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Spelljamming in 3.5 - and - Psionics

Dragonhelm

Knight of Solamnia
Also, if you want a psionic system closer to the 2E system, I'd suggest looking at the 3.0 version of psionics instead of the 3.5 - the older version is much closer to the 2E version.

I disagree. There's a lot about the 3.5 version that, to me, felt more like the 2e version. Just the way you gained powers, and the augmentations equate to power score.

BTW, there's an article on Beyond the Moons called Specialty Priests of Celestian. Their specialty priests can multiclass as psionicists. They're great for use in a Spelljammer game. Lots of other goodies on that site as well.
 

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TarionzCousin

Second Most Angelic Devil Ever
I thought that 3.5E Psionics were actually better than magic because they were inherently more flexible. For example: you could choose which energy to use at the time of casting.
 

Psionics is something I've liked over the years, but haven't had much reason to consider it in a game until recently. In fact, I actually started a post over in the Legacy section, explicitly to get some more information:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-discussion/303792-psionics-what-system-approach-use.html

Read it over, it might influence you to reconsider some things. Personally, at this point I'm thinking of picking up "Psionics Unleashed" even though I won't be using the Pathfinder rules themselves. I personally think it's perfectly possible to have psionics in the game and not have to invent a whole new system/subsystem of mechanics, _just_ to make psionics "feel different".

Psionics Unleashed appears to have gotten rid of that "see the magic spell of the same name" thing that was a part of the 3.x psionics rules, among many other things.

I'll note that currently, the way 3.x rules work, casters tend to be better than non-casters. If you bump psionics away from tying into the magic system, you're likely to bump up against this:
The only time psionics was an issue for us was when we initially used the Psionics as Different rule and my powers tore through enemy defenses. As soon as we switched to transparency, my power level was on par with the other characters...

If you're playing "Rules As Written", you can rapidly find yourself bumping up against expectations that the base game (3.x rules) has, which are completely bypassed by psionics rules. It's really not just a matter of putting in a different power system and then calling it good; the already existing power system (magic) has all kinds of hooks and things, both in terms of character rules as well as monster interactions.

*shrug*

Like I said, just something to consider. I have noticed over the years about people complaining how "broken" psionics are and it seems like some of it comes from some very simple and basic rules being broken, as well as effectively having a power source that 90% of things have no appreciable defense against.
 

I thought that 3.5E Psionics were actually better than magic because they were inherently more flexible. For example: you could choose which energy to use at the time of casting.

In some ways it is more flexible, and in some ways less so. For instance, a wizard can do with one spell (telekinesis) what it takes two powers to do for a spion (telekinetic force and telekinetic maneuver). Also, the required expenditure of extra power points to get powers to scale for spions causes some powers to be less efficient than equivalent spells.

This stuff has, of course, been debated to death already, so I'll just say that I am looking forward to seeing what the OP ends up with vis-a-vis a 2e to 3e spionics conversion.

Also, I don't know if it has been previously mentioned, but there is a wealth of 3e spelljamer material at Spelljammer: Beyond the Moons.
 

Bacris

First Post
If you're playing "Rules As Written", you can rapidly find yourself bumping up against expectations that the base game (3.x rules) has, which are completely bypassed by psionics rules. It's really not just a matter of putting in a different power system and then calling it good; the already existing power system (magic) has all kinds of hooks and things, both in terms of character rules as well as monster interactions.

*shrug*

Like I said, just something to consider. I have noticed over the years about people complaining how "broken" psionics are and it seems like some of it comes from some very simple and basic rules being broken, as well as effectively having a power source that 90% of things have no appreciable defense against.

This is wrong.

Rules as written for 3.5 is psionic / magic transparency - SR affects powers, PR affects spells, etc. They're treated the same.

3.0 had them treated separately, and it was one of the largest balance issues with 3.0 psionics.

My DM initially had us treating them separately in 3.5, until the above mentioned scenario and me again pointing out that the rules said to treat them the same.

Psionics As Different is a variant, not the expected rules.
 


I've run alot of Spelljammer and even wrote a lot of fan stuff for Realmspace. But that was all 2nd Ed.
Here's my advice for running it 3.5 ed.

1. Get a copy of the Hackmaster book "Hackjammer". It's the hackmaster Spelljammer book and they fixed a ton of the flaws in the system in that one. It's still 2nd ed-ish, but you can convert. The bigger issues fixed were the game breakers like costs and availability and ease of access to planets. For instance, at the default costs engines (helms) are too much. Pirates can take out 1 merchant ship, sell the engine and then live like kings off the $$ for the rest of their lives. So it makes Helms cheaper and provides alt types of helms.

2. Be a REAL GM. None of this mamby pamby letting the players rules lawyer it crap. If you can't look your players in the face and say "I don't care what the book says, that makes no damned sense, so I'm making a GM call on that one" then you shouldn't be running Spelljammer. It's broken. That's the long and the short of it. The core rules were broken, the Spider Moons 3rd ed stuff was broken. It's all broken. So as a GM you've got to run this like it's your own custom world with your own custom rules. You can't let your players rules lawyer or walk all over you.

3. Play it HARSH. Spelljammer's a harsh setting. Dumb players can end up with their ships out of fresh air and their characters all dead. Don't make it easy on them. No decanters of endless water or infinite air from the start. Maybe as great items and rewards, but that's it. Also, this is a setting where if you smart off to npcs, you will die. Fleets of elves, Neogi, Mind Flayers and Beholders fly about the lanes, and they can all kick PC ass, and they all have friends who would hunt down their killers.

4. Non-magical helms can't leave planets bigger than type A. Because type A's have flat gravity planes and you can just drift off the edge and bam, youre now in zero-g. So a sailboat can literally fly off the edge of the world. On anything bigger, a nonmagical engine will just push you along the surface as the gravity on those worlds is the classic towards the center of the sphere type, and in that case a sailing ship cannot fly off of the surface of the water and take to the sky.

5. No really, grab a copy of Hackjammer. For the planetary entry rules alone it's worth it. Basically a flying ship makes world dominition easy. Unless you have a dragon flame the ship and after a while the players get pissed at that. So, when entering a planet, ships HAVE to make a saving throw or they take a hit (wood boat + Jet stream = aw crap). Same when leaving a planet. That way they aren't easily ruinning campaign worlds.
 

prosfilaes

Adventurer
Basically a flying ship makes world dominition easy. Unless you have a dragon flame the ship and after a while the players get pissed at that.

I don't see it. Almost any game world will have mages with fly spells and teleport other spells that can drop a NPC party of greater level then the PCs onboard their ship. And even if there's no active spelljamming community in sphere, the planet might well have a ship or helm lying somewhere the Gods can point to, or maybe the Arcanes would like to sell them one. Like any great warship, they can lay destruction down around them pretty well, but there are things out there that can take them out.
 

I don't see it. Almost any game world will have mages with fly spells and teleport other spells that can drop a NPC party of greater level then the PCs onboard their ship. And even if there's no active spelljamming community in sphere, the planet might well have a ship or helm lying somewhere the Gods can point to, or maybe the Arcanes would like to sell them one. Like any great warship, they can lay destruction down around them pretty well, but there are things out there that can take them out.

Fly spells are temporary and generally focused on the caster, and teleport spells are dangerous unless you're using the more powerful "teleport without error". Even then, teleport requires you know where you're going and can visualize it. A boat zipping around would be difficult to see and to visualize properly.
The big thing about Spelljammers is that they're pretty tough. If you compare them with Forgotten Realms Halruan airships (spelling?), the boats of Halruaa are finicky, fragile things.

While Spelljammers are slow (4mph per SR) it is a constant speed and they barely take any time to fly up and exit the gravity well. So with some math it might take a month to fly across the continent, but flying up and out into space, then back down towards your target would get you there in less than a day.

Then look at who's flying these things. They're usually high level adventurers. So lets say a dragon can manage to catch up with a spelljamming ship. It cannot flame it (it cant flame a target right before it while flying or it risks setting its head on fire.) but it can latch on and rip in with fang and claw. But doing so puts it in adventurer bitchslapping range. The dragon might take enough damage to knock it off but unlike a living creature, ships don't heal. That's one trick for GMs.

But the big thing is bombing runs. A long ship can load up on combustables, fly straight down on a city and not be seen until its too late (nothing else that flys can do so straight up and down.). They then dump their load, burn the city and fly off before resistance emerges. Dragons aside, only a scant few cities in d&d setting ever have truly effective anti-air defense systems.

By abusing the Up into space and down again loophole, PCs can also transport massive amounts of rare goods across the planet faster than all but the most powerful mages.

Basically, in the hands of an inexperienced and soft GM Spelljammer can ruin most settings. There's just no defense. In Forgotten Realms its actually noted that Waterdeep has no defense against them. Though Evermeet actually has a rather lethal one.
So by implimenting the rule that entering and exiting a planet requires a check due to high winds that far up, you limit how willing the PCs will be to abuse the trick and abuse their spelljamming helm.
 

Bleys Icefalcon

First Post
To add the the discussion: in the novels and written lore about Waterdeep, aye, there would be no defense against an experienced well armed, well equipped Spelljamming vessel. At this point, many of us are long past relying on this lore. My Waterdeep, while using the available lore, has evolved to become is a much different City of Splendours. In my Waterdeep there is the Hazrid Tower - near the City of the Dead, which with it's 20 elegant piers reaching like a spidery tree into the skies, is actually a series of berths for Spelljamming vessels. A DnD Spaceport! While Spelljamming is not the stuff of the common man, and indeed for many remains the stuff of mystery - virtually all common folk do not realize these vessels are anything more than airships.
 

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