Your Astral Sea: 3d or 2d?

[fireinthedust]

So I'm wondering: How do you deal with the Astral Sea?


1) The geometry of it: like Spelljammer, or Outer Space, where ships can be above and below one another?
if so, could we see a book like SWSE, with Ship Combat rules and special maneuvers for ship-to-ship combat?

Or is it like a Material Ocean: are there Skies above, and Depths below? Are there "sunken Domains" where deep-sea deities (or worse, creatures) dwell?

2) What are your Astral Sea sessions like in gameplay? Are they effectively treated like the mortal seas, or as something different? How does one handle Combat in ships?

I'm not there with my 4e campaign yet. However, if like on the cover of Manual of the Planes, my party is attacked by an Astral Dreadnaught... well, how do I handle combat?

 

[Lord Xtheth]

I'm not quite at the astral sea yet in my campaign, and quite honestly I don't think I'll be using it at all with my currant campaign.

It is somthing I'd like to see more material on though. Perhaps, after I establish myself as more than nobody in the RPG world, I'll write a supliment... if the thought re-surfaces.

As for how I WOULD handle it? 3D all the way! I'd cut/paste Star Wars style ships and combat whenever I thought nessisary. Things would live in my astral sea, and they would be horrific things to send chills into the soulds of my PCs. Gods? Nah, they have their own homes, but they could come to visit!

 

[RodneyThompson]

I always kind of visualize travel on the Astral Sea being very similar to the (IMO, very underrated) Disney movie, Treasure Planet. If you've seen that, then you'll know exactly what I imagine: mostly 3D space, but a strong two-dimensional sense to it.

 

[Stoat]

My game hasn't moved to the Astral Sea yet, and may not for a while, so this is a theoretical answer.

I played a *lot* of Spelljammer back in the day, and I'd be inclined to use some version of those rules. Basically, it's a 3D environment, but combat is oriented around a convenient 2D plane. IME and IMO, keeping track of a 3D combat is a lot of work and computation for very little reward.

 

[Drammattex]

I really like the way the Astral Sea works in the 4e Manual of the Planes. It's honestly the first time I've ever truly been able to envision it, and it touches on several fantasy references I like without directly replicating any of them, namely:
Elric- Sailor on the Seas of Fate
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Erik the Viking

However... they do make the distinction between the Astral Sea and "the world." As I recall, earlier in the Manual of the Planes, there's mention of "the world" and other "the worlds" (these would be Krynn, Eberron, Oerth, Athas, etc.), but the world is on what you might think of as the material plane. Thus, it's implied that worlds are surrounded by space just the same as Earth. Traveling the Astral Sea to dimensions of ideals, homes of gods and angels and all that, is something else entirely--something much more metaphysical.

I love that. Science still works and space ships can still crash land without messing up the cosmology.

 

[renau1g]

Personally I've never had a group travel to it, but I would echo others in stating it would be 3d, but after seeing SW in action, I prefer the 2d combat map...

 

[Klaus]

I always kind of visualize travel on the Astral Sea being very similar to the (IMO, very underrated) Disney movie, Treasure Planet. If you've seen that, then you'll know exactly what I imagine: mostly 3D space, but a strong two-dimensional sense to it.

Mix that with Sinbad Legend of the Seven Seas and the back cover of the PHB and you get my notion of it.

It actually kinda reminds me of Gandalf describing the afterlife to Pippin in RotK, and it gives another dimension to the "sailing West" thing Tolkien put in LotR.

 

[Storminator]

My game isn't there yet either, but I envision it as a 2-d sea that has been ripped into ribbons. Each ribbon is still a 2-d sea, but they float free in a 3-d space. You really have to know where the currents flow to get from the regular ocean to anywhere meaningful in the Astral Sea. But if you know the trade routes...

PS

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Sorta a weird mix of the two. I imagine the various Astral-ships that travel through the Astral Sea take somewhat level paths without much three-dimensional travelling about. However this is because if one was to travel to far off these paths one can get lost in the Astral Sea.

Creatures and objects that inhabit the Astral Sea freely travel about. So better watch out for things coming up from below or coming down from above.

 

[Wormwood]

As implied above:

Generally: 2d
Specifically: 3d