I finished reading the second teaser chapter of Spelljammer Academy, and it left me a little underwhelmed with the ship to ship combat. Am I understanding correctly that in order to use the weapons on the ship, 3 or 4 PCs have to coordinate to each spend an action to load, then aim, then fire a weapon, thus using all 3-4 PCs turns to basically just hold their actions to fire the weapon?
I finished reading the second teaser chapter of Spelljammer Academy, and it left me a little underwhelmed with the ship to ship combat. Am I understanding correctly that in order to use the weapons on the ship, 3 or 4 PCs have to coordinate to each spend an action to load, then aim, then fire a weapon, thus using all 3-4 PCs turns to basically just hold their actions to fire the weapon?
That is traditionally how it has been for ship to ship combat, because the *players* are uniformly in general control of the whole vessel, a la Ghosts of Saltmarsh.
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Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
If your four member party are the only crew on the ship, yes. For a major ship to ship engagement you're going to want the party to be the officers in command of a larger crew. One is probably going to be the captain piloting the ship via the spelljammer helm. One or more might be leaders of boarding parties standing ready to seize a disabled enemy ship while others act as gunners on weapons that are otherwise serviced by NPC crew members.
I finished reading the second teaser chapter of Spelljammer Academy, and it left me a little underwhelmed with the ship to ship combat. Am I understanding correctly that in order to use the weapons on the ship, 3 or 4 PCs have to coordinate to each spend an action to load, then aim, then fire a weapon, thus using all 3-4 PCs turns to basically just hold their actions to fire the weapon?
If they're using siege weapons, yes. I've been running homebrew Spelljammer for quite a while, and that was just the way that made sense with the siege weapons from the DMG, which seem to be unchanged in the new SJ materiel.
In practice, the NPC crew, which you're going to have on all but the smallest vessels, run the siege weapons and the PCs give orders and throw spells around.
Keep in mind that the historical age of sail vessels that spelljammers are thematically inspired fantasy versions of used cannons that typically took as long as several minutes for a four or even five man crew to load and fire. So simplifying it to "as long as you have two or three NPC crewmen working with you then you can fire that ballista once per round" is quite generous for the sake of not slowing down the action to a "realistic" pace.
Yes, that is how it works. Big weapons like ballista take a lot of effort to fire. I created a custom magic item that works like a ballista only it takes 2 rounds to fire it instead of 3 rounds when I was running Ghosts of Saltmarsh and the PC who grabbed it loved it.
If you have each player just control the ship, then combat becomes very repetitive and nonsensical - in a round, or six seconds, the ship would do all sorts of acrobatic feats, fire half a dozen shots and generally give an absurd picture - even compared to normal 5e mechanics.
If you have one character controlling it in each round, most of the players aren't contributing.
The way it works is probably close to best. Everyone contributes, you make tactical decisions (is it best to fire our cannon or to disrupt theirs by attacking them? etc). I do have issue with the numbers - 28 damage? Better to just have Wizards launch Fireballs at them. A single Wizard cab get almost as much (average) damage from a single Fireball as a medium ballista manned by four Wizards - and not have the same risks of missing and being able to get the crew as well. Heck, a party with 4 archers that have longbows and 18+ Dex would have longer range and do more damage (and more consistently too) if they just shot the enemy ship than if they used their turns to shoot a medium ballista.
The damage system needs to be overhauled if these "sailing" adventures are to be more common. I proposed one on here, but people poo poo'd it for complicating things, but something needs to change. But the system of firing them is fine - it gives a balance between player engagement and tactical decisions that other systems I envisage don't offer.
I'm open to alternatives, though.
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A single Wizard cab get almost as much (average) damage from a single Fireball as a medium ballista manned by four Wizards - and not have the same risks of missing and being able to get the crew as well. Heck, a party with 4 archers that have longbows and 18+ Dex would have longer range and do more damage (and more consistently too) if they just shot the enemy ship than if they used their turns to shoot a medium ballista.
I haven't read the modules, but do the ships have a damage threshold? Because the reason real ships didn't just have the entire crew volley fire with muskets is smaller weapons simply won't do enough damage to such a large and sturdy object as a ship to make a real difference. There was a thread a while back with somebody unfamiliar with this concept raging about how a few peasants with spears can destroy a castle wall faster than a siege weapon; they were ignoring how the stone wall in question should have a damage threshold that renders the peasant spears damage to zero while the heavier single hit from a ballista or catapult is powerful enough to overcome that minimum damage threshold and still do damage on top that actually removes HP and eventually destroys the wall. Same with ships. If the hull has a DT of 10, most of those longbow shots aren't going to be doing any damage at all, maybe one or two at most assuming max rolls and higher dex mods than most basic NPCs have. The ballista will still be consistently penetrating for double digit damage after subtracting that ten from each hit.
As for wizards flinging fireballs, sure, go ahead. Assuming you only have one encounter per long rest they can just "go nova" like they would on any adversary with similar results. If they actually have reasons and concerns for conserving their spell slots, then that ballista suddenly looks a lot more attractive. Especially when most parties aren't just four wizards to begin with and the one or two casters in the group might want to save their big hits for a quick combo to finish the enemy ship after it's already been damaged. Or put one of those fireballs through a hole blasted in the hull by the ballista and wipe out half the enemy crew so their crew has an advantage when they stage a boarding action.
They weren't any damage thresholds to my memory, but it was a little while ago and I can't check right now.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
With fireballs, you have the issue of the spell not damaging objects. It can set unattended objects on fire, but the ship is certainly attended. Yeah, you can hurt the crew, but technically not the ship itself.
Depending on your goal, that may actually be ideal, or it may work against you.
With fireballs, you have the issue of the spell not damaging objects. It can set unattended objects on fire, but the ship is certainly attended. Yeah, you can hurt the crew, but technically not the ship itself.
Depending on your goal, that may actually be ideal, or it may work against you.
Fireball isn't anything like that clear about how it affects objects:
A bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose within range and then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame. Each creature in a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on that point must make a Dexterity saving throw. A target takes 8d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
The fire spreads around corners. It ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried.
The ship is being neither worn nor carried, so if it's flammable, it is presumably set alight. Does it do HP damage to the ship? No idea, but it's certainly a reasonable assumption. The extant ship/siege combat rules are... rather sparse. I know there is a table somewhere with ship HP and damage thresholds, but I can't find it in the rules right now.
If your four member party are the only crew on the ship, yes. For a major ship to ship engagement you're going to want the party to be the officers in command of a larger crew. One is probably going to be the captain piloting the ship via the spelljammer helm. One or more might be leaders of boarding parties standing ready to seize a disabled enemy ship while others act as gunners on weapons that are otherwise serviced by NPC crew members.
Quoted for relevance. A ship with a crew of 4 or 5 is crippled. Barely functioning. They're meant to have like 10+, depending on the ship.
They weren't any damage thresholds to my memory, but it was a little while ago and I can't check right now.
There were. Both ships have a threshold of 15. (It's in the handout and appendix at the end.)
I was referring to other sources - it was a while ago that I had to deal with ship to ship combat
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
With fireballs, you have the issue of the spell not damaging objects. It can set unattended objects on fire, but the ship is certainly attended. Yeah, you can hurt the crew, but technically not the ship itself.
Depending on your goal, that may actually be ideal, or it may work against you.
Fireball isn't anything like that clear about how it affects objects:
A bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose within range and then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame. Each creature in a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on that point must make a Dexterity saving throw. A target takes 8d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
The fire spreads around corners. It ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried.
The ship is being neither worn nor carried, so if it's flammable, it is presumably set alight. Does it do HP damage to the ship? No idea, but it's certainly a reasonable assumption. The extant ship/siege combat rules are... rather sparse. I know there is a table somewhere with ship HP and damage thresholds, but I can't find it in the rules right now.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but it really opens up a can of worms. If you start damaging the hull of a ship, seems like you also have to damage tables, chairs, doors, wooden walls, trees, bushes, etc. It’s a big precedent.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but it really opens up a can of worms. If you start damaging the hull of a ship, seems like you also have to damage tables, chairs, doors, wooden walls, trees, bushes, etc. It’s a big precedent.
Most of the time, it's sufficient to tell the players "OK. Now the furniture/forest/building is on fire." It creates a problem to deal with, without requiring you to track damage numbers. It's only when you're dealing with a big dumb object that they explicitly want to wreck that HP tracking matters.
Maybe they'll stop fireballing everything all the time.
Thanks for the great discussion! I guess I hadn’t considered that once they get out of the academy, my players would have a crew of people to help on the ship. That does make things better.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but it really opens up a can of worms. If you start damaging the hull of a ship, seems like you also have to damage tables, chairs, doors, wooden walls, trees, bushes, etc. It’s a big precedent.
Most of the time, it's sufficient to tell the players "OK. Now the furniture/forest/building is on fire." It creates a problem to deal with, without requiring you to track damage numbers. It's only when you're dealing with a big dumb object that they explicitly want to wreck that HP tracking matters.
Maybe they'll stop fireballing everything all the time.
I think that with the way fireball is written, I would just have it catch the ship on fire, not actually do damage, but then it would take fire damage each round.
Hey folks, I know it's not of direct use for running the Spelljammer Academy adventures, but when Spelljammer: Adventures in Space is released, that does have the rules in it for ship-to-ship combat.
All of the things that people are saying in this thread seems like a great way of interpreting the content and playing it. 😊
Hey folks, I know it's not of direct use for running the Spelljammer Academy adventures, but when Spelljammer: Adventures in Space is released, that does have the rules in it for ship-to-ship combat.
All of the things that people are saying in this thread seems like a great way of interpreting the content and playing it. 😊
I was hoping that the actual book would have more mechanics in it than the Academy content does. Thanks for the input! I’m running the first two chapters of Academy this Friday to try and convince my players to switch to a Spelljammer campaign.
Hey folks, I know it's not of direct use for running the Spelljammer Academy adventures, but when Spelljammer: Adventures in Space is released, that does have the rules in it for ship-to-ship combat.
All of the things that people are saying in this thread seems like a great way of interpreting the content and playing it. 😊
I was hoping that the actual book would have more mechanics in it than the Academy content does. Thanks for the input! I’m running the first two chapters of Academy this Friday to try and convince my players to switch to a Spelljammer campaign.
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I finished reading the second teaser chapter of Spelljammer Academy, and it left me a little underwhelmed with the ship to ship combat. Am I understanding correctly that in order to use the weapons on the ship, 3 or 4 PCs have to coordinate to each spend an action to load, then aim, then fire a weapon, thus using all 3-4 PCs turns to basically just hold their actions to fire the weapon?
That is traditionally how it has been for ship to ship combat, because the *players* are uniformly in general control of the whole vessel, a la Ghosts of Saltmarsh.
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
If your four member party are the only crew on the ship, yes. For a major ship to ship engagement you're going to want the party to be the officers in command of a larger crew. One is probably going to be the captain piloting the ship via the spelljammer helm. One or more might be leaders of boarding parties standing ready to seize a disabled enemy ship while others act as gunners on weapons that are otherwise serviced by NPC crew members.
If they're using siege weapons, yes. I've been running homebrew Spelljammer for quite a while, and that was just the way that made sense with the siege weapons from the DMG, which seem to be unchanged in the new SJ materiel.
In practice, the NPC crew, which you're going to have on all but the smallest vessels, run the siege weapons and the PCs give orders and throw spells around.
Keep in mind that the historical age of sail vessels that spelljammers are thematically inspired fantasy versions of used cannons that typically took as long as several minutes for a four or even five man crew to load and fire. So simplifying it to "as long as you have two or three NPC crewmen working with you then you can fire that ballista once per round" is quite generous for the sake of not slowing down the action to a "realistic" pace.
Yes, that is how it works. Big weapons like ballista take a lot of effort to fire. I created a custom magic item that works like a ballista only it takes 2 rounds to fire it instead of 3 rounds when I was running Ghosts of Saltmarsh and the PC who grabbed it loved it.
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The problem is balance.
If you have each player just control the ship, then combat becomes very repetitive and nonsensical - in a round, or six seconds, the ship would do all sorts of acrobatic feats, fire half a dozen shots and generally give an absurd picture - even compared to normal 5e mechanics.
If you have one character controlling it in each round, most of the players aren't contributing.
The way it works is probably close to best. Everyone contributes, you make tactical decisions (is it best to fire our cannon or to disrupt theirs by attacking them? etc). I do have issue with the numbers - 28 damage? Better to just have Wizards launch Fireballs at them. A single Wizard cab get almost as much (average) damage from a single Fireball as a medium ballista manned by four Wizards - and not have the same risks of missing and being able to get the crew as well. Heck, a party with 4 archers that have longbows and 18+ Dex would have longer range and do more damage (and more consistently too) if they just shot the enemy ship than if they used their turns to shoot a medium ballista.
The damage system needs to be overhauled if these "sailing" adventures are to be more common. I proposed one on here, but people poo poo'd it for complicating things, but something needs to change. But the system of firing them is fine - it gives a balance between player engagement and tactical decisions that other systems I envisage don't offer.
I'm open to alternatives, though.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I haven't read the modules, but do the ships have a damage threshold? Because the reason real ships didn't just have the entire crew volley fire with muskets is smaller weapons simply won't do enough damage to such a large and sturdy object as a ship to make a real difference. There was a thread a while back with somebody unfamiliar with this concept raging about how a few peasants with spears can destroy a castle wall faster than a siege weapon; they were ignoring how the stone wall in question should have a damage threshold that renders the peasant spears damage to zero while the heavier single hit from a ballista or catapult is powerful enough to overcome that minimum damage threshold and still do damage on top that actually removes HP and eventually destroys the wall. Same with ships. If the hull has a DT of 10, most of those longbow shots aren't going to be doing any damage at all, maybe one or two at most assuming max rolls and higher dex mods than most basic NPCs have. The ballista will still be consistently penetrating for double digit damage after subtracting that ten from each hit.
As for wizards flinging fireballs, sure, go ahead. Assuming you only have one encounter per long rest they can just "go nova" like they would on any adversary with similar results. If they actually have reasons and concerns for conserving their spell slots, then that ballista suddenly looks a lot more attractive. Especially when most parties aren't just four wizards to begin with and the one or two casters in the group might want to save their big hits for a quick combo to finish the enemy ship after it's already been damaged. Or put one of those fireballs through a hole blasted in the hull by the ballista and wipe out half the enemy crew so their crew has an advantage when they stage a boarding action.
They weren't any damage thresholds to my memory, but it was a little while ago and I can't check right now.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
There were. Both ships have a threshold of 15. (It's in the handout and appendix at the end.)
With fireballs, you have the issue of the spell not damaging objects. It can set unattended objects on fire, but the ship is certainly attended. Yeah, you can hurt the crew, but technically not the ship itself.
Depending on your goal, that may actually be ideal, or it may work against you.
Fireball isn't anything like that clear about how it affects objects:
The ship is being neither worn nor carried, so if it's flammable, it is presumably set alight. Does it do HP damage to the ship? No idea, but it's certainly a reasonable assumption. The extant ship/siege combat rules are... rather sparse. I know there is a table somewhere with ship HP and damage thresholds, but I can't find it in the rules right now.
Edit: Found it! https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg/adventure-environments#OwningaShip
Quoted for relevance. A ship with a crew of 4 or 5 is crippled. Barely functioning. They're meant to have like 10+, depending on the ship.
I was referring to other sources - it was a while ago that I had to deal with ship to ship combat
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but it really opens up a can of worms. If you start damaging the hull of a ship, seems like you also have to damage tables, chairs, doors, wooden walls, trees, bushes, etc. It’s a big precedent.
Most of the time, it's sufficient to tell the players "OK. Now the furniture/forest/building is on fire." It creates a problem to deal with, without requiring you to track damage numbers. It's only when you're dealing with a big dumb object that they explicitly want to wreck that HP tracking matters.
Maybe they'll stop fireballing everything all the time.
Thanks for the great discussion! I guess I hadn’t considered that once they get out of the academy, my players would have a crew of people to help on the ship. That does make things better.
I think that with the way fireball is written, I would just have it catch the ship on fire, not actually do damage, but then it would take fire damage each round.
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D&D Beyond FoundersHey folks, I know it's not of direct use for running the Spelljammer Academy adventures, but when Spelljammer: Adventures in Space is released, that does have the rules in it for ship-to-ship combat.
All of the things that people are saying in this thread seems like a great way of interpreting the content and playing it. 😊
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I was hoping that the actual book would have more mechanics in it than the Academy content does. Thanks for the input! I’m running the first two chapters of Academy this Friday to try and convince my players to switch to a Spelljammer campaign.
I was hoping that the actual book would have more mechanics in it than the Academy content does. Thanks for the input! I’m running the first two chapters of Academy this Friday to try and convince my players to switch to a Spelljammer campaign.