I'm not sure if this has been answered yet, but suppose I cast meteor swarm to damage a spelljammer. Does the ship get a saving throw? Ghosts of Saltmarsh gave ships ability scores, but I don't see any for spelljammers. I guess I could use the stats of the person attuned to the spelljamming helm, but that doesn't make sense for things like strength. Seems like a weird oversight given that nautiloids have grappling tentacles...
The original post was asking specifically about Meteor Swarm though. That spell doesn't target creatures directly, it creates area effects. It also says: "The spell damages objects in the area and ignites flammable objects that aren't being worn or carried."
The original post was asking specifically about Meteor Swarm though. That spell doesn't target creatures directly, it creates area effects. It also says: "The spell damages objects in the area and ignites flammable objects that aren't being worn or carried."
While the spell target creature and damage objects, for the purposes of the rules, they are not a building or a vehicle.
Objects: For the purpose of these rules, an object is a discrete, inanimate item like a window, door, sword, book, table, chair, or stone, not a building or a vehicle that is composed of many other objects.
I do see the text you've referenced that says when the rules refer to an object it generally does not include a building or vehicle since these may be composed of many objects. However, the text then goes on to make some suggestions for how to handle Huge and Gargantuan objects:
"You can track a Huge or Gargantuan object's hit points if you like . . . [if so], divide it into Large or smaller sections and track each section's hit points separately. [Sometimes], destroying one of those sections could ruin the entire object. For example, a Gargantuan statue of a human might topple over when one of its Large legs is reduced to 0 hit points."
Another suggestion is to implement the concept of a "damage threshold": "Big objects such as castle walls often have extra resilience represented by a damage threshold . . . immunity to all damage unless it takes an amount of damage from a single attack or effect equal to or greater than its damage threshold, in which case it takes damage as normal".
So, I think that a DM could use these concepts and come up with something satisfactory.
Since Meteor Swarm creates 80-foot wide blazing orbs of fire that plummet to the ground with massive amounts of fire and bludgeoning damage, I would say that buildings and vehicles (or at least parts of them) could be damaged by this spell and they could also potentially be set on fire. For a normal slow moving ship in water or a stationary building I don't even think that I would allow for a saving throw (the spell description for Meteor Swarm allows for a saving throw for creatures but says nothing about saving throws in the section where it says "the spell damages objects in the area and ignites flammable objects that aren't being worn or carried"). If the spelljammer in question has much greater speed and maneuverability than a typical ship in water then perhaps a saving throw is appropriate.
Typically objects don't get saving throws if an effect can target them. Granted, in this case I'd want to crunch some numbers to see just what kind of a nuke this would be; you don't want to rain all over someone flexing their 9th level spell, but at the same time you might not want a 1 mile range spell to completely obliterate a given ship.
In the absence of ability scores for Spelljammer vessels, another possibility is the DM could have the vehicle's driver make the Dexterity saving throw to reflect the vehicle being maneuved through damaging obstacles.
Hi all,
I'm not sure if this has been answered yet, but suppose I cast meteor swarm to damage a spelljammer. Does the ship get a saving throw? Ghosts of Saltmarsh gave ships ability scores, but I don't see any for spelljammers. I guess I could use the stats of the person attuned to the spelljamming helm, but that doesn't make sense for things like strength. Seems like a weird oversight given that nautiloids have grappling tentacles...
Vehicles aren't subject to spells that target creatures unless the DM says otherwise.
The original post was asking specifically about Meteor Swarm though. That spell doesn't target creatures directly, it creates area effects. It also says: "The spell damages objects in the area and ignites flammable objects that aren't being worn or carried."
Thanks both. This feels somehow unsatisfactory though.
While the spell target creature and damage objects, for the purposes of the rules, they are not a building or a vehicle.
That's strange. Deeply unsatisfactory.
DM can rule either way thought and just roll a d20 for saving throw with whatever modifier deemed appropriate.
I do see the text you've referenced that says when the rules refer to an object it generally does not include a building or vehicle since these may be composed of many objects. However, the text then goes on to make some suggestions for how to handle Huge and Gargantuan objects:
"You can track a Huge or Gargantuan object's hit points if you like . . . [if so], divide it into Large or smaller sections and track each section's hit points separately. [Sometimes], destroying one of those sections could ruin the entire object. For example, a Gargantuan statue of a human might topple over when one of its Large legs is reduced to 0 hit points."
Another suggestion is to implement the concept of a "damage threshold": "Big objects such as castle walls often have extra resilience represented by a damage threshold . . . immunity to all damage unless it takes an amount of damage from a single attack or effect equal to or greater than its damage threshold, in which case it takes damage as normal".
So, I think that a DM could use these concepts and come up with something satisfactory.
Since Meteor Swarm creates 80-foot wide blazing orbs of fire that plummet to the ground with massive amounts of fire and bludgeoning damage, I would say that buildings and vehicles (or at least parts of them) could be damaged by this spell and they could also potentially be set on fire. For a normal slow moving ship in water or a stationary building I don't even think that I would allow for a saving throw (the spell description for Meteor Swarm allows for a saving throw for creatures but says nothing about saving throws in the section where it says "the spell damages objects in the area and ignites flammable objects that aren't being worn or carried"). If the spelljammer in question has much greater speed and maneuverability than a typical ship in water then perhaps a saving throw is appropriate.
Typically objects don't get saving throws if an effect can target them. Granted, in this case I'd want to crunch some numbers to see just what kind of a nuke this would be; you don't want to rain all over someone flexing their 9th level spell, but at the same time you might not want a 1 mile range spell to completely obliterate a given ship.
In the absence of ability scores for Spelljammer vessels, another possibility is the DM could have the vehicle's driver make the Dexterity saving throw to reflect the vehicle being maneuved through damaging obstacles.