) simply explodes on impact into a fireball, dealing an additional 10d6 fire damage in a 20 ft radius burst, DC 10 + 1/2 BAB + attack ability score modifier (usually Dexterity. The target, if hit, does not recieve a saving throw.

Reloading a siege railgun requires only 2 full-round actions. However, each time it fires it wears down its own barrel. After every shot the weapon must make a DC 5 Fortitude save or break, with the DC rising by +2 each time it is fired (treat as a unattended magic item with a CL of 0th, or +2 on its Fortitude save). When the weapon breaks, its barrel must be replaced (a process which takes 10 minutes with a single crew), which costs 1000 gp in repairs. Each additional crew member lowers the time to replace the barrel by 1 minute, to a minimum of 1 minute. Most keep a crew of three on hand, one to fire and two to reload so as to fire once every round, as well as seven more in standby to replace the barrel. Having more than 3 crew lessens the time spend between them. For example a crew of five would spend a standard action (to fire) and can use one move action from each remaining crew to load the bolt. Crew members smaller than its intended size (such as a small creature on a ballista intended for medium) count as half as many crew members, and larger creatures count as twice as many for the purpose of reloading.

The range of a siege railgun is such that it can actually shoot up to 25 its range increment instead of just 5 times, though it still takes penalties for range. In addition it can fire over the horizon in an arc, though doing so makes it act as a catapultMini, and it halves the damage dealt from the projectile (it retains the 10d6 fireball at the end).

Because siege railguns break often, most do not bother enhancing them as the magic would be lost when the barrel breaks. The siege railgun is automatically considered masterwork. Having the Exotic Weapon Proficiency (siege weapons) gives proficiency in all siege weapons, including this one.