Thank god for this video. I don't know why everyone's taking so long to talk about this material. Video request: Do a video showcasing the ships, and maybe tell us which ones are your favorites!
Spread the word about this video for me! I might look into looking at each ship, but I have a feeling I'll end up looking at some homebrew ships that I've created that didn't translate up to 5th edition (Dwarven Forge being one).
the reason its takign so long. is because there are no rules. ..none... all they give you is hp, ac, and movment speed. they expect you to jsut do it liek normal combat. azs if a fast nimble spelljammer shoudl fly exactly liek a literta mountain in space... thats fuckign dumb and ridiculous. so im jsut using the same rules ive been using that have been modified from the 2E rules. including maneuverability and having two phases in combat. where spelljammer combat, the each ship get sits own turn. and the people aboard the ship determin all the actiuosn they will take durignt hat turn. and if ever there is combat ON the ship between people. you handle one round of normal combat. then return to the spelljammer turn order. so you can have boarding parties on multiple ships happening at the same time as a ship battle.
@@FreebirthBoccara In the end it depends on the game you are running. In an RPG with multiple players, you want the maximum amount of player involvement and I found out the hard way a long time ago that to pull that off the KISS principle applies. You can have a good, well-thought-out space combat system with a lot of rules that covers everything in detail and has RPG conversion but slows to a crawl the moment you have more than two players and leaves some with very little to do over a multi-hour session or you can have a very simple bolt-on to the RPG`s basic combat system that allows use of the existing rules unmodified. Which is what you have got in current Spelljammer. Now personally, I do like doing some serious wargaming, particularly space games from time to time but as a DM, trying to teach RPG players a new raft of systems in the middle of a session is a thankless task that I don`t recommend. Most importantly it is NOT fun for anybody and will kill a campaign fast, rules for x,y and z are nice to have but not absolutely essential if your players are not on board.
I do not mind the simplicity..... however i would love to see more ships and some customization like marsh book. Perhaps supplement called ships of the astral sea?
I have extrapolated manuvering class for each ship useing it's size and speed, I also just for some fun rules that a ship's gravity is caused by an active helm, thatway I can have my players explore a derelict ship and have to deal with zero gravity like in many sci-fi movies. I also decided that mending only works if the ship is over 50% of it's max HP just so the players can't cheese it and get out of having to pay ANY repare costs. I also am using some 2e spelljamming rules to make ship to ship combat more intresting.
you did a great job covering everything in the books, but there was one small thing I noticed. When you were talking about the ships gravity planes overlapping, you said it's when they come close to each other.... that's actually not true. "When gravity planes intersect, such as when two ships pass close to each other and at different angles, the gravity planes of both ships remain in Effect until the two ships touch one other (as often happens when they collide or when one ship lands on the other)."
whichever ship has the most hitpoints during that intersection becomes the dominate gravity plane as well. As for true/no-true, I'll concede that, there was a lot of material I went through and keeping every portion of it 100% accurate and trying to remember it all at the same time; that's a challenge.
The piercing damage as the only onle without disadvantage is really smart. The force on this weapon is directed straight, so if you miss you are moving straight. You aren't spinning around as with slashing damage.
imagine if someone made a round ship with blades all around it that was designed to spin... that would be something.. dunno.. how would you calculate the damage for that? Slashing, yes, but..
I added more ships, creatures, and ship weapons as well as smaller ships and mounts and such for individual player characters to use in combat, I also added the rule that the plane of gravity aligns with each ship die to the spelljammer, so if the ships are at different angles the angle of your character is determined by what ship he's on and if that is in conflict then its the DMs discretion. Basically I expanded upon their bare bones concept.
@@gamemasters the part where you explained how ship to ship combat works. I didn't know how the side initiative transitioned to boarding should the vessels get close enough, but hearing you talk about it I understand now.
Sounds perfectly fit to keep the combat smooth and running. I have no problems here. I had so thought of bolting on Saltmarsh rules too to add a little more depth.
just depends on how SJ's system works at your table. I think it will run just fine as is at mine, but we've got alternate plans for a space combat session that will make use of a different game's mechanics all together, but... that's all we will be doing that evening and the players are FINE with it.
@@gamemasters the more you add on the more you risk alienating players and dms. I'm happy to add in a bit more depth, but I can see why it's so simple. It's enough to get my dm brain working.
agreed! I think SA provided "just enough" information to run that specific scenario but... my group always likes to go off the path and that's where I initially had to wing it. When we move through Light of Xaryxis, however, I think things will run a bit more smoother when they decide to go lightyears beyond what is contained on the written page.
For the Altitude, I just assume that you would just roll the spelljammer so the enemy is always at your flank. Thats where a lot of Scifi movies get things wrong. There is not "above" or "below" you just reorient yourself and rolling is easy. The only issue with this is if there are multiple opponents (or allies) on different planes.
aye, but if sci-fi movies tried to stick to all the laws of motion and physics of space travel (as we understand them), those movies would not be as fun to watch.
as a brand new DM (spelljammer will be my first time DMing) it's varry disappointing and it's making it much harder for me to creat a game. as I was really excited for some type of ship combats and skills/rolls associated with it and was looking forward to those rules. now I have to homebrew something and that's a big pain for some one new to the system in general (I've had varry little expirance with dnd honestly)
to be honest, I think this is the biggest complication yet; approaching this as a brand new DM - I can see this system working flawlessly. Approaching it with memory of how it used to work, that's where it gets difficult (for me). I really think I may be trying to over-complicate it by adding in what just isn't there. If one were to take this version's system as it is written, it's super simple and really shouldn't slow the adventure down. That all said.. I can't help but homebrew the crap out of it because.. that's what I've always done. Either way, I feel your pain :(
@@gamemasters ya I was just expecting more ship stuff which is what was getting me excited as I love age of sail stories and black powder but also love weird space adventures. I guess I was expecting more thing like broad sided shooting, taking out sails/engines of enimy ships, or using grapling hooks to secure ships to each other. I can figure out how to home brew it but again it's a pain as some one who is new and doesn't know the system well. also not happy at all with how thay described the actual mechanics of movement and just makes me question the whole point of having the sails.
Which proves that a lot of the people initially complaining never actually read the books but were going by what somebody else said on TH-cam or somewhere.
If it's a one-on-one fight, I think potential altitude differences matter less than just the distance between ships and what direction they're heading. Add a third (or even more so, a fourth) entity to the board, and then it really starts to matter. In the end, though, it's all relative, since there isn't the same kind of up/down/altitude orientation out in space. Everywhere can be up if it's above where you're standing.
Pretty well explained, thanks a lot, it helped so much to understand how interesting Spelljammer could be. I thinks that the combat system is lacking more rules but also provides rules are interesting, air envelop is remarkable way to give context for interactions from PC over the ships.
air envelopes, gravity planes, all that stuff harkens back to the original version and works in pretty much the same way (there are a couple of variations but overall it works the same).
I mean.. yes.. that is a way to look at it. We ultimately just came up with our own rules, used a few from other systems, but.. I will admit we probably made space combat much more complicated haha
With all of this talk between bubbles and such; I am HIGHLY reminded of Crest of the Stars/ Banner of the Stars series. Hmm. I should give this another look as I heard the rules for ship-to-ship are super lacking and is a minus from many reviews.
yah, there has been a good amount of flak over the space combat rules for Spelljammer. I've a feeling it was done just to make any given adventure flow smoother, but likely it was done in a simplistic manor so that wizards wouldn't need to create a complex combat system that would only be applicable for this one setting. BUT.. that is just a guess.
nahh.. it's just rolling some dice, not terribly complex. Ship A has X HP and can do X damage. Enemy ship has Y HP and can do Y damage. It's exactly like regular player to monster combat. Player A has X HP and can do X damage. Enemy monster has Y HP and can do Y damage. Different ships/players/monsters have different abilities that can do different things, I don't see how that really causes more work for the DM to make it work.
I am really enjoying the Setting, I find that using ballistaes and Mangonels when playing in a space setting is kind of lame and it's something I am now changing on my own game, but I do like the little 'hints' they give to make a fantasy space setting
10:43 I think thats just an abreviation of the underwater combat rules. Swinging something while you don't have solid ground under your feet is kinda hard. Stabbing is way easier.
It would have been cool if they leaned more into the space fighter fantasy instead of the space pirate fantasy. Ships with parasitic fighter units like tie fighters would be cool
I've read through the streamlined 2nd edition rules, and from your description there seem to be a few key things missing, like critical damage tables. I will need to compare the two more in depth, though so far I'm leaning toward 2e.
Ad&d will always be my preferred rules environment, but that's only because that's the edition I grew up playing. I like 5e well enough and that's what we play currently, but 2e will always be my first.
@@gamemasters For me it is 3.5/PF1 actually. I've started with 3.0, and finished with PF1, though now I'm starting 5th as a player. Never played 2ed, but the ship rules felt way better than current ones. Then again, I'm a simulationist at heart.
Why? A normal hit impacts the hull, a critical hit impacts a weapon and any damage left over is applied to the crew. As a DM I welcome the fact that I`m not having to look up a table and do some math in my head just to work out they broke a door!
I may have missed the rule, and I plan to look, but, I'm not sure how much movement it takes to 'turn' a ship. I've sort of just been treating it as it occupies the squares that it occupies and turning is free movement, as a person or creature. That feels wrong for obvious reasons. Maybe I need to delve into Saltmarsh for that info.
In the basic rules in the book, the intent seems to be that the game is played as "theatre of the Mind" with movement determined in feet. So whoever is playing the person in the spelljammer helm decides how far the ship moves to or from and its final orientation relative to the adversary. The old 2e version used hexes and movement points, and it worked well as a wargame which was fine but, as with a lot of these "bolt-on" space combat systems of that era, a lot of players in an RPG session were left with nothing to do during the combat, which could take a while. The current spelljammer system, while simplistic does work a lot better for a multi-player party as it's an add-on to the basic D&D combat system, not a wargame.
i call cruising speed "jamming speed" and spelljamming speed is "hyperjamming". Also, i made it so that non-magical fire degrades air quality faster. A non-magical flame reduces air quality by 1 day for every minute it burns inside an air envelope.
sure, where it gets complex is when two ships are not within each other's gravity envelope. I really would have liked official rules for that.. but... we ended up using some fairly decent homebrew space combat mechanics for actual ship to ship to ship combat.
I am a D&D playing, physics loving, ex competitive sailor. I can sail anything you point me at. Just over the course of watching your video, I have come up with ways to apply old naval tactics to the predictable nature of the gravity envelopes and space. As well as the air to space to air dynamic. My DM is going to laugh and allow most of it! As long as I draw diagrams. Thank you.
Spelljammer combat is 2 d just like Ghost of Saltmarsh ship to ship battles. As to customization, I am allowing by PC to swap out weapon systems as long as they are the same size.
Thank you for this review of the ship combat. I’ve been trying to decide if I should get Spelljammer 5e or not, but there have been so many mixed opinions about it. It’s quite tedious to sieve through what’s fair criticism, or just hate because “this is not an exact copy of a previous edition I like”. I’m worried that the rules for ship combat are so simple that it’s no point in using them. I mean, if it’s better to use your longbow than a cannon mounted to the ship… well that would just feel silly. What are your feelings concerning the Spelljammer rules in this regard?
The way I see it, I think that ship to ship combat CAN be fun, but as it stands now, it's VERY basic. I like the rules they present here, but I'll certainly be homebrewing my own elements to it (me and my group are working on gutting some of the rules from Games Workshop's Spacehulk - but we also know that at a certain point the line between what is D&D vs what is a totally different system can get blurred). I figured with what I have in mind, our 'space combat session' will take about 4 to 5 hours. That all said, I DO feel that there is plenty of material in here to pull from, but I'm also a major homebrewer and I'll most certainly make the content within these books my own.
@@gamemasters I am in most cases not using homebrewing, so our group will probably not do that. We have played Free League’s Coriolis in my group, and we have enjoyed that ship combat system. With that being said, we want ship combat to be part of the game, not feeling like a whole separate game in itself. I recently discovered your channel and I’ve been loving the content. Keep up the good work!
There are no rules for ship to ship combat in Spelljammer 5E so far. You'd want to go with 3rd party supplements. A free one is Wildjammer that includes full 5E spelljammer combat and actual crewmember roles that the players can take. If you are buying Spelljammer 5E, you are buying it for a shorter than normal adventure with an attached bestiary at $70. Its got nice quality book binding, paper and art. It's the most positive thing I can say on it. IF you want to run a Spelljammer campaign, I suggest buying the 2E Spelljammer Adventures in Space + Wildjammer. There are additional paid ship to ship supplements coming out as well on DMsguild, but frankly Wildjammer is more than enough.
I don't think altitude matters at all. When up can be in any direction the only relevant things are distance and what side of the enemy ship is facing you. I think it's even a free action to turn the ship to face the enemy.
RAW by 5E need to reevaluated by WotC. the spelljammer duel is a bad idea. You no longer have to be a caster to be manning a spelljammer helm and casters can create them. Well now, anyone can man a helm, so why not crew trolls with helms and have them board the enemy ship and simply do the constitution duel and take control of the ship? The 5E rules are set up to where you'll doing damage via spell rather than catapults and mangonels for ship to ship combat. It is what it is for 5E. I guess its ship to ship combat? Prior rules, you would do 1/10th damage and only siege weapons would do full damage to a ship. Again using 5E rules, why not just bring a bunch of fireball scrolls and put on a few casters to fireball the enemy ship to death seeing as they do more damage again. Seige weapons don't have much of a reason to exist now. If you want to help your viewers, review Wildjammer. A free supplement for Spelljammer for 5E at 100 pages. It was created about 4 years ago, and it covers ship to ship combat and gives the player real crew roles with real crew abilities to make ship to ship combat a ton of fun and its what players expect from Spelljammer.
I was really disappointed in the ship to ship combat rules as well as what your PCs can do before boarding and what you can do with the crew on the ship. There's no rules for that either. I did read the Wild jammer third party supplement which is free and really like it and that's what I'll be incorporating into my game. Would it be possible for you to read through that supplement and provide your thoughts? Maybe I'm crazy but I like it a lot better as it gives my PCs something to do
The rules for what your PCs can do before boarding are simple, they would do what they would do anywhere else in any other pre-melee combat situation. Prepare spells, draw weapons, etc. What you can do with the crew on the ship, same thing.. put another way.. are there specific rules anywhere as to what to do when you go into a tavern? No, you simply.. play.. same thing on board a ship, you simply.. play.
good question and we aren't really provided too much detail there, however, we know that the Rock of Bral (an asteroid) is about 1 mile long and evidently it's gravity plane is strong enough to pull in ships. Tho i'd assume that if the Rock got close enough to.. say.. Toril.. it might start on a downward spin into the planet..
Ideally there'll be supplemental material for ship enhancements or customizations, and additional options for ship mechanics/crew roles similar to some things they did in Saltmarsh. Otherwise with how simple or non-specific the rules there'd be a lot of need for homebrew.
nope, they don't. I figure it's along the lines of: I shoot an arrow, it moves straight and won't deviate from it's projectile motion, however, an object on a ship that is 1000 feet away should have plenty of time to move, thus, it's out of range. Just imagine that poor soul just cruising through the Astral Sea and randomly gets hit by an arrow...
I have a question for you regarding Saltmarsh. I just looked over my copy of Saltmarsh, and other than more detailed stat blocks for ships, what's the difference between the two sets of rules? Because I didn't see any.
I didn't state that there was a difference, just that you could use the saltmarsh rules in addition to the spelljammer ones to expand your options. Spelljammer provides about 1 page of ship to ship combat, whereas satlmarsh provides several, but it also details travel at sea (one could easily also use that for travel in the astral sea), it details IDing hazards (also something that could be used in SJ), infestation.. pretty much anything from Appendix A from pages 186 to 214(ish) could be used in Spelljammer, albeit one would need to do a bit of converting to make it work in the voids of space.
I have a question. If a rune knight "falls" in space in his giant form, or a druid transform in an animal of larger size category than him. How much time could they survive?
In the 'Gravity and Air' chapter I display an Air Envelope chart that shows, but basically, regardless of size you only have so much air that will surround you and it will last roughly 1 minute.
That's... a little open to interpretation... yes, according to everything written, it appears that an actual chair is required, however... we've used just a magical helmet, and we've also had ships with abilities that are tuned to the captain who could steer it like a regular boat... but yeah, according to how it's written, it's a spell jamming chair that runs it
A "helm" is required but it doesn't need to actually look like a chair. Wizards and many other magic users prefer their comfort over posing heroically on a ship's quarterdeck.
I really find the spelljamming part of this dropping the ball. im runnning a one shot and someone asked me if there the spell jammer what can they do? all i could tell them was drive? nothing else and the spell jamming helm does the driving for you 90% of the time. nothing special there. what can anyone else do on the ship? nothing but man a siege weapon? captain? optional and no gameplay, crew? optional and no gameplay. for spell jammer its got no gameplay that makes it spell jammer..... just cool themed battle maps.
@@gamemasters I don't, I started playing in 3.5 and didn't touch spelljammer. I am just a huge nerd for sci Fi. So I was like hell ya spell jammer! Space and DND! It's just no gameplay for space part of it? Im not a professional designer, but this doesn't fulfill the space DND fantasy imo.
That's a tough question to answer. For me, having been a long time fan of Spelljammer, I had to have the books regardless. If you can't see yourself having your group go into space, then there is probably little need for it. I will say that ultimately the main book provides the basic information to run Spelljammer. Boo's book is a monster manual, while not necessary, I do enjoy a variety of monsters. Book 3, Like of Xaryxis is an adventure book. If you do not intend to run that adventure, then that's a book that you'll never use. I'll certainly make use of all 3 books, but it will be up to you to determine if you should get them.
@@gamemasters thank you lots and sorry for the late answer seeing my group in space seems truely I have an adventure that mixes the world of Eberron and Spacejam in the saga of the Tyranny of dragons. for me the main problem is that there are three books to buy. I would only buy the first and the second because they really interest me and I may read them for pleasure but the third book really does not interest me because it is an adventure and it is compulsory to buy the three books. P.S I know I can buy them separately on D&D beyond but I don't like the way they look on the site and don't having them in paper is for me a bad idea
I really find it disappointing that the ship to ship combat is pretty light on rules, but I guess that's just par for the course for 5e. I prefer more structure in ship to ship combat and the course 5e has taken in general is just "meh". Too much "see page 6" and while speeding up the boring dnd combat is a good thing to some, I think combat does not have to be boring, and is some of the many reasons why people play dnd (as well as its traditional roots as a wargame). I'm realizing that 5E isn't really for me anymore after about a year of playing (been playing since the red box) and based on One DND and WoTC direction they are going with the game. That's ok though, there are other games out there too.
Absolutely there are other games out there, Pathfinder being probably among one the bigger ones. I recently pulled out an OLD RPG for Aliens from Leading Edge Games, always loved that one. Oh, and Cthulhu.. THAT is beyond fun! I could list a good list of other RPG games but yeah... there are many others out there.
Skimming through this. Sorry. Does it talk about 3d combat? I’ve always been a fan of the concept of spelljammer but I haven’t found many systems or people that handle or even encourage non 2d combat.
I was REALLY disappointed in the ship combat rules, i understand that they wanted to keep it simple, but they really could've included a few pages of optional rules for "starfighter battles".
Would mounts suffice? Because for something like spelljammer, the closest to starfighters would be flying mounts (in SJ its solar dragons and star lancers).
I'm really disappointed with these books lack of ship combat rules. It basically says "ship weapons are not good, you should just crash into them and fight"
it doesn't exactly recommend melee combat, but as I mentioned in the video, my take away is that they wanted to streamline the combat process so as to not slow down the role-playing adventure process. THAT said, I do have a large battle map and we'll be using some homebrew mechanics pulled from Games Workshop's Spacehulk (it won't be THAT complex - but we also intend that specific game night's session to ONLY consist of space combat).
I think the reason for this is because they want to keep all party members involved in a battle. Ship to ship combat will tend to be one person (the pilot/captain) and the GM occupied while everyone else waits. Heading straight to boarding action keeps everyone involved.
@@christopherblanchard890 As somebody who has played a lot of space RPGs I`d have to say that this is an area that these games have struggled with for years. So many well-done, accurate space combat simulations have been produced that fail the moment you try to use them as an RPG combat system. The players who run the pilot or gunners are fine. Everybody else has their characters sitting in their staterooms waiting to be blown up for the entire game session.
I hate the oversimplification and dumbing down of classic concepts. The phlogiston and crystal spheres were crucial part of the original setting weirdness and originality, and the material plane shouldn't just reside inside the astral. There's no clear separation of the outer and inner planes now. The absolute state of this game is depressing.
@@gamemasters It is the beauty of this game but it's also a depressing beauty that someone can spend quite a chunk of money on a book that basically says "We're doing it like this, if you don't like it just homebrew it all". It sort of makes the purchase feel less than its worth. That being said, I've known folks who cheered the news that the phlogiston was gone because they never cared for it. Still for all the hype this book got in the release, I can't fault WOTC for going hardcore on the hype, it just feels like the solar winds were taken out of some folk's sails because of things like the phlogiston and lack of decent ship combat rules.
Community: Wotc's gone lazy! Ship combat's boring! Very little new lore!!! 2 spells?!?!? Wtf?!?!? Me: Im happy we got spelljammer for 5e. It means we can see dmsguild stuff for spelljammer and for its setting i can finally go from forgotten realms to say eberron (Keith Baker made a blog about it) or even other settings in style and in character. Honestly if one were to play spelljammer solo, and yes playing group-focused rpgs as a solo game is a thing, the ship combat rules would suffice though i can understand why people are upset that the ship combat rules are crunchy. I dont mind if ship combat doesnt think 3d though as spelljammer's take on space travel is just literally age of sail but with solar winds or rainbow tunnels.
In my opinion these are rather boring rules for everyone except for a captain and DM. Until usual combat starts other players have to sit and watch. Same goes with ghosts of saltmarsh rules, but there are at least roles for 1st mate and so on. I tried naval combat and it was a mess. I had to figure out how to make it more interesting and read through some homebrew books... Naval combat is a curse almost in every system. Even in Rogue Trader where a ship is your base of operations
I can kindav agree here, it's a little on the muddy side if you have a party of.. say.. 6 players.. and I think that's why they went with a very simple combat system for ship to ship; speed up the process so everyone can move on with the actual adventure.
I would like to see a reason why ship to ship combat was decided to be handled this way. I can imagine that it happened for 2 reason; 1) less words = fewer pages = higher profits. 2) simple While I have no issue with wizards trying to make a buck, in this instance there is such a thing as too simple and dedicating a few extra paragraphs (and by valid argument.. just remove one 1/2 page piece of artwork if you want to keep the page count the same) would have made all the difference.
I am going to use my 2E rules, charts and cardboard stand ups from the original game to run some ACTUAL space combat rather than the pile of vague crap that WOTC gave us!
Thank god for this video. I don't know why everyone's taking so long to talk about this material. Video request: Do a video showcasing the ships, and maybe tell us which ones are your favorites!
Spread the word about this video for me! I might look into looking at each ship, but I have a feeling I'll end up looking at some homebrew ships that I've created that didn't translate up to 5th edition (Dwarven Forge being one).
the reason its takign so long. is because there are no rules. ..none... all they give you is hp, ac, and movment speed. they expect you to jsut do it liek normal combat. azs if a fast nimble spelljammer shoudl fly exactly liek a literta mountain in space... thats fuckign dumb and ridiculous. so im jsut using the same rules ive been using that have been modified from the 2E rules. including maneuverability and having two phases in combat. where spelljammer combat, the each ship get sits own turn. and the people aboard the ship determin all the actiuosn they will take durignt hat turn. and if ever there is combat ON the ship between people. you handle one round of normal combat. then return to the spelljammer turn order. so you can have boarding parties on multiple ships happening at the same time as a ship battle.
@@FreebirthBoccara In the end it depends on the game you are running. In an RPG with multiple players, you want the maximum amount of player involvement and I found out the hard way a long time ago that to pull that off the KISS principle applies.
You can have a good, well-thought-out space combat system with a lot of rules that covers everything in detail and has RPG conversion but slows to a crawl the moment you have more than two players and leaves some with very little to do over a multi-hour session or you can have a very simple bolt-on to the RPG`s basic combat system that allows use of the existing rules unmodified. Which is what you have got in current Spelljammer.
Now personally, I do like doing some serious wargaming, particularly space games from time to time but as a DM, trying to teach RPG players a new raft of systems in the middle of a session is a thankless task that I don`t recommend. Most importantly it is NOT fun for anybody and will kill a campaign fast, rules for x,y and z are nice to have but not absolutely essential if your players are not on board.
I do not mind the simplicity..... however i would love to see more ships and some customization like marsh book. Perhaps supplement called ships of the astral sea?
ooooh! Ships of the Astral Sea! I LIKE that!
someone has to of home brewed this by now
Seeing the bombard stats, I want to give it to my party
Giving such a toy to a DnD party is guaranteed to go horribly wrong in the best way possible
LOL you gotta return and tell us their tale of glory!
I have extrapolated manuvering class for each ship useing it's size and speed, I also just for some fun rules that a ship's gravity is caused by an active helm, thatway I can have my players explore a derelict ship and have to deal with zero gravity like in many sci-fi movies. I also decided that mending only works if the ship is over 50% of it's max HP just so the players can't cheese it and get out of having to pay ANY repare costs. I also am using some 2e spelljamming rules to make ship to ship combat more intresting.
most certainly some excellent tips there, I too am reaching back to my AD&D SJ books for additional goodies to use in 5E's setting!
you did a great job covering everything in the books, but there was one small thing I noticed.
When you were talking about the ships gravity planes overlapping, you said it's when they come close to each other.... that's actually not true.
"When gravity planes intersect, such as when two ships pass close to each other and at different angles, the gravity planes of both ships remain in Effect until the two ships touch one other (as often happens when they collide or when one ship lands on the other)."
whichever ship has the most hitpoints during that intersection becomes the dominate gravity plane as well. As for true/no-true, I'll concede that, there was a lot of material I went through and keeping every portion of it 100% accurate and trying to remember it all at the same time; that's a challenge.
The piercing damage as the only onle without disadvantage is really smart. The force on this weapon is directed straight, so if you miss you are moving straight. You aren't spinning around as with slashing damage.
imagine if someone made a round ship with blades all around it that was designed to spin... that would be something.. dunno.. how would you calculate the damage for that? Slashing, yes, but..
I added more ships, creatures, and ship weapons as well as smaller ships and mounts and such for individual player characters to use in combat, I also added the rule that the plane of gravity aligns with each ship die to the spelljammer, so if the ships are at different angles the angle of your character is determined by what ship he's on and if that is in conflict then its the DMs discretion. Basically I expanded upon their bare bones concept.
i like that (the plane of gravity idea is something I'm certainly going to pilfer and make use of)!
This video comes in clutch! I was so confused by the rules but you've given me clarity.
What was an element of the rules that you found confusing initially that this video clarified?
@@gamemasters the part where you explained how ship to ship combat works. I didn't know how the side initiative transitioned to boarding should the vessels get close enough, but hearing you talk about it I understand now.
Great breakdown. Now I have some context when I read it myself. Thanks!
I'm glad the breakdown could help!
Sounds perfectly fit to keep the combat smooth and running. I have no problems here.
I had so thought of bolting on Saltmarsh rules too to add a little more depth.
just depends on how SJ's system works at your table. I think it will run just fine as is at mine, but we've got alternate plans for a space combat session that will make use of a different game's mechanics all together, but... that's all we will be doing that evening and the players are FINE with it.
@@gamemasters the more you add on the more you risk alienating players and dms. I'm happy to add in a bit more depth, but I can see why it's so simple. It's enough to get my dm brain working.
Thanks. It was hard to run combat in Spelljammer Academy was tough without all the rules found in the book. Still a great adventure though.
agreed! I think SA provided "just enough" information to run that specific scenario but... my group always likes to go off the path and that's where I initially had to wing it. When we move through Light of Xaryxis, however, I think things will run a bit more smoother when they decide to go lightyears beyond what is contained on the written page.
For the Altitude, I just assume that you would just roll the spelljammer so the enemy is always at your flank. Thats where a lot of Scifi movies get things wrong. There is not "above" or "below" you just reorient yourself and rolling is easy.
The only issue with this is if there are multiple opponents (or allies) on different planes.
aye, but if sci-fi movies tried to stick to all the laws of motion and physics of space travel (as we understand them), those movies would not be as fun to watch.
Thank you very much for this straightforward walkthrough. You helped this overwhelmed DM immensely!!
Thank you for watching! Feel free to drop any questions, lots of helpful folks here!
as a brand new DM (spelljammer will be my first time DMing) it's varry disappointing and it's making it much harder for me to creat a game. as I was really excited for some type of ship combats and skills/rolls associated with it and was looking forward to those rules. now I have to homebrew something and that's a big pain for some one new to the system in general (I've had varry little expirance with dnd honestly)
to be honest, I think this is the biggest complication yet; approaching this as a brand new DM - I can see this system working flawlessly. Approaching it with memory of how it used to work, that's where it gets difficult (for me). I really think I may be trying to over-complicate it by adding in what just isn't there. If one were to take this version's system as it is written, it's super simple and really shouldn't slow the adventure down.
That all said.. I can't help but homebrew the crap out of it because.. that's what I've always done. Either way, I feel your pain :(
@@gamemasters ya I was just expecting more ship stuff which is what was getting me excited as I love age of sail stories and black powder but also love weird space adventures. I guess I was expecting more thing like broad sided shooting, taking out sails/engines of enimy ships, or using grapling hooks to secure ships to each other. I can figure out how to home brew it but again it's a pain as some one who is new and doesn't know the system well. also not happy at all with how thay described the actual mechanics of movement and just makes me question the whole point of having the sails.
I am enjoying this video. I will give it a thumbs up.
ROFL thank ye! I need BADLY to finish editing a follow up video to this one; Gygax Fixed Spelljammer's Space Combat Over 19 YEARS Before It Existed!
Glad I watched this. I had heard there were no rules on ship to ship combat in the books.
yep, they exist
Which proves that a lot of the people initially complaining never actually read the books but were going by what somebody else said on TH-cam or somewhere.
I haven't got to run it yet we'll see next week
I think I may steal some Starfinder rules for ship combat to fluff the rules out a bit
“Thumbsup ship” got me lmfao.
Lol
I am going to make sure all my players watch ur video before they make it to space! Great video!!
hey thank you! Feel free to ask any questions here, I'll do my best to clarify anything I may have missed in the video.
If it's a one-on-one fight, I think potential altitude differences matter less than just the distance between ships and what direction they're heading. Add a third (or even more so, a fourth) entity to the board, and then it really starts to matter. In the end, though, it's all relative, since there isn't the same kind of up/down/altitude orientation out in space. Everywhere can be up if it's above where you're standing.
(or down hehe)
Liked this video! I ordered the box set and it should arrive today. This was a great introduction. My kids are gonna love this!
oh excellent! Let me know if you have any questions, though to be honest, it's set up fairly straight forward.
awsome summary fo the content
Pretty well explained, thanks a lot, it helped so much to understand how interesting Spelljammer could be. I thinks that the combat system is lacking more rules but also provides rules are interesting, air envelop is remarkable way to give context for interactions from PC over the ships.
air envelopes, gravity planes, all that stuff harkens back to the original version and works in pretty much the same way (there are a couple of variations but overall it works the same).
@@gamemasters iirc, people themselves have their own air bubble should they go overboard.
i can appreciate the simplicity, as a DM i would rather make rulings on my game then to have pages of complicated rules. Perfect.
I mean.. yes.. that is a way to look at it. We ultimately just came up with our own rules, used a few from other systems, but.. I will admit we probably made space combat much more complicated haha
With all of this talk between bubbles and such; I am HIGHLY reminded of Crest of the Stars/ Banner of the Stars series. Hmm. I should give this another look as I heard the rules for ship-to-ship are super lacking and is a minus from many reviews.
yah, there has been a good amount of flak over the space combat rules for Spelljammer. I've a feeling it was done just to make any given adventure flow smoother, but likely it was done in a simplistic manor so that wizards wouldn't need to create a complex combat system that would only be applicable for this one setting. BUT.. that is just a guess.
@@gamemasters That is what it seems but it also means a lot more work for the DM to make it work.
nahh.. it's just rolling some dice, not terribly complex. Ship A has X HP and can do X damage. Enemy ship has Y HP and can do Y damage. It's exactly like regular player to monster combat. Player A has X HP and can do X damage. Enemy monster has Y HP and can do Y damage.
Different ships/players/monsters have different abilities that can do different things, I don't see how that really causes more work for the DM to make it work.
Subbed.. thank you for the help and video. I'm about to start a spelljammer campaign
Welcome aboard! (pun intended!) Any idea yet what the main plot of the storyline is going to be?
@@gamemasters I'm just going to start from the free academy adventure and then go from there
I am really enjoying the Setting, I find that using ballistaes and Mangonels when playing in a space setting is kind of lame and it's something I am now changing on my own game, but I do like the little 'hints' they give to make a fantasy space setting
It's a little tricky. I feel like a little bit has been left on the cutting room floor...
I cannot say no to the "Thumbs-up Ship". Take my upvote.
10:43 I think thats just an abreviation of the underwater combat rules. Swinging something while you don't have solid ground under your feet is kinda hard. Stabbing is way easier.
perhaps... i guess if you swung while suspended in air, you might just go into a spin
It would have been cool if they leaned more into the space fighter fantasy instead of the space pirate fantasy.
Ships with parasitic fighter units like tie fighters would be cool
perhaps.. I've done a version of spelljammer using Ice Pirates scenario though.. it was rather humorous..
Great video! Can't wait to be a space pirate!
just be on the lookout for those Vampirates!
I've read through the streamlined 2nd edition rules, and from your description there seem to be a few key things missing, like critical damage tables. I will need to compare the two more in depth, though so far I'm leaning toward 2e.
Ad&d will always be my preferred rules environment, but that's only because that's the edition I grew up playing. I like 5e well enough and that's what we play currently, but 2e will always be my first.
@@gamemasters For me it is 3.5/PF1 actually. I've started with 3.0, and finished with PF1, though now I'm starting 5th as a player. Never played 2ed, but the ship rules felt way better than current ones. Then again, I'm a simulationist at heart.
Why? A normal hit impacts the hull, a critical hit impacts a weapon and any damage left over is applied to the crew. As a DM I welcome the fact that I`m not having to look up a table and do some math in my head just to work out they broke a door!
I may have missed the rule, and I plan to look, but, I'm not sure how much movement it takes to 'turn' a ship. I've sort of just been treating it as it occupies the squares that it occupies and turning is free movement, as a person or creature. That feels wrong for obvious reasons. Maybe I need to delve into Saltmarsh for that info.
In the basic rules in the book, the intent seems to be that the game is played as "theatre of the Mind" with movement determined in feet. So whoever is playing the person in the spelljammer helm decides how far the ship moves to or from and its final orientation relative to the adversary. The old 2e version used hexes and movement points, and it worked well as a wargame which was fine but, as with a lot of these "bolt-on" space combat systems of that era, a lot of players in an RPG session were left with nothing to do during the combat, which could take a while. The current spelljammer system, while simplistic does work a lot better for a multi-player party as it's an add-on to the basic D&D combat system, not a wargame.
i call cruising speed "jamming speed" and spelljamming speed is "hyperjamming". Also, i made it so that non-magical fire degrades air quality faster. A non-magical flame reduces air quality by 1 day for every minute it burns inside an air envelope.
Oooh! Ima use that idea of degrading air quality!
2d fighting plane make sense when the dominate ship ( highest HP) defines the gravity plane and everyone else orients to it...
sure, where it gets complex is when two ships are not within each other's gravity envelope. I really would have liked official rules for that.. but... we ended up using some fairly decent homebrew space combat mechanics for actual ship to ship to ship combat.
I am a D&D playing, physics loving, ex competitive sailor. I can sail anything you point me at. Just over the course of watching your video, I have come up with ways to apply old naval tactics to the predictable nature of the gravity envelopes and space. As well as the air to space to air dynamic. My DM is going to laugh and allow most of it! As long as I draw diagrams. Thank you.
This is something you should seriously consider compiling and posting for sale on DMsguild...
Spelljammer combat is 2 d just like Ghost of Saltmarsh ship to ship battles. As to customization, I am allowing by PC to swap out weapon systems as long as they are the same size.
yep, except at our table, we used some rules from an old Games Workshop game called Spacehulk (not all of the rules, just some).
Thank you for this review of the ship combat. I’ve been trying to decide if I should get Spelljammer 5e or not, but there have been so many mixed opinions about it. It’s quite tedious to sieve through what’s fair criticism, or just hate because “this is not an exact copy of a previous edition I like”.
I’m worried that the rules for ship combat are so simple that it’s no point in using them. I mean, if it’s better to use your longbow than a cannon mounted to the ship… well that would just feel silly. What are your feelings concerning the Spelljammer rules in this regard?
The way I see it, I think that ship to ship combat CAN be fun, but as it stands now, it's VERY basic. I like the rules they present here, but I'll certainly be homebrewing my own elements to it (me and my group are working on gutting some of the rules from Games Workshop's Spacehulk - but we also know that at a certain point the line between what is D&D vs what is a totally different system can get blurred). I figured with what I have in mind, our 'space combat session' will take about 4 to 5 hours.
That all said, I DO feel that there is plenty of material in here to pull from, but I'm also a major homebrewer and I'll most certainly make the content within these books my own.
@@gamemasters I am in most cases not using homebrewing, so our group will probably not do that.
We have played Free League’s Coriolis in my group, and we have enjoyed that ship combat system. With that being said, we want ship combat to be part of the game, not feeling like a whole separate game in itself.
I recently discovered your channel and I’ve been loving the content. Keep up the good work!
There are no rules for ship to ship combat in Spelljammer 5E so far. You'd want to go with 3rd party supplements. A free one is Wildjammer that includes full 5E spelljammer combat and actual crewmember roles that the players can take.
If you are buying Spelljammer 5E, you are buying it for a shorter than normal adventure with an attached bestiary at $70. Its got nice quality book binding, paper and art. It's the most positive thing I can say on it. IF you want to run a Spelljammer campaign, I suggest buying the 2E Spelljammer Adventures in Space + Wildjammer. There are additional paid ship to ship supplements coming out as well on DMsguild, but frankly Wildjammer is more than enough.
@@garhent Oh yes there are, very basic and on a single page but, they do exist and can be expanded on if the players want to.
The spellcaster driving the ship can’t engage in battle without stop driving?
that is correct.
They are usually on a deck that is not even within eyeline of an on-deck battle.
I don't think altitude matters at all. When up can be in any direction the only relevant things are distance and what side of the enemy ship is facing you. I think it's even a free action to turn the ship to face the enemy.
nah, it wouldn't matter, at least not in how it is presented here.
Im a lil confused on how we determine wat direction a ship is face. Can u turn 180? Does the player just decide at the end of the turn?
aye, you basically spend an action to pilot the ship. Turning would function in the same way. (if I recall correctly)
RAW by 5E need to reevaluated by WotC. the spelljammer duel is a bad idea. You no longer have to be a caster to be manning a spelljammer helm and casters can create them. Well now, anyone can man a helm, so why not crew trolls with helms and have them board the enemy ship and simply do the constitution duel and take control of the ship? The 5E rules are set up to where you'll doing damage via spell rather than catapults and mangonels for ship to ship combat. It is what it is for 5E. I guess its ship to ship combat? Prior rules, you would do 1/10th damage and only siege weapons would do full damage to a ship. Again using 5E rules, why not just bring a bunch of fireball scrolls and put on a few casters to fireball the enemy ship to death seeing as they do more damage again. Seige weapons don't have much of a reason to exist now.
If you want to help your viewers, review Wildjammer. A free supplement for Spelljammer for 5E at 100 pages. It was created about 4 years ago, and it covers ship to ship combat and gives the player real crew roles with real crew abilities to make ship to ship combat a ton of fun and its what players expect from Spelljammer.
Where are you getting that from?! The book clearly says only a Spellcaster can attune to a Spelljamming Helm.
I was really disappointed in the ship to ship combat rules as well as what your PCs can do before boarding and what you can do with the crew on the ship. There's no rules for that either. I did read the Wild jammer third party supplement which is free and really like it and that's what I'll be incorporating into my game. Would it be possible for you to read through that supplement and provide your thoughts? Maybe I'm crazy but I like it a lot better as it gives my PCs something to do
The rules for what your PCs can do before boarding are simple, they would do what they would do anywhere else in any other pre-melee combat situation. Prepare spells, draw weapons, etc. What you can do with the crew on the ship, same thing.. put another way.. are there specific rules anywhere as to what to do when you go into a tavern? No, you simply.. play.. same thing on board a ship, you simply.. play.
How big does an object need to be to go from having a gravity plane to a gravity field like a planet?
good question and we aren't really provided too much detail there, however, we know that the Rock of Bral (an asteroid) is about 1 mile long and evidently it's gravity plane is strong enough to pull in ships. Tho i'd assume that if the Rock got close enough to.. say.. Toril.. it might start on a downward spin into the planet..
Ideally there'll be supplemental material for ship enhancements or customizations, and additional options for ship mechanics/crew roles similar to some things they did in Saltmarsh. Otherwise with how simple or non-specific the rules there'd be a lot of need for homebrew.
Why is there a range? There's no gravity, an arrow should fly straight nearly indefinitly. Did they explain it?
nope, they don't. I figure it's along the lines of: I shoot an arrow, it moves straight and won't deviate from it's projectile motion, however, an object on a ship that is 1000 feet away should have plenty of time to move, thus, it's out of range. Just imagine that poor soul just cruising through the Astral Sea and randomly gets hit by an arrow...
I have a question for you regarding Saltmarsh. I just looked over my copy of Saltmarsh, and other than more detailed stat blocks for ships, what's the difference between the two sets of rules? Because I didn't see any.
I didn't state that there was a difference, just that you could use the saltmarsh rules in addition to the spelljammer ones to expand your options. Spelljammer provides about 1 page of ship to ship combat, whereas satlmarsh provides several, but it also details travel at sea (one could easily also use that for travel in the astral sea), it details IDing hazards (also something that could be used in SJ), infestation.. pretty much anything from Appendix A from pages 186 to 214(ish) could be used in Spelljammer, albeit one would need to do a bit of converting to make it work in the voids of space.
@@gamemasters Okay, cool. I was just wondering if I missed something.
I have a question.
If a rune knight "falls" in space in his giant form, or a druid transform in an animal of larger size category than him. How much time could they survive?
In the 'Gravity and Air' chapter I display an Air Envelope chart that shows, but basically, regardless of size you only have so much air that will surround you and it will last roughly 1 minute.
@@gamemasters thanks
I am kind of curious, does a spelljammer need a magical helm? As like in the announcement, it was shown being sailed with a wheel like a actual ship
That's... a little open to interpretation... yes, according to everything written, it appears that an actual chair is required, however... we've used just a magical helmet, and we've also had ships with abilities that are tuned to the captain who could steer it like a regular boat... but yeah, according to how it's written, it's a spell jamming chair that runs it
@GameMasters thank you,
A "helm" is required but it doesn't need to actually look like a chair. Wizards and many other magic users prefer their comfort over posing heroically on a ship's quarterdeck.
I really find the spelljamming part of this dropping the ball. im runnning a one shot and someone asked me if there the spell jammer what can they do? all i could tell them was drive? nothing else and the spell jamming helm does the driving for you 90% of the time. nothing special there. what can anyone else do on the ship? nothing but man a siege weapon? captain? optional and no gameplay, crew? optional and no gameplay. for spell jammer its got no gameplay that makes it spell jammer..... just cool themed battle maps.
very good and valid points. Do you recall what all could be done on board a spelljammer back in 2e?
@@gamemasters I don't, I started playing in 3.5 and didn't touch spelljammer.
I am just a huge nerd for sci Fi. So I was like hell ya spell jammer! Space and DND!
It's just no gameplay for space part of it? Im not a professional designer, but this doesn't fulfill the space DND fantasy imo.
The books are really interesting but seme to me a bit overpriced. Should I buy them or not?
Hi from France
That's a tough question to answer. For me, having been a long time fan of Spelljammer, I had to have the books regardless. If you can't see yourself having your group go into space, then there is probably little need for it. I will say that ultimately the main book provides the basic information to run Spelljammer. Boo's book is a monster manual, while not necessary, I do enjoy a variety of monsters. Book 3, Like of Xaryxis is an adventure book. If you do not intend to run that adventure, then that's a book that you'll never use. I'll certainly make use of all 3 books, but it will be up to you to determine if you should get them.
@@gamemasters thank you lots and sorry for the late answer seeing my group in space seems truely I have an adventure that mixes the world of Eberron and Spacejam in the saga of the Tyranny of dragons. for me the main problem is that there are three books to buy. I would only buy the first and the second because they really interest me and I may read them for pleasure but the third book really does not interest me because it is an adventure and it is compulsory to buy the three books.
P.S I know I can buy them separately on D&D beyond but I don't like the way they look on the site and don't having them in paper is for me a bad idea
The phlogiston doesn’t exist anymore?
does not appear that it's here.
I really find it disappointing that the ship to ship combat is pretty light on rules, but I guess that's just par for the course for 5e. I prefer more structure in ship to ship combat and the course 5e has taken in general is just "meh". Too much "see page 6" and while speeding up the boring dnd combat is a good thing to some, I think combat does not have to be boring, and is some of the many reasons why people play dnd (as well as its traditional roots as a wargame). I'm realizing that 5E isn't really for me anymore after about a year of playing (been playing since the red box) and based on One DND and WoTC direction they are going with the game. That's ok though, there are other games out there too.
Absolutely there are other games out there, Pathfinder being probably among one the bigger ones. I recently pulled out an OLD RPG for Aliens from Leading Edge Games, always loved that one. Oh, and Cthulhu.. THAT is beyond fun! I could list a good list of other RPG games but yeah... there are many others out there.
Skimming through this. Sorry. Does it talk about 3d combat? I’ve always been a fan of the concept of spelljammer but I haven’t found many systems or people that handle or even encourage non 2d combat.
nah, no mention of 3d combat, that was just something I was musing about.
I was REALLY disappointed in the ship combat rules, i understand that they wanted to keep it simple, but they really could've included a few pages of optional rules for "starfighter battles".
Would mounts suffice? Because for something like spelljammer, the closest to starfighters would be flying mounts (in SJ its solar dragons and star lancers).
I'm really disappointed with these books lack of ship combat rules. It basically says "ship weapons are not good, you should just crash into them and fight"
it doesn't exactly recommend melee combat, but as I mentioned in the video, my take away is that they wanted to streamline the combat process so as to not slow down the role-playing adventure process. THAT said, I do have a large battle map and we'll be using some homebrew mechanics pulled from Games Workshop's Spacehulk (it won't be THAT complex - but we also intend that specific game night's session to ONLY consist of space combat).
I think the reason for this is because they want to keep all party members involved in a battle. Ship to ship combat will tend to be one person (the pilot/captain) and the GM occupied while everyone else waits. Heading straight to boarding action keeps everyone involved.
@@christopherblanchard890 As somebody who has played a lot of space RPGs I`d have to say that this is an area that these games have struggled with for years. So many well-done, accurate space combat simulations have been produced that fail the moment you try to use them as an RPG combat system. The players who run the pilot or gunners are fine. Everybody else has their characters sitting in their staterooms waiting to be blown up for the entire game session.
I hate the oversimplification and dumbing down of classic concepts. The phlogiston and crystal spheres were crucial part of the original setting weirdness and originality, and the material plane shouldn't just reside inside the astral. There's no clear separation of the outer and inner planes now. The absolute state of this game is depressing.
I dunno, the ability to make it whatever you want has never changed, If you still want the spheres and phlogs, keep em. That's the beauty of it.
@@gamemasters It is the beauty of this game but it's also a depressing beauty that someone can spend quite a chunk of money on a book that basically says "We're doing it like this, if you don't like it just homebrew it all".
It sort of makes the purchase feel less than its worth.
That being said, I've known folks who cheered the news that the phlogiston was gone because they never cared for it.
Still for all the hype this book got in the release, I can't fault WOTC for going hardcore on the hype, it just feels like the solar winds were taken out of some folk's sails because of things like the phlogiston and lack of decent ship combat rules.
Community: Wotc's gone lazy! Ship combat's boring! Very little new lore!!! 2 spells?!?!? Wtf?!?!?
Me: Im happy we got spelljammer for 5e. It means we can see dmsguild stuff for spelljammer and for its setting i can finally go from forgotten realms to say eberron (Keith Baker made a blog about it) or even other settings in style and in character.
Honestly if one were to play spelljammer solo, and yes playing group-focused rpgs as a solo game is a thing, the ship combat rules would suffice though i can understand why people are upset that the ship combat rules are crunchy. I dont mind if ship combat doesnt think 3d though as spelljammer's take on space travel is just literally age of sail but with solar winds or rainbow tunnels.
yep, as mentioned, i think they (wizards) kept the rules simple so as to not get in the way of the adventure itself.
In my opinion these are rather boring rules for everyone except for a captain and DM. Until usual combat starts other players have to sit and watch. Same goes with ghosts of saltmarsh rules, but there are at least roles for 1st mate and so on. I tried naval combat and it was a mess. I had to figure out how to make it more interesting and read through some homebrew books... Naval combat is a curse almost in every system. Even in Rogue Trader where a ship is your base of operations
I'm adapting the rules for Bridge Roles from Wildjammer. It's a free download homebrew supplement and the guy did an amazing job.
@@Jaedeok82 thanks for that one
I can kindav agree here, it's a little on the muddy side if you have a party of.. say.. 6 players.. and I think that's why they went with a very simple combat system for ship to ship; speed up the process so everyone can move on with the actual adventure.
You should try vehicles revisited from drivethrough RPG.
I think that the rules are way to rudementary. I've been waiting for Spelljammer to be released for so long and now this...
I would like to see a reason why ship to ship combat was decided to be handled this way. I can imagine that it happened for 2 reason; 1) less words = fewer pages = higher profits. 2) simple
While I have no issue with wizards trying to make a buck, in this instance there is such a thing as too simple and dedicating a few extra paragraphs (and by valid argument.. just remove one 1/2 page piece of artwork if you want to keep the page count the same) would have made all the difference.
I am going to use my 2E rules, charts and cardboard stand ups from the original game to run some ACTUAL space combat rather than the pile of vague crap that WOTC gave us!
I almost have the impression that in order to run this version adequately, one almost needs knowledge of the previous version...
Or some 3rd party material.
@@darksarcasmsvideodiaries6262 aye, that works too
This was the biggest let down in WOTC productions! Spelljamming with NO space ship combat rules! Horrible and lazy product!
This product is a pile of crap! Ir lacks even any basic rules for ship combat!
then i guess.. don't buy it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯