Spelljammer Spelljammer: A 5E Fan Conversion

[guildsbounty]

I'm actually still just using Hull Points. For every 10 points of damage the ship takes, I let the players repair 1d6 Hull Points with Mending; the rest of the damage is considered to be too big and structural to be repaired by the Mending spell's size limits, although a Fabricate could work (with an ability check for quality). Weapons that do hull point damage X do Xd6 hit point damage--there's always a loss in effectiveness when scaling down to creature size. (I think this was a 2nd edition rule for Hull Points too, but it might have been just my house rule.)

Your Siege/Super-heavy distinction is interesting, but for me would be unnecessary.

Part of why I am trying to unify HP and damage rules...is because it seems a bit off that you can get shot right in the face with a cannon the size of an entire ship...and only take 3d10 damage. A person getting hit by a siege engine is not going to happen often...the big ones aren't that accurate. But if you DO hit a person with it, there isn't going to be much left.

The current snarl I'm running into with nailing things down is trying to figure out how to handle enchanted siege equipment. In Spelljammer, they did +1 hit point damage OR +1 hull point damage, depending on what you hit with them. To balance it the way I have been, I would either need to set it hard and fast at +1 damage (which is nearly negligible against the vast HP stores of a ship) or set it at +10 damage (which would reduce a human into a greasy smear).

Then again...for the most part, the +X on a weapon is, IMO, most valuable for the +X% chance to hit, rather than a fairly small damage boost...so it might be fine with a flat +1 to damage.

 

[Staffan]

Part of why I am trying to unify HP and damage rules...is because it seems a bit off that you can get shot right in the face with a cannon the size of an entire ship...and only take 3d10 damage. A person getting hit by a siege engine is not going to happen often...the big ones aren't that accurate. But if you DO hit a person with it, there isn't going to be much left.

I don't really see that as much of a problem, at least not for non-ship-sized combatants. D&D hit points have never been about "meat" - I mean, if you get run through by a sword you're probably dead too, but a longsword still only deals 1d8 damage. IMO, a "hit" with a siege weapon against a person is more of a "near miss" that still shaves some of the hit points off.

 

[JediSoth]

Some really good ideas in this thread. I'm working on coming up with a meta plot for my campaign. I'm probably not going to get too heavy into ship-to-ship combat, but I do want to do something with the beholders fixing up their "Death Star" (that big asteroid/ship from SA1: Wildspace) and what components they might need to get it operational.

I've also got ideas about Mind Flayers subcontracting acquisition of food from slavers and a group of lizardfolk looking for a new world to colonize.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Part of why I am trying to unify HP and damage rules...is because it seems a bit off that you can get shot right in the face with a cannon the size of an entire ship...and only take 3d10 damage. A person getting hit by a siege engine is not going to happen often...the big ones aren't that accurate. But if you DO hit a person with it, there isn't going to be much left.

D&D humans are quite a bit more resilient than real-life humans. Real-life humans tend to have trouble surviving 30' drops, for instance, whereas even a bog-standard 0th-level Guard or Acolyte is likely to survive that drop in D&D (especially with help from a friend at the bottom to stabilize him), and will be back on his feet 1d4 hours later. The Guard won't even be knocked out half the time.

 

[guildsbounty]

Okay, time for another round of input...

Siege engines...particularly in terms of fire rate.

AD&D had restrictions in place regarding how often a siege engine could be fired, and it was marked as once every X rounds (i.e. a firing rate of 1/3 could fire once every three rounds), and had a crew size that it required in order to fire. 5E's DMG has some VERY basic rules regarding Siege Engines, and it simply lists the number of Actions required to reload the weapon.

The problem with the rules as written for 5E, IMO, is what happens when you attach a crew to the siege engine. A ballista requires one action to load, one action to aim, and one action to fire. If you crew the ballista with a 3-man crew, the ballista fires every round. In fact, if you rotated the crew properly, you could fire it multiple times per round: a 9-man crew could move towards the ballista on their turn, perform an action, then step away...following this pattern, the ballista could be fired 3 times per round. And while a PC party isn't likely to do this...their NPC hirelings (read: the crew) would certainly be assigned to roles like this.

This would also mean that, assuming you had a full crew, everything from a ballista to the Grand Bombard could be fired at the same rate...and that rate is every bit as fast as how quickly a fighter can swing his sword

On the other hand, it's not terribly exciting to have to fly aimlessly for the next two rounds because you fired your weapons last round and they are still reloading. I'm starting to see why, despite the confusion it could breed, Spelljammer ships moved in Turns (60-second intervals) while everything else happened in Rounds (6-second intervals). When dealing with ship-scale movement...it was more a measurement of how many times per Turn your weapons could fire...but that unbalances a few other things as well.

So, the different ideas I've had so far are these:

1. Use the rules straight out of the 5E DMG. My issue with this is the machinegun trebuchet worry I listed above.
2. Use the rules out of the 5E DMG with the extra limitation that it can only fire once per round.
3. Use the rules out of the 5E DMG, but limit the number of actions that can be used on a single weapon per round (Limiting to 2 per round would cause a Medium Ballista to be able to fire 2 out of every 3 rounds, and a Trebuchet to fire twice every 5 rounds). The problem with this one is that it kills the necessity of having a crew on any weapon larger than the number of actions that can be used per round.
4. Use the 5E rules, but add a 'Max Crew' property to a weapon that restricts how many people can interact with a particular weapon in a single round before they just get in each other's way. (Sort of like #3, but with the bonus of being weapon specific...solving the crew-size issue)
5. Chuck the 5E rules and just bring the AD&D rules up to date (don't really want to do this one...I'd rather stick with the 5E rules)


Thoughts, anyone?

 

[Beleriphon]

4. Use the 5E rules, but add a 'Max Crew' property to a weapon that restricts how many people can interact with a particular weapon in a single round before they just get in each other's way. (Sort of like #3, but with the bonus of being weapon specific...solving the crew-size issue)
5. Chuck the 5E rules and just bring the AD&D rules up to date (don't really want to do this one...I'd rather stick with the 5E rules)


Thoughts, anyone?

I'd go with option 4 personally, I think its really just the easiest option without making things overly complicated, or pushes too far one way or the other from the DMG rules.

I'd also stipulate that ships have a fixed number of hard points for weapons, and bigger weapons need more hard points to mount. If that's a little too abstract maybe a minimum "footage" rating and ships have a certain amounts of "footage" for weapons.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I'd go with #2. That's quite possibly the unstated assumption of the written rule anyway.

When it comes down to flying the ships around shooting at each other, the only thing I want to worry about is whether I have enough people to man the weapons. It simply isn't fun to have to worry about a variety of numbers, or wait for next round, etc. It's simpler and gets out of the way of having fun to simply have a fully crewed weapon fire once per round.

 

[guildsbounty]

I'd also stipulate that ships have a fixed number of hard points for weapons, and bigger weapons need more hard points to mount. If that's a little too abstract maybe a minimum "footage" rating and ships have a certain amounts of "footage" for weapons.

I have plans for controlling that...though I haven't fully fleshed out how it will work with 'deck mounted' or other externally-set weapons.

Internal weapons are easy, as the tonnage of a ship dictates how much internal space it has, and these internal weapons eat up that space. (1 'ton' of ship is equal to about 1350 cubic feet)

External weapons are a bit trickier, as the tonnage of a ship doesn't dictate the shape of the ship, and so a ship could have either a tiny or enormous deck to cover in weapons...(though pre-made ships come with a 'deck plan' that shows how much space you have on the deck) and you could also just build platforms onto the side of the ship's hull to install a weapon. The Warcaptain's Compendium listed a rule that says "If you have weapons (internal and external) that exceed half the tonnage of the ship, they start displacing the air envelope, reducing the amount of air the ship can carry with it." So, if I keep that rule, a 40 ton ship could carry a max of 20 tons of weapons (10 bombards) before it started losing air capacity. That said, I feel like calculating air capacity is complicated enough already, and may do away with that rule.

Instead, the most natural restriction on the number of weapons a ship can carry is simply the size of the crew. A 'standard' crew capacity is 1 person per ton of ship. This provides them with breathable air for up to 8 months (though the latter 4 months are going to be deeply unpleasant as the air is starting to go bad). Given travel times in space...you don't want to go too far above this. So, again, assuming a 40 ton ship that gives you a standard crew capacity of 40 people...taking some off for people responsible for other tasks around the ship (maneuvering, helmsman, captain, etc) that leaves about 30 people available to man the guns. Which, given that a Bombard would like an 'ideal' crew of 3 people...still limits you to 10 bombards on the ship. And, naturally, this is assuming that you want a crew of nothing but gunners, and don't want any close-combat specialists for boarding actions.

I think this actually produces a pretty interesting ship design philosophy. Planetary defense ships could be more heavily armed because they don't need to travel, while traveling ships would have to trade armament for range.

 

[Shasarak]

Which, given that a Bombard would like an 'ideal' crew of 3 people...still limits you to 10 bombards on the ship. And, naturally, this is assuming that you want a crew of nothing but gunners, and don't want any close-combat specialists for boarding actions.

I would suspect that a ship armed with 10 bombards would not particularly be worried about boarding actions.

 

[JediSoth]

Yeah, double post, I know...but from talking with some folk, I came up with an alternative and wanted to see if anyone had feedback on it. This is still rough, and I haven't nailed down some of the numbers yet...but let me know what you think.

When a spellcaster connects to a spelljamming helm, they decide how many levels of spell slots they wish to dedicate to the helm, ranging from zero to nine. Whatever they decide, the spelljamming helm consumes one spell slot of that level or lower, and produces an SR in-line with the amount of power it was given. If the helm attempts to consume a spell slot level for which you have no spells remaining, that level does not count towards the power fed to the helm. A spelljamming helm can operate at minimum performance by simply feeding off the ambient energy a spellcaster produces, effectively operating at 'cantrip' level.

Example: A wizard decides he wants to operate a spelljamming helm at third level. When he connects to the helm, it consumes one first level, second level, and third level spell slot (technically, it also consumes a cantrip, but those are infinite). The helm is now powered at third level.

Example2: A wizard who has done some fighting today wants to operate a spelljamming helm. He decides to use slots up to fifth level to power it, however he has already used all of his second level spells today. The spelljamming helm consumes one first, third, fourth, and fifth level spell slot, but there is no second level spell slot for it to consume. The helm is now powered, but since it was missing one of levels of spell slot it needed, it is only powered to level 4.

While a spellcaster is connected to a spelljamming helm, they are incapable of casting any spells. As an action, the pilot of a spelljamming helm can break their connection with the helm, shutting it down, and freeing them up to use whatever spells they have remaining (you can physically walk away from the helm without disconnecting, but as long as you are connected you cannot cast spells. Naturally, you can't control the ship if you aren't in the helm). However, if you disconnect from the helm, it powers down and must be fed new spell slots to power it up again, and powering up takes some time (TBD).

In order to change the performance level of a spelljamming helm, you must disconnect and restart it.

I think this strikes a much nicer balance...thoughts?

I think I'm going to give this a try. I'd like to have some differentiation between Minor Helms and Major Helms, though, maybe limit the top speed of a minor helm to 5, even if you pump higher level spell slots into it? I also like the idea of being able to boost the ship's speed by sacrificing additional spell slots.

I'm not terribly worried about the cost since my group has only one PC out of 5 who can't use spells of some sort, so they have plenty of slots to go around. I also still don't plan on a bunch of tactical ship combat. I had a chance to do that for Skull & Shackles when we were playing Pathfinder and it didn't really float our boat, so to speak (well, ONE guy liked it, but he goes nuts for anything tactical and crunchy).