NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AtomicPope" data-source="post: 8412220" data-attributes="member: 64790">Suggestions from someone who is running a 5e Spelljammer/Planescape campaign for several years:1. Mine the 4e books for Inspiration: one of the many things 4e gets right is their treatment of Planescape and Spelljammer, blending the two together rather than trying to take modern scientific concepts of space and brush over it with wonky magic.2. Astral Currents - one of the best things about Star Wars, before Jar Jar Abrams and Disney effed it up, was Hyperspace.  It was a lot like the Age of Sail in that the ships were limited to specific, known travel routes.  In this way, blockades could be set up to catch pirates or intercept enemy fleets.  I did this for my Spelljammer campaign, limited movement to specific lanes that were not always open.  It also allowed me to have classic Age of Sail hazards like Doldrums where ships would be stuck in the vast ocean of space hoping the Astral Currents would star moving again.  It also lets you as a DM limit travel to specific locations: you must go to Planet X and then to to Planet Y.3. Planar Boundaries - to limit teleportation I set each celestial body in their own planar boundary.  In other words, you can't teleport in or out unless you have a known Teleportation circle to zero in on.  This gave me a Star Trek "transporter room" on their Spelljammer vessel with a Teleportation Circle.  In order to travel to other planets you'd need to either take a Spelljammer or use Planeshift and have the proper circle sequence.4. Economics - after limiting teleportation and planar travel it makes more sense to use Spelljammers as merchant vessels since it's the only way to transport tonnes of commodities at a time.  Using them as troop carriers always made sense but being able to transport souls out of Hell would be a big payday.5. Grievous Wounds - a big part of running a Spelljammer campaign was getting away from the Dungeon part of D&D.  In order to justify a triage on ship I added a House Rule of Grievous Wounds: whenever a character is reduced to zero hp they move one level down the exhaustion track.  PCs were less likely to camp out in a dungeon after getting beat up.  They would go back to the ship, rest a few days, and then try a different approach.  It was more like Star Trek where they would spend time in medical.6. Limited Natural Healing - a continuation of the injuries was to limit the healing from short rests to ONLY apply if the PCs used a charge from their medical kit, cast a healing spell, or used Song of Rest.  That was the only way to spend their hit dice.  Furthermore, a long rest didn't regen hit points.  They could spend hit dice to heal.  This meant that at some point they might be out of hit dice, even after a long rest.  It might seem harsh but not when you have a ship and medical bay.  Then it all seems to work out as intended.  I've ran the game this way for years (the PCs are all 20th level with lots of boons), and it works out just fine.  Yes, combat has way more consequences and spells like Healing Word are practically useless but it reinforces a certain style of play.7. Space Dragons - In my own campaign I had Titans and Giants ruling the Galaxy.  Few creatures are Space Worthy, one of them being Giants and the other Dragons.  Since Dragons can fly into space and sail along the Astral Currents when they reached adulthood, they could just sail off in search of a soft, unsuspecting world to conquer.  Giants, Cloud Giants in particular, could sail through space on their great sky castles and bomb cities from orbit.  I added some other kewl, Space Worthy monsters to the list, like Rocs, Pegasus, and Angels. 8. Space Worthy - I treat space like water, sort of.  Some creatures can fly, but they can't fly or survive in space.  It's like any other trait that allows certain creatures to ignore the penalties of a particular terrain.</blockquote>

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