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unseenmage
2021-08-26, 10:24 AM
After one false start where poor internet stymied our gaming attempt we finally managed to have our first 3.P Spelljammer game.

Game is gestalt 3.P. No epic, no mythic, some cheese allowed. 3rd party allowed with permission. All campaign setting explicitly theoretically exist out there somewhere.
We are level 4. I'm a cleric of Gond//rogue, I'll post the others when I remember. Game was much delayed and builds changed a lot.

Both PCs and the DMPC are wandering the phlo for their own reasons.
My Sacred Guardian Effigy Flying Monkey is searching for a way home to Faerun (yeah Sacred Guardian is from Krynn, there're reasons for that).
The middle aged High Elf Noble (PF race builder to add SLAs) had a run in with druids of an unfavorable sort. Warlock//Wizard
And the medium sized ratfolk DMPC is a gregarious sort with a fantastically bad Russian accent. Possibly/probably inspired by a certain Borderlands character. He spent most of the session either unconscious or drunk. Fighter//warlock

We are traveling on a gnome junker that was kind enough to pick us up. And when I say junk J mean it is nearly in tatters. Seems we're traveling with the sky faring version of the Beverly Hillbillies.

A strange non-phlogiston fog rolls in and sleep affects the rat folk DMPC, the captain, and the whole crew excepting the first mate (an incompetent left to the position only by family ties).
The elf and Construct monkey are immune.

A human vessel in poor repair looms over the prow through the fog.
Football headed goblins swarm the ship as more goblins man medium size net guns mounted to the railings. The nets never hit anyone even though the targets are unconscious and prone.
The goblin captain shows as well demanding surrender even as he boards.

There are never and coup de gras even though the gnome crew was asleep.
The magic robot flying monkey starts off by pinching the nose of the nearest gnome to test how powerful the sleep effect is. The gnome wakes up. It is just a regular crewman who immediately steps into melee beside the elf.

The dice hate the poor elf and they get hit and critter a few times by melee goblins and range attacked by the goblin captain. As the tallest person aboard both ships AND an obvious spellcaster its no wonder the gobbos try to gank the mage first.

The first mate eats volley after volley of goblin short bow fire. The cat sized effigy monkey wakes up one more gnomes crewman, an actual guard, before heading below decks via the myriad literal holes in the decks to wake up the pilot.

The guard gnome lobs crossbow bolts from a station of preloaded crossbows meant to aid the deck crew in repelling boarders. He hits a bunch. The melee gnome crewman melees. The elf spider climbs up a stack of crates and lobs magic from a higher, less melee-able position.

The pilot is awoken, the incompetent first mate remembers he should have rung the alarm bell, and the goblin captain succumbs to a suggestion that while he is gone his crew is robbing him all on the same turn. Contrary to expectation the gnomes, now awake, don't run. They unanimously counter board as the gnome pilot brings the deck of their ship level with the deck of the goblin crewed vessel that was previously above them.

The bespelled goblin captain makes the poor choice to back to his ship, fails, and us crushed between the two ships. (We find out later that the original plan was for him to escape, yay us.)

The goblins are quickly overpowered, their filthy vessel commandeered, and their pilot mysteriously never found.

Among other things is a Gondsman (a familiar-like construct made via the Techsmith of Gond prestige class) and a scroll with enough contingencies and buffs on it that it practically a mortal made artifact are handed over to the effigy monkey as Gond is the deity they're built for.

The Gondsman is in rough shape. Even without the goblins violent attempts to reprogram it. Turns out it cannot recall the name, face, or location of its creator/master. But it does recognize the monkey as having been made by the guy who made the guy who made itself.

The scroll too has had its creator erased. A spell on it recognizes the monkey as a devotee to Gond and plays a message. Basically, 'If found please return to ______.'
The name wasn't unintelligible, it just wasn't there.

The Gondsman gets repaired en route and the scroll squirrels away till later.


Eventually, we are confronted by a human empire vessel of basically magical space human supremacists who insist that the beloved goblin vessel is theirs.
Our captain browbeat them into only accepting the troublesome goblin pirate prisoners instead.
We beat a hasty retreat though it is their port in their sphere we are headed to. A GM created sphere that exists to house these guys.

When we arrive the city is being overrun by forces whose banners hail from Faerun. Two forces working together who just shouldn't be. Forces from a nation that in my GMs shared universe was conquered heart and soul by a conniving great wyrm red dragon.
And with them are Lantanese, specifically followers of Gond originally mechanized and mobilized by my own previous character (who is also the creator of the current effigy monkey character, and has been missing for some time).

According to the GM these two nations shouldn't be working together at all.
As our night comes to a close we see a mechanical great wyrm red dragon cruise over the city setting its defenders ablaze. Our captain, fearing for their relatives on Toril (they have gnome relatives everywhere it turns out) sets us in that direction. I know out of character that he won't but my effigy monkey is hopeful to finally find his way home to his Master's side.

Post game we work out some loot prices. We're promised at least one safe port of call between here and more plot. Spelljamming speeds, Crystal Sphere sizes, and how all that relates to ratfolk short lifespans is discussed.

If I can find time I'll try to post our homebrew that our resident math guy distilled from the original spelljammer stuff about travel times and wild space distances.

If any one is curious I can go further into the monkey's backstiry too.
Or the other characters too, but I'd have to ask their PCs first.

I've been reading a lot of spelljammer bestiaries and am infinitely amused by that at present.
Might try my hand at a 3.P conversion thread if there's interest. I would require lots of advice getting it started I'm sure.

unseenmage
2021-08-27, 06:06 PM
3.P Spelljamming Homebrew

A thread of note as it has loads of sources and maths: Making phlogiston navigation "work" (https://l.messenger.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thepiazza.org.uk%2Fbb%2F viewtopic.php%3Ft%3D15968&h=AT11LxzzTA4leWUC9dJnFWVz9z_MOxAma2YTU0qmvsiqJmVM YWRpyNQGyW0mkuTOVLarQORUvUdLlZZitQkro1EOyCqgb2lPup nIaXsBCTA-bSM8MLaxQe5nyqfWnDGFPRI)
I like their work, its just too much random getting lost in the phlo time for the taste of our table.

The original Spelljammer phlogiston navigation rules (Adventures In Space box set, book 2 page 54 under Movement In The Flow) were roll 1d10 then multiply the result by 10 and your trip through the phlo takes that many days. Trips using these rules average 55 days.


The below homebrew rules allow one to focus on being a pilot and reward such.
Phlogiston Navigation

The GM makes the Profession (sailor) check for the ship’s navigator in secret, using the navigator’s usual bonuses and penalties on the roll. They cannot take 10 with this use of the Profession skill, and the check cannot benefit from the aid another action.

Total Result Fast River Slow River Open Flow
-1 or less 4 months 8 months *lost
0 to 9 2 months 4 months 8 months
10 to 19 1 month 2 months 4 months
20 to 29 3 weeks 6 weeks 3 months
30 to 39 2 weeks 4 weeks 2 months
40 or more 1 week 2 weeks 1 month

Slow Rivers are the most common type of phlogiston river encountered, and can usually be found between most spheres. Fast Rivers are much rarer occurrences, but they can drastically cut down on travel times.

Lost: When attempting to navigate the open Flow, a total result of -1 or less on the Profession (sailor) check means the ship’s fate is entirely at the GM’s mercy (or lack thereof).

Action: None. A Profession (sailor) check to navigate the Flow doesn’t require an action; it is made by the GM when the ship enters the Flow or the navigator attempts to navigate to a different destination while already in the Flow.

Try Again: Varies. An attempt to navigate the Flow to the same destination while in the Flow cannot be retried; the characters are stuck with whatever travel time the check result brought them. If the navigator attempts to navigate to a different destination while already in the Flow, another Profession (sailor) check is made at a -10 penalty for the new destination. If the ship leaves a Fast or Slow phlogiston river to sail through the open Flow towards its destination, multiply the remaining travel time by 4 or 2, respectively; similarly, if the ship moves from the open Flow into a Slow or Fast phlogiston river that leads to its destination, divide the remaining travel time by 2 or 4, respectively.

Special: The ship’s navigator receives a bonus (or penalty) on their Profession (sailor) checks made to navigate the Flow depending on the ship’s maneuverability: Class F -8, Class D -4, Class C +0, Class B +4, Class A +8.

If the ship’s navigator does not have the Phlogiston Navigation (shown below) feat, they take a -20 penalty on Profession (sailor) checks made to navigate the Flow.

If the GM rolls a natural 1 on the Profession (sailor) check, the ship does not arrive at the destination the navigator had in mind; instead, the GM finds an appropriate sphere (i.e. a sphere relatively close to the origin sphere), and the ship arrives there at the end of the journey.




New Feat

Phlogiston Navigation [General]

Prerequisites: Profession (sailor) 1 rank.

Benefit: You do not suffer the normal -20 penalty on Profession (sailor) checks made to navigate the Flow.


Another issue we've bumped into is the size of the solar systems vs travel time through wild space (traveling through magical outer space from planet to planet inside a sphere).
A ship travels in a straight line through wild space at 100 million miles per day regardless of SR rating (short for spelljamming rating) which is the speed your spelljamming engine gives you basically. (Adventures In Space box set, book 2 page 52)
Ships slow down upon arrival at the gravity of another body like a ship or planet. One can only imagine that wild space isn't replete with micro meteorites moving at ungodly speeds that tear through real world modern space station materials like a hot bullet through butter.

The Randomly generated Systems charts in (Adventures in Space box set, book 2 page 74) have a maximum number of planetoids at 1d20 for a randomly generated crystal sphere. Since each planet is given its own orbital track a set distance from the one before it and they all start a set distance from the center and the edge of the crystal sphere is a set distance from the farthest one this gives us an idea of what the largest and smallest sphere that could be randomly generated would be.

The above could let us work up some averages for travel from the crystal sphere through wild space. We're currently trying to reconcile what spelljammer has originally has vs what is actually useful to us at our table.

Using their example of the Sol system (irl Earth) it takes 72 days to get from the sun to the crystal sphere itself. Giving that it takes 1 day to get fromt he sun to Earth it would take 71 days to get from Earth to the shell.


Under construction.



Spelljammer vessels have their own super gravity that holds an air bubble around the ship. This special magic gravity is so cool it even lets winged creatures carry their own air bubble and flap their wings inside it to fly through wild space or the phlogiston.
Original spelljammer calculates the air bubbles around your vessel in cubic yards, because they can apparently. Out of pure frustration our math guy rejiggered that into ten foot cubes for use in 3.P.


One 10 foot cube is worth 6 weeks of good air. That air then degrades to bad air after the 6th week and one day mark. This bad air lasts you another 6 weeks before you are considered to have no air.
In the phlogiston this means you are now at 100% phlo saturation and a living creature is effectively affected by flesh to stone until exposed to another air pocket. In wild space you just don't have air and begin to suffocate.



In the phlogiston you are so separated from other planes that even clerics cannot get spells from their gods. This means that extradimensional storage doesn't work either. Nor summoning, nor teleportation, etc etc. There's a magic bag that shrink item's its contents in a Dragon magazine (Dragonskin Bag of Grendel from Dragon 329 page 26). Our resident homebrewer has worked up several classic 3.P extradimensional storage items using this mechanic.


For things that work like a Bag of Holding double the price and then subtract 10%. This calculation was extrapolated from the fact that it works like a Bag of Holding Type IV.

Dragonskin Storage Items

Dragonskin Haversack
Aura: faint transmutation; CL: 5th
Slot: none; Price: 3,600 gp; Weight: 5 lbs
Description
This backpack is crafted from the hide of black dragons and swamp serpents, and it appears well-used. It has two side pouches and a large central portion. The haversack functions like a bag of holding, with the exception that it doesn’t open into nondimensional space; instead, any item placed inside the haversack is shrunken to 1/16 its normal size (this does not apply to creatures or spell effects). The two side pouches can each hold up to 20 lbs of material, while the central portion can hold up to 80 lbs of material; when determining if an item can be contained within the haversack, use that item’s pre-shrunken weight. Even while the haversack is completely filled, it still always weighs 5 lbs.
While such storage is useful enough, the backpack has an even greater power. When the wearer reaches into it for a specific item, that item is always on top (thus, no digging around and fumbling is ever necessary to retrieve its contents). Retrieving a specific item from the haversack is a move action, but doing so does not provoke the usual AoO.
The haversack can be placed inside a nondimensional space (such as a bag of holding or a portable hole) without any problems, but it cannot be shrunk (such as a through a glove of storing).
Construction
Requirements: Craft Wondrous Item, shrink item; Cost: 1,800 gp


Secure Dragonskin Paypack
Aura: moderate conjuration; CL: 9th
Slot: none; Price: 7,200 gp; Weight: 5 lbs
Description
This rugged backpack is identical to a dragonskin haversack in most regards, and has numerous compartments for storing items. Any attempts to identify it with a Spellcraft check result ranging from 24-33 by someone unfamiliar with its special properties reveals it to be a dragonskin haversack. A result less than 24 does not identify any magic properties, but a result of 34 or higher reveals its additional secret properties.
The backpack has two hidden compartments (Perception DC 35), each able to store up to 10 pounds worth of weight. In addition, the entire item is reinforced with thin mithral fibers, giving it a hardness of 15 and 5 HP. Every compartment has a concealed superior lock (Perception DC 35, Disable Device DC 40) built in to prevent unauthorized access. Even if a compartment is locked, an item can still be removed from it as a move action (like a normal dragonskin haversack) by a character who has a key to the lock. These keys are not magical and can be crafted (Craft DC 25) by any character who is able to disable the existing locks and who has at least 5 ranks in Craft (locks). Each secure dragonskin paypack is normally created with two keys.
Construction
Requirements: Craft Wondrous Item, arcane lock, knock, shrink item; Cost 3,600 gp