D&D 4E Thoughts on a 4e Spelljammer

[Raduin711]

Ok, just to clarify I am not a long time fan of spelljammer, and only recently bought the PDF from RPGnow. I thought I would jot down some of my thoughts on a conversion...

-Ship Combat as a Skill Challenge?

Now I like the idea of the party working together to run their very own ship. Unfortunately I have yet to see a version of D&D that made naval combat fun for every character. When we played Savage Tide, most players put ranks in Profession: Sailor, and the player who had the highest bonus was the best, end of story.

I don't like this. I want the players to each have their own areas of expertise, and each contribute something to a battle.

As a lot of people have noticed, there aren't profession skills any longer either... so what to do?

So why not give each pc a ship profession for free? and instead of the umbrella skill profession: sailor, give each of them a particular duty on the ship?

Like for instance one person can man the helm, another can man the sails, another can be on repair duty, another can man the cannons, etc.

So for purposes of this game, each player picks one of the following skills, free: Navigation, Sailing, Carpentry, Cannoneering.

I was thinking for purposes of naval combat, you could treat the whole thing like a skill challenge, and have Nav and Sailing working to raise the number of successes, Cannoneering adding failures to the enemy ships, and carpentry "healing" failures that were added by the enemy's cannoneers.

My one complaint about Spelljammer is that it seems to put a lot of control in the hands of one player. The player manning the helm in spelljammer
-Controls the direction of the ship
-Propels the ship forward
-Has an extrasensory perception of the ship as though he were sitting at the aft deck (no matter where he is in the ship) and everything nearby, feeling damage to the ship as pain, etc.

I would rather see a lot of these roles split up. It almost seems like in practice nobody would have anything to do in ship combat besides the helmsman.

One person could be an engineer, feeding residuum into a sort of magical furnace, which could use magic to fill the sails with wind. Then this puts maintaining the speed in the hands of the people who man the sails, giving them a job to do as well. This would leave the helmsman in charge of steering, with a little bit of sensory information.

Also, one major problem that I have read about in SJ is that helms cost upwards of 100,000 gp. Players who win a sea battle and salvage the helm can make a mint by selling them for even a fraction of the cost.

A 4e solution would be that helms are created and simultaneously bonded to a pilot by way of a ritual. From that moment on, the only person who can use the helm is the person it is bonded to. A helmsman could transfer command to another person at will, if he desired, or even destroy the link, effectively destroying the helm. Upon death of a helmsman, the helm is lost. This solves the Helm problem by making it impossible to salvage; the only way to gain a helm is to have it given by free will.


So what do you guys think?

Should Helms be rituals?

Should Helms have all the powers associated with them as they did in 2nd edition, or should we tone them down to give other players something to do?

What do you think of making a bunch of profession checks for the purposes of skill challenges / naval combat, and just handing them to the players? I see no reason to use this as a way of cutting into the players skills, which are limited enough as they are.

Does anyone have any other ideas in regards to 4e sailing/spelljammer?

 

[AtomicPope]

The idea of a Skill Challenge is to provide active involvement in contructive the narrative. I worked out a scenario for defense against a Siege as a Skill Challenge. The point wasn't to prevent the gates from breaking down. The SC gave the PC's bonuses to combat such as a Surprise round and "Lighter" encounters (subtract the difference from the EXP in the challenge to lighten the Encounters). I see some of the same narrative devises in a Siege that can be used in Spelljammer. The outcome of the Skill Challenge should give the PC's additional options. Examples would be:
1) PC's outmanuever a Pirate vessel - This might allow them to perform a boarding action and receive a Surprise round.
2) PC's attacked by another vessel - Success reduces damage. Failure increases damage.
3) PC's caught in a storm of Phylogiston - Success allows them to navigate the storm. Failure damages the ship and crew, leaving them lost in space.

Using a narrative approach to provide a springboard for ideas is what SC are best used for. I've had lots of fun running them. They're a great way to give players a chance to move the story forward.

 

[mmaranda]

So for purposes of this game, each player picks one of the following skills, free: Navigation, Sailing, Carpentry, Cannoneering.

I like some of these but in some ways I feel that saying one person needs to be good at Nav, another Sailing, another Carpentry etc... is limiting in an entirely different way. Eitehr way a skill challenge is a very good way to describe a naval conflict without breaking everything down into an actaul combat. But keep in mind there will be some "fights" where the skill challenge should be used to set up an actual combat where the PCs can cast fireball at an oncoming hammerhead and make a classic pirate battle come to life.

Should Helms be rituals?

The cost of a helm is a throwback to the 2nd Ed. Mentality that Magic Items weren't readily available to purchase. Plus there are additional costs to think about crew's need pay, they also need food and other supplies. Then there are docking fees for a Jammer and the cost of resources to repair your ship. I think in a campaign where money really isn't the way to go about procuring magic items it doesn't matter if the PCs become extremely wealthy. It also doesn't matter as much if they loose large portions of their wealth when a crew mutinies trys to steal their ship or the ship is lost in some cataclysmic plot event.

Should Helms have all the powers associated with them as they did in 2nd edition, or should we tone them down to give other players something to do?

Yes, giving those powers to the helm allowed the PCs to meta-game the combat and what functions each PC would play during a battle.

What do you think of making a bunch of profession checks for the purposes of skill challenges / naval combat, and just handing them to the players? I see no reason to use this as a way of cutting into the players skills, which are limited enough as they are.

I think it should go beyond profession checks, and if the PCs hire the proper crew they shouldn't even need all of the professions outlined above. The party Paladin could use intimidate on the crew to make them fear his wrath more than the boarders attempting to take the ship. The Ranger might use Knowledge: Flogiston/Space to help the crew navigate a tight area. The Warlord uses Perception to hep the canoneers find the range of the attacker. While the wizard or Warlock ar at the helm using arcana to eek out the most speed from the ship.

Does anyone have any other ideas in regards to 4e sailing/spelljammer?

I'd look very carefully at the Spelljammer rules and what you want to cpapture from them. Then make as few skills as possible to encompass those parts of ship performance, repair, etc. Also think about how you can structure your campaign. If it is just going to be Heroic Tier perhaps the PCs don't own the ship but are serving under another captain. Maybe near the end of Heroic they become captain(s) of the ship but don't own it until paragon level. Throughout paragon they jump to bigger and better ships until they have a fleet of crews loyal to them. Over the course of the epic tier the PCs hunt for "The Spelljammer" or deal with a Beholder plot to destroy a sphere.

But your outline for the campaign will also shift what rules you need from the begining of your campaign and what rules you can try and decide on the best implimentation. Perhaps the PCs start as crew members and need to use the Spelljammer specific skills. Over time they become captain(s) or officers and cease using those skills and retrain them into less specific skills (or the PCs continue needing the spelljammer specific skills) so that they might command the crew better.

These rules can even shift and vary slightly depending on the sphere, ship, or captain until you have determined the set that works best for you.

 

[Tzeentch]

I would take a long, hard look at what elements of Spelljammer you actually want to preserve. IMO the concept was great, but the implementation was horrible.

Spelljamming
It has a bundle of problems of its own, but you might want to adapt the basic mechanics of how Star Wars Saga handles large ships (assuming you have access).

Should Helms be rituals?
* De-emphasize the helm itself. Not only is the paradigm its built on gone in 4e, but it basically removes a character from play. Let the NPCs do the grunt work of driving the ship while the PCs order them around and repel boarders.

Should Helms have all the powers associated with them as they did in 2nd edition, or should we tone them down to give other players something to do?
* The only real power it gave was a birds eye view of the ship, and the ability to suck out spell slots. Having the basic helm be powered by residuum or some other fuel short-circuits any need to apply the old spell draining mechanism to 4e.

What do you think of making a bunch of profession checks for the purposes of skill challenges / naval combat, and just handing them to the players? I see no reason to use this as a way of cutting into the players skills, which are limited enough as they are.
* Adapt the Piloting skill and naval system from Star Wars Saga maybe. I would keep the need for skills fairly low, 4e characters can handle nuclear mechanics and tailoring without training, and most of the grunt work can be fobbed off to the general heroic PC abilities and NPCs.

Does anyone have any other ideas in regards to 4e sailing/spelljammer?
* I redug out my Spelljammer books and had a look. ... yow what an unplayable mess it is(but I loved it when I was younger).
Suggestions for a 4e Spelljammer
- Throw out 90% of the old SJ setting mechanics: gravity planes, air envelopes, phlogiston (maybe), wildspace. Everything that woffles between "Fantasy Star Wars" and "Fantasy Spaceballs" or is just a recordkeeping drag.
* The phlogiston might be the same but my idea is that its basically an endless sky/storm, with a definite up/down gravity and breathable air (for the most part). Crystal spheres are scattered around. Maybe throw in teleport circles/gates between known spheres. Currents determine the safe travel routes (think Last Exile).
* Spheres are basically the same but when you enter one you pop in over the realm inside. No wildspace and crazy boring travel around pseudosolar systems. Realms inside spheres are fairly small (maybe 25000sq mi for the biggest) and you can't reach "space" in them. Most spheres were basically just a collection of hotspots in SJ anyways no matter how huge they supposedly were. You exit/enter spheres at known stable portal spots.

 

[Xorial]

I've had plenty of thoughts on 4e Spelljammer. I think that the Rituals of 4e will recapture the feel of the Arcane/Mercane having control of the construction of the helms. It is a secrete ritual. There may be a high level spell that replicates it for a short period, but the ritual will be beyond the PCs.

As for Fantasy Star Wars comments, lol, Star Wars is a Fantasy setting. Steal from it if you have to for what you need as far as Ship Combat. I believe Vehicle Rules, when published, will be similar anyway. I would like to wait & see what those are before adapting them for SJ.

I personally liked the Gravity Planes & Air Spheres for a fantasy space setting. But that's me, lol.

 

[JohnBiles]

The original FASA Star Trek had a very sweet system for giving everyone things to do in ship combat, so I'd advise developing a system that gives everyone something to do.

Something like:

The Helmsman navigates the ship and controls the heavy weaponry (Striker)
The Shieldsman controls the ship defenses and lesser weaponry (Defender)
Various Officers maintain morale and keep the crew alive (Leader)
Jammers use ship equipment to control the battlefield and disrupt other ship jammers. (Controller)


Take the idea of ritual helms and bond multiple people to the ship to control different parts of it. The helms then enable them to use their normal skills for the ship's benefit. (So the Helmsman uses his own Acrobatics to do fancy manuevers with the ship, the Officer uses Heal to try to fix damage to the ship, the Jammer uses Arcana to generate clouds of fog to obstruct vision, etc.)

So if a 4 person party is fighting a Giff ship inside the Greyhawk Nebula while low on Residuum fuel, the first stage of the challenge might go something like:

Helmsman succeeds on Acrobatics: The ship dodges the meteors hidden inside the nebula.
Shieldsman succeeds on Endurance: The shieldsman successfully operates the ship's defenses to stave off the poisonous gases which form the nebula without draining the residuum reserves too much.
Jammer fails on Arcana: He tries to ignite some of the nebular gases in the path of the enemy ship, but isn't successful. Instead, his ship plows into the flaming gas.
Officer succeeds on Heal: The Officer directs the crew to successful damage control on the fire.

etc, etc.