Some of the core ship stats can go unchanged, others need rejiggling, as follows:īuilt By / Used Primarily By: Stays the same, though obviously a lot of races aren't available for Next yet. Characters with one or more caster levels gain no SR benefit for having these specialisations. They are unable to spelljam in the Phlogiston at all. Characters without any caster levels but with a magicky Specialisation (Acolyte, Magic-User, Necromancer) gain an SR of 1 that cannot be increased by any means, while operating within a crystal sphere.(I think this should keep things balanced, placing a significant cost on space travel, while allowing mages to retain some usefulness in off-ship encounters without having to schedule a long nap every time they stop.) Cantrips and orisons, the sub-level 1 Minor Spells, being both weak and unlimited, are still available to the caster. Non-cantrip/orison spell slots for the day until you've had a long (8 hour) rest. Using a spelljamming helm counts as using all.Add up all the caster levels a character has, both arcane and divine, to calculate SR ignore any levels in non-caster classes.For the D&D Next rules, assume this works the same way it did in the Spelljammer rules of old, with the following modifications: How fast a ship goes, its ship's rating (SR) is derived from the magical ability of the magic caster sitting in its special spelljammer helm. I'm working with the 13 August 2012 D&D Next test pack. I'll post an actual play report once we've had a chance to try it out, and if anyone else tries this, I'd be interested in your feedback too. I'm only covering the bare essentials of conversion for now, so that it's playable but I don't waste days or weeks of effort making a perfect fit for rules that aren't set in stone yet anyway. So I thought I'd try mashing it up with old Spelljammer for a couple of sessions.Ī couple rules changes are necessary, and this is my summary of those. But I'd like to see how well it works beyond the standard Tolkienesque medieval setting the developers have (quite naturally) focused on. I like it so far, it's simple and streamlined and doesn't wank over combat so much like 4th ed. I thought we'd better start simple.ĭ&D Next is the public playtest of what is due to become 5th edition, and my group have been taking part in it. The Dragonfly-class spelljammer my group hired from some Githyanki pirates in Sigil to rescue a party member who'd swapped bodies with a time traveller from the Illithid homeworld in the distant past. This has already been done ( unofficially) for D&D 3rd Ed., and I ran a game a couple years ago that spent a couple sessions toying with that. And since its core is just a relatively simple rules mod, it should be easy enough to adapt it for a different set of rules. It opened up doors for whole new races and gave great new depth to some older ones.
2ED SPELLJAMMER SHIP CONSTRUCTION HOW TO
That crash-summary really doesn't do it justice, as this relatively simple mechanical change has a huge effect on the scope and feel of the game, especially with a GM who knows how to use it. Often summed up as D&D in space, Spelljammer gives a means and possible motives for a standard dungeon-crawlin' adventuring party to fly a ship (like, literally, a boat, though often an oddly shaped one) out into space by magical means to have nautical-themed space adventures. Spelljammer is one of the more interesting and original setting and rules expansions for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but it hasn't been officially supported for over a decade, since the 2nd edition of the game was replaced with the 3rd.