Spelljammer Spell Jammer speed

[MonsterEnvy]

It says once you get close to an object to stop you from going the full 100 million speed you stop roughly 1000 to 250 feet away from it. And what stopped you will almost certainly be visible. This part is not confusing.

Same with the leaving as mentioned once you are a mile away you can move the full speed.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I haven't currently bought Spelljammer so this may already be covered, but ideally there should also be some form of useful system for long-range detection available. After all, most planets are barely a visible dot when seen from any other planet, and individual ships would be impossible to discern, which would put a downer on any space-piracy shenanigans.

Requiring ships to slow down as they approach a planet to avoid being precipitously dropped into sailing speed would allow some nice cinematic planetary approaches where the planet looms larger over the course of a few minutes rather than the blink of an eye.

There is an item for that.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

There is an item for that.

What item is that?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

The lack of rules is especially weird considering they already have rules for ships and airships in other books. (Airships travel at 10mph, or 4-14mph depending on winds)

I think the bigger problem than the rules being incomplete (or just bad) - both of those are potentially subjective - is that they are ALL OVER THE PLACE. I mean, I keep referencing them when I discuss them here, but I have to keep asking "Where is that?" (Like when MonsterEnvy above says that you start 1000-250 ft. away from an opposing ship, my first thought was didn't I just read that it was 1 mile?)

Those are in two different places, and neither of them are under "how spelljamming works" (though the Starting Distance is appropriately under ship-to-ship combat). Though it leaves the question - if you come out of "warp" because of an enemy ship, and the helm drops you out at 1 mile away, but the "encounter" begins at 250 ft., what happened to the other 5000 ft? And did it take 15 minutes for you to get there? What if you wanted to flee earlier? And so on.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

What item is that?

One of the few in the book the Wild Space Array

 

[FitzTheRuke]

One of the few in the book the Wild Space Array

I don't see that anywhere. Do you mean the Orrery? That doesn't track ships. Just suns, planets, moons, and comets. It's like a real-time solar system model.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I don't see that anywhere. Do you mean the Orrery? That doesn't track ships. Just suns, planets, moons, and comets.

And your ship in relation to those objects

As for pirates all they have to do is wait in an area, ideally a route they know is travelled and a ship should eventually come within a mile of them for them to raid.

Take the Neogi in the adventure for example, most pirates probably act like them.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

And your ship in relation to those objects

As for pirates all they have to do is wait in an area, ideally a route they know is travelled and a ship should eventually come within a mile of them for them to raid.

Take the Neogi in the adventure for example, most pirates probably act like them.

Sure, as long as we don't do space as SPACE (because coming within a mile of anything is near infinitely impossible at those speeds and distances unless you actually have the time to wait millions of years).

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Sure, as long as we don't do space as SPACE (because coming within a mile of anything is near infinitely impossible at those speeds and distances unless you actually have the time to wait millions of years).

Remember Wildspace is more ocean like and has more things in it than just rocks and ships

 

[Maxperson]

I went through a bit of this in another thread. Under the "Spelljamming Helm" (as a magic item), it lists the distance you need to be away as 1 mile and the size of the object as 1 ton or more. (I know. Weird place to put that info and not under "how spelljamming works/speed".)

I first started thinking about it when I wanted to know how long it took between leaving the surface of a planet and being able to "warp out". Effectively, "1 mile" is NOT off the planet, but if you're stuck at 3 miles an hour, it ought to take 2 days or so to leave a planet.

It depends on if you consider the object to be the hard planet itself or planet + atmosphere. If it's just the object planet, then it takes 20 minutes to get to the 1 mile mark and be able to jump to spelljamming speeds. The rule says, you can reach spelljamming speeds when you are 1 mile away and in space. Rather than require 52 days for a ship to leave a planet's atmosphere and then jump, I'd just let it be at the 1 mile mark you are in "space" even if there is still atmosphere. Or maybe put it at the 100 mile mark and let it take 25 hours for the the slow ships to exist the planet.

On Earth space is said to begin at 62 miles, yet it's atmosphere goes 6,214 miles. Something to think about.