Spelljammer for dummies - parts 1, 2, 3a & 4

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               As a number of people in these threads have said that they are not really familiar with the 2e Spelljammer setting I thought I would try to remedy this. What follows is the result of this attempt.

Spelljammer for dummies part 1

This is the start of a very condensed and simplified explanation of the Spelljammer setting for those that don’t know anything about it. As such I welcome comments and questions. Please remember though that it is deliberately simplified so as to get the flavour of the theory and mechanics across. If anyone finds this first part useful/enlightening please let me know as otherwise I see very little point in continuing.

For centuries people looked at the night skies and wondered what was really out there. Long before Jules Verne and H.G. Wells fantastical tales were told of (fictional) people going to the moon transported there by such things as a boat towed by flocks of geese. So the precedent is there. Fast forward to post Tolkien and numerous writers wrote fantasy novels involving flying ships. Then in the late 80's/early 90's it became fashionable for role playing games to be set in fantastical versions of outer space (one example being space 1889). This is when the Spelljammer setting was born. At the time it was a way of tying all the then current settings that TSR had, together so that characters from one setting (within limits set by certain of the settings e.g. Dark Sun) could visit another.

The basic initial premise was that any sea going vessel could be made to go into fantasy space by using a special magical item called a helm. A helm looks like a chair/throne and is activated by a magic using person sitting in it. So now we can get into fantasy space what do we find there?

Well on the macro scale, there are actually two different types of space - Crystal Spheres and the Phlogiston. [little potted history] In ancient Greece it was believed that the planets were embedded in huge clear globes which they termed crystal spheres and one of the Victorian theories of what space was referred to a theoretical substance called phlogiston (similar to another theoretical substance called ether). TSR took these terms used them to describe two different types of space.

Crystal spheres are hollow spheres of an incredibly strong material and encompass what is known as Wild Space. Wild space is very similar to the space that we are all familiar with. It contains all the planets, comets, asteroids etc that are found in real life. Any crystal sphere only encompasses one planetary system. One thing to note is that suns (as opposed to stars – see later) are not essential in wild space although it is very unusual for one to not be present. The inside surface of a crystal sphere is where stars are to be found, being apertures to the plane of radiance. The size of a crystal sphere is found by a very simple formula. The radius of a crystal sphere is equal to twice the distance of the outermost planet inside it, to the centre of the encompassed space.

On the outside of a Crystal sphere is found the Phlogiston. The phlogiston consists of a swirling mass of rainbow hued, highly combustible gasses. All the crystal spheres that exist can be found somewhere within phlogiston and can be said to float within it.

Onto smaller scales now. There are a couple of other things that work differently in Spelljammer. The first is gravity. In Spelljammer ‘up’ is whichever direction is most convenient. This means that Spelljamming ships have a gravity plane. Because of this, it is perfectly possible for someone to stand upright on the keel of the ship being upside down relative to someone standing on deck. The other thing is air. All bodies moving from an atmosphere into Wildspace, carry with them a bubble of air. The size of this bubble depends on the mass of the object that it is associated with. This is why ships are used in fantasy space. It is because a ship brings so much more air with it than a single humanoid could. In the case of a ship this ability to carry air is expressed as a tonnage – the more tons a ship has the more air it can attract.

TR
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Tarot Redhand, 21 septembre 2013 - 11:33 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <on the edge...>

Having completely missed the AS boat, this is good fodder.
Please continue :-)

<...of his throne>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               Spelljammer for dummies part 2

As a lot of people think that Spelljammer is all about the ships I will deal with them in this part. Ships are the primary means of travelling about in Spelljammer. All ships have two speeds – Spelljamming speed and Tactical speed. Spelljamming speed is comparatively fast and is used for getting from A to B. Spelljamming speed is the same for all Spelljamming vessels (henceforward referred to as Spelljammers). Tactical speed on the other hand is used when Spelljammers are in combat with one another. The actual speed referred to as Tactical speed varies from ship to ship depending on a number of factors the main ones of which (in rough order of importance) are the type of helm, the level of the spell user sat in the helm and the type of ship. Like large flying creatures of the time, ships have both hit points and a manoeuvrability class as well as a ships rating that helps to determine its speed in combat.

There are a large number of ship designs available (at least in PnP). For an impression of some of the designs have a look at this picture. If you would like information on individual ship designs look here. The designers of the Spelljammer setting decided to make the ships (as a general rule) have a zoomorphic appearance (i.e. look like animals). Ship designs are dependant on a number of factors. The main ones of which are which race designs and/or it and whether the ship is intended to land on water, land or both. It is a general rule of the setting that when races first go into fantasy space they will utilise ship designs common to the oceans of their world.

 Now that we have got both ships and a crystal sphere there would seem to be a problem. Namely how do we get ships in and out of the crystal spheres given that the latter is made of a seemingly impenetrable material? Fortunately there is a solution. At any given time a crystal sphere will have a number of openings larger than a Spelljammer. Unfortunately these openings are apparently spread randomly across the crystal sphere. Not only
that, but these openings can close. However, when one hole closes, another opens somewhere on the crystal sphere. Given that these openings and closings appear to be random it is no surprise to learn that there are a couple of magic devices created to deal with this problem. One predicts where and when an opening will appear, while the other can actually cause an opening to appear. This latter can however cause problems. By making an opening to appear, the device also causes a randomly chosen opening to close. This has been known to cause the destruction of a Spelljammer as the hole it was approaching closed before it or even worse crushed the ship as the hole closed around it.

Finally in this section there is one unique ship (?) that must be mentioned. This is THE Spelljammer (as opposed to a Spelljammer). This ship is vast and has what appears to be a small town on its back. The shape of it is reminiscent of a manta ray with a stingray's tail. This ship is the stuff of legends and as it’s too big for NwN, I’ll not say any more about it here.

TR
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Tarot Redhand, 02 septembre 2013 - 10:04 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Malagant]

               You could always visit www.spelljammer.org/ which was initially the "officially recognized"  3e resource when WotC announced that they were dropping all their ancilliary campaigns (Dragonlance, Planescape, Ravenloft, and Spelljammer) at the dawn of 3e. WotC recognized one particular site for each campaign until DL and RL were later picked up and published by 3rd parties (killing those two sites) and PS and SJ were pretty much left in the dust.

Though no longer "official", both sites still exist with all the resources and quasi-official pdf's, even though they may have strayed in the years since. I'm not sure how long they'll survive or the resources will be available since WotC announced re-integrating both campaigns into DnDNext last July.

Edit: And if I had looked a little closer, I would have noticed that you linked to SJ.org with your ships example.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Malagant, 03 septembre 2013 - 01:30 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               Apologies, but part 3 is delayed. My laptop died with all my data on it.

TR
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_CaveGnome]

               @TR: Sorry to hear that '>
Hoping you can repair or salvage the HDD with all the precious data. And thanks for your "SpellJammer for dummies" series. Don't know how i missed something like that in my PnP RPG days!  AD&D + Aliens + Spaceships... Whot!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               When I get to part 3 it is going to cover races, creatures, monsters and politics (aka the unhuman wars). I am currently just making this ancient p4 3.2 gig noisy radiator of a PC into something usable. If I do a part 4 it will be to wrap this short series up.

TR
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               As part 3 is proving to be larger than I anticipated I have decided to split it into easily digestible chunks. Part 3a follows immediately.

TR
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               Before I go any further I should mention that what follows is all based on the original 2ed AD&D version of spelljammer. All of the political stuff may well have changed with the 3e version. I am using the 2e stuff because I have all the source material from then and if what wotc did to the monsters is anything to go by...

In spelljammer monsters and creatures can be divided into 4 distinct types. Those found only in the phlogiston, those only found in wildspace, those found only on specific worlds and those that cross boundaries. One thing to note is that quite a large proportion of monsters found in space are vast. Some are the size if moons others are even larger. While these work fine in PnP campaigns they are obviously too large for NwN.

Of those found in the phlogiston, a lot are simply normal monsters that the material of the flow has somehow twisted. There are however some that are totally unique to the phlogiston. Of these, Stellar Dragons are probably the largest at a maximum total length of 3,000,000 feet long (I am not inclined to go to the bother of converting this to miles/kilometres/whatever).

Before continuing I need to mention a little fact about worlds in wildspace. In spelljammer worlds fall into four different classes. These are Fire worlds, Earth worlds, Air worlds and Water worlds. This goes a long way to explaining the diversity of life found on the worlds of wildspace. The star at the heart of a planetary system is obviously a fire world and usually has a direct connection to the plane of fire. Contrary to what you might expect most of them have creatures living on their surface. Water worlds have mostly aquatic life forms while air worlds have mostly floating (aka living balloons) and avian life. While there is no directly comparable water worlds in our universe, the gas giants are a (very) rough equivalent to air worlds. This leaves earth type worlds. These are what we have come to expect being equivalent to our world. As such they have a greater diversity of life than all the other world types combined.

The creatures that can be found (or in some cases infest) in the depths of wildspace itself vary in size from those that are the size of barnacles and ship-worms up to minor planet size. Mostly they are the wildspace equivalent of sea creatures here on earth.

Finally we come to those creatures and races that can be found in two or more of the locations previously mentioned. In the main these are either intelligent or they are transported by intelligent creatures. The intelligent creatures can be further sub-divided into two further groups - those that can be found in a normal terrestrial setting and those only found in the wider spelljammer setting.

With a couple of exceptions (detailed shortly), if you look hard enough you will find any intelligent creature (and their livestock) somewhere in the spelljammer setting, even if they are only to be found enslaved somewhere. One thing to note is that not all individuals of these races behave as you would expect. One exception immediately springs to mind. Large Luigi is a bar owner on the Rock of Bral (an asteroid city-state). Luigi does not get a lot trouble in his bar mainly because he is a Beholder. The first of the exceptions are any creature unique to the Dark Sun setting. This is because the rules of magic within that setting prevent any portals from opening in the crystal sphere associated with Athas. Because of this, creatures from there cannot be found in the wider spelljammer setting.

The second exception is more specific and relates to a single world - Krynn. This is down to a decree by the gods of that world. While it is possible to land there, getting back into wildspace again is nearly impossible. The only god to flout this rule is Reorx who encourages his Gnomoi and Minoi (Krynnish gnomes) to do so. There is one further exception here in that certain kender have been known to stow-away on board gnomish ships while under the influence of wanderlust. Mention should be made here of the ships created by these gnomes. Just like the planet bound brethren's creations, each one is unique. They employ weird and wonderful mechanisms for propulsion, many of which require gigantic rubber bands that need to be periodically wound up. In order to save the gnomish crew from having to do this they bred the Giant Space Hamster. When they had done this they discovered that they found the meat of these beasts to be delicious and named it Spaham (down Vikings (Monty Python reference)). Unfortunately for the rest of the spelljamming universe their breeding program didn't stop there...


Some results of the breeding programs. 

TR
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               In this part I am going to take a slight detour and delay the second part of the creatures until later. Instead I am going to describe how ship to ship combat works in 2ed PnP Spelljammer. The first thing you need to know is that each ship has a number of hull points. It is no coincidence that the initials (hp) are the same as for the hit points that a PC has. In fact the relationship is even closer than that. If a ship receives 10 ordinary hit-points of damage it will receive 1 hull point of damage as the ratio is 10 hit points = 1 hull point.

In the original Spelljammer boxed set there was a sheet of glossy hex paper (paper marked with hexagons). This was included to make ship combat easier. Each hex represented a distance of 500 yards from side to opposite side. In combat a Ships SR (Ships Rating) represented how many hexes a ship could move in a round. So a ship with an SR of 5 could move 5 hexes (2500 yards) in a straight line in one round. This simple system was complicated by the fact that the rule was that for each change of heading you lost 1 movement point. This was further complicated by the ships maneuverability class which could in certain cases alter this latter rule. Add to this that a ship could only use its weapons once all movement for that ship had been completed.

Ship combat can be split into three distinct types. Long distance (greater than 1 hex/500 yards distance between ships), normal missile range and close quarters. There are a number of different tactics that can be used, some unique to a particular type of combat. For long range combat the only really viable options either to get closer, use any ship mounted distance weapons or both. When it comes to normal missile range (ie close enough to see the enemy crew) there are a number of options available. One ship can attempt to ram another. Certain of the large ship mounted weapons can be used. A shearing attack (where one ship attempts to pass above another with the aim of snagging and damaging the rigging of the other ship) can be attempted. Or a ship can attempt to change the distance between it and another. When dealing with normal missile weapons, this range is considered to be medium range for purposes of calculating the chance to hit. When ships are in close quarters, the large weapons can that were available in the previous combat type may still be available but are much more hazardous to use due to the proximity of enemy archers etc. This is the range where grappling and boarding actions can take place.

The Heavy ship mounted weapons include Ballista, Catapults, Greek Fire Projectors, Jettisons and Bombards. A Jettison is a container full of things that can damage members of a crew when flown into. They are mostly mounted at the back of a ship and used to "discourage" a chasing vessel or large creature. Of the others it should be noted that Greek Fire Projectors only operate out to a distance of 1 hex/500 yards. There are also the Rams that some ships are fitted with. These can either be blunt or piercing. While all ships can ram one another, having an actual ram fitted can increase the damage fitted significantly and reduce or negate any damage that might be suffered by the ramming ship.

There are also instances of magical weaponry fitted to some ships. In one example a ship with a protruding "beak" had a magical device that absorbed a magic missile spell and projected a bolt of magical energy that would do the same number of hull points damage as the hit points of damage that the original spell would have done. It also significantly increased the range of the magical attack.

The number of ship mounted weapons is typically quite low, depending on the size of the vessel they are mounted on. For example, most groundling ships are fitted with no more than 2 or 3. Of course there will always be paranoid captains who try to fit more, but it usually turns out to be impractical. Some ships have them mounted on the upper decks while others have special projections designed specifically for them.

This is just a flavour of the original combat system. If anyone wants more specific information (ranges, 2ed damage, etc) just ask.

TR