Soarsled

I'm currently working on a spell that will mimic the soarsleds in the Sharn sourcebook.

Soarsled:
A soarsled is a crystalline disk crackling with energy, 5 feet in diameter, that flies with greet speed and maneuverability through the air in Sharn’s manifest zone. Within the city of Sharn, a character can fly a soarsled at a speed of 90 feet with good maneuverability. Beyond the city limits, a soarsled functions as a fly spell (speed 60 feet, or 40 feet if heavily loaded) that works only three times per day (for 6 minutes each use).
A soarsled has an effective Strength of 20 and is treated as a Large quadruped for purposes of determining its carrying capacity. A light load for a soarsled is 399 pounds or less, a medium load is 400–698 pounds, and a heavy load is 699–1,200 pounds. When carrying a medium or heavy load, the soarsled’s flying speed within the city is reduced to 60 feet.
A soarsled is controlled by thought. Activating and controlling the disk does not require actions or checks, but remaining standing as the disk moves often requires a DC 10 Balance check. Situations that require a Balance check include: another character jumping onto the disk, reversing direction or turning more than 45 degrees, colliding with any obstacle, and taking damage. As with balancing on a narrow surface, a character riding a soarsled loses his Dexterity bonus to AC unless he has 5 or more ranks in Balance.
Moderate transmutation; CL 6th; Craft Wondrous
Item, Improved Flight Item, fly, Tenser’s floating
disk; Price 38,000 gp; Weight 50 lb.

As they are 38,000gp i thought it would make an interesting pit-stop until you can afford them.
This spell can be bought from the Orien Skycoach stations and would have wording somewhat like this (admittedly i've stolen this from some guy on the web, and it was for a 4th ed game):


You conjure several glowing disks of energy that float just above the ground. As soon as you step on one it begins to move under your control.

Duration: 1 hour
Component Cost: 25gp
Market Price: 150gp

This ritual conjures up to eight glowing disks of energy. Each one can be ridden by you or any other character you designate during the casting. Any character riding a soarsled gains a fly speed of 50ft.

A character can jump to a nearby soarsled with a successful reflex save (?) and attempt to take it from its rider. If the check fails, the character falls. Treat the attack as a bull rush attempt, with a +1 bonus for charging. If the attack is successful, the soarsled's rider is pushed off or (if the rider makes a successful saving throw) knocked prone on the soarsled, occupying the same space as the new rider. If the bull rush attempt fails, the character falls prone in the rider's space.

A prone creature on a soarsled can't stand up without first pushing the occupying character off with another bull rush attempt (taking the normal -2 penalty for attacking while prone). A creature must be standing on the soarsled to control its movement, so if both creatures' turns pass without either one standing up and moving the soarsled, it crashes.

Soarsleds are only able to function within certain manifest zones of Syrania, such as the area around Sharn. Soarsleds also function normally in Syrania. If a soarsled leaves a manifest zone it dissipates, causing the rider to fall.


Any thoughts and ideas are most welcome

Surf's up!

So this is a spell ?
Could we buy a scroll of it and have one to cast for emergency get-away's or pursuits ?
Could any of us cast it ?

Pretty certain it would be a Sorcerer/wizard spell, and note it only works within Syrania manifest zones, Sharn being the only one that you know of.
So there is no reason that Anvil couldn't use it, but there are no other arcane casters in the group.

At the moment I'm not sure how to implement it, i would think that at first House Orien would sell only the service of casting it. However with intrigues as they are in Sharn it would only be a matter of time until "someone" got hold of the details of the spell and used it for their own purposes.

Another thought that is currently spinning in my head is that it would take a Dragonmarked character (probably someone with the mark of Passage) to be able to use it...

Once again thoughts and ideas are welcome

The Soarsled spell really came into the public awareness when a creative businessman ran the first sky-surfing competition. In which skilled competitors ridng soarsled's compteed over a course.
The sport soon took off (no pun intended) and is now immensely popular with high profile sky-surfers being the idols of thousands.
Almost inevitably organized crime were attracted to the money and a mage sound bribed to reveal the secrets of the spell.
This lead to the birth of 'extreme' sky-surfing. Whereas in the normal sport all competitors are issued with feather-fall tokens for the illegal version none are allowed, also the competitors are allowed light weappons and are allowed to attack each other and force their opponents off there sleds.

Very nice Dave, i will incorporate that i think

Very similar to this but a more underground "extreme" event.