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The Dogfighter's Handbook

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The engines screamed as Vincent slammed the throttle open, banking the old D-Grade aircraft into a sharp, declining tailspin. The flak cannons from the gigantic B-Grade airship opened up in response, peppering the air with clouds of deadly shrapnel. Dipping low beneath the exploding shards of metal, Vincent fought the battered aircraft for control; the cowling ripping off in a shower of sparks as the biplane skimmed the surface of the ocean. He pulled upward, taking aim at the steel behemoth flying above him, before squeezing the trigger.

What is the Dogfighter's Handbook?

This supplement brings a host of new rules for airship combat to the world of D&D! From tiny, one man fighters to vast flying fortresses, The Dogfighter's Handbook is a perfect tool for players and DMs to create their very own personal aircraft. Dart into deadly dogfights, or even massive fleet battles.

Modify your aircraft and watch as it grows from a simplistic fighter into a specialised weapon of destruction that compliments your character's playstyle. Or grab a flying mount and take the fight directly to the heart of the enemy with rules for grappling and boarding!

Contents:

  • Rules for aerial combat, including flying mounts, creatures and boarding assaults.
  • A complete guide to aircraft construction, from D-grade fighters to A-grade flying fortresses
  • Fuel Management, usage and refueling costs
  • Bounty mechanics and encounter balancing when using aircraft in combat
  • Rules for crew management, including recruitment, repairing, and upgrading aircraft.
  • 5 different chassis and engine types
  • 30 different weapon options
  • 5 experimental weapon types
  • 22 different specialist upgrades
  • A form fillable aircraft character sheet, and 5 example aircraft to get you started, designed by Matthew Mutch.

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Reviews (5)
Discussions (14)
Customer avatar
Ryan P January 21, 2023 2:08 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I love the books is there any way to get a hard copy to match my grease monkeys handbook ?
Customer avatar
Tyler B July 06, 2021 1:59 pm UTC
PURCHASER
What Would Be the Upside to Having 2 Front Mounted Guns on say an E Grade Chassis with the extra hardpoint upgrade? Because you can only fire one per actual action.
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Customer avatar
Vall S August 11, 2021 6:22 pm UTC
CREATOR
Hi Tyler, thanks for the question!

At present, the best use of it would be as a backup in case your main gun breaks, though there's nothing stopping you working with your DM to have the additional installation increase the guns damage output, or allow for an extra shot per turn.
This doubling up of weapons is something we're looking into for our next major supplement, so if you have any thoughts or feedback you'd like to fire over, feel free to join our official discord: https://discord.gg/RS9HZMPWNu
Customer avatar
Tony F April 02, 2021 7:34 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Love it, but I do have a couple of questions as it relates to movement and resistances:

If I'm reading this right, then it is required to move your entire movement speed within your turn (as written on page three). However, on page five it states that all aircraft and flying beasts immediately begin falling if they end their turn with zero movement speed remaining. Is this referring to "maximum" movement speed that you are capable of making per turn, which is lost as your engines take damage? Otherwise, it means that pilots have to climb a hundred feet (since you lose fifty at the end of your turn, then another fifty at the start of your next) to make another pass at the same opponent.

With regards to resistances, since aircraft are classified as "Constructs" you have stated that they are immune to necrotic, poison, and psychic damage. Likewise, they are also immune to the poisoned, frightened, stunned, and prone states. Finally, they do not suffer from any form of...See more
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Customer avatar
Vall S April 04, 2021 3:14 pm UTC
CREATOR
Hi Tony, that's for the kind words and support!

Regarding your questions:

Movement:
As long as an aircraft has a movement value, then they're considering to always be moving, and thus don't fall out of the sky at the end of their turns. An aircraft's speed is only reduced to 0 if their engines are destroyed, they decide to ram another aircraft, or they somehow have that movement speed reduced to 0 through magical means. Fear not - you won't have to waste time climbing back up to engagement range at the start of each of your turns unless your ship is affected by one of the aforementioned events.

Resistances:
As the aircraft are also vehicles, they should have the immutable form trait. I believe this was an oversight on my part (though the idea of turning an aircraft to stone in the middle of combat is pretty wild).

I hope this helps, and thank you again for your interest and support!
Customer avatar
Zachary S March 31, 2021 2:34 am UTC
PURCHASER
really love this
Customer avatar
Mentis - David V October 17, 2020 11:42 pm UTC
Hey! Great work! Just a few things that are ambiguous to me (and my players):
- When you install multiple front facing weapons, can all of them be fired at the same time? For instance: could a hypothetical class A2 with 10 echo cannons fire them all at once? Crew seems to only be able to fire pintle mounted weapons, or am I missing something?
- Turn speed: Does turning cost movement? Or does the turn speed for each chassis represent the minimal amount of movement required before taking a turn?

And less ambiguous but more of a confusing point for me. What is the upside of torpedoes? They are cool from a style perspective, but game mechanically speaking they, well, kinda suck. I'd never personally put them on an "optimized" build and I've been trying to find a niche for them but it turns out that just getting a basic 7D10 cannon is always superior. My players and I tried to come up with some tweaks (either increasing the range, decreasing the cost, or causing crew damage when they...See more
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Customer avatar
Vall S November 17, 2020 2:14 pm UTC
CREATOR
Hiya Mentis, thanks for the support and the kind words!
In response to your questions -

1. Multiple Front Facing Weapons. At present, only the pilot can fire non-pintle weapons, and it still requires an action to fire a hardpoint. So at best, you could fire 3 of them at once, using your main action, action surge, and then hasted action. There are upgrades that increase the number of shots a hardpoint can perform, which you could invest in instead, should you want a rapid firing echo cannon design. The concept of crew being able to fire pintle mounted weapons is also so you can get that extra bit of damage or point defense in without essentially breaking the game by giving 20 NPCs access to a cannon each.

2. The turn speed for each chassis represents the minimum amount of movement the ship must make in a straight line before it can make a turn. Means A2s take forever to spin around and D1s can out manuever them at pretty much every turn.

3. Torpedos are a tough one,...See more
Customer avatar
James R March 09, 2020 5:32 am UTC
PURCHASER
Do you plan on continuing to update this?
Reply
Customer avatar
Vall S March 09, 2020 8:01 pm UTC
CREATOR
I do, yes. With the number of other projects I'm currently involved with this year it might take a few months, but an update is in the pipeline. :)
Customer avatar
Rowan A July 09, 2019 10:27 pm UTC
PURCHASER
If I may ask for clarification on a topic regarding using Ariship Weapons:

I see that you add your proficiency (if you have it) to the attack bonus of each weapon, and you add the ship's Dexterity modifier to all its weapon's damage rolls. However if you have the Extra Attack feature, does that let you fire a weapon (or weapon's burst) more than once per turn? Like, if I were playing a level 5 fighter in a ship that has a Light Autocannon, can I fire 8 bullets on my turn, or only 4?
Reply
Customer avatar
Vall S July 10, 2019 3:14 pm UTC
CREATOR
Thanks for the question!
You could fire only 4, unless you used Action Surge.

It takes your action to fire an airship weapon, which is why certain weapons have a rate of fire option (and make more than one shot when used) to offset this.
So while a fighter can't use their extra attack option to launch a ton of shots reliably, they CAN use their action surge to fire a ship's weapon twice in the same turn!

I hope this helps, and thanks for your support!
Customer avatar
Alexander S June 25, 2019 9:20 am UTC
PURCHASER
Hello, Vall; The updated sheets seem to working perfectly!

I was hoping to gain some clarification, on a separate matter. I apologize once more for the use of your time.

On the ship sheet, there are three sets of boxes with which to track an aircraft's physical ability scores; One box for the full score, one for the ability mod, and a third slot which I'm having a devil of a time figuring out the purpose for. I've consulted the example airship sheets as reference, and I've failed to grasp it. The C Grade Example, for instance, has a +2 added to the ability modifier for the first two ability scores, but then seems to lose a significant portion of it's ability modifier from the third score. Could you perhaps help explain things to me a bit?
Reply
Customer avatar
Vall S June 26, 2019 1:23 pm UTC
CREATOR
Yessssss! SO glad that update worked! Hopefully it'll work for everyone else as well. :)

There are 3 boxes available for the stats of the aircraft on the stat sheet. The little box on the top is for saving throw proficiencies, the middle one is for the ability score modifier, and the bottom one is for the actual ability score stat.

As per the handbook, the aircraft shares the pilot's saving throw proficiencies, so I gave the C grade a basic +2 prof bonus to represent it being crewed by any basic NPC.
The NPC is proficient in Strength and Dex saves, but not Constitution, so that explains the measly +3 bonus the aircraft has in that regard.

I hope this helps clear things up a bit! :)
Reply
Customer avatar
Alexander S June 26, 2019 5:04 pm UTC
PURCHASER
That should be the last thing me and my campaign are fuzzy on! Thank you for your assistance, over the last few months!
Reply
Customer avatar
Vall S June 26, 2019 11:10 pm UTC
CREATOR
No problem at all, enjoy!
Customer avatar
Neil H May 23, 2019 2:15 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I'm having trouble imaging the size/type of airships based on the class. Is E sort of like a fighter jets, D sort of like the millennium falcon, C like a cargo ship etc?
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Customer avatar
Vall S May 23, 2019 9:30 pm UTC
CREATOR
Pretty much!

E grades are things like one man fighter planes or fighters for halflings, D grades are fighter/bombers that can normally house up to 2 people (or maybe a large creature, like a Minotaur).
C grades are the most varied, with Millennium Falcon at the smallest, and Oil tankers at the bigger end of the scale.
And finally, A grades are massive airships that can be used as mobile bases, and normally require a fleet to take out. Probably like Star Wars Imperial cruisers.
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Customer avatar
Neil H May 23, 2019 10:40 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Awesome. Thanks for the response. Great work. This is an awesome resource. About to to start a campaign based on it!
Reply
Customer avatar
Vall S May 23, 2019 11:07 pm UTC
CREATOR
Exciting stuff, I'm glad you like it, and thank you for the support!
My current campaign uses it a lot, and the players love it. One of them has a B grade airship (similar to one of the floating ironclads pictured on the front), and another player has just 'acquired' a magical mech from The Greasemonkey's Handbook. Together, battles have been absolute chaos!
Here's hoping your players give you some fantastic stories to tell :)
Customer avatar
Neil H May 22, 2019 3:59 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I'm also having the same issue with the stat sheet and the examples. Examples are blank and the sheet is not form-fillable. I'm using acrobat DC if that helps - but couldn't get it to work in chrome or drawboard either. Also, it says there is some password needed in the security tab in acrobat - not sure if that is helpful...
Reply
Customer avatar
Vall S May 22, 2019 4:48 pm UTC
CREATOR
That's... very strange. I'm currently chatting to the developer of the stat sheet, so a fix is on the way! Thanks for letting me know. We'll get this sorted as soon as possible.
Reply
Customer avatar
Vall S May 22, 2019 9:17 pm UTC
CREATOR
Are you using a Mac?
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Customer avatar
Neil H May 23, 2019 2:13 pm UTC
PURCHASER
No - windows 10
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Customer avatar
Vall S May 23, 2019 9:20 pm UTC
CREATOR
Right, I'll send that feedback along. Thanks!
Reply
Customer avatar
Neil H June 12, 2019 3:30 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hey, I'm still having trouble with the pdfs...any updates on that?
Reply
Customer avatar
Vall S June 13, 2019 1:03 pm UTC
CREATOR
Hi Neil,
I've sent the feedback along to the PDF designer, and so far he's not found any faults his end and is genuinely confused as to why it's not working for you.
I have the feeling it could be something to do with the uploaded version of the fillable, so I'll be re-uploading a new version of it later this week which, fingers crossed, might provide a fix for you.

Failing that, we may have to redesign the entire fillable from scratch, but I'm hoping it doesn't come to that! Thanks for your patience! <3
Customer avatar
D. C March 22, 2019 4:28 pm UTC
PURCHASER
does this mesh well with the greasemonkey's handbook
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Customer avatar
D. C March 22, 2019 4:51 pm UTC
PURCHASER
all the examples are blank on my end and it is not form fillable.
Reply
Customer avatar
Vall S March 22, 2019 5:01 pm UTC
CREATOR
Hi Dylan, thanks for the message!

The Greasemonkey's Handbook was designed to be compatible with the Dogfighter's Handbook, and certainly meshes rather well. We've been using both supplements in our own campaigns and so far had no problems. :)

Could you give me more information about the 'examples being blank and not form fillable'?
Customer avatar
Alexander S December 13, 2018 5:02 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Might it perhaps be possible to get a proper Form-Fillable version of the ship sheet? It's possible that something just went pear-shaped on my end, but it would be tremendously helpful.
Reply
Customer avatar
Vall S December 13, 2018 5:39 pm UTC
CREATOR
The sheet should be form-fillable using adobe reader. If it isn't, please let me know and I'll see what I can do. :)
Reply
Customer avatar
Alexander S December 13, 2018 6:07 pm UTC
PURCHASER
At least for me thus far, the sheet hasn't been fillable; There is some fair chance that something is just squirrely on my end. I do apologize for the trouble, in any case.
Reply
Customer avatar
Vall S December 14, 2018 2:57 am UTC
CREATOR
No worries! Did you try opening it on the latest Adobe Reader? Is the sheet displaying weird, or is it just not letting you fill things?
Reply
Customer avatar
Alexander S December 17, 2018 12:32 am UTC
PURCHASER
Apologies about the delay; Life caught up to me.

I'm using the latest version of Adobe Reader. The actual sheet artwork is displaying just fine, but on my end it's missing all of the actual form fields.
Reply
Customer avatar
Vall S December 17, 2018 3:34 am UTC
CREATOR
No problem, life comes first! :)
That is strange though.. I'll have a look at the form fillable my end and see if something broke during an update.
Reply
Customer avatar
Alexander S March 29, 2019 11:30 am UTC
PURCHASER
Gave it a while and re-downloaded; Still don't appear to have any form fields on the stat sheet, for some reason. Plenty of other documents work fine. I apologize for the trouble.
Reply
Customer avatar
Vall S March 29, 2019 3:19 pm UTC
CREATOR
It's no problem Alexander! I think I'm going to have to redesign the sheet from the ground up and get a new version uploaded if it's still bugging out for you. I'll see what I can do with it.
Reply
Customer avatar
Vall S May 22, 2019 9:18 pm UTC
CREATOR
HI Alexander, still looking into the PDF issue. Are you using a Mac?
Reply
Customer avatar
Alexander S June 21, 2019 2:46 am UTC
PURCHASER
Windows 10; I apologize for taking so long to get back to you again, I don't always get notifications.
Customer avatar
Deggas S September 20, 2018 11:52 am UTC
Hey this is really good but its been really hard for my group to pick up the combat. Could you provide a few example combat scenarios to work off?
Like a 3-way between E class ships, 2-way between two C class and something else?
Reply
Customer avatar
Vall S September 20, 2018 3:27 pm UTC
CREATOR
I'll see what I can do. :)
Customer avatar
Vall S May 27, 2018 3:31 pm UTC
CREATOR
New V 1.2 update! Streamlined Ramming Rules and clearer repair prices, among other minor tweaks!
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File Last Updated:
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This title was added to our catalog on January 22, 2018.