Spelljammer WTF Spelljamming? (5e) Orbital Mechanics

[MonsterEnvy]

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.

Ok let me go over for a second

Ship and hazard Detection / Tracking rules: There is an item for tracking, but for the most part spelljammer has never really had this, ship slows down when close to a large enough object.
Chase rules: There is chase stuff in the dmg.
Navigation rules: What Nav rules?
Wildspace Hazards: We have several.
Ship building: This is not even in the normal game, beyond bring in other weapons on a ship.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

The Wildemount book has a gravity mage.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

2e has some better take-off and landing times on page 51 in the Concordance of Arcane Space (in the original boxed set).

Translated from AD&D jargon it is:

Celestial Body Diameter in Miles -> Time to Exit Gravity Well
Less than 10 -> 10 minutes
10 to 1,000 -> 20 minutes
1K to 4K -> 30 minutes
4K to 10K -> 40 minutes
10K to 40K -> 1 hour
40K to 100K -> 2 hours
100K to 1M -> 4 hours
1M to 10M -> 8 hours
10M+ -> 16 hours

The not long distance speed (whether in atmosphere or space) varied from 17 mph to 170 mph depending on how good your helm and helmsman were, but the above speed ignores that. Like long-distance Spelljamming speed, descent/ascent speed are independent of ship details.

It seems like they want you to enter and drop out of spelljamming speed far enough away to get a grand panoramic view of the planet, rather than suddenly looking at a wall of earth in front of you.

Interestingly, if you take the average in-atmosphere speed, and apply it to the time given for Earth-sized planets, you get a 62 mile trip. Assuming that's not a coincidence it could be interpreted multiple ways. Maybe that average speed of about 93 mph is the ascent/descent speed. Maybe they just didn't want to work out those numbers for vessels at a variety of speeds and gave an average instead.

Personally, I'm not a fan of the high speed variability from Spelljammer Rating, but I don't mind the possibility of smaller speed distinctions in tactical/atmospheric mode. I'll probably stick with a unified ascent/descent speed and play with that table a bit to see if it feels good enough or calls for tweaking.

The one number I'm definitely going to tweak is a 1 mile encounter distance. That makes sense when ships are going 90 mph, but not so much when they are trudging along at 4 mph. I gave up trying to find whether that 1 mile encounter distance was from the original or not, but I'll probably adjust it to work with whatever tactical/atmosphere speeds I come up with. I'll probably go with speeds somewhere between 2e and 5e.

I like to figure out what the desired outcome is, and then make simple and consistent rules to achieve it, which is why I liked that table once I realized the apparent function.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

You only need to get a mile away from the planet to be able to move at super speed.

Going at max spelljammer speed only 1 mile above the earth's surface would go..... badly.

 

[MarkB]

Going at max spelljammer speed only 1 mile above the earth's surface would go..... badly.

And if the atmosphere doesn't count as an object, does that mean that Spelljammer ships can just plough right through gas giants at full speed?

 

[Hussar]

And if the atmosphere doesn't count as an object, does that mean that Spelljammer ships can just plough right through gas giants at full speed?

Sure. Why not?

Hang on. What’s a gas giant? Those don’t exist. Planets aren’t balls of gas. Why would they be? Why wouldn’t they just fade away? What kind of god creates a planet nobody lives on? No point in that? Pretty to look at maybe?

I’m being tongue in cheek here or maybe just cheeky but I do have a point.

Spelljammer in no way is supposed to be based on anything even remotely resembling real work physics. Moons have atmosphere because how else would the moon people breathe?

Trying to apply real world physics to the setting, I’d argue, is counter productive.

This is a universe as it was understood in the 12th century. The sun is pulled across the sky by a flaming beetle. The moon is eaten every morning by a wolf.

 

[deganawida]

Sure. Why not?

Hang on. What’s a gas giant? Those don’t exist. Planets aren’t balls of gas. Why would they be? Why wouldn’t they just fade away? What kind of god creates a planet nobody lives on? No point in that? Pretty to look at maybe?

I’m being tongue in cheek here or maybe just cheeky but I do have a point.

Spelljammer in no way is supposed to be based on anything even remotely resembling real work physics. Moons have atmosphere because how else would the moon people breathe?

Trying to apply real world physics to the setting, I’d argue, is counter productive.

This is a universe as it was understood in the 12th century. The sun is pulled across the sky by a flaming beetle. The moon is eaten every morning by a wolf.

This is what serves as the biggest hurdle for people enjoying Spelljammer in general, IMO. Spelljammer works best once one can free one’s mind, shed current scientific understanding of the cosmos, and embrace an imaginative milieu which glorifies in an older understanding of the nature of space. Once one is unclouded by the rational, scientific facts, a world of wonder opens up, and things like The Little Prince (the opening of the novel, at least), Jon Carter, Flash Gordon, and so forth become further inspiration instead of outdated.

 

[MarkB]

This is what serves as the biggest hurdle for people enjoying Spelljammer in general, IMO. Spelljammer works best once one can free one’s mind, shed current scientific understanding of the cosmos, and embrace an imaginative milieu which glorifies in an older understanding of the nature of space. Once one is unclouded by the rational, scientific facts, a world of wonder opens up, and things like The Little Prince (the opening of the novel, at least), Jon Carter, Flash Gordon, and so forth become further inspiration instead of outdated.

If that's what you're there for, sure. Some players will be looking for a little more science in their science fantasy, though, and it can be rough finding out that Spelljammer doesn't scratch that itch only after having started to play.

 

[deganawida]

If that's what you're there for, sure. Some players will be looking for a little more science in their science fantasy, though, and it can be rough finding out that Spelljammer doesn't scratch that itch only after having started to play.

Respectfully, and I do mean that, then Spelljammer will fight one every bit of the way, and I would humbly suggest that those who are seeking that kind of experience would be better off looking at Starfinder or something else. Spelljammer is galleons and crab-ships powered by magic users in space. On a live-action SF scale, it has more in common with Star Wars and Farscape than it does with Star Trek and The Expanse.

Please note that it is not my intention to make a judgement on preference here. I just believe that using Spelljammer to get a more “fantasy races and magic in a sci-fi setting” will cause too much cognitive dissonance, as the central conceits of Spelljammer affect the math, the feel, and the style of games.

It took me a long, long time to grok SJ. I thought that it was stupid for 30 years, since of course planets and other solar bodies don’t work like that, and the writers had to have known as many great discoveries occurred prior to their births. I was limited by my rational understanding, which caused me to despise the setting as stupid and for the ignorant (What? Do I have a problem with being arrogant and have to put forth extra effort to fight it? Noooo, what gave you that idea?). It was only after rediscovering the fiction I loved in my childhood that I began to see the beauty of the setting as it is presented.

Again, I mean no disrespect, and if my advice is no welcome, please feel free to ignore. All of the above is my opinion only, and may be idiosyncratic to me (which happens a lot).

 

[MarkB]

Respectfully, and I do mean that, then Spelljammer will fight one every bit of the way, and I would humbly suggest that those who are seeking that kind of experience would be better off looking at Starfinder or something else. Spelljammer is galleons and crab-ships powered by magic users in space. On a live-action SF scale, it has more in common with Star Wars and Farscape than it does with Star Trek and The Expanse.

Please note that it is not my intention to make a judgement on preference here. I just believe that using Spelljammer to get a more “fantasy races and magic in a sci-fi setting” will cause too much cognitive dissonance, as the central conceits of Spelljammer affect the math, the feel, and the style of games.

It took me a long, long time to grok SJ. I thought that it was stupid for 30 years, since of course planets and other solar bodies don’t work like that, and the writers had to have known as many great discoveries occurred prior to their births. I was limited by my rational understanding, which caused me to despise the setting as stupid and for the ignorant (What? Do I have a problem with being arrogant and have to put forth extra effort to fight it? Noooo, what gave you that idea?). It was only after rediscovering the fiction I loved in my childhood that I began to see the beauty of the setting as it is presented.

Again, I mean no disrespect, and if my advice is no welcome, please feel free to ignore. All of the above is my opinion only, and may be idiosyncratic to me (which happens a lot).

I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just pointing out that it's hard to gauge where Spelljammer sits on the scale before you play it, which can lead to mismatched expectations. As you said, it took you 30 years to come around on it.

It's fine if everyone knows what they're getting into, but if the DM is talking to their players about this great spaceships-in-D&D setting he wants to try, a lot of them are going to turn up expecting to play something other than what the setting can deliver.