Spelljammer Spelljammer: A 5E Fan Conversion

[FormerlyHemlock]

I didn't realize that the bonuses didn't reset if you re-entered the original plane. I assumed that if you went elsewhere, and then back to the Prime, the bonuses would just be the Prime bonuses.

Oerth/Krynn were normally considered different Primes, unless you went through the phlogiston. Your +3 sword would revert to +5 if you went back to Oerth.

The differences between phlogiston and planar travel had some interesting cosmological implications.

The primary attraction of the Phlogiston has always seemed to me that it's difficult to move an entire ship through the planes, so there is the cargo issue. Also, casters high enough level to utilize planar travel are rarer than ships, crew, and low-level casters. Since there is an entire demographic of space-farers, its only natural that they'd use their "normal" means of transport, rather than high-level magic, just like land-bound merchants and travelers are more likely to take ships or highways than to hire a high level caster to teleport them.

Interestingly, thouh, this whole demographic is utterly dependent on a third party source pumping out nigh-artifact-level (nigh-indestructible) magic items on a regular basis: the Arcane and spelljamming helms. What do the Arcane want, and why did they choose this means of getting it?

In my game, the Arcane impose a different price on every planet they agree to supply with spelljamming helms. In some cases, it's the hair on every citizen's head; in other cases, it's gold and gems; in other cases, the firstborn child of the planetary monarch; in others, an annual quota of brightly-colored stones from a particular beach. No one knows why.

Except me. I know that they don't really care much about the payment; their real agenda is making sure everyone is totally reliant on their spelljamming helms instead of developing their own sources of transportation. And of course, all the helms have a Chinese-style backdoor built into them. What the Arcane are really interested in is security--their racial psychology is very similar to Pierson's Puppeteers. This way, other races naturally expand to fill any power vacuums, but that race is not an existential threat to the Arcane because they have a kill switch in reserve. Beholders predate the Arcane and don't rely on helms, so reducing beholder influence via puppet races like humans and goblinoids is a major hidden agenda for the Arcane.

 

[Staffan]

The primary attraction of the Phlogiston has always seemed to me that it's difficult to move an entire ship through the planes, so there is the cargo issue. Also, casters high enough level to utilize planar travel are rarer than ships, crew, and low-level casters. Since there is an entire demographic of space-farers, its only natural that they'd use their "normal" means of transport, rather than high-level magic, just like land-bound merchants and travelers are more likely to take ships or highways than to hire a high level caster to teleport them.

This is pretty much how I think it should have worked. However, the pricing of spelljamming helms (minimum 100k) makes it a little hard to justify - while plane shift didn't have a given cost in 2e, you could probably get a great many plane shifts for 100k gp.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Oerth/Krynn were normally considered different Primes, unless you went through the phlogiston. Your +3 sword would revert to +5 if you went back to Oerth.

I could have sworn that all of the campaign worlds were considered to exist within the same "Prime" Material Plane (hence the Planescape jargon) and alternate Material Planes was a concept that was explained, but never officially utilized (ie, anything that isn't part of the Prime, would be in an Alternate, but everything they made in the game was part of the Prime). The one exception I can think of is when 2e Legends & Lore said that when deities are spoken of as being physically present in the Material Plane (like being the planet, or the sun or some such) that referred to an Alternate Material Plane.

In my game, the Arcane impose a different price on every planet they agree to supply with spelljamming helms. In some cases, it's the hair on every citizen's head; in other cases, it's gold and gems; in other cases, the firstborn child of the planetary monarch; in others, an annual quota of brightly-colored stones from a particular beach. No one knows why.

Except me. I know that they don't really care much about the payment; their real agenda is making sure everyone is totally reliant on their spelljamming helms instead of developing their own sources of transportation. And of course, all the helms have a Chinese-style backdoor built into them. What the Arcane are really interested in is security--their racial psychology is very similar to Pierson's Puppeteers. This way, other races naturally expand to fill any power vacuums, but that race is not an existential threat to the Arcane because they have a kill switch in reserve. Beholders predate the Arcane and don't rely on helms, so reducing beholder influence via puppet races like humans and goblinoids is a major hidden agenda for the Arcane.[/COLOR]

Pretty cool. I haven't figured out the Arcane myself, but I'll definitely do something interesting if it ever becomes a focus.

This is pretty much how I think it should have worked. However, the pricing of spelljamming helms (minimum 100k) makes it a little hard to justify - while plane shift didn't have a given cost in 2e, you could probably get a great many plane shifts for 100k gp.

Helms are pretty darn expensive. However, ships themselves are pretty darn expensive. The price of the helms might be a bit high, and it might be worth cutting all the prices in half or so (I haven't done my own analysis on it for years, so I'd have to compare it with new 5e assumptions).

I like to look at all prices relative to others. Particularly real estate. The 5e DMG actually gives us real estate prices, so we can compare them. It's funny to see how absurdly cheap they made magic items, for as rare as they are supposed to be. I treat that as the high/epic magic pricing scheme, and have different prices for standard and low magic. I used the real estate pricing table, along with the price of plate armor, as my basis of comparison and came up with a multiplier to make the rarity level pricing fall where I wanted it.

For Spelljamming helms (and I will have to figure this out at some point, since it will come up in my campaign), I'll have to determine how many types there are and assign rarities to them, which would determine the price.

 

[Staffan]

Helms are pretty darn expensive. However, ships themselves are pretty darn expensive. The price of the helms might be a bit high, and it might be worth cutting all the prices in half or so (I haven't done my own analysis on it for years, so I'd have to compare it with new 5e assumptions).

The baseline cost of a spelljamming ship was about 1,000 gp per ton, with a handful of ships being cheaper and quite a few that were extra cool were more expensive. So your basic Tradesman, at 25 tons, cost 25,000 gp, and was usually powered by a minor helm worth 100,000 gp. The main problem I see with this is that since the helm is the biggest cost, you should try to get as much bang for the buck as you can, and get a ship to fit the helm. So why would I buy a Tradesman + minor helm for 125,000 gp when I could get a Squidship + minor helm for 145,000 gp and get almost twice as much cargo capacity, with only 2 more crew needed? A second, associated problem is that the really big ships are generally faster than smaller ships - you'll rarely put a major helm on a Dragonfly, but you need one for the Hammership.

What I'd do is rate helms with two numbers: maximum tonnage, and base SR. I'd also drop the price so a moderately fast helm would add maybe 25-50% to the cost of a small-to-medium ship, and make them go up faster in cost as the tonnage increases (if a 20-ton helm costs 10,000 gp for a given SR, a 50-ton helm might cost 50,000 gp - these are just off the top of my head).

 

[Sword of Spirit]

The baseline cost of a spelljamming ship was about 1,000 gp per ton, with a handful of ships being cheaper and quite a few that were extra cool were more expensive. So your basic Tradesman, at 25 tons, cost 25,000 gp, and was usually powered by a minor helm worth 100,000 gp. The main problem I see with this is that since the helm is the biggest cost, you should try to get as much bang for the buck as you can, and get a ship to fit the helm. So why would I buy a Tradesman + minor helm for 125,000 gp when I could get a Squidship + minor helm for 145,000 gp and get almost twice as much cargo capacity, with only 2 more crew needed? A second, associated problem is that the really big ships are generally faster than smaller ships - you'll rarely put a major helm on a Dragonfly, but you need one for the Hammership.

What I'd do is rate helms with two numbers: maximum tonnage, and base SR. I'd also drop the price so a moderately fast helm would add maybe 25-50% to the cost of a small-to-medium ship, and make them go up faster in cost as the tonnage increases (if a 20-ton helm costs 10,000 gp for a given SR, a 50-ton helm might cost 50,000 gp - these are just off the top of my head).

Thanks for the great analysis and suggestions! That probably saves me days of pondering on the problem.

 

[guildsbounty]

The baseline cost of a spelljamming ship was about 1,000 gp per ton, with a handful of ships being cheaper and quite a few that were extra cool were more expensive. So your basic Tradesman, at 25 tons, cost 25,000 gp, and was usually powered by a minor helm worth 100,000 gp. The main problem I see with this is that since the helm is the biggest cost, you should try to get as much bang for the buck as you can, and get a ship to fit the helm. So why would I buy a Tradesman + minor helm for 125,000 gp when I could get a Squidship + minor helm for 145,000 gp and get almost twice as much cargo capacity, with only 2 more crew needed? A second, associated problem is that the really big ships are generally faster than smaller ships - you'll rarely put a major helm on a Dragonfly, but you need one for the Hammership.

What I'd do is rate helms with two numbers: maximum tonnage, and base SR. I'd also drop the price so a moderately fast helm would add maybe 25-50% to the cost of a small-to-medium ship, and make them go up faster in cost as the tonnage increases (if a 20-ton helm costs 10,000 gp for a given SR, a 50-ton helm might cost 50,000 gp - these are just off the top of my head).

Yeah, balancing prices while not messing with the feel of the game is a challenge. So far, I've tended to look at the spelljamming helms and think this: "Yes, that's what a brand new spelljammer helm purchased straight from the Arcane might cost." But...with the exception of some exceedingly powerful spells, spelljamming helms are imperishable and indestructible. You could fill a ship to the brim with smokepowder and Alchemist's Fire, then sail it out into The Phlogiston and have a sorcerer stand on deck and cast a Maximized Fireball at Level 9...and the entire ship would be reduced to dust...except the Helm. The Helm would be just fine. And with the nature of The Phlogiston being that it tends to dump things back in proximity of a Crystal Shell...someone is going to find it eventually.

The sourcebooks even explicitly say that "the most usual [way of finding a Helm] being discovery in old ruins, or raiding an enemy ship for its helm." According to the core book, most Helms are not purchased, they are found or stolen, and then migrated from ship to ship with their owner. This makes a sort of sense, because for however many thousands of years spelljamming has been a thing, Helms have been produced and sold...and only seldom destroyed. It's entirely possible that the spelljamming helm you just installed is older than your civilization.

So yes...the cost of a shiny new spelljamming helm, purchased from the Arcane, is incredibly expensive. But how about buying it from that black market dealer who bought it from a fence who bought it from a thief who stole it from the estate of some noble who went down in a peasant uprising and has had the 'fancy magic chair' in their family for generations without anyone figuring out that it wasn't just some fancy chair with a 'secret' enchantment on it that (as far as anyone could tell) served to make the chair show up as a 'magic item' to impress people...but nothing else. No one who isn't involved in spelljamming is going to have any idea what the fancy magic chair actually is, or how much it is worth. Heck, you might run into a Fence who is trying to get rid of the stupid thing after he called up a Wizard buddy who didn't know what a spelljamming helm was, and told him that it was a stupid worthless chair that showed up as magic but didn't have any real magical effects apart from being, apparently, indestructible. As a DM, I would almost never have the party paying 'new' price for a Helm.

That said...I may look at the variety of Helms available and see if I can add some more possibilities to the list...especially given that the cheapest possible spelljamming-type helm you can buy is a Gnomish Helm at 50Kgp.

Oh, and as for 'what the Arcane are up to,' that's actually covered in the source book "The Astromundi Cluster." Where we learn that...

[sblock]All Spelljamming Helms are actually living artifacts derived from "The First Helm," and they all have a link back to it and transmit information stolen from the minds of every pilot. Whether or not it is malevolent, it is intelligent and was responsible for the wars that destroyed the Reigar homeworld. In short, The Arcane are selling Spelljamming Helms, and then harvesting information from the pilots so they know basically everything going on everywhere in the galaxy and have access to an abundance of secrets, stolen from the minds of nearly every race.

Regrettably, this explanation doesn't really make sense, given that it is theoretically possible for a high level spellcaster to create a spelljamming helm, despite the fact that the rulebook says all helms are 'grown' from this First Helm thing.[/sblock]

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

So yes...the cost of a shiny new spelljamming helm, purchased from the Arcane, is incredibly expensive. But how about buying it from that black market dealer who bought it from a fence who bought it from a thief who stole it from the estate of some noble who went down in a peasant uprising and has had the 'fancy magic chair' in their family for generations without anyone figuring out that it wasn't just some fancy chair with a 'secret' enchantment on it that (as far as anyone could tell) served to make the chair show up as a 'magic item' to impress people...but nothing else. No one who isn't involved in spelljamming is going to have any idea what the fancy magic chair actually is, or how much it is worth.

I don't think that 100,000 gp price is just the price for a shiny new helm. That is also a pretty good guess at a fair market value for a used helm, just based on its cargo carrying capacity and some reasonable approximations of merchant trade. (Safer, faster, cheaper than waterborn transport.) How valuable would a cargo helicopter with no fuel costs be in 14th century Europe? Even a SR 1 helm is about three times as fast as a sailing ship under even the most favorable conditions; and you don't need to worry about digging any Suez canals either, you can just take the most favorable routes.

(Rather, you can take the most geographically favorable routes, but there might be routes you'd like to take but can't unless someone suppresses a threat that makes that route safe again. coughcough*adventurehook*ahemahem.)

With that in mind, Staffan's points are very well-taken. If you want smaller merchant ships to exist, you need to differentiate the helms more than minor (60 tons) and major (100 tons). A two-dimensional helm axis sounds like a fantastic idea.

BTW, there used to be a Staffan something on the old AD&D Spelljammer listserv, the one run by Leroy Van Camp. I wonder if it's the same Staffan...

Oh, and as for 'what the Arcane are up to,' that's actually covered in the source book "The Astromundi Cluster."

Huh. I don't remember that plotline, but I do remember using an approach very, very similar to that to explain my Arcanes back in the day, sans any "First Helm" thing. Either great minds think alike, or I stole the general idea from the Astromundi Cluster without registering where I got it from.

I didn't really like the Astromundi Cluster though. The essence of Spelljammer to me is unlimited space, and running a whole campaign inside a single crystal sphere just doesn't work for me.

 

[guildsbounty]

I didn't really like the Astromundi Cluster though. The essence of Spelljammer to me is unlimited space, and running a whole campaign inside a single crystal sphere just doesn't work for me.

Yeah, I'm with you there. Part of my to-do list is to make sure there is a robust generation system for use with spelljamming exploration, so that if players want to run a Star Trek-esque Exploration and Adventure focused campaign, the DM has a toolkit to throw together worlds and their occupants in a hurry.

On a not-so-related note...I thought I would post up another rule change I made, and see what people think.

In AD&D spelljammer, ships had a different sort of HP than players did, called Hull Points. One Hull Point was roughly equivalent to 10hp, but couldn't be damaged in 'parts,' either you did the full damage to inflict a Hull Point worth of damage, or none at all. As a result of having these differing types of hit points, Siege Engines used in ship-to-ship combat had two different damage values...one for damage against a ship (in Hull Points) and one for damage against a person. Also, there were some Siege Engines (like a Light Ballista, Sweeper, or Jettison) that were unable to deal damage to a ship.

So, I tried to simplify it a bit...let me know how you think it turned out. This isn't how the rules look in the book, this is a summary of my changes

Ship Hulls: Multiply ship Hull Points by 10 to get Hit Points. Hull Points no longer exist, ships have hit points just like everything else. In terms of damaging a ship's hull...the ship is Immune to piercing damage, resistant to Bludgeoning and Slashing damage, and uses Damage Thresholds based on the material to determine if you deal more than Superficial Damage to the ship. (The idea is that you might be able to bang up the deck or the side of the hull...possibly make a hole in it...but you aren't going to destroy a ship with a battleaxe without a LOT of work)

New Weapon Attributes: I have added several new weapon attributes as well to polish some things from the DMG, as well as adding new things to balance out ship combat.

Anti-Personnel: Weapons with this tag are very large weapons that cannot be carried by a single person, and are generally on wheels, or mounted in one place. These weapons, despite their size, are designed to attack creatures, rather than structures or ships.

Reloading: Weapons with this tag take longer to reload than normal, and may require several actions to reload before they can fire again (a 'tag' method to show the reload times listed in the DMG)

Siege: Weapons with this tag are very large weapons that cannot be carried by a single person, and are generally on wheels, or mounted in one place. These weapons are specifically designed to attack structures or ships, and so ignore the resistances and immunities to weapon damage that a ship's hull has. These weapons may target creatures, but do so at Disadvantage if the creature is less than Gargantuan in size.

Super-heavy: Weapons with this tag are extremely powerful weapons that are too unwieldy to precisely target something so small as a creature. As a result, you cannot target a creature of less than Gargantuan size with a Super-heavy weapon. (Though you can target the area around them for potential collateral damage)

The point of these tags was to keep the same sort of balance that existed in Spelljammer, but simplify it so every weapon doesn't have two different dice pools and you don't have to track different sorts of hit points...but also to prevent sniper shots with a ludicrous weapon like the Grand Bombard (which effectively dealt 3d12 * 10 damage, if I convert up to ship-level damage) from just obliterating individual creatures with the precision of a longbow. Thoughts?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

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.

 

[Staffan]

BTW, there used to be a Staffan something on the old AD&D Spelljammer listserv, the one run by Leroy Van Camp. I wonder if it's the same Staffan...

Yep, I've been on and off various D&D discussion fora for about 20 years now.