Steam Harvester

DESCRIPTION

A harvester resembles a mechanical spider with smokestack jutting from its back. It stands on eight massive articulated pistons allowing the body of the vehicle to tower up to twenty feet in the air or squat just a foot off the ground. The “mandibles” of the harvester are an interchangeable set of mechanized tools for a variety of farm applications. A mandible can be a buzz saw for timber, a gullet grinder for crushing stone, wood, or ice into dust, a pesticide sprayer, a water jet for fighting fires or drilling, a jack hammer, or a suction tube for collecting liquids. Eight people can stand atop the spider on running boards to pick crops while the harvester moves through fields and orchards. Ladders bolted to the sides of each leg allow pickers to climb on and off the harvester. The “head” of the spider is a glass cockpit occupied by the pilot. The “abdomen” of the harvester is a wicker bin used to carry harvested crops or seed stock for replanting. The spider harvester is a wooden vehicle not intended for military use, but can move a squad of troops rapidly through difficult terrain. The long spindly legs of the vehicle allow it to ignore many types of difficult terrains and step over obstacles less than 10 ft. in height.

Gargantuan Land vehicle
Squares 16 (20-ft. wide, 20-ft. long, and up to 20-ft. tall); Cost 11,000 gp

DEFENSE

AC 6; Hardness 5
hp 240 (120)
Base Save +1

OFFENSE

Maximum Speed 80 ft. (20 ft. when harvesting or planting); Acceleration 20 ft. (5 ft. while harvesting or planting)
Weapons 2 pincers +4 melee (2d8 plus grab); The harvester uses the pilot’s BAB to determine its total attack bonus with its pincers and grapples. The harvester does not gain the grappled condition when grabbing a creature.
Attack ram 4d8
CMB +4 (+16 grapple); CMD 14 (26 when opponent is attempting to escape grapple)
Space 20 ft.; Reach 20 ft.

DRIVE

Propulsion coal engine (2 squares of coal burning engines; hardness 8, hp 40; difficult device); The engine is typically located at the rear of the harvester.
Driving Check Knowledge (engineering)
Forward Facing The mandibles and pilot’s cockpit are at the front. The mechanical spider legs allow the vehicle to sidestep in any direction and scale 60 degree escarpments.
Driving Device pair of throttles, 2 foot pedals. eight huge mechanical legs (AC 8, hardness 10, hp 60; difficult device). If all the legs on one side are disabled or more than four legs are destroyed the vehicle can’t move. The harvester’s maximum speed is reduced by 10 ft. for each disabled or destroyed leg.
Driving Space a 5-foot-by-5-foot square glass enclosed cockpit
Crew 1 (coal tender ride inside the vehicle)

LOAD

Decks 1; Running boards are located on either side of the harvester.
Passengers The running boards allow eight passengers to latch onto the sides of the harvester.