Advice for running a 3.5 Spelljammer game?

[SlimeKnight40]

I got my group psyched to play a Spelljammer game. I've been using spelljammer.org for my information regarding the setting. Is this a good source to be using? Does anyone have advice for running a Spelljammer game in general?

[sokbeest]

Andy Collins wrote a cool, simplified Spelljammer adaptation for 3rd edition, called Shadow of the Spider Moonwhich was published in Dungeon Magazine issue #92, which you can buy from Paizo (http://paizo.com/products/btpy7zem?Dungeon-Issue-92-with-Polyhedron-151). Mr. Collins wrote some supplemental material which you can find here (http://www.andycollins.net/Projects/Spelljammer/Spelljammer.htm). I think that's a pretty good place to start.

Duane VanderPol wrote a lot of good analysis (http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp/dnd/spelljammer/spelljam.htm) of the Spelljammer setting, and some of its problems, if you want to get deep.

[Ikitavi]

A major problem for Spelljammer games is the power inflation issue. Ships are SO expensive that if players routinely capture ships and sell them, they get SO much money they can use it to finance ridiculous amounts of magic items.

So I suggest having the party start as the "away team" based on a ship, rather than in full control over a ship themselves. Also, use scroll and spell based helms on the landing ships, so that they are more expendable.

I would also avoid the huge sphere threatening enemies plot threads. AD&D is more interesting, in my opinion, when there are lots of independent principalities where games of intrigue and playing enemies off against each other does more to keep ports safe than star spanning fleets of uber powerful ships.

Also, I suggest having internally consistent reasons for why spelljamming is just being introduced to your campaign, or whether spelljammers have visited before without becoming the dominant influence. Decide whether spelljamming is new and rapidly expanding, whether it is old and subject to boom and bust, or old and somehow static, perhaps because of a very limited resource required for it.

[Bronk]

I agree, the Dungeon92/Polyhedron151 is a good 3.5 resource, and the spelljammer website you mentioned has some good conversions. They're not official conversions though, and if you do a search, you can end up with several contradicting sets of ship enhancements and prices. For example, there's a pdf floating around with a full set of price conversions that aren't covered in the other websites, such as for adamantine hull plating... the prices are different and the rules (granting AC vs Hardness) are different too.

There's also a difference in the setting in the Dungeon/Polyhedron issue, in that they remove crystal spheres and the flow.

If you have ship to ship combat, you might want to decide early which set of rules you want to follow. One set has ships with one pool of HP, another set has the ship broken down into sections.

If there's a disconnect between the 3.5 spelljamming rules (official and otherwise) and the original, it would be that the helms are classified as normal magic items, and therefore able to be made or even wished up by the players. They weren't exactly artifacts in the old rules, but the whole point was that for some reason only the Arcane new how to get or make new ones, so you might want to consider making them at least minor artifacts.

Plus, the helm is probably the single most expensive item on the ship, worth more than the ship itself. The idea of having minor ships without spelljamming helms is a good one. Depending on the ship, they're not necessary for short flights anyway, only for planet to planet wildspace travel or out in the flow. Also, major ships can still be controlled by harder or even impossible to use or sell types of helms like lifejammers or orbus.

I also agree that you'll probably want to find a way to explain how spelljamming works in your game. Was it always there, but in a way that the players didn't notice or appreciate before? Is it new? How is it worth it to use spelljamming instead of plane shifting, teleportation circles, or portals, when the start up costs are so high? What are they transporting that makes it worthwhile? How do pirates act... do they bother with the ships actual cargo, or would they just raid the ship for it's lucrative helm? It's worth thinking about, in case the PCs ask, even if you end up glossing over that aspect of it.

[Grollub]

I think if i was to run a Spelljammer game nowadays, I would keep information to a minimum to begin with. Maybe start the game off on the ground ( and players maybe encounter a "crashed/ disabled ship") or hired on as mercs on a ship.

The one above assessment is correct tho, if they are capturing/selling ships.. their wealth will go thru the roof, unless you work against that. Such as, the Elven Imperial Navy has banned all outside sales ( by non-arcane ), or some means of controlling the inc money flow.

[Malimar]

I've been running a Spelljammer game in Pathfinder for a couple years, and my main advice is go nuts. If your first reaction to an idea is "that sounds preposterous", then the idea is a perfect fit for Spelljammer. For example, the last session I ran featured a rakshasa mafiosa wielding a chainsaw riding a rainbow-barfing sleipnir on a runaway spelljammer carrying a shipment of illicit drugs.

[Tvtyrant]

My suggestion to fix the economy of the setting is to have arcane helms be bound to the user. Taking over a ship does not let you make any money from the helm itself, as you have to go to an arcane and have it bond the helm to you for it to work. They charge exactly the price of a new helm for this service, so there is no secondary market for helms. The ships are still worth a decent amount, but not world breaking like the helms.

[Big Mac]

I got my group psyched to play a Spelljammer game. I've been using spelljammer.org for my information regarding the setting. Is this a good source to be using?

Spelljammer: Beyond the Moons (spelljammer.org) was made into the official Spelljammer website by Wizards of the Coast, so it's a great source to use.

There is a Spelljammer forum at The Piazza (http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewforum.php?f=2), where you can find a bunch of SJ fans to talk to.
There is also a blog called Wildspace: The Spelljammer Fanzine (https://spelljammerblog.wordpress.com/), that has some articles you might find useful.
I've got a wiki about Spelljammer, called Spelljammer Wiki (http://spelljammer.wikia.com/wiki/Spelljammer_Wiki). (I've not updated it for a few years, as I want to get it off of Wikia before I do any more work on it.)


Does anyone have advice for running a Spelljammer game in general?

My advice is that there are three levels (at least three levels) of playstyle that you can use with Spelljammer, and that you might want to consider them all, to see if you want to start with one and work through the other two, as the PCs advance in character level:

Planet-bound adventures, with a Spelljammer background theme,
Sphere-bound adventures and
Multi-sphere adventures.


You don't have to do things this way, but if you do, you can start off with a groundling campaign, where the PCs are aware of Spelljammer stuff, but don't go there, and then get to the point where they start helping out on ships that travel from world to world, before moving onto going on an adventure where they pass beyond the sphere wall and head out for unknown crystal spheres.

[Big Mac]

I agree, the Dungeon92/Polyhedron151 is a good 3.5 resource, and the spelljammer website you mentioned has some good conversions. They're not official conversions though, and if you do a search, you can end up with several contradicting sets of ship enhancements and prices. For example, there's a pdf floating around with a full set of price conversions that aren't covered in the other websites, such as for adamantine hull plating... the prices are different and the rules (granting AC vs Hardness) are different too.

There are some inconsistencies there. As someone who wants to play Spelljammer with 3e rules myself, it's something I find frustrating. :smallfrown:

I've turned to my 2e friends who like Spelljammer and it seems that their preferred solution is to stick with the original 2e rules (which still work) so that they can avoid the contradictions.

I did talk to the boss of The Piazza, who allowed me to have a special project forum, the Spelljammer 3E Conversion Project (http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewforum.php?f=49), so that I could try to pull together some 3e fans and work through the various options and try to sort things out. But I've ground to a halt on that. :smallredface:

I need to get back to the Spelljammer 3E Conversion Project, and I need to find a few more people that can help focus on the stuff that can be easily fixed, to get a fully working prototype system that can be used for playtesting various options of the more challenging rules. (The ships are - IMO - one of the problems of SJ, as the original system pretty much used ship combat as a separate thing - a bit more like a wargame, or a bit like Battlesystem. I might even think about converting SJ ship combat to the 3e Chainmail miniatures system, to see if that allows for fast-play of boarding actions between multiple ships.)

[Big Mac]

My suggestion to fix the economy of the setting is to have arcane helms be bound to the user. Taking over a ship does not let you make any money from the helm itself, as you have to go to an arcane and have it bond the helm to you for it to work. They charge exactly the price of a new helm for this service, so there is no secondary market for helms. The ships are still worth a decent amount, but not world breaking like the helms.

Good idea, but I'd do that with the helm being bound to the ship, rather than a person using it.

SJ canon has more than one helmsman serving on a single ship, so the idea of the helm binding to a single user would conflict with that (and stop ships from moving when the helmsman was asleep).

And on the ship's that the players go onto, you probably want to have them start off as passengers, and then have one of the spellcasters get forced to take over the helm, for some reason.

An "easy" way to stop "helm looting" would be to have some sort of spell that locks helms to specific ships, where removing the ship without speaking the correct command word causes the helm to explode like an Explosive Runes effect (or something like that).

I also think it should be totally against "The Pirate Code" to remove a helm from a captured ship, as it means that everyone on the ship will die. This should be something done only by reavers that murder everyone. If the PCs try to do things (like steal the helm) that will kill everyone on an enemy ship, that should be considered both evil and "bad luck" and the NPCs on their own ship should react badly (either complaining or deserting at the first opportunity) unless they are chaotic evil NPCs (who might be happy to murder everyone they meet).

On the other hand, stealing a helm from a ship that has a "backup helm" or stealing a helm from a ship that is docked on an asteroid, might be considered to be within "The Pirate Code", as it just leaves people marooned, rather than dead from air loss. So a bit of that could be done. But the PCs really should need to have Letters of Marque and should really be robbing specific enemies, and passing the helms to the appropriate authorities and claiming their shares of the prize, if they want to be doing that. (That way the GM can control which wildspace factions get their ships looted and which factions the PCs have to leave alone.)

[Bronk]

Good idea, but I'd do that with the helm being bound to the ship, rather than a person using it.

SJ canon has more than one helmsman serving on a single ship, so the idea of the helm binding to a single user would conflict with that (and stop ships from moving when the helmsman was asleep).

And on the ship's that the players go onto, you probably want to have them start off as passengers, and then have one of the spellcasters get forced to take over the helm, for some reason.

An "easy" way to stop "helm looting" would be to have some sort of spell that locks helms to specific ships, where removing the ship without speaking the correct command word causes the helm to explode like an Explosive Runes effect (or something like that).

I also think it should be totally against "The Pirate Code" to remove a helm from a captured ship, as it means that everyone on the ship will die. This should be something done only by reavers that murder everyone. If the PCs try to do things (like steal the helm) that will kill everyone on an enemy ship, that should be considered both evil and "bad luck" and the NPCs on their own ship should react badly (either complaining or deserting at the first opportunity) unless they are chaotic evil NPCs (who might be happy to murder everyone they meet).

On the other hand, stealing a helm from a ship that has a "backup helm" or stealing a helm from a ship that is docked on an asteroid, might be considered to be within "The Pirate Code", as it just leaves people marooned, rather than dead from air loss. So a bit of that could be done. But the PCs really should need to have Letters of Marque and should really be robbing specific enemies, and passing the helms to the appropriate authorities and claiming their shares of the prize, if they want to be doing that. (That way the GM can control which wildspace factions get their ships looted and which factions the PCs have to leave alone.)

For the 'helm looting' problem, maybe have that be a more protected room, filled with extremely dangerous traps activated by some kind of alarm system. That way, the helm might be left alone more often, allowing the crew to survive. Maybe traders for rich merchant companies have even more powerful ones, along with an emergency beacons to summon warships to clear away any remaining pirates while also holding the key to unlock the traps.

If going the backup helm route, perhaps the more gentlemanly pirates lug around some of the less expensive 'series helms' to stick on a ship they've taken over.

Or, pirates might just take the entire crew prisoner for nefarious purposes. Food for neogi or illitids? Fuel for a Death Helm? Thralls?

**********

I checked out some of those links, and I thought this 'one page Spelljammer' page would be pretty useful for a fast and furious game:
http://blogofholding.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/laststep.png

[Gildedragon]

My suggestion to fix the economy of the setting is to have arcane helms be bound to the user. Taking over a ship does not let you make any money from the helm itself, as you have to go to an arcane and have it bond the helm to you for it to work. They charge exactly the price of a new helm for this service, so there is no secondary market for helms. The ships are still worth a decent amount, but not world breaking like the helms.

A canon mixing way: a guild of navigators-esque sorta thing; a helm is a living construct / intelligent item that isn't so much owned as hired, if a ship is captured the consciousness can refuse to work until a new contract is sorted out, or ask to be taken back to a planet where it can be assigned to a new ship. Killing or coercing the helm... well that assures the killers a place on a blacklist and intersphere travel becomes difficult to procure.


---

A good start is a crashed ship, maybe its ego (if working off the intelligent item/living construct idea) drained so it isn't wholly awake yet, they can control its destination until they reach a place where it can be fixed (or their attempt to fix/investigate it has them suddenly hurtling through the cosmos to a repair station)... friendship between the players and the ship, blah blah blah, zany adventures.

---

as for adventures:
watch Jupiter Ascending and Chronicles of Riddick for some science fantasy bombast; and bombast is what you're gunning for (the setting has mechagnomes and hippoman admirals, seriousness and restraint were left behind lightyears ago).

Mix settings; have Sigil be spelljammer accessible (it is a torus after all, a ringworld), the manifestation of the cage might be an extrusion, a gate, of/to the actual place so it can be a lot smaller or different, but the 'docks' of that 'space station' are just stable portals into The Cage. Visit Tarrasque world for a stealth mission (some IMPORTANT cargo was lost... say, a world's Talisman of Ultimate Evil, and needs to be retrieved before it warps the Tarrasques into ultra-smart, plane-shifting Fiendish Tarrasques. the containment unit is still untouched, but should a tarrasque get peckish...). Courier missions (a cargo-hold-full of quintessence-preserved monkey heads for an illithid conclave). Go nuts, Go weird.

[sokbeest]

So, uh... I have an issue. I really like castles, but it seems once you have ships flying around, the whole defensibility of castles goes out the window. Even if it's just a simple trading ship, all it has to do is haul big rocks up into the sky and drop them down on a castle, and if it's done from high enough, for long enough, the impact damage will bring down walls and towers.

Anyone have any good ideas for how to have castles make sense in a game where there are airships or spelljammers around?

[Tvtyrant]

So, uh... I have an issue. I really like castles, but it seems once you have ships flying around, the whole defensibility of castles goes out the window. Even if it's just a simple trading ship, all it has to do is haul big rocks up into the sky and drop them down on a castle, and if it's done from high enough, for long enough, the impact damage will bring down walls and towers.

Anyone have any good ideas for how to have castles make sense in a game where there are airships or spelljammers around?

Permanent Reverse Gravity spells placed above the castle so the shots either stop or get looped back, floating barriers held up by Immovable Rods, having your own jammers or flying creatures to protect the castle, being underground all seem like good options.

[sokbeest]

Permanent Reverse Gravity spells placed above the castle so the shots either stop or get looped back, floating barriers held up by Immovable Rods, having your own jammers or flying creatures to protect the castle, being underground all seem like good options.

Thank you for your response. The Immovable Rod idea had not occurred to me!

I guess the reason I was not keen to have a Spelljammer or flying creature air force, or anything "high magic", is because these things seem like a really high bar for just having a castle. (Air force becomes a high bar in my mind because I think you need a really big air force to defend against a small threat.)

I also now realize my issue was that I was looking for a simple, universal solution... but there may not be a simple (or "low bar") solution. I guess I'll just try to collect as many ideas as possible. I'll list the other ones I had, and if anyone else has ideas please share them:


Build into a vertical surface, like a canyon wall or the inside of a volcano, reducing the attack surface – I like this idea the best, because it's completely mundane, but it does limit the kind of "castles" that can be made.
Unusual natural gravitational phenomena, like those floating rocks on Pandora (in the movie Avatar) – this seems too exotic to be used broadly.
Castles in space! (Building on a smallish space rock makes for a smaller gravity range, and thus less falling distance.) – seems fine, but doesn't solve the problem for planetary castles.
Giant Shield spell – high magic, but easily workable in my campaign... but perhaps kind of cheesy.
Extra strong™ castle walls
Long-range automated Feather Fall / Shrink Item traps
Permanent cloud cover

[Gildedragon]

Thank you for your response. The Immovable Rod idea had not occurred to me!

I guess the reason I was not keen to have a Spelljammer or flying creature air force, or anything "high magic", is because these things seem like a really high bar for just having a castle. (Air force becomes a high bar in my mind because I think you need a really big air force to defend against a small threat.)

I also now realize my issue was that I was looking for a simple, universal solution... but there may not be a simple (or "low bar") solution. I guess I'll just try to collect as many ideas as possible. I'll list the other ones I had, and if anyone else has ideas please share them:


Build into a vertical surface, like a canyon wall or the inside of a volcano, reducing the attack surface – I like this idea the best, because it's completely mundane, but it does limit the kind of "castles" that can be made.
Unusual natural gravitational phenomena, like those floating rocks on Pandora (in the movie Avatar) – this seems too exotic to be used broadly.
Castles in space! (Building on a smallish space rock makes for a smaller gravity range, and thus less falling distance.) – seems fine, but doesn't solve the problem for planetary castles.
Giant Shield spell – high magic, but easily workable in my campaign... but perhaps kind of cheesy.
Extra strong™ castle walls
Long-range automated Feather Fall / Shrink Item traps
Permanent cloud cover


There is also the Frank Hebert route v atomics. Drop a meteor on someone, everyone else drops a meteor on you. Hence castle type fortifications are... Okayish, air attacks can still happen (castle walls need AA attacks/defenses) but vast orbital devastation can't easily happen.

[Darth Ultron]

So, uh... I have an issue. I really like castles, but it seems once you have ships flying around, the whole defensibility of castles goes out the window. Even if it's just a simple trading ship, all it has to do is haul big rocks up into the sky and drop them down on a castle, and if it's done from high enough, for long enough, the impact damage will bring down walls and towers.

Anyone have any good ideas for how to have castles make sense in a game where there are airships or spelljammers around?

Pre-Detection: Have at least one spy around any airship/spelljammer with in a couple hundred miles. Should the ship be readied for battle and take off...the spy will report this.

Detection: Have patrols and scouts around the caste watching for flying ships that are approaching. A game with airships/spelljammers is at least medium level magic, so having flying scouts is also a must.

Anti-aircraft weapons: You'd want a couple both around and inside the castle. You could go with low magic weapons like a ballista or a cannon, or right up to protected magical energy weapons. You'd also want an air defense unit and such.

[Zombimode]

So, uh... I have an issue. I really like castles, but it seems once you have ships flying around, the whole defensibility of castles goes out the window. Even if it's just a simple trading ship, all it has to do is haul big rocks up into the sky and drop them down on a castle, and if it's done from high enough, for long enough, the impact damage will bring down walls and towers.

Anyone have any good ideas for how to have castles make sense in a game where there are airships or spelljammers around?

Can't comment on spelljammers, but concerning airships and castles:

What kind of air ships and what kind of castles we are talking about? There is a world of difference between cloud giant cloud-castle realms and Eberron airships.

Also, compare the following:
http://www.hinckleypastpresent.org/images/hinckleycastle01.jpg
http://cuda-swiata.pl/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Krak-des-Chevaliers.jpeg

The strategy of dropping rocks on a fortified position might prove less impactful then you might imagine. Unless you have a crapton of rocks that can be deployed fast it won't deal significant damage and people can hide in cover (cellars, dungeons, etc.).

Its not to say that airships aren't useful. Just that airships alone do not invalidate castles at all. You would need to couple that with some really potent bomb-like weapons. And most fantasy settings avoid such devices (for good reason!).

[Florian]

For a spelljammer game, don´t, under any circumstances, calculate the vessels into WBL. Don´t do that. Ever.

[Big Mac]

A canon mixing way: a guild of navigators-esque sorta thing; a helm is a living construct / intelligent item that isn't so much owned as hired, if a ship is captured the consciousness can refuse to work until a new contract is sorted out, or ask to be taken back to a planet where it can be assigned to a new ship. Killing or coercing the helm... well that assures the killers a place on a blacklist and intersphere travel becomes difficult to procure.


---

A good start is a crashed ship, maybe its ego (if working off the intelligent item/living construct idea) drained so it isn't wholly awake yet, they can control its destination until they reach a place where it can be fixed (or their attempt to fix/investigate it has them suddenly hurtling through the cosmos to a repair station)... friendship between the players and the ship, blah blah blah, zany adventures.

I like the idea of an intelligent helm. If you have a Barge of Ptah, with a helm created by a cleric of Ptah (that considerers itself equal to a cleric) then it would react badly to a group of players that came aboard and murdered it's crew.

And if the PCs discovered a ship, with an intelligent helm, it might have some sort of mission that it wants the PCs to help it fulfil. That could give you a built-in plot device, where the helm gets the PCs involved in the GMs campaign arc. If the PCs allow the helm to fulfil it's promise, it could then agree to serve them.

For intelligent helms, being used against their wills, the Item Ego rules also come into play. The helm could try to bring the ship to a dead-stop in the middle of a battle, so that another group of people (maybe better ones) took over the ship. Or it could dominate the helmsman and make the ship go somewhere else.

I can even imagine neogi traders, who sell intellegent helms that conceal their intelligence, until they can use their special powers to charm a helmsman and force them to fly to a location where a fleet of neogi ships can surround the ship and enslave it's crew.

[Pugwampy]

I know a person from another forum who claims to be one on the original creators of Spelljammer . I dont know how familiar he is with 3.5 rules .

I wonder if this thread would interest him ?

[Robrecht]

So, uh... I have an issue. I really like castles, but it seems once you have ships flying around, the whole defensibility of castles goes out the window. Even if it's just a simple trading ship, all it has to do is haul big rocks up into the sky and drop them down on a castle, and if it's done from high enough, for long enough, the impact damage will bring down walls and towers.

Anyone have any good ideas for how to have castles make sense in a game where there are airships or spelljammers around?

Flying castles? stick a major helm to a castle and fly it!

[Grod_The_Giant]

So, uh... I have an issue. I really like castles, but it seems once you have ships flying around, the whole defensibility of castles goes out the window. Even if it's just a simple trading ship, all it has to do is haul big rocks up into the sky and drop them down on a castle, and if it's done from high enough, for long enough, the impact damage will bring down walls and towers.

Anyone have any good ideas for how to have castles make sense in a game where there are airships or spelljammers around?
They don't -- make it into an imperialism analogy. When a spelljammer civilization comes into contact with a non-jammer, they can force it to open up and trade with them by doing just that.