Spelljammer Spelljammer: A 5E Fan Conversion

guildsbounty said:

Yeah, I do differentiate between a Minor and Major Helm in terms of both top speed, and total size of ship they can move.

A Minor Helm can move anything between 1 and 50 tons, and has a top Speed Rating of 5. Spending zero or one spell level gives you SR 1, above that every two spell levels you expend increases the SR by 1 more. So, 8-9 spell slots produces SR 5

A Major Helm can move anything from 1 to 100 tons, and has a top Speed Rating of 10. Zero spell levels gives you SR 1, each spell level above that increases SR by 1.

There's also optional rules regarding acceleration in the guide I have written up so far...and a Major Helm gets to ignore those rules.

Click to expand...

So my group just found our way into a spelljammer ship and are probably about to spend at least some time flying around our world's version of wildspace, and we were talking about how exactly to handle this. I like this idea a lot and will be suggesting it to the DM.

I might simplify things further though. You get an SR of 1 for "free" (ie cantrips). Then for every SR you want above that you have to spend the corresponding slots. So to travel at SR 2 you need to spend a 1st level spell slot, for SR 3, you need to spend a 1st and 2nd level, and so on and so forth, which means getting to SR 10 is possible, as long as you have spells at slots 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 to spend. (and as you suggested in your original post if any slots in between are "missing" it drops the SR by that number).

I'd simply have a minor helm top out at 5 and restrict the kinds of ships they can helm and leave it at that, just to make it simpler to keep track of. If that means that at lower levels of spell slots a minor helm is just as good as a major one, then that's fine by me.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to your guide! And I was very glad to find this discussion!

I'd try to make it even simpler than that. Spending progressive spell slots is a bit too much for my tastes. I'd probably say that every certain amount of time period (12 hours if we want to go traditional, 8 hours if we want to better fit 5e) you have to spend a spell slot equal to level of SR you want for that time period. Cap minor helms at SR 5.

I'd carefully examine the ship sizes to make sure major helms are only needed for the true behemoths. Original Spelljammer was too restrictive on what a minor helm could power.

I guess it depends on how restrictive or "punishing" one wants Spelljamming to be. I could see arguments either way (making it take more or less "spell power.").

Perhaps another option would be to allow you to reach any SR up to 10, by using spell slots that equal that SR. So for example to reach SR 10 you could spend two level 5 slots, or a level 6 and level 4, or any other combo that adds up to the SR you want to reach. Admittedly that'd probably let casters reach higher SR ratings much earlier and make it much easier for high level casters to reach high level SR's. Would anything break/get too complicated by simply adding in higher SRs? Like if they went up to 20 would that really complicate anything too much?

If I were to do the above though I'd probably want to add something in to add a bit more risk/reward for the helmsman to get involved in any combat while spelljamming. Like if they leave the helm, or maybe if they cast any spells while powering the ship, that the ship loses power until they (or someone) sacrifices some spell slots to get the ship moving again.

Also, I'm still pretty keen on the idea of being able to reach a minimum level of functioning for "free" by using cantrip slots. Since, as discussed earlier the SR only really matters in tactical combat, I'd be fine with letting the helmsman simply move the ship long distances for "free", only needing to expend spells lots if the ship has to drop down into tactical combat.

I also wonder about giving some kind of penalty to those ships that are starting out at "cantrip" speed (or advantage to those that started their trip at a higher spell slot). Like maybe it takes a little while to get "up to speed" in tactical combat. This would give the helmsman a reason, if for example they knew they were going to be traveling through a pirate infested area, to simply start the trip at a higher Spell slot. That way if they have to drop to tactical speed, they're already operating at a higher level? I'm not sure the best way to implement that, or if it's even worth the bother (might complicate things in an un-fun way).

When it comes to helms, I say just don't include them. They are the one part of SJ that I dislike. Give ships speeds based on their sails and rigging. Then you avoid a lot of the spell slots what if we don't have spell slots issues.

One thing you do for the ships is do the ship-to-ship stuff with Attack Wing.