Spelljammer ship for high level pc

[schreier]

My last post got good answers on self-healing vehicles (using living wood and aurorum) -- and that sent me down the path of upgrading from an airship to a spelljammer. I'm trying to put together the best spelljammer ship that I could (end-game, have to build towards) ... I tried to read over the "official" rules published in Dungeon 92, but they seemed pretty bad. I found the spelljammer site with some good content, the best and simplest seems to be using the 2e rules and converting them (AC to 3.5 AC, changing to hit, etc) ... http://www.spelljammer.org/rules/simpleSTS.html

The Vipership (in Lost Ships) seems the best foundation, requiring only one pilot, made from metal, and maneuverability A

I was going to replace the 3 ballista with 3 arcane ballista from the eberron setting (https://sites.google.com/site/eberronpathfinder/conversion-info/bestiary/monsters/a-c/arcane-ballista)
I can apply the rudimentary intelligence from Dragon 327 to get precise shot so it could use the splitting enchantment
Then use some variant of the quiver of anariel to get adamantine bolts

Add a +3 Rudder of Speed to make it faster (War Captain book)

Then make it from aurorum to help it "heal" if damaged. I would think the helmsman could take a full round action to repair any damage?

With all the helms - obviously an artifurnace would be the ideal I would think -5SR (8 with the rudder) without taking up the helmsman's spells .. but more likely a major helm. If a high level wizard had his own ship, I would think maybe a similacrum could act as a helmsman to avoid losing spells?

Then lastly, add a magic missile weapon from the Hummingbird (Crystal spheres book) ... if there were 2 wizards (the similacrum and the main), that would work. If you had an artifurnace, I would think a helmsman could cast the magic missile into the weapon (max of 6 points of hull damage?)

Other cool items could be a hold of holding or an astrolabe, but those would be for flavor.

Could you enchant the "armor" with other advantages? Could fortification protect it from criticals? Could you do a variant of a starmantle cloak? Obviously we're talking very high level at that point, but I'm just playing with the "best" then dialing it back from there.

Also - Merry Christmas! :)

[Ranxaeroth]

Hi, if you’re looking for the “great white wale” of the Verse, your end game is the Spelljammer herself. The pinnacle of vessels. The next best thing, for single or small party is hunting a Smalljammer. (Which could potentially, under certain circumstances, become The Spelljammer.). Hunting a Smalljammer has the potential to become a long running campaign crossing as many Spheres as you want. The Viper is a good ship, if you like snakes, BUT, not a one man ship. Minimum crew is 3. Even though any ship requiring only one helmsman c o u l d be a one man ship, you will be defenseless and open to boarding by pretty much everything. Not wise.
Any other ship depends on your forte and gamestyle. IÂ’m into transportation. Primarily on Greyhawk. I use Clippers with helms. Once outside sight of land, engage helm and go places faster than anyone elseÂ’s company. IÂ’ve moved up to a teleport hub and a station in space and cover transportation to several spheres. Spheres with Spelljammer ports, I use a whale ship with Warhawk escort. Currently my ground base is the Valley of the Mage as you can approach and depart, essentially unseen, over the mountains. (But thatÂ’s a much longer story)
The only solo pilot ship I know of is the Batship (in SJR2 Realmspace pg.89), comes at a steep price though.

Best of luck and may the Phlo be kind to your ships.

[Yak folklore]

Somewhat related, but I want to share, the best ship is not a ship at all, but a castle!!!! SBG: make as small a keep as possible, wall of force exterior walls, antimagic sigil enhancements everywhere, it may not heal, but it also doesn't take damage, exit is another wondrous architecture, I forgot what it is called, but you stand on it and can cast teleport, the tough nut to crack cheaply is getting in. Oh, and to make it a ship you need to get the flying, and if you can afford it, burrowing movement modes, plus the airtight enchantment. If you keep it to 1-3 ss (a very arbitrary 20-60ish feet) a 20th level could afford it, but I don't know what is 'high level' in your group.
Again, this thing would be immune to all but artifacts and Mordenkainen's disjunction, and even that only 10% of the time.

[schreier]

Hi, if you’re looking for the “great white wale” of the Verse, your end game is the Spelljammer herself. The pinnacle of vessels. The next best thing, for single or small party is hunting a Smalljammer. (Which could potentially, under certain circumstances, become The Spelljammer.). Hunting a Smalljammer has the potential to become a long running campaign crossing as many Spheres as you want. The Viper is a good ship, if you like snakes, BUT, not a one man ship. Minimum crew is 3. Even though any ship requiring only one helmsman c o u l d be a one man ship, you will be defenseless and open to boarding by pretty much everything. Not wise.
Any other ship depends on your forte and gamestyle. IÂ’m into transportation. Primarily on Greyhawk. I use Clippers with helms. Once outside sight of land, engage helm and go places faster than anyone elseÂ’s company. IÂ’ve moved up to a teleport hub and a station in space and cover transportation to several spheres. Spheres with Spelljammer ports, I use a whale ship with Warhawk escort. Currently my ground base is the Valley of the Mage as you can approach and depart, essentially unseen, over the mountains. (But thatÂ’s a much longer story)
The only solo pilot ship I know of is the Batship (in SJR2 Realmspace pg.89), comes at a steep price though.

Best of luck and may the Phlo be kind to your ships.

Thank you -- the spelljammer is cool, but city sized and alive, so that is challenging.

The Viper, at least in the Lost Ships book, is just a 1-man ship. I found an online listing with the 3/15 crew listing, but I'm not sure where that came from.

Pg 66-7 In Lost Ships:
Tonnage: 29 tons
Hull Points: 29
Crew 1/29
Maneuver Class: A
Landing - Land: Yes
Landing - Water: Yes
Armor Rating: 5
Saves As: Metal
Cargo: 16 tons
Keel Length: 125'
Beam Length: 15'

It has 3 Medium Ballistas: Crew: 2each
1 Light Catapult Crew: 1
1 Heavy jettison (aft, below): Crew 4

In Crew, it says:
"The usual wonderseeker crew is one man, alone or with up to three companions. Non-wonderseeker crews tend to be 12-16 hands strong.

The AR becomes 15. I am guessing the Aurorum would stay 15, but could be enchanted. I am not sure how much enchantment should be possible (like I said - can you add fortification to make it immune to crits?).

As far as open to be boarded - that was why I went with the arcane ballista with adamantine bolts as weapons on top, and the hummingbird weapon on the front. With a major helm, you would need to use similacrum as the pilot to allow the main caster to magic missile into the weapon, but I would believe, with an artifurnace, the pilot should be able to as well.

[schreier]

Somewhat related, but I want to share, the best ship is not a ship at all, but a castle!!!! SBG: make as small a keep as possible, wall of force exterior walls, antimagic sigil enhancements everywhere, it may not heal, but it also doesn't take damage, exit is another wondrous architecture, I forgot what it is called, but you stand on it and can cast teleport, the tough nut to crack cheaply is getting in. Oh, and to make it a ship you need to get the flying, and if you can afford it, burrowing movement modes, plus the airtight enchantment. If you keep it to 1-3 ss (a very arbitrary 20-60ish feet) a 20th level could afford it, but I don't know what is 'high level' in your group.
Again, this thing would be immune to all but artifacts and Mordenkainen's disjunction, and even that only 10% of the time.

I did think about this - it is pretty cool, and you might work it together with Daern's instant fortress if you were allowed to keep the walls of force, etc ... it isn't clear what happens to stuff inside the fortress when you shrink it to a cube, but if you could make the spelljammer (fortress or ship) shrink, that would be really useful too - like a folding boat but more awesome :)

[Khedrac]

Probably the most important factor for a one-person spelljammer ship is not which ship, but what power source are you going to use.

What a lot of the Spelljammer writers seemed to forget (with lots of powerful mages wandering around in one-person ships) is that no sane mage will use a conventional spelljammer helm for their one-person ship. To be honest, I don't think any mages in command would use a conventional helm themselves ever - that's what underlings are for.

Remember - the moment a spellcaster uses a conventional helm to power a spelljamming ship they have no more spells available for the day. Remember all those nice magical tricks you have prepared in case of attacks? Well you now need to hope that the contingent spells can keep you alive because you are not casting any spells.

I think the best option is probably an artifact-furnace.

[schreier]

Probably the most important factor for a one-person spelljammer ship is not which ship, but what power source are you going to use.

What a lot of the Spelljammer writers seemed to forget (with lots of powerful mages wandering around in one-person ships) is that no sane mage will use a conventional spelljammer helm for their one-person ship. To be honest, I don't think any mages in command would use a conventional helm themselves ever - that's what underlings are for.

Remember - the moment a spellcaster uses a conventional helm to power a spelljamming ship they have no more spells available for the day. Remember all those nice magical tricks you have prepared in case of attacks? Well you now need to hope that the contingent spells can keep you alive because you are not casting any spells.

I think the best option is probably an artifact-furnace.

100% agree - I was planning on targeting the artifurnace. They seem comparatively slow, but if you add a rudder of speed +3 (from War Captain's Companion pg.85) you can get up to SR8. I am not sure if you can stack that Orbus Ring (. “Bazaar of the Bizarre: Magic from the stars”. In Roger E. Moore ed. Dragon #159 (TSR, Inc.), pp. 15–18.)

If you allow both bonuses to stack, you would have +6 to SR, for SR11.

Alternatively, if you don't have access to an artifact for the furnace, a similacrum of a lvl 20 character would be a lvl 10 spellcaster, fully able to drive the ship.

I didn't see many details about how a helm like an artifurnace would work ... you could drive the ship I assume, or cast spells, but not do both in the same turn? (except possibly for quickened spells)

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Beside the Artifurnace (which has the obvious 'first catch your bear' issue of finding both an artefact and an object that's similarly rare), there's a number of other workable options that don't drain your spellcasting abilities.

The exact mechanics of Series Helms (Concordance of Arcane Space, p.36) are a little unclear, but they're stated to be usable by humans and they don't say anything about draining your casting (since they don't require a caster to operate).

A Drow Radiant Helm (War Captain's Companion, p.81) would be another good option - it can be used by 'a drow or any other innately magical creature' and drains said innate magical abilities until you rest - translated into 3.5 mechanics I guess that would be 'having Spell-Like Abilities' or similar, which isn't that hard a requirement to swing (notably, SR is purely based on hit dice - it does not care how powerful those SLAs are, so for example any gnome could work it, or a character with one of those feats which give you cantrip SLAs.) The only issue is that it requires the ship to have been exposed to faerzress radiation during its construction, normally limiting one to drow-made craft - which are good, but visually distinctive and treated with universal hostility. But of course, if you're custom-making the ship you might be able to arrange that yourself.

Depending on alignment, a Lifejammer or Death Helm can be fairly effective - and there are arguably good-compatible ways to use one - it's never stated they need sapient creatures, and you could always man it yourself and heal the damage. Or shove neogi in it, everyone in wildspace knows they have it coming.

My personal favourite option is 'The Pump' (WCC, p. 88), a goblinoid helm which consumes raw materials. It's actually very cheap to run generally as it only requires 1 pound per hour - so one ton of material would keep a ship running for 83 days. Or, being a high level caster, just use wall of stone or similar spells to create material. Now, the SR depends on the material used, but most of the time you don't care about the SR (as it doesn't affect spelljamming speed) so you can just throw cheap stuff like stone in most of the time and keep pricier materials for emergencies. Even then, there's plenty of ways to cheese costs down - for example, ceramics get a respectable SR5 (matching the artifurnace) and can be made cheaply by purchasing clay and casting fabricate.

[schreier]

Beside the Artifurnace (which has the obvious 'first catch your bear' issue of finding both an artefact and an object that's similarly rare), there's a number of other workable options that don't drain your spellcasting abilities.

The exact mechanics of Series Helms (Concordance of Arcane Space, p.36) are a little unclear, but they're stated to be usable by humans and they don't say anything about draining your casting (since they don't require a caster to operate).

A Drow Radiant Helm (War Captain's Companion, p.81) would be another good option - it can be used by 'a drow or any other innately magical creature' and drains said innate magical abilities until you rest - translated into 3.5 mechanics I guess that would be 'having Spell-Like Abilities' or similar, which isn't that hard a requirement to swing (notably, SR is purely based on hit dice - it does not care how powerful those SLAs are, so for example any gnome could work it, or a character with one of those feats which give you cantrip SLAs.) The only issue is that it requires the ship to have been exposed to faerzress radiation during its construction, normally limiting one to drow-made craft - which are good, but visually distinctive and treated with universal hostility. But of course, if you're custom-making the ship you might be able to arrange that yourself.

Depending on alignment, a Lifejammer or Death Helm can be fairly effective - and there are arguably good-compatible ways to use one - it's never stated they need sapient creatures, and you could always man it yourself and heal the damage. Or shove neogi in it, everyone in wildspace knows they have it coming.

My personal favourite option is 'The Pump' (WCC, p. 88), a goblinoid helm which consumes raw materials. It's actually very cheap to run generally as it only requires 1 pound per hour - so one ton of material would keep a ship running for 83 days. Or, being a high level caster, just use wall of stone or similar spells to create material. Now, the SR depends on the material used, but most of the time you don't care about the SR (as it doesn't affect spelljamming speed) so you can just throw cheap stuff like stone in most of the time and keep pricier materials for emergencies. Even then, there's plenty of ways to cheese costs down - for example, ceramics get a respectable SR5 (matching the artifurnace) and can be made cheaply by purchasing clay and casting fabricate.

Wow ... Hard to believe the pump is that cheap to operate with that speed. Would you basically say piloting a spell jammer is a standard action with either an artifurnace or the pump? You can talk, and potentially move (although you need to stay in the seat probably?). Could cast quickened spells and use swift actions?

Unrelated, is there a pilot skill? The polyhedron version had one but that ruleset doesn't make a lot of sense overall. Also, it seems like you use the material save for the fortitude but would use the helman's reflex and will saves? Do you use the helmsman's initiative?

Looking at Stormwrack, as long as the helmsman using a standard action you can control the ship

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Wow ... Hard to believe the pump is that cheap to operate with that speed. Would you basically say piloting a spell jammer is a standard action with either an artifurnace or the pump? You can talk, and potentially move (although you need to stay in the seat probably?). Could cast quickened spells and use swift actions?


What the action requirement would be is actually unclear:



An individual seated upon a helm can talk and act normally. The sensation of using the helm is akin to being immersed in warm water. As a result of the magical nature of the helm, the spelljamming mage or cleric using the helm can see things around the ship as if he were standing on the deck. The ship becomes an extension of his body, and responds to his demands in movement and manoeuvrability. The manoeuvrability of a craft is a reflection of both the spelljamming mage's ability and the manoeuvrability class of the ship.

You could make a strong argument that there's no action requirement whatsoever - but that's for standard helms, it's not even clear if something like an artefurnace or the pump even needs a helmsman, or if they're just directed purely by the crew, rigging and so forth. I'd personally rule they need to be attended by a character, but beyond needing to remain with them that character otherwise has their full set of actions.

(A similar question is raised with Lifejammers and Death Helms - presumably the victim can't be the helmsman, or Neogi ships would crash into moons even more than they already do.)


Unrelated, is there a pilot skill? The polyhedron version had one but that ruleset doesn't make a lot of sense overall.

Not in standard D&D as far as I know - the nearest equivalent would be Profession (Sailor). You could use that or introduce Profession (Spacer) if you wanted.


Also, it seems like you use the material save for the fortitude but would use the helman's reflex and will saves?

Do you mean for the ship as a whole or the helm?

Spelljamming ships had their own saving throws in 2e for everything (generally based on their material), but saves work so differently in 3.5 that it's hard to convert them - nonmagical objects in 3.5 don't even have their own saving throws for starters. You'd essentially have to homebrew something - for example, you could just use the helmsman's saves, you could treat them as magic items (counting the helmsman as the wielder), or scale it based on their tonnage, scale fortitude off AC and reflex off manoeuvrability class (inanimate objects seem unlikely to make many will saves), or some combination thereof.

If you mean the helm, they're described as 'nearly indestructible' and passed all saves on a 2 in 2e. You could stick with that, give them a very high save bonus (say +25), or straight up treat them as artefacts.



Do you use the helmsman's initiative?

Sounds right to me, possibly modified based on MC.


Looking at Stormwrack, as long as the helmsman using a standard action you can control the ship

I don't think that's a great comparison, spelljamming helms are very different from nautical ones.