Spelljammer WTF Spelljamming? (5e) Orbital Mechanics

[FitzTheRuke]

Blow up the moon and don't even worry about its impact on the tides unless you want to run an apocalyptic campaign next.

And you definitely want to run an apocalyptic campain next!

But it doesn't have to have more of an impact on the planet than what would be fun. A cool belt of stars, meteor showers. Maybe a flood or two. Angry merfolk?

 

[MarkB]

And you definitely want to run an apocalyptic campain next!

But it doesn't have to have more of an impact on the planet than what would be fun. A cool belt of stars, meteor showers. Maybe a flood or two. Angry merfolk?

Nevermind the merfolk, what about the lycanthropes?

 

[see]

So, I was going to present my general solution here, but you seem to have found my post in the older thread from September of last year.

As far as tracking the surface, I'd go with that relative to the spelljammer, the surface is motionless except for the speed of the spelljammer itself when moving at tactical speed; if you fly up/down for a given spot on a planet, you don't have to worry about the rotation of the planet, or the motion of the planet in its orbit, or the like, you just stay in the same sport relative to the planet.

This comports to what people intuitively expect, and can be explained by the spelljammer automagically matching the reference frame of the planet's surface. Certainly, if the helm is capable of moving a ship 100 million miles/day in open space, it can, at least in principle, manage to keep up with planetary rotation and such; so if you're close enough to a massive object, the magic of the helm can just automatically do the position-matching as a safety feature.

(This implies that if you have a skilled wizard, he might actually try messing with the safety magic to extract more speed, with quite dangerous potential results. Maybe it works, maybe the gods intervene in the laws of magic to make it impossible because they don't want anyone hitting planets at 4 million mph, whatever.)

 

[Atomoctba]

I'm a physicist. I've done the math behind orbital mechanics.

In a fantasy game, I'd handle it by... magic! You go from point A to point B. It takes some time that's set either by "speed of plot" or by some number of days travel dependent on how long I want it to take for people to get between those points to make the setting work out.

In a sci-fi game, I'd handle it similarly, because I'm likely the only one at the table who has the math to handle actual orbital mechanics.

This remembers me the arguing about giants being unreal because their bones never would support their weight, to do not mention all the hydrodynamic troubles to pump blood in such scale.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

unless the "object" that you need to get 1 mile away from is the "atmospheric envelope" of the object, not just the surface.
NASA says edge of space is 62 miles up. I will use that rather than the ship air/gravity envelope rules.

Also as a side-note since a 10-ton ship provides normal gravity, a small moon & rocky Jupiter-size planet should both have the same gravitational force. although it is possible that some planets of celestial bodies have a "Light gravity" keyword.

You don’t need to get to the air envelope edge just a mile away from the planet.

 

[LordEntrails]

I agree with the others. Orbital Mechanics and SpellJammer should not be combined. D&D and hard science just do not work together. Don't do it. All you will do is frustrate your players and cause you a ton of extra work that will only have value to yourself.

 

[Eubani]

Other missing rules:
Ship and hazard Detection / Tracking rules
Chase rules
Navigation rules
Wildspace Hazards
Ship building

All of the above a pretty basic needs and I am sure I am missing quite a bit more that could make the game better, the above are just missing basics.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Other missing rules:
Ship and hazard Detection / Tracking rules
Chase rules
Navigation rules
Wildspace Hazards
Ship building

All of the above a pretty basic needs and I am sure I am missing quite a bit more that could make the game better, the above are just missing basics.

Could you elaborate? Cause for the most part the rules are fine.

 

[Eubani]

Could you elaborate? Cause for the most part the rules are fine.

The rules that are there are mostly fine if not over simplified. The list I gave are things that I believe are necessary but are not there. The rules in SJ are very minimum effort, both in what is present and the rules themselves.

 

[Hussar]

Gravity? What is this gravity? Things fall because it is the will of the gods. If gravity was a force like good or radiance, we wizards would be able to harness it.

Gravity. What wonderful nonsense.