It takes 1 action to load a ballista, 1 action to aim it, and 1 action to fire it.
Hoping someone can point me to an official clarification on this, in case I missed something, but also interested in other people's thoughts...
I have seen some people interpret this to mean that it takes three rounds to fire a ballista (four for a mangonel), regardless of crew numbers, but that seems really dull and pointless. My initial reading was that it takes three actions and that 3 PCs/NPCs can band together to load, aim, and fire in one round. Is there any ruling or consensus on this? Thanks!
I also read it as three people can fire it in one round. Player A uses their action to load it, B aims and C fires. As long as they do it in initiative order, it seems like it would work.
Often, that will be a poor choice, since you have two PCs who are spending their actions but not actually attacking anything or helping allies, while the third gets to make one attack, that will often be worse than what they can do with their own weapon or spell attacks. So while it may be useful to have three PCs firing a ballista at longe range when they’ve got nothing else to do, once the fight gets closer, they should probably shift to their personal attacks. Now, NPC crew might be better off just manning the ballista, but PCs, not so much.
Yep my thoughts exactly. I was planning to let them each control a shipboard weapon operated by NPCs on their turns... possibly after a successful roll for instructions/commands as a free action. It almost didn't seem worth the bother though if they only shoot once every 3/4 turns because our typical combats wouldn't last long enough for more than one, maybe two, shots per weapon.
It takes 1 action to load a ballista, 1 action to aim it, and 1 action to fire it.
Hoping someone can point me to an official clarification on this, in case I missed something, but also interested in other people's thoughts...
I have seen some people interpret this to mean that it takes three rounds to fire a ballista (four for a mangonel), regardless of crew numbers, but that seems really dull and pointless. My initial reading was that it takes three actions and that 3 PCs/NPCs can band together to load, aim, and fire in one round. Is there any ruling or consensus on this? Thanks!
It can be fired 1/round or even faster because it's based on actions. This has nothing to do with Spelljammer's suggestion of using side initiative, because of the Ready action: first operator readies firing the ballista after it's aimed, second readies aiming it after it's loaded, and third actually loads it, so the ballista fires on the loader's turn. That's assuming your DM rules all of the actions have to be simultaneous, which is not a real rule: you can load the ballista ahead of time, in the same way as a crossbow, and likewise, you can "aim" it and fire it on distinct turns. The primary reason to worry about them being simultaneous is that "aim" has no actual rules and your DM may rule that if the target has a turn between the aiming and firing steps then it nullifies the aiming step (because aim has no RAW it's impossible for its RAW to be violated).
This means you can simply e.g. use a crew of 6 to fire a ballista twice per round. You can also use e.g. Action Surge to let a Fighter accomplish 2 of the actions within the same turn. All you need to do is apply all 3 actions. Likewise, a mangonel takes X* actions. Note also that because the Spelljammer setting explicitly has black powder, your DM may have put cannons on the market. Cannons will outperform both ballistae and mangonels.
*Mangonels generally take 5 actions to operate. Damselflies specifically employ a turret rotator that reduces the action economy by 1 action (and, not for nothing, ensures the creature providing the aim action for the mangonel has total cover from enemies that haven't boarded yet).
The primary reason to bother with these weapons is if you're attacking an enemy object (such as a ship) directly and need to overcome a damage threshold. Without a damage threshold to overcome, a ballista is easily outperformed by e.g. kenku armed with longbows and heavy crossbows. I did a quick search and I can't find any discussion in the SAIS book about lighting conditions on the Astral Sea, so it's challenging to rationally discuss the utility of the extra range a mangonel provides over a longbow.
One step your DM can take to reduce the extent to which ballistae and mangonels have almost no reason to exist in 5E is by allowing the Dexterity of the operators to matter - e.g. allowing 1 operator to contribute their Dexterity to the weapon's damage roll like how every other ranged weapon attack in the game works.
Hoping someone can point me to an official clarification on this, in case I missed something, but also interested in other people's thoughts...
I have seen some people interpret this to mean that it takes three rounds to fire a ballista (four for a mangonel), regardless of crew numbers, but that seems really dull and pointless. My initial reading was that it takes three actions and that 3 PCs/NPCs can band together to load, aim, and fire in one round. Is there any ruling or consensus on this? Thanks!
I also read it as three people can fire it in one round. Player A uses their action to load it, B aims and C fires. As long as they do it in initiative order, it seems like it would work.
Often, that will be a poor choice, since you have two PCs who are spending their actions but not actually attacking anything or helping allies, while the third gets to make one attack, that will often be worse than what they can do with their own weapon or spell attacks. So while it may be useful to have three PCs firing a ballista at longe range when they’ve got nothing else to do, once the fight gets closer, they should probably shift to their personal attacks.
Now, NPC crew might be better off just manning the ballista, but PCs, not so much.
Yep my thoughts exactly. I was planning to let them each control a shipboard weapon operated by NPCs on their turns... possibly after a successful roll for instructions/commands as a free action. It almost didn't seem worth the bother though if they only shoot once every 3/4 turns because our typical combats wouldn't last long enough for more than one, maybe two, shots per weapon.
As above, 1 person fires every 3 rounds. 3 people working in concert can fire every round.
It can be fired 1/round or even faster because it's based on actions. This has nothing to do with Spelljammer's suggestion of using side initiative, because of the Ready action: first operator readies firing the ballista after it's aimed, second readies aiming it after it's loaded, and third actually loads it, so the ballista fires on the loader's turn. That's assuming your DM rules all of the actions have to be simultaneous, which is not a real rule: you can load the ballista ahead of time, in the same way as a crossbow, and likewise, you can "aim" it and fire it on distinct turns. The primary reason to worry about them being simultaneous is that "aim" has no actual rules and your DM may rule that if the target has a turn between the aiming and firing steps then it nullifies the aiming step (because aim has no RAW it's impossible for its RAW to be violated).
This means you can simply e.g. use a crew of 6 to fire a ballista twice per round. You can also use e.g. Action Surge to let a Fighter accomplish 2 of the actions within the same turn. All you need to do is apply all 3 actions. Likewise, a mangonel takes X* actions. Note also that because the Spelljammer setting explicitly has black powder, your DM may have put cannons on the market. Cannons will outperform both ballistae and mangonels.
*Mangonels generally take 5 actions to operate. Damselflies specifically employ a turret rotator that reduces the action economy by 1 action (and, not for nothing, ensures the creature providing the aim action for the mangonel has total cover from enemies that haven't boarded yet).
The primary reason to bother with these weapons is if you're attacking an enemy object (such as a ship) directly and need to overcome a damage threshold. Without a damage threshold to overcome, a ballista is easily outperformed by e.g. kenku armed with longbows and heavy crossbows. I did a quick search and I can't find any discussion in the SAIS book about lighting conditions on the Astral Sea, so it's challenging to rationally discuss the utility of the extra range a mangonel provides over a longbow.
One step your DM can take to reduce the extent to which ballistae and mangonels have almost no reason to exist in 5E is by allowing the Dexterity of the operators to matter - e.g. allowing 1 operator to contribute their Dexterity to the weapon's damage roll like how every other ranged weapon attack in the game works.
I think the ship's crew is supposed to help with the operating of the weapons.