I'm running a spelljammer campaign (currently in the speljammer academy introduction) and one question that's already come up is how my players can take over another spelljamming ship (or how ennemies can take over their ship)
The ways I found are:
- installing another spelljamming helm (and doing a spelljamming contest) - killing the spelljammer or moving them more than 100ft away from the helm, so someone else can take over the attunement)
what I'd like to know:
can the attunement to the helm be forcefully taken over (eg when the spelljammer is away from the helm, but on the vessel)? I imagine some kind of mental contest for this. (WIS, CHA) So the speljammer is also aware of the ship being taken over.
I know I could homebrew something like this. But I want to know if there is something in RAW that could help me.
It seems like this is going to be a DM ruling, but I don’t think it can be taken over. The helm is a magic item which requires attunement. Per the attunement rules, only one creature can be attuned to an item at a time. There are no rules for forcibly ending the attunement of another creature to an item, as far as I know.
Though they do say a creature’s attunement ends if another creature attunes to the item. I see that as more, if you hand the sword to your friend and they attune, yours drops, but I guess it could also apply in this situation.
The big question would be, how is the person trying to take over going to have time to sneak onto another ship and take a short rest without being noticed? I guess it could work in a theft situation if the party leaves the ship unguarded, but at that point, they’re probably more than 100 feet away, so they’d lose their own attunement after 24 hours passed anyway.
So this doesn't fit your criteria of taking over when the pilot is away from the helm but a spellcaster attuned to the spelljamming helm can use their action to transfer attunement to another spellcaster.
Transfer Attunement. You can use an action to touch a willing spellcaster. That creature attunes to the spelljamming helm immediately, and your attunement to it ends.
This means that you could also take over a spelljamming helm through deception, coercion, or enchantment.
So you could disguise yourself as the next shift and relieve the active pilot of duty or blackmail the current active pilot into ceding control to you or dominating their mind through powerful enchantments.
Hell, since it only takes a single action to transfer attunement a very permissive DM might allow the Command spell with speaking "Transfer," "Cede," or "Relinquish" Personally, I feel like Command on its own is a little too easy to allow as a solution, however it could lead to some wild back and forth shenanigans of enemy spellcasters casting Command on each every other turn.
I like those ideas. But yes, they all mean finding the spelljammer and not the spelljamming helm.
My players were boarding an enemy vessel, and their main thought was they needed to find the helm in order to take over the ship. Since they were slaying the opposition, I thought it would be fun to let the enemy captain and spelljammer try the same. (my ruling was that if they could touch the helm, they'd get once chance - WIS contest - to take over) It ended with both sides switching ships, the players having the better and less damaged ship. It was a fun moment, but I felt it to be a little too "loosey ruley" for it to be repeated often in the future.
Since my players like these kinds of actions, I'm still considering an adapted ruling. But I also don't want to make it too easy for them (or the enemy) to take control of a ship. Right now I'm thinking of just making the time required to attune to the helm shorter. Something like 10 minutes.
I guess I want it to be more Star Wars like, where you can run into an unknown ship and hotwire the controls. And less Star Trek, where your (bigger) ship would need a whole start-up procedure.
I like those ideas. But yes, they all mean finding the spelljammer and not the spelljamming helm.
My players were boarding an enemy vessel, and their main thought was they needed to find the helm in order to take over the ship. Since they were slaying the opposition, I thought it would be fun to let the enemy captain and spelljammer try the same. (my ruling was that if they could touch the helm, they'd get once chance - WIS contest - to take over) It ended with both sides switching ships, the players having the better and less damaged ship. It was a fun moment, but I felt it to be a little too "loosey ruley" for it to be repeated often in the future.
Since my players like these kinds of actions, I'm still considering an adapted ruling. But I also don't want to make it too easy for them (or the enemy) to take control of a ship. Right now I'm thinking of just making the time required to attune to the helm shorter. Something like 10 minutes.
I guess I want it to be more Star Wars like, where you can run into an unknown ship and hotwire the controls. And less Star Trek, where your (bigger) ship would need a whole start-up procedure.
In this scenario capturing, killing, or running off the spelljammer (pilot) as well as the rest of the crew or have a second helm ready to bring on board are what it takes to steal a spelljammer (ship).
In terms of d&d combat 10 minutes might as well be an hour. Hells, a minute might as well be an hour. Most battles last 30 seconds or less and only massive sieges or battles between armies last several minutes or longer.
The best solution I can think of without effectively changing the attunement rules to instantaneous is to have the ship(s) have some sort of enchanted/enthralled spellcasting creature physically bound/built into the ship as the pilot.
In terms of d&d combat 10 minutes might as well be an hour. Hells, a minute might as well be an hour. Most battles last 30 seconds or less and only massive sieges or battles between armies last several minutes or longer.
In the scenario they were already out of combat, since there was no imediate threat nearby. 10 minutes seems doable. Star Wars vibes are ok to me, but I don't want ik to go into fast & furious shennanigans, where they are fighting over the steering wheel :-p
Either way, I will have a talk about it with my players and see what they think.
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Hey all,
I'm running a spelljammer campaign (currently in the speljammer academy introduction) and one question that's already come up is how my players can take over another spelljamming ship (or how ennemies can take over their ship)
The ways I found are:
- installing another spelljamming helm (and doing a spelljamming contest)
- killing the spelljammer or moving them more than 100ft away from the helm, so someone else can take over the attunement)
what I'd like to know:
can the attunement to the helm be forcefully taken over (eg when the spelljammer is away from the helm, but on the vessel)? I imagine some kind of mental contest for this. (WIS, CHA) So the speljammer is also aware of the ship being taken over.
I know I could homebrew something like this. But I want to know if there is something in RAW that could help me.
It seems like this is going to be a DM ruling, but I don’t think it can be taken over. The helm is a magic item which requires attunement. Per the attunement rules, only one creature can be attuned to an item at a time. There are no rules for forcibly ending the attunement of another creature to an item, as far as I know.
Though they do say a creature’s attunement ends if another creature attunes to the item. I see that as more, if you hand the sword to your friend and they attune, yours drops, but I guess it could also apply in this situation.
The big question would be, how is the person trying to take over going to have time to sneak onto another ship and take a short rest without being noticed? I guess it could work in a theft situation if the party leaves the ship unguarded, but at that point, they’re probably more than 100 feet away, so they’d lose their own attunement after 24 hours passed anyway.
So this doesn't fit your criteria of taking over when the pilot is away from the helm but a spellcaster attuned to the spelljamming helm can use their action to transfer attunement to another spellcaster.
This means that you could also take over a spelljamming helm through deception, coercion, or enchantment.
So you could disguise yourself as the next shift and relieve the active pilot of duty or blackmail the current active pilot into ceding control to you or dominating their mind through powerful enchantments.
Hell, since it only takes a single action to transfer attunement a very permissive DM might allow the Command spell with speaking "Transfer," "Cede," or "Relinquish" Personally, I feel like Command on its own is a little too easy to allow as a solution, however it could lead to some wild back and forth shenanigans of enemy spellcasters casting Command on each every other turn.
I like those ideas. But yes, they all mean finding the spelljammer and not the spelljamming helm.
My players were boarding an enemy vessel, and their main thought was they needed to find the helm in order to take over the ship. Since they were slaying the opposition, I thought it would be fun to let the enemy captain and spelljammer try the same. (my ruling was that if they could touch the helm, they'd get once chance - WIS contest - to take over) It ended with both sides switching ships, the players having the better and less damaged ship. It was a fun moment, but I felt it to be a little too "loosey ruley" for it to be repeated often in the future.
Since my players like these kinds of actions, I'm still considering an adapted ruling. But I also don't want to make it too easy for them (or the enemy) to take control of a ship. Right now I'm thinking of just making the time required to attune to the helm shorter. Something like 10 minutes.
I guess I want it to be more Star Wars like, where you can run into an unknown ship and hotwire the controls. And less Star Trek, where your (bigger) ship would need a whole start-up procedure.
In this scenario capturing, killing, or running off the spelljammer (pilot) as well as the rest of the crew or have a second helm ready to bring on board are what it takes to steal a spelljammer (ship).
In terms of d&d combat 10 minutes might as well be an hour. Hells, a minute might as well be an hour. Most battles last 30 seconds or less and only massive sieges or battles between armies last several minutes or longer.
The best solution I can think of without effectively changing the attunement rules to instantaneous is to have the ship(s) have some sort of enchanted/enthralled spellcasting creature physically bound/built into the ship as the pilot.
In the scenario they were already out of combat, since there was no imediate threat nearby. 10 minutes seems doable. Star Wars vibes are ok to me, but I don't want ik to go into fast & furious shennanigans, where they are fighting over the steering wheel :-p
Either way, I will have a talk about it with my players and see what they think.