Spelljammer Spelljammer Ship Rules Can Be Seen On The DM Screen Previews Images

According to Reddit user MegamanJB, some of the Spelljammer ship rules can be made out on the DM Screen preview image. They transcribe what they could make out, which includes Ship Encounters, Ship-Ship Starting Distance, Crashing, Shipboard Tasks, Ship Quirks, and Ship Cargo.

Ship Encounters
d100 - Ship Encounter - Attitude Roll

• Bombard Leviathan? captained by... (giff warlord) and ... giff shipmates and 3...
• ... captained ... explorer
• Scorpion ship Claws of... captained by H... (hobgoblin captain) and crewed by 1 bugbear (first mate) 8 hobgoblins and 2 hobgoblin priests
• Shrike ship... captained by Yaj (githyanki...) and crewed by 11 githyanki buccaneers.
• Space Galleon ... captained by K... (beholder) and crewed by 1 spectator (first mate), 3 cult fanatics and 16 cultists
• Space Galleon ... captained M... and crewed by 1 invisible stalker (first mate)... aarakocra and 7...)

Ship-to-Ship Starting Distance​

At the start of an engagement...

Distance - Notes

• 250 ft: Long range for... light ... and heavy crossbows.
• 500 ft: Long range for... and for... crossbows
• 1000 ft: Beyond the range of most ranged weapons

Crashing​

When a malfunctioning ship crashes into a creature or an object that would presumably damage it....

Size of Creature or Object - Bludgeoning Damage

• Large: 4d10
• Huge: 8d10
• Gargantuan:

Shipboard Tasks​

During the uneventful part of a voyage...

d12 - Task

• 1 - Scrape ... off the hull
• 2 - Scrub ... and dishes in the galley
• 3 - Chop vegetables in the galley
• 4 - Swab the deck...
• 5 - Update the ship's navigational charts which require cartographer's tools.
• 6 - ... the captain's ...which requires ... tools.

Ship Quirks​

Roll on the Ship Quirks table if you want to add a bit of "personality" to a ship.

d10 - Quirk

• 1 - A chatty ... haunts the cargo hold.
• 2 - The ... of the hull echoes throughout the ship.
• 3 - Any creature that ... itself from the ship's ...

Ship Cargo​

To randomly determine what's on the cargo... of a spelljamming ship... If a cargo container is... a character can try to unlock a container using thievery tools doing so with a successful DC 20 dexterity check.

Cheap Cargo​

d12 - Cargo

Expensive Cargo​

d12 - Cargo

• 1 - Crate containing fifty blank ... books (50 gp each)
• 2 - Crate containing one hundred ... bottles of ink (10 gp each) and one thousands ... (1 gp each)
• 3 - Crate containing hearty portions of ... flasks of... (50 gp each)
• ...
• 12 - kegs of gunpoweder ... (see "Explosives" in the Dungeon Master's Guide)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Sigil was the literal center of the universe not just an important city and it lay at the spoke of the universe. It had its own language, a unique style of architecture and a unique shape. The city was morphic and could change and alter like a sentient creature. It’s godlike ruler, seemingly had no interest in actually ruling but had mysterious dabus that did certain tasks around the city. Sigil had the 15 philosophical factions that actually ruled the city all wildly different and unique. Some of those factions were quite unlike any other organizations seen in rpg at that point. The mazes were unique as best as I can tell - personal demiplanes to trap malcontents. Sigil wasn’t a port city. It had no docks. It was the first city to be a portal nexus, with portals under arches, regular doorways, bridges and any other bounded space.

It was a detailed enough city to support a very detailed CRPG set in said city. Not exactly common at that point, and is featured extensively in a great many adventures directly - rather than relying on some adjacent dungeon like Undermountain or Castle Greyhawk.

I’m sure you know all this and it may not be your cup of tea, but I’m pretty sure it had a lot of original ideas for rpgs. I’ll happily wait and see if Spelljammer comes up with anything as interesting.

I always felt Planescape was a major disappointment, I was hoping for something like Radiant Citadel, and instead I got a dreary angst-ridden city of A-holes. The computer game was good though.

I'm not planning on running a Spelljammer campaign either, but I'm happy to play in one if I can persuade someone else to DM.

And I've never liked Dragonlance, so Radiant Citadel is probably the only book I'm buying this year. But I'm happy that WotC are catering to a range of tastes, and I'm not going to challenge anyone's right to like different stuff to me.

 

[Remathilis]

I’m sure you know all this and it may not be your cup of tea, but I’m pretty sure it had a lot of original ideas for rpgs. I’ll happily wait and see if Spelljammer comes up with anything as interesting.

I speak as a much larger fan of Planescape than of Spelljammer, but I've never seen them as competition to one another. Despite the use of the Astral Sea instead of phlostigen, I think Spelljammer is still going to focus heavily on prime worlds and the wildspace between them, while Planescape will focus on Sigil and outer planes (and sometimes the inner ones). As I've said before, the Astral being a part of Spelljammer doesn't make it a planer campaign, any more so than stepping through the "Mists" of the Shadowfell between domains make Ravenloft a planar campaign.

Could you use a Spelljammer to travel from Faerun to Avernus? Possibly. We've yet to see how ships interact with color pools, but even if they do, I hardly believe it will be the focus of those kinds of adventures. And I still believe Sigil has its time coming. So far, WotC had expanded into the Shadowfell (Ravenloft), Feywild (Witchlight), Ethereal (Radiant Citadel) and Astral (Spelljammer). I expect Planescape will dive into the outer and inner planes eventually.

 

[TheSword]

I speak as a much larger fan of Planescape than of Spelljammer, but I've never seen them as competition to one another. Despite the use of the Astral Sea instead of phlostigen, I think Spelljammer is still going to focus heavily on prime worlds and the wildspace between them, while Planescape will focus on Sigil and outer planes (and sometimes the inner ones). As I've said before, the Astral being a part of Spelljammer doesn't make it a planer campaign, any more so than stepping through the "Mists" of the Shadowfell between domains make Ravenloft a planar campaign.

Could you use a Spelljammer to travel from Faerun to Avernus? Possibly. We've yet to see how ships interact with color pools, but even if they do, I hardly believe it will be the focus of those kinds of adventures. And I still believe Sigil has its time coming. So far, WotC had expanded into the Shadowfell (Ravenloft), Feywild (Witchlight), Ethereal (Radiant Citadel) and Astral (Spelljammer). I expect Planescape will dive into the outer and inner planes eventually.

I definitely agree that they are complimentary to each other. Just like Planescape was complimentary to most regular D&D.

I simply used Sigil as an example of something novel and original. Hoping that Spelljammer would bring something similarly unique to the table beyond what has been seen so far.

 

[Maxperson]

Sigil was the literal center of the universe not just an important city and it lay at the spoke of the universe. It had its own language, a unique style of architecture and a unique shape. The city was morphic and could change and alter like a sentient creature. It’s godlike ruler, seemingly had no interest in actually ruling but had mysterious dabus that did certain tasks around the city. Sigil had the 15 philosophical factions that actually ruled the city all wildly different and unique. Some of those factions were quite unlike any other organizations seen in rpg at that point. The mazes were unique as best as I can tell - personal demiplanes to trap malcontents. Sigil wasn’t a port city. It had no docks. It was the first city to be a portal nexus, with portals under arches, regular doorways, bridges and any other bounded space.

It was a detailed enough city to support a very detailed CRPG set in said city. Not exactly common at that point, and is featured extensively in a great many adventures directly - rather than relying on some adjacent dungeon like Undermountain or Castle Greyhawk.

I’m sure you know all this and it may not be your cup of tea, but I’m pretty sure it had a lot of original ideas for rpgs. I’ll happily wait and see if Spelljammer comes up with anything as interesting.

Sigil is not the center of the universe. It's at the center of the outer planes only. Greyhawk is the center of its entire crystal sphere. And if simply saying, "It has unique architecture from other settings" is enough to make it different, then saying "It has ships that fly through space" is enough to make Planescape different from pirate campaigns. Dabus is just a new monster, like the Giant Space hamster was a new monster.

So far all the reasons you gave for Planescape being a different, unique setting also apply to Spelljammer.

 

[Parmandur]

Sigil was the literal center of the universe not just an important city and it lay at the spoke of the universe. It had its own language, a unique style of architecture and a unique shape. The city was morphic and could change and alter like a sentient creature. It’s godlike ruler, seemingly had no interest in actually ruling but had mysterious dabus that did certain tasks around the city. Sigil had the 15 philosophical factions that actually ruled the city all wildly different and unique. Some of those factions were quite unlike any other organizations seen in rpg at that point. The mazes were unique as best as I can tell - personal demiplanes to trap malcontents. Sigil wasn’t a port city. It had no docks. It was the first city to be a portal nexus, with portals under arches, regular doorways, bridges and any other bounded space.

It was a detailed enough city to support a very detailed CRPG set in said city. Not exactly common at that point, and is featured extensively in a great many adventures directly - rather than relying on some adjacent dungeon like Undermountain or Castle Greyhawk.

I’m sure you know all this and it may not be your cup of tea, but I’m pretty sure it had a lot of original ideas for rpgs. I’ll happily wait and see if Spelljammer comes up with anything as interesting.

Again, it's just q big port city, seems like it's just Waterdeep or Greyhawk.

 

[TheSword]

Sigil is not the center of the universe. It's at the center of the outer planes only. Greyhawk is the center of its entire crystal sphere. And if simply saying, "It has unique architecture from other settings" is enough to make it different, then saying "It has ships that fly through space" is enough to make Planescape different from pirate campaigns. Dabus is just a new monster, like the Giant Space hamster was a new monster.

So far all the reasons you gave for Planescape being a different, unique setting also apply to Spelljammer.

Spoken like a Prime.
Primes always think their own realm is the center of everything until they learn the truth of things.

Of course Greyhawk was the center of the universe at one point, but only because Gary hadn’t designed anything else .
We soon realized that not everything did revolve around Oerth.

What makes Dabus interesting isn’t that they aren’t human. It’s that they fulfil a function that is unique to Sigil (silent, rebus speaking, repair-folk of the city and agents of the Lady). What unique functions do Spelljammer creatures fulfil? Does Greyhawk have creatures that fulfil unique functions to that city that makes it different from other cities? I haven’t spent more than a few sessions playing in the city.

I don’t believe I did just refer to architecture. I also mentioned factions and a few other uniquenesses. You just chose not to respond to them.

 

[Parmandur]

Spoken like a Prime.
Primes always think their own realm is the center of everything until they learn the truth of things.

Of course Greyhawk was the center of the universe at one point, but only because Gary hadn’t designed anything else .
We soon realized that not everything did revolve around Oerth.

What makes Dabus interesting isn’t that they aren’t human. It’s that they fulfil a function that is unique to Sigil (silent, rebus speaking, repair-folk of the city and agents of the Lady). What unique functions do Spelljammer creatures fulfil? Does Greyhawk have creatures that fulfil unique functions to that city that makes it different from other cities? I haven’t spent more than a few sessions playing in the city.

I don’t believe I did just refer to architecture. I also mentioned factions and a few other uniquenesses. You just chose not to respond to them.

I donthink you are picking up what people are laying down about Planescape here: I have nothing against Planescape, I like it and fully expect it to get a product next year. I'm just mirroring your arguments about Spelljammer back st Planescape to show you how they look to others. It is ironical.

 

[Maxperson]

Spoken like a Prime.
Primes always think their own realm is the center of everything until they learn the truth of things.

Of course Greyhawk was the center of the universe at one point, but only because Gary hadn’t designed anything else .
We soon realized that not everything did revolve around Oerth.

Except we know from the Spelljammer setting that everything does in fact revolve around Greyhawk in that sphere.

What makes Dabus interesting isn’t that they aren’t human. It’s that they fulfil a function that is unique to Sigil (silent, rebus speaking, repair-folk of the city and agents of the Lady). What unique functions do Spelljammer creatures fulfil? Does Greyhawk have creatures that fulfil unique functions to that city that makes it different from other cities? I haven’t spent more than a few sessions playing in the city.

I don’t believe I did just refer to architecture. I also mentioned factions and a few other uniquenesses. You just chose not to respond to them.

Look. Nothing you said that made Sigil unique doesn't also apply to Spelljammer. It had just as many, if not more unique things to it. What you have is the feeling that Sigil is more unique and Spelljammer isn't. That's fine. You like Planescape more than you like Spelljammer, which is valid. I do too. You're allowing your feelings to blind you to the uniqueness of Spelljammer, though. It's far more than just another pirate setting.

 

[TheSword]

Except we know from the Spelljammer setting that everything does in fact revolve around Greyhawk in that sphere.

Look. Nothing you said that made Sigil unique doesn't also apply to Spelljammer. It had just as many, if not more unique things to it. What you have is the feeling that Sigil is more unique and Spelljammer isn't. That's fine. You like Planescape more than you like Spelljammer, which is valid. I do too. You're allowing your feelings to blind you to the uniqueness of Spelljammer, though. It's far more than just another pirate setting.

I guess I’m still waiting to find out what those USPs are. So far it’s galactic empires, weirdness and outer space (which may not be in the new edition anyway) with a slight increase in sci-fi elements.

We’ll see what happens when they release the setting.

To be very clear, the purpose of the thread was to try and work out what made Spelljammer different… and whether those things would appeal to me?

 

[Parmandur]

weirdness and outer space

Yes, you got it.