D&D 4E How would you re-envision Spelljammer with 4e?

[MojoGM]

It was wonky. Simplest method of fixing intersecting gravity planes would be to simply dictate that within 'x' distance objects with gravity planes forcibly rotate to match each other. You lose the idea of fighting in 3 dimensions, but as there were no RULES for fighting in 3 dimensions there's nothing really different - except TRYING to make it make sense.

I like it! Simple, elegant, and prevents me from having to design a 3d ship-to ship combat system.

Just designing a 2d ship to ship combat system will be hard enough...

 

[Steely Dan]

but as there were no RULES for fighting in 3 dimensions

There were 3-D ship combat rules in the War Captain's Companion boxed set.

But it was such a hassle that it was best to go with the original 2-D rules in the original Spelljammer boxed set.

 

[D.Shaffer]

Hmm. Thinking about the Helms/Ship issue...possibly steal a page from Eberron here in that the Ship itself contains the power source/motive element and this cant be removed without destroying the ship. However, the Helm is actually what controls that power source. More variety as we now not only have a variety of power sources (Life energy based power sources like the Neogi and drow use, Magic based ones, etc), but a variety of ways of controlling it, some more efficient then others but still limited to the max of what the ship can do. Helms could be portable, but require significant time/resources to 'tune' to a new power source.

 

[Najo]

This means giving Spelljammer a tone of its own. I'd go with the 16th-16th-century vibe of pirates, explorers and so on; this would mean adding firearms and cannons (with possibly alchemical and magical versions as well), and getting rid of catapults on ships.

This is a must. Agree 100% The idea of the party running through the halls of a spelljammer they just boarded and firing their pistols and rifles, then going to melee weapons like raipers and daggers is too cool.

[/quote] On the other hand, I'd emphasize the fantastic designs of the ships; more Mosquitos, fish-headed Merchantmen, Squidships and Nautiluses, and less longboats, caravels and other boring stuff that only existed because Spelljammer had to include a way for characters from established, non-Spelljamming worlds to get into the setting.[/quote]

I agree with this too. Spelljammers should have personalities and be interesting to look at.

To go with that, refurbishing the ships is a must. The first problem with the existing helm system is that it requires a wizard to power it, and it makes that wizard useless for much anything else. Thus, you either need a NPC to power the ship, or one player to bear the burden.

The second problem is that the helms are way too portable, and very expensive compared to the hull of the ship; this leads to people looting the helms and leaving the hulls behind. Make the motive power come from the structure of the ship, instead; now, if you win a battle against an enemy ship, you have to either leave the ship behind or figure out a way to bring it along, instead of just looting a chair. (Again, I think the easy portability of the helms exists so that you can find one in a dungeon, bolt it into a ship, and fly away.)

And while we're at it, let's ditch all the weird helms that existed to get around the very limited availability of arcane spellcasting in AD&D. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be various drive methods around, just that those shouldn't exist because of the inability of the rules to handle a dwarf wizard.

I think your heading the right direction here too. The ship should be a whole thing, not just helms. I would focus on taking the ship apart ruins many of those pieces. Helms have arcane "circutry" tha run through the ship.

With that said, I think that the adventuring party roles should be reexamined for spelljammer. Just as 4e parties are going to have combat and non-combat roles, characters should have spelljammer crew combat and non-combat roles. Those spelljammer roles should be well developed, streamlined and not tied to the classes. Each role should be fun, so when you plug into that role and are doing spelljammer combat or noncombat scenes all of the players are having fun and have choices to make.

An example of this could be as follows: various roles include helm navigation (moving the ship, evasive actions), captain (acts as leader/ support like a warlord with the jammer lending bonuses to the other roles and moving his support around), gunners (the strikers of the jammer), engineer (support and controller elements, plus heals the ship by doing repairs and managing damage control systems/ shields/ gravity etc).

Each of these roles can be reflected by skills and feats instead of class abilities. Perhaps some classes can attach into a role (like wizards being to cast spells through some kind of arcane enhancing cannon), but as a whole, any class can fit into any of these spelljammer roles. Then when ship to ship (or ships) combat occurs, everyone has something they are doing to have fun, work together and be involved in team efforts to make the ship get through the encounter in one piece.

Finally, I'd ruthlessly purge all the goofiness from the setting. Goofy is not the same as fun; most of the time, it isn't even funny in the long run. Thus for example, no wacky, goofy tinker gnomes (one of the worst aspects of Dragonlance, IMO) with cobbled-together ships powered by rubber bands and giant space hamsters; if you want to have gnomes, make them eccentric but competent engineers, more like Captain Nemo, Robur the Conqueror and so on.

Again 100% agree with you. Giant space hamsters are funny and silly. Painfully so. They ruin the setting, even though in an entertaining way.

On a side note, D&D can completely re-own (taking them back from WOW) the tinker gnomes (in a serious manner, instead of them being silly) in Spelljammer. That is 100% where the cool tinker gnome belongs. They can have a knack with weapons and contraptions used on the spelljammers and by their crew. Multishot Blackpowder guns (so reloads do not take from the action), grappling cannons to hook other ships, cutters for sawing through the sides of other ships, plus unusual inventions for exploring through the phlogiston and wild space.

 

[Steely Dan]

Giant space hamsters are funny and silly. Painfully so. They ruin the setting, even though in an entertaining way.

Do you remember star-pork (yes, they had wings)?

 

[Najo]

Do you remember star-pork (yes, they had wings)?

I had forgotten about them till now Yet another example what to remove from Spelljammer.

http://www.spelljammer.org/monsters/conversions/SpaceSwine.html

For those who don't know what he is referring to.

 

[Danzauker]

I'm on the "remove unnecessary silly" wagon.

Some can be left of course, it's part of the SJ flavour, so OK to Giff, for example.

But don't overdo it. Pirates of the Caribbean in space is OK. No more than that.

The setting them must REALLY be made a standalone and consistent (as much as a high fantasy setting as this can be made) setting.

The base structure of the political forces must be written out with much more detail than in the past, the homeworlds of the main races, their agendas and their relationship must be clarified in length.

This will probably make the alliance between humans and elves close to Star Trek's Federation, but, objectively, in 2E Spelljammer, the elves were ALREADY Vulcans and the Scro Klingons...

Then, the whole Helm thing must be revised. I think Helms were one of the worst part of SJ. Basically, the Wizard was the engine and the pilot of the craft. What was the point of having a full crew on board when the ship is propelled by the wizard's spells? What's the use of manning the sails of a ship flying through space?

Some of these technical aspects could be fixed by drawing elements from Eberron. If you want to keep the Helm, that's what I thought I would do:

Tha Helm is a sort of device that only acts as a focus, when a wizard concentrates on it, it "phases" the ship into the ethereal plane a bit, where it is surrounded by ethereal winds which fill the ship's sails. Then the crew is able to man the ship almost as a regular surface ship.

If you want to keep the phlogiston too, then have that when a Spelljamming vessel travel far enough from a star's "gravity well" it phases completely in the phlogiston, where other laws of phisics exist (sort of entering hyperspace if you wish).

This could even mean that you can have "regular" sci-fi coexist with Spelljamming. A real world spaceship travelling along with a Spelljamming ship would see it slowly fade away as they travel toward outer space, or if you wish the full transition can be abrupt at a fixed distance where Spelljamming ships would meet a "wall of phlogiston", what in 2E was called a crystal sphere, so that a conventional spaceship's crew would see the spelljamming vessel simply disappear instantly.

But those are just ideas...

 

[MojoGM]

Although there are a lot of things I'd drop or change, Crystal Spheres is not one of them. The concept never bothered me.

I kind of like the idea that each sphere contains one sun and a number of planets/objects revolving around it, and that the stars are actually large flaming portals to the the elemental plane of fire. It just makes it weird/cool.

Now, the whole helm/gravity/air thing does need reworking, but I like the basic concept.

I've been thinking about taking all my SJ stuff out and re-builing it from the ground up, and this thread has inspired me to do so finally.

The Rock of Bral has always been my favorite fantasy city

 

[MojoGM]

I have a question, and I'm looking for any input here.

One of the biggest problems with SJ was always the idea of the random encounter (with a monster, another ship, or whatnot). Given the vastness of space, what sort of mechanic can be put in place to make these encounters make sense and not be a 1 in a 10000000 chance that happens to take place every time?

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I have a question, and I'm looking for any input here.

One of the biggest problems with SJ was always the idea of the random encounter (with a monster, another ship, or whatnot). Given the vastness of space, what sort of mechanic can be put in place to make these encounters make sense and not be a 1 in a 10000000 chance that happens to take place every time?

Never really gave this much thought but the first thing that springs to mind is that objects moving at spelljamming speeds exert a gravitational influence on "nearby" creatures and objects such that ships and monsters are naturally pulled toward a moving spelljamming ship.