A Spelljamming ship loses its spelljammer pilot:what happens

[ironkid]

Yeah, I'm running a spelljammer campaign and so far has been a lot of fun. Obviously I have to make a lot of calls given the almost absent systems we've got for spelljamming. A big one that I must make a ruling of, that might come into play soon, is what happens if the ship loses its spelljammer pilot, they why could be that the only spellcaster in the crew is slain, kidnapped or otherwise missing, or simply in need of sleep. (the rules, of course, fail entirely to mention it, but I'd say after spelljamming for eight hours, every additional hour would mean con saves with potential exhaustion levels as a result.

How would you rule it? Would the ship maintain it course and speed while its attuned caster is indisposed? Would it begin to drift erratically? Would it come to full stop until the caster is ready to pilot again?

What if nobody's attuned to the helm anymore, or worse, if the helm is destroyed? A realistic answer would be a death sentence for the crew, specially if the ship loses its speed. How would you handle those scenarios?

[Temperjoke]

From what has been shown, I think the pilot is required to be actively conscious and in control, so if you only have one pilot, then periodically you're just floating in wildspace until they've rested.

[Leon]

its Jammed on or off till control is restored

[Witty Username]

I would have it revert to non-jamming speed while the pilot is unavailable.

[Unoriginal]

Yeah, I'm running a spelljammer campaign and so far has been a lot of fun. Obviously I have to make a lot of calls given the almost absent systems we've got for spelljamming. A big one that I must make a ruling of, that might come into play soon, is what happens if the ship loses its spelljammer pilot, they why could be that the only spellcaster in the crew is slain, kidnapped or otherwise missing, or simply in need of sleep. (the rules, of course, fail entirely to mention it, but I'd say after spelljamming for eight hours, every additional hour would mean con saves with potential exhaustion levels as a result.

How would you rule it? Would the ship maintain it course and speed while its attuned caster is indisposed? Would it begin to drift erratically? Would it come to full stop until the caster is ready to pilot again?

What if nobody's attuned to the helm anymore, or worse, if the helm is destroyed? A realistic answer would be a death sentence for the crew, specially if the ship loses its speed. How would you handle those scenarios?

I would rule that the Spelljammer immediately do a full stop. Since in 5e the ship is traveling through the Astral, it's far from a death sentence, though.

Even if the people do not want to leave the ship behind, well, there's plenty of travelers in the Astral that can and will find a stranded ship soon enough.

Have you seen the Firefly episode "Out of Gas"?

If anything, it's a good opportunity to introduce some fun antagonists looking to pillage a spelljammer.

[ironkid]

I would rule that the Spelljammer immediately do a full stop. Since in 5e the ship is traveling through the Astral, it's far from a death sentence, though.

Even if the people do not want to leave the ship behind, well, there's plenty of travelers in the Astral that can and will find a stranded ship soon enough.

Have you seen the Firefly episode "Out of Gas"?

If anything, it's a good opportunity to introduce some fun antagonists looking to pillage a spelljammer.

Firt and foremost, yes, Ive seen "Out of Gas" love the reference. Second, the Astral Sea is actually pretty tame, is being stranded between planets inside a crystal sphere what is potentially deadly. And third, a full stop seems to be the way to go, and if that happens between planets and somebody destroys de spelljammer helm, well, I guess praying to their gods might be as good solution as any.

[Witty Username]

Aww, no wildspace? but I was looking forward to an entire party wipe with a fireball spell.

[Lord Torath]

In 2E, you could man a helm for 12 hours before needing a break. Which means you need at least two helmsmen to keep the ship running continuously.

If no one's manning the helm, the ship is stationary (unless you're in a planet's atmosphere, in which case you start falling! - see JadedDM's post below). Newton's Laws only vaguely apply in Wildspace and the Astral plane, and Relativity doesn't apply at all.

Lost Ships (https://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=2958) (a 2E supplement) suggested having a bunch of 'rescue' encounters ready to use. One of my favorites is a ship fully of gold-crazy dwarves. But they're not interested in any gold the PCs may be carrying, and are instead interested in searching for gold-bearing asteroids. They want to mine! As such, they want to know the history of every single rock or stone on the PC's ship. But there are competing ships of dwarves, and the dwarves in the second second ship will want to know everything about the first ship, in addition to the PCs' rock supply.

"Ye again! How'd ye manage to get stranded out here? And have you acquired any more rocks since we last saw ye?"

[JadedDM]

From what I remember in 2E, the ship just stops. Which means you absolutely want to make sure that it never happens if you are in the atmosphere of a planet, or things are going to get real bad, real fast.

(I remember this happening in one of the novels. There's a battle, and the main character decides he needs to take over the helm, so he grabs the woman currently on the helm and yanks her off, with the intent of taking her place. But they happened to be in a planet's atmosphere at the time, so the ship immediately started plummeting to the ground. He only just barely got into the chair and took over before they crashed onto the surface at terminal velocity.)

[Naanomi]

Who knows for sure in the new paradigm but... usually the default is 'what would a normal ship do in the open sea?'

[Lord Torath]

Aww, no wildspace? but I was looking forward to an entire party wipe with a fireball spell.You're thinking of the phlogiston. That's the rainbow-colored gas that amplifies all fire effects, and fills (filled?) the spaces between the crystal shells that contained the wildspace systems.

[Yakk]

I would definitely have a ship without a pilot drift. Just because it is fun.

Not drift in the direction it was heading, but like a random walk based off of ethereal currents.

[ecarden]

I have it continue on its way, otherwise a spellcaster heavy party can increase speed a lot by just swapping out pilots and I didn't want to mess with the per day speed.

ETA: but the pilot can't make any changes or effect the ship unless they're in the helm.

[Sigreid]

I'd go all ancient mariner on them. They're stuck until they get rescued, get a caster or die.