FREE Spelljammer Ship Combat Rules!
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- čas přidán 22. 11. 2022
- Spelljammer 5e needed some better ship combat rules, so I reworked the AD&D 2nd edition stuff. Grab it here! www.dmsguild.com/product/4176...
Pay what you want, $0 works! I'll update the file if and when needed via the DMs Guild.
0:43 - Intro
1:57 - goals
3:17 - Crew and Ship Weapons
5:47 - Ship Movement
6:59 - Spellsurge
7:59 - Pilots
9:25 - Ship Critical Hits
11:27 - Spelljamming Helms
12:18 - Examples
16:24 - Ending
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Grab the rules on the DMs Guild! www.dmsguild.com/product/417600/Spelljammer-Helms-Pilots--Combat?affiliate_id=728035
Can't wait to use these! I love the simplicity and crossover with the 2e rules
I love that WOTC business model is to write some lore and some art and then farming the vast community to make the rules...
Yeah. Not sure it’s incompetence, evil or some combination of the two.
The Bethesda strategy
This, this is why getting rid of the ogl is a bad idea.
Also this is why I hate DND. Every other system support's the game with rules. The customer base wants rules for this stuff. And we bought spell jammer and it didn't have clear rules.
@@Draculord666 DND just works 😜
The fact that they can recall curse of strahd because it's insensitive to a real race but it can't recall the ranger class and replace it with the unearthed arcana one just blows me.
Agree, actually prefer to use Cypher System or Invisible Sun ruleset over 5e…so happy if they keep it rules light.
Inspiration from WotC is what I look for.
Thank you for making Ship Combat Rules for 5e Spelljammer. I downloaded from DMs Guild and tossed some coin into the till to help compensate you for your time and imagination. Remember folks, if you have the means, pay the creators and makers that create and make the content you enjoy!
Thanks so much!
Always awesome work coming from you!
Love the bit about salvaging! I had never thought about that!
The different types of helms are also super interesting. I’m gonna have my players choose between these ships!
Thank you for taking the time to create this. More should see it. Especially anyone playing spelljammer
Thank you, man! My friend DMs the game in the setting of Allods, where astral ships and combat is the real thing and it was painful to think about better rules for astral combat rules. I was about to read Ghosts of Saltmarsh again and there your work pops up!
I didn't consider Avernus adventure and it's hell machines. Also I hope your rules include more things for other roles than captain and first mate, because in GoS only these two roles do something in ship to ship combat.
Big thanks again, we are going to read your rules through and try them!
Thank you! I've been doing the same thing here and I can't wait to compare notes!!
This is awesome! I LOVE this so much! I was devastated when Spelljammer basically gave the players the middle finger on ship to ship combat.
Thanks so much! Also, your older videos on the Forgotten Realms, the history, and the Pantheon, are so appreciated! I have a group playing in the Forgotten Realms right now and they are unfamiliar with the rich lore that comes with it.
I just got and paid for this and we ran the system recently. It was a huge hit and everybody loved it and it made everything way more simpler and easier to understand. If I had to narrow one part down that was the best. I would say how it made everything pretty simple but with flexibility to add more homebrew content. We added a whole part about throwing the grapples onto the enemy ship to drag it closer for a boarding party. Thank you for making this!
Jorphdan you are amazing. This is great. I enjoy your lore videos all the time. Now some great crunch that was a giant hole in spell jammers
Thanks a ton!
This was a great video. I loved it. It was really informative and I would love to use it. I could be wrong, but I believe some of the interesting things about spell jammers is that they have their own gravity and they can run out of air and that can be a major factor in fighting. Where are you steal air from the other spell jammer or you throw asteroids at the bigger ship because they have bigger gravity
One suggestion I’d have for calculating how many spaces a ship can move on a hex grid. I feel it’s a lot simpler if you go with like Battletech in that for every ten points of movement they can move/turn one space
Awesome! This is great content. I will certainly change some rules, but it is a great basis and inspiration.
Please keep going :)
Amazing! 100% going to use this next session
Oh man you are so awesome! I’ve been working on and off trying to do the same thing for the space mecha homebrew I’ve been working on 😅
Thanks for sharing Jorphdan, those rules looks dope! I've been using Wildjammer so far, but I love how your rules are way simpler, more in line with the spirit of 5e. The only thing I find lacking, maybe, is that there is no maneuverability differences between ships. I wouldn't expect the hammership to be able to turn 180 degree in one round (which would cost only 3 hexes, so it can turn 180 degrees, and still have half-movement after that). Maybe this could be solved by using a threshold for turning movements in one round depending on the size of the ship (eg.: the hammership is limited to 2 turning moves per turn).
Yeah I like the maneuverability of 2e too but wanted to keep it simple. Maybe if a ship miniature is medium it can turn 180 degrees, but a large or huge miniature would only be able to turn 2 or 1 hex per round?
There is nothing in the stat block of the ships that would denote maneuverability, we'd have to rely on the minis which isn't my favorite. Maybe by tonnage?
@@Jorphdan I've quickly cross-referenced ships from Wildjammer and from Spelljammer 5e, indeed, using tonnage could work. 👍️ (I expected to find the annoying case of small ship with big cargo or big ship with small cargo, but could not find one). Keel length seems to correlate well too. I also realize that speed does correlate well with maneuverability, so maybe an even easier fix would be to consider turning one step takes two hexes, or even three. That way, the fastest the ship, the more widely it can turn: the hammer ship can now turn 180 degree but its movement is eaten up (when a turn costs 2 hexes) or 90 degrees (when it costs 3). That way, it works the same everywhere and there is no need to double check the values for the ship in the book.
Gonna have to check them out. Ive just figured I would use 2e material ported into 5e. Sounds like you've done a lot of the legwork
I have a ton of the old 2ed Spelljammer and Darksun that I just make adjustments too and everything work wonderfully.
This is awesome work. Might be a good idea now to reflavor and adapt it to PF2E.
Thank you. Well done.
Thanks for the ideas! I just had my first space combat last week and it was terrible. I wanted to make it fun and engaging for all of my players (I have anywhere from 5 - 15 players in a session) and it is very difficult to run a battle where I am running the enemies and only one player is engaged. I'm hoping that your rules will make it flow better. I play on roll20 with discord for audio. Most of my games are live streamed and it is a high level campaign now, all of the characters are level 16.
I used your rules in my Light of Xaryxis adventure. Rules worked well. My challenge was giving my party of 5 activities to do when the ships are not close. Overall, I liked the rule layout and the critical hit table.
That's great! Glad you had fun
I think this is great. I'll check it out, i was thinking of doing something similar.
Hi, Jorphdan! If possible, I'd add rules for moving sideways and directly up and down without turning the ship, to allow "strafing" of targets. Say, it takes twice the amount of movement to do so? Like strafing left 5 feet takes 10 feet, 20 feet up takes 40, etc. It's space, after all, and some players might like additional 3D movement options for their ships. (I'd let them have the full normal movement forward and back though, personally) Also, I'd just add a clarifying note that weapons that aren't fixed and can be aimed are assumed to be able to aim 360 degrees but that the ship's structure and how the weapon is mounted may prevent aiming in certain directions. Not necessarily needed, but still nice for clarity. Plus, this ties into the movement rules I suggested to allow players to possibly aim ALL their ship's weapons at a target including fixed weapons while moving in a completely different direction from where the ship is facing, such as with the big gun built into the Bombard's bow.
Anyway, thanks for the all the work, Jorphdan. I'll make sure to download these rules from the DM's Guild later. Cheers!
Makes sense to me that's a decent system thanks for the help
One thing I always wondered (even back in the 90s) was why do spelljammers use catapults? Like...range is meaningless in ship-to-ship combat, and that's pretty much the only way to aim a catapult. And it is a parabolic path that only makes sense if you have gravity working on it the entire flight time. Seems like magic, guns or ballista would be the only viable weapons. Is what it is, good video. Also, we'd usually take damage in a ramming attack. Most of the time it was desperation because our ship was about to break up so we'd just smash into their ship and THAT would be the boarding action. EDIT: One last thing I think is kind of fun is that back in the day we considered lifejammers completely involuntary. Like, nobody chooses to be thrown in a lifejammer. You can run it however you want, but when we played it back in the day, you couldn't choose how many hd or whatever you spent. It sucked you until you were dead. Neogi used slaves this way and the person in the lifejammer was not actually in control of anything. But an interesting perspective nonethless. HA.
Zero G catapults are built different. They release the projecile on a different trajectory. If a Toriil walker watched one fired, they'd shit themselves until they saw it play out.
Rules look solid! Nice job!
Thanks! I am going to be DM and starting the Light of Xarysis campaign. Plan on using your rules!
In the past, I've picked up X-Wing miniature combat rules and used them for ship combat. It's a pretty fun mini game amongst standard DND
Thanks for the great video
If you look through the 2e combat rules, there are actually firing arcs (I think in War Captain's Companion) which will be useful, if you want to work out what a weapon can aim at.
Your hexes are smaller, but angles are the same, so the 2e firing arc diagrams should work reasonably well, with your combat rules system.
(And, if they don't quite work for you, you could make your own firing arc diagrams.)
@Jophdan, this is exactly what I have been looking for and I am SO grateful. I plan to add a roller derby esque spelljammer racing league to the spelljammer academy module running out of the simulation room. Have any ideas for me? I was thinking scaled down versions of the listed ships that can be piloted by as few as 2-3 people.
Not sure why but your vids weren't showing up in my Subscriptions feed. Glad I found this one.
glad you did too! check your subscription! dang youtube
so I'm working on some spelljammer rules (your playlist of the 2e ones was a lot of help) and am playtesting it saturday.
just a critique of your rules: the ship board weapons should have a arc of fire, not be restricted to firing only infront/behind the ship
So I think the movement is awesome but it seems like no matter what you do theyre always gonna be able to shoot theyre weapons every turn unless you wanna make your map the size of your kitchen or you're running it digitally
Jorphan, this is as good a ruleset as I've seen. Makes a lot of sense to combine the 5e books with vehicles rules with 2e spelljammer...and you made it simple enough not to mire it. Lot's of fun tables. Great job. I'm rolling with this next week. Thanks
Ps: I think I might make hex facing turns 2 movement points
Maybe the class/size of the ship should determine how many points it takes to turn. But you're right. 1 per turn might be too quick.
Though it does make sense for a much smaller ship. When a battleship should almost have to use all of their move just to turn once.
Re: Spelljammer Academy "This promotion is no longer available"
Well damn 😑
And Spelljammer is officially the most disappointing product of 5e.
@@O4C209 Dragonlance: "Hold my ale!"
To deal with the ship/grid incongruity, I make each square or hex 50ft., and multiply all spelljammer's speeds by 10. It's worked really well so far.
Yeah I do the same thing but the way i justify to multiply the speed by 10 is by having each round in a spelljammer combat being 60 second instead of 6 second. I really think it make sense that the ship only fire once every minute.
@@talbotfrancisft that's not a bad idea, actually! Although, I imagine it becomes a little more complicated when characters want to cast 10 fireballs in a turn, or when party's board other ships?
Sure, it might be an issue but not necessarily. It only an issue when the ships are 3 hex away of each other. Also, when the player want the cast the spell, it trigger the end of the spelljammer combat, start de pc combat with round of 6sec and hex of 5ft. The ship have its normal speed each round and have one last canon shot to prepare for a board
And for some reason, Spelljammer should have a Boardgame spin off.
Between the ship crew role rules in Saltmarsh, the henchmen and base rules in Acquisitions Incorporated, and a little bit of inspiration from your favorite scifi series the lack of "ship rules" in Spelljammer isn't as much of an issue.
The "put a mage in the pilot's seat and the ship drains spell slots" gimmick never interested me. Even in old school Spelljammer there's other types of ships that don't drain spell slots to power the ship.
What I do is pretty simple.
1. Every player has their character assigned one of the bridge crew roles in Saltmarsh.
2. If you have 3 to 5 npc crewmembers on the ship under your command your bridge crew role based special actions can be done with a bonus action from you instead of costing your full action.
3. There's a list of special actions each player can initiate once each battle.
Barrage = the ship does another attack action of whatever its attack is on its turn.
Full throttle = the ship gains double movement until the end of its turn.
Barrel roll = add your proficiency bonus or level or something to the ship's AC until its next turn.
Starburst/Warp/Hyperspace/Lightspeed = the ship leaves combat and there's no way for the enemy to follow.
Only one of these special moves can be used in a single round on the ship's turn. Activating them costs the action of one PC on their turn. Each PC can only activate one of these per encounter. These are extra actions the ship takes on its turn in addition to its normal movement or actions detailed in Saltmarsh.
Enemy ship's can only use as many of these in an encounter as they have named bridge crew members.
Aside from that, honestly I don't see the point in anything more complex than breaking combat down to ranges. Immediate range ships can board or ram each other. Short range ships can fire weapons, maneuver, and basically engage in combat. At long range your ships might not even be on the same battle mat and can't do much unless they have a specialized long range weapon. Like the Deathstar, or the main cannon on the Bombard.
Movement can be as simple as each round the pilot or captain decide to do one of the following. Move one range category closer, move one range category farther away, or move towards/into a nearby obstacle. Follow, flee, or seek cover in a nebula, asteroid belt, or some other scifi trope.
Never set combat in empty void. Always put something in the background. A planet, a star, a space station, an asteroid belt, a nebula or giant cloud, an abandoned space station, a debris field, or any two to three of the above. Drop codified numbered movement rules in favor of "we go into the cloud" or "we lose them in the coronasphere of that star" or "we hide in the asteroid belt" or "we wait for them to get close then we come out from behind the wreck blasting."
I had to do this in 4th ed as well
My group plays with square maps and basically used your rules. It worked ok, but I assigned too much value to their movement. Also they didn’t really move much unless it was to flee or approach and that was a little awkward feeling and the players messed up their range and couldn’t attack. It was a little frustrating for our helmsman but I think I can tweak out some rules for more things to do
Nice miniatures.
Love your work! So I’m in a nearly 20 year long 3.5 game and we’re about to convert an airship to a Spelljammer. Are we better off just using 2e rules? Or is there a way to homogenize your set into 3.5?
I'd say just go with the second ed. rules.
Free? You drive a hard bargain, but I'll take it!
BTW, "Hull holed" is pretty punny
Actually it's pretty lite on actual combat... I expected to see a full example from being spotted in space to ships engaged.
Spelljammer shock coma effect needs to be mechanically defined. In the video you say unconscious, the rules should say the same. There are different types of comas that have different levels of awareness. You can be in a coma and fully aware of your surroundings, you just can't do anything. As written it does not cause any conditions since what constitutes a coma is not defined. Shouldn't leave it up to the DM to define what a coma does and whether it can be overcome before the 1d4 hours.
For those of you who have the 2nd Edition rules, use them. Most of the ships are reskins of 2nd Edition ships, anyway.
Thanks for this, very cool! Never played 2e. So just confused by one thing, the line of attack, why is facing each other? If we are thinking naval combat, the line of attack of ships should be having the sides facing (parallel) each other where the canons are located…?
If your cannons are on the side I agree. That particular ship had a front facing cannon.
@@Jorphdan ah okay got it! I downloaded the rules and linked the video to the discord server I am in. Because it is pretty damn cool!
I find it odd that you have forge and furnace helms doing the same thing, given that in 2e they're basically opposites. Furnaces destroy magic items, where as forges power by acts of creation.
And again the community has picked up the slack from the dumpster fire that has become 5e. Well done, sir! 👏
I don't seem to be able to download the file. No download links appear after purchasing or on the library page.
I updated the file and broke the link; but it should be fixed now. :)
Have always hated the Ghost of salt marsh ship combat rules. They can be fun for a one off sea game. But when you apply it to spelljammer you can find yourself with a broken ship very fast. Or you will sea players just annihilate the enemy ship. The Druid and Wizard cast wall of fire, we fly them in on a one man flitter undetected. they watch the enemy ship burn. And now we have the ultimate tactic for rise and repeat.... thats not fun. Worse is when the enemy does that to you. In spelljammer groups of beholders can pilot a ship. Imagine 4 beholders turning their disintegration ray on your ship. (Note beholders ship weapons increase the range of their disintegration ray) Now the [players ship is gone and they are at the mercy of the beholders, since only a beholder Orbus can fly a beholder ship.
Basically for spelljammer you need a set of rules that can be brought up quickly and be a fun minigame before you get into a boarding party to attack the enemy directly. nothing more nothing less. The goal should be boarding party and not destroying the other ship, that should be so hard that you would rather board a ship of beholders than try to destroy their ship.
Traveller space RPG explained all of this in the 80s, TSR just took it from them to create Star Frontiers and then to SpellJammer 2 and 5.
What is the size of the hex you are using?
One inch!
what's the plan to describe minor helms?
to keep things simple for 5e ( as that is the idea behind 5e) I didn't include them.
So I went to get this off the DMSguild and there's nothing to download.
should be fixed now, I broke it accidently XD
These rule are for 2D ship combat or 3D combat?
2D
I like how the Hero System Handles "Turn Modes". It's a bit more complex but really captures momentum nicely. Like your system every face costs 1 hex of movement. Except with turn modes you have to travel the "Turn Mode" in hexes before making another facing change.
Turn Modes = total movement this turn (Phase in Hero) divided by 5. So if a ship will move 15 hexes this turn your turn mode is 3. Your first facing change doesn't require any turn mode, but after that every time you change facing you have to move your turn mode forward before another Facing change.
So at 15 hexes: you can immediately change facing, then once you move you can change facing for 1 hex, then travel 3 hexes forward before changing facing again.
In Hero you can reduce those turn modes down to 1, by making a Combat Pilot skill check minus the number of modes you're are subtracting down to 1. So if the Turn Mode is 3 it's a -2. If you fail your skill roll your ship skids in the direction you were moving in before the turn started.
This looks pretty good. Thanks for fixing a pretty disappointing product.
I think you might have fixed it
algorithm comment
There are a lot of problems with your homebrew, but these are the biggest:
Targeting: So rather than being able to target the ship, weapons, and crew individually, you want to TAKE AWAY those tactical options and replace it with just "I shoot" and make different results random with a table? Not only does this make combat more boring, but it takes away player agency to boot..
What if the players want to disarm a ship so that they can capture the crew (Target weapons)? What if they want to kill the crew but leave the weapons intact so that they can take possession of the ship and use it elsewhere (target crew)? What if they want to blow a hole in the hull to create an entry point in the cargo hold so that they can retrieve something and leave quickly (target ship)? All of these options are now gone in your system because the default is "shoot at the ship and roll for results on a table." No thanks.
Weapons: No, you don't need to point the ship to fire Mangonels and Ballistas because they pivot. We know this because it takes an action to aim them. If the weapons were fixed and could not be aimed, it would not take an action to aim (see the Bombard's Giant Cannon as an example of a weapon that is only aimed by moving the ship).
Movement: Your system is effectively making every ship faster, which invariably reduces the number of actions players can make toward a passing ship because the ship is out of range in just a couple of rounds. There is no need to do this. Just make each hex 50 ft (or smaller or larger to your tastes), and the ship finishes its movement into the next hex based on how many rounds it takes for them to go that distance. For example, it would take a Turtle Ship (speed 25 ft) 2 rounds to move to the next hex, a Star Moth (speed 50 ft) would take 1 round to move to the next hex, etc. No need to change the RAW speeds.
Additionally, you don't need to change rotation rules because in space it takes very little to rotate even large objects; it's not like navigating a sailing vessel.
And since most weapons can be aimed, the direction the ship is pointed is less relevant to the encounter (which is probably why WoTC simplified rotation to "the pilot decides"). It is not so much the ship moving through space, it is the Gravity Plane. Movement is not dependent on the shape of the vessel in a zero gravity and zero drag environment.
Spellsurge: Just use the Special Officer Actions in GoS (pg 198) if you want to add this kind of stuff; they’re better.
Are you complaining about mangonels and ballista being too imprecise? Their whole thing large scale damage not with the greatest accuracy? How could you justify firing one of those and saying “damn I didn’t really want to hit the weapons”.
To bring something analogous over from regular d&d. There aren’t any called shots. Does that not reduce player agency. Oh it’s absurd my DM will not give me the option to exclusively attack my opponent’s left pinky toe because I intend to knock my opponent off balance without mortally wounding him, how dare my DM!
This is an exaggeration for emphasis and gaffs, but seriously called shots create such dense systems they’re mentally a chore to put up with, there has to be a cutoff point somewhere.
Even moreso when they have to be layered with facing mechanics which regular d&d combat doesn’t put up with.
@@Exisist5151 all combat is an abstraction in 5e. There aren’t called shots because where someone is hit is a narrative element, but you still call your target. You don’t say “I’m going to shoot my bow” or “I’m going to swing my sword” and then roll on which enemy takes the damage. You’re telling me you think you can’t aim with artillery?
So your “pinky toe” comparison is irrelevant because a “called shot” is when you target a specific part of something, NOT just targeting a thing in general. The ballista is not the ship, and the ship is not the crew.
And how is it laborious to track HP on individual targets? Do you not have encounters with more than one enemy at your table? Tracking ballista or mangonel HP is not any different than tracking a goblin’s HP.
His rules don’t “fix” anything.
@@jefR6875 I don’t think you’re considering that there can be multiple ships per combat.
Also, yes it is a hassle to track hp in large encounters, and it’s not just a me thing if it happened on Matt colville it’s a concern for a large amount of players. -Source “Speeding Up Combat | Running the Game.”
Each individual ship in my comparison i made is an analogy to one character in regular combat. In this new system one has to consider facing, which is something additional regular d&d doesn’t consider in combat. From the concept of a 1 v 1 in regular d&d: Facing is not a problem when it is a 7 vs 4 combat and the DM has to keep the facing mechanics of his monster straight combat becomes a lot more complex. Beyond this, we are now, in your method, considering individual ship part’s hp & Armor Classes. How is that not obviously more of a burden. In a 1v1 it could probably be done without much hassle. As you increase the ship numbers combats become more and more difficult to run. Also Jorphdan did not remove the option to attack specific elements of the ship, he said they should be ignored for the sake of simplicity as if they weren’t ignored you’d be tracking many AC’s and many hitpoints per component of the ship and then you have to consider the number of ships, this spirals out of control very quickly and ship combat starts to look like you’re doing taxes instead of playing a game, even when you have lets say 4 ships in a combat.
Jorphdan cant believe how wizards mangled the lore in the new dragonlance campagin released. How can they have got so much wrong is it lack of even reading the books? or pure hubris?
Wotc doesn't deserve you!
💙
I have no interest in Spelljammer, I figured maybe I could poach these for naval combat in DnD.
But WOTC DIDN'T create ship to ship combat for this? What the hell! That is incredibly, insanely.... Lazy? Stupid? Greedy? That's just wrong. Massive monsters and you literally almost always being on a ship without rules for it is just wrong.
There are already ship combat rules... IN SECOND EDITION.
I would tell you to go and play real D&D. But let's face it, you're already playing _"Orcs in Spaaaaace,"_ so you're not going to play Dungeons & Dragons, unless you can be Rey as a Sith lord.
I literally took the rules from SECOND EDITION. I don't think you watched the video
@@Jorphdan - I did, actually. But 1) a re-telling was completely unnecessary, and 2) people can find the entire 2nd Edition Box Set online, for FREE!