Spelljammer...just wow

Henry said:
*Snip*
You would think this would be a problem in a piracy campaign, as well -- but it's probably because regular sailing ships aren't valued so highly in such a campaign as a Spelljamming ship is.

That and the fact there is no 'swim' home.

Most highly prized item for a Spelljamming party = Necklace of Adaptation and a Ring of Sustenance
 

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Gez said:
For example, the FR gnomes have not been changed from shy and reclusive illusion specialists ("The Forgotten Folk of the Forgotten Realms") to a bunch of Dragonlance-style Tinkers. The mechanics-focused country of the Realms, Lantan, has not been retconned from an exotic human nation to the homeworld of these Tinker gnomes that haven't been stuck in the Realms from Krynn.

Yeah. That's what I thought.


I am really thankful House Cannith is not a gnome house in Eberron.

I always thought that the Dragonlance inspired 2e development of gnomes had more to do with someone creating a distinctive niche for these demi-humans (before this, I always thought of gnomes as a less than inspired illusion-loving cross between dwarves and classic halflings) and other developers latching onto the idea than it did with wholesale importing of other setting elements (could be wrong there, I did check out of 2e in the early 90s). In any case, my personal favorites are the Eberron gnomes and the tinker gnomes of Dragonlance (my favorite part of the 1e hardback was the tinker gnome rules).
 

Kobold Avenger said:
Agreed, they should have started out with the Astromundi Cluster rather than putting it in latter in the campaign setting.

Imagine if they had made the Astromundi cluster a "cluster" of say, 20-odd spheres, all linked together, with the Antilan empire spread out over 3 spheres... multiple worlds, and a sort of "savage frontier" at the edge.

It's ... it's so beautiful in my mind.
 

rycanada said:
Imagine if they had made the Astromundi cluster a "cluster" of say, 20-odd spheres, all linked together, with the Antilan empire spread out over 3 spheres... multiple worlds, and a sort of "savage frontier" at the edge.

It's ... it's so beautiful in my mind.

mmmm write it up for publication then. It sounds great. Submit it to Beyond the Moons.
 

13garth13 said:
Here's the problem with a capital P....after they sell off the ship (oh hey, for argument's sake, let's make it a caravel) and the helm (and hey, let's make it only a minor helm), our 4th level party is suddenly up to their teeth in gold.

Way back when, when I ran a Spelljammer campaign, I dealt with that problem in two major ways...

1. Supply vs. Demand - How many people are there around who can afford to buy a spelljamming ship and its helm? How many of those people have the interest to buy one? How many of them have the need to buy one? How many of those are looking for a spelljammer ship that fits the description of what the PCs are trying to sell? Most of the people who have the resources, need and willingness to buy a ship will already have one. It's hard to sell something that no one wants to buy.

That is precisely why, during the Golden Age of Piracy, pirates never captured ships to sell... They only ever captured a ship, if the other ship was better than their own or if they had enough spare crewmen to sail a second ship.

2. Ship Repairs - Often, the damage sustained by the character's ship during a battle was heavy. They'd either have to spend much of their prize money (and weeks or months of time to boot) to refit it, or they'd simply scuttle the ship and move into the ship they just captured.
 


Pbartender said:
1. Supply vs. Demand - How many people are there around who can afford to buy a spelljamming ship and its helm? How many of those people have the interest to buy one? How many of them have the need to buy one? How many of those are looking for a spelljammer ship that fits the description of what the PCs are trying to sell? Most of the people who have the resources, need and willingness to buy a ship will already have one. It's hard to sell something that no one wants to buy.

It is, however, vastly unlikely that in a universe of crystal spheres with multiple inhabited worlds, that has commerce and individually-owned vessels, that buyers could not be found. Especially if you're willing to take trade in something else. Of course, the vessel may not fetch as much as you'd really hope, kind of like a used car.

If spelljamming vessels are common, then there has to be a market in them (but see used cars analogy again). That's true even if they're rare; someone will want it, you'll just have to work harder to sell it off. Certainly, the Great Powers were perfectly happy to press captured enemy vessels into service* (several British men'o'war at Trafalgar were formerly French, and vice versa).

The stumbling block that I find *much* more likely, you do touch upon. The PCs may not have enough crew to safely get the prize back into a friendly port. Even then, they may not get enough money to make it worth their while. If spelljammers're common enough that they're not worth terribly much, then several months of crew pay and rations, with the added risk of losing it and your trained crew (and possibly a party member) irretrievably, may wind up being more than you're willing to pay to sell the ship you captured. It's likely to just be easier to grab their cargo and run. (It's like that pile of 100,000 copper pieces...it's just not worth the effort to haul out)

Of course, this leads to some interesting decisions. If you're not going to try and keep the ship, then you can let the enemy ship go, free to give your descriptions to their allies who may then decide to hunt you down. Or, you can slaughter everyone on board, but this may provide some moral dilemmas (not always, but sometimes) and leave it to drift as a hazard to navigation. Or you can destroy it completely.

Brad

* - Note that these were taken as part of military actions, but it illustrates that second- and third-hand ship ownership is possible.
 


My biggest problem was always the way they negated overland travel.

If I ever introduced spelljamming to a campaign of mine again, I'd probably institute a houserule that prevented spelljamming on a planets surface (but would still allow it around moderately sized asteroids and such).

Maybe have "spelljamming ports" in certain cities that had largescale magical fields that allowed spelljammers to safely touch down, but nowhere else.

That, and no tinker gnomes or giant space hampsters.
 

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