I am thinking of doing a Spelljammer game for Pathfinder. An one else done anything with this?
dartnet wrote: I am thinking of doing a Spelljammer game for Pathfinder. An one else done anything with this? Paizo :) They have a supplement coming out on Golarian's system and travel therein. Announced at Gencon.
*edit* PF Campaign Setting supplement name: Distant Worlds, due February 2012.
Iirc, there have been several other Spelljammer threads btw.
R_Chance wrote: dartnet wrote: I am thinking of doing a Spelljammer game for Pathfinder. An one else done anything with this? Paizo :) They have a supplement coming out on Golarian's system and travel therein. Announced at Gencon. I tried to get a PBP game going but it didn't gain enough steam.
my next game will be... in space!
Spelljammer was fun. Now will Pathfinder adopt the whole nine yards, with 500,000 gp Helms, hammerships, and planar gravity fields for small objects?
I'm working on a Spelljammer version of Earth's Solar System, which includes a fantasy version of Mars, and Venus, and a Roman gods pantheon where deities of the same name reside on each planet, doesn't mean they are easy to find, if one lands on the planet, but each planet reflects a bit of the character of the residing deity. Mars for example, has a lot of warring nations fighting for scarce resources on Mars' dry surface, it includes a Lowellian canal system. Venus is a cloud covered planet who's entire land surface is covered with jungle, even at the poles. The Moon looks starkly different, covered with crater lakes, mare seas, and sylvan forests on the shores. Earth looks like Earth, though this is a fantasy version of Earth, the continents and geographic outlines are the same, the nations inhabiting the surface are different, as well as there being fantasy races and monsters populating it.
dartnet wrote: I am thinking of doing a Spelljammer game for Pathfinder. An one else done anything with this? Why yes, yes I am. (those are the house rules for my upcoming game.)
I'm not using any of the "big three" spheres. I'm going to be using my own spheres and I'll be running it as a much more "exploratory" and less "pirate-y." I'm also going to be handwaving a lot of the helm/piloting and ship-to-ship combat to speed up the game.
Yes. It's my single longest running campaign, being played on and off for well over 11 years, from levels 1-23 and then 10-31 through two generations of characters(Epic level PF, whoo boy....), and over what is now 3 iterations of the game system.
Ultimate Combat has made it more than perfectly viable - the instant I saw the gunslinger playtest I knew it would become part of the legacy of Spelljammers.
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Tom_Kalbfus wrote: Spelljammer was fun. Now will Pathfinder adopt the whole nine yards, with 500,000 gp Helms, hammerships, and planar gravity fields for small objects?
Paizo can't touch ANY of it. WOTC IP again. Nothing of Spelljammer is open content. Dragonstar on the other hand.....
LazarX wrote: Tom_Kalbfus wrote: Spelljammer was fun. Now will Pathfinder adopt the whole nine yards, with 500,000 gp Helms, hammerships, and planar gravity fields for small objects?
Paizo can't touch ANY of it. WOTC IP again. Nothing of Spelljammer is open content. Dragonstar on the other hand..... Ah, but they can't put a copyright on a genre, can they?
Behold!
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Mnemaxa wrote: LazarX wrote: Tom_Kalbfus wrote: Spelljammer was fun. Now will Pathfinder adopt the whole nine yards, with 500,000 gp Helms, hammerships, and planar gravity fields for small objects?
Paizo can't touch ANY of it. WOTC IP again. Nothing of Spelljammer is open content. Dragonstar on the other hand..... Ah, but they can't put a copyright on a genre, can they?
Behold! It's not spelljammer any more than Dragonstar was. It's not going to be the whole nine yards that you asked about, there won't be helms, hammerships, and as far as I know, we may very well be restricted to Newtonian gravity.
LazarX wrote: Mnemaxa wrote: LazarX wrote: Tom_Kalbfus wrote: Spelljammer was fun. Now will Pathfinder adopt the whole nine yards, with 500,000 gp Helms, hammerships, and planar gravity fields for small objects?
Paizo can't touch ANY of it. WOTC IP again. Nothing of Spelljammer is open content. Dragonstar on the other hand..... Ah, but they can't put a copyright on a genre, can they?
Behold! It's not spelljammer any more than Dragonstar was. It's not going to be the whole nine yards that you asked about, there won't be helms, hammerships, and as far as I know, we may very well be restricted to Newtonian gravity. You need some method to make magical space travel work. There was a movie not too long ago with a similar feel to Spelljammer. Zathura is what it was called, in that movie a magical board game caused a house with three kids to be sent into space, the house had its own gravity much like Spelljammer had.
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Tom_Kalbfus wrote:
You need some method to make magical space travel work. There was a movie not too long ago with a similar feel to Spelljammer. Zathura is what it was called, in that movie a magical board game caused a house with three kids to be sent into space, the house had its own gravity much like Spelljammer had.
Zathura wasn't a space movie... it was a knock off of Jumanji. And it wasn't space... it was a game world. Houses aren't usually that good in retaining heat and light in an interstellar vacuum.
Yes there will be a method.... it's already in game... Interplanetary Teleport. I assume that they'll do something for ships, but it will have to be different than helms, and they can't use the term wildspace either. It'll be some sort of spacey thing but it won't be Spelljammer.
R_Chance wrote: dartnet wrote: I am thinking of doing a Spelljammer game for Pathfinder. An one else done anything with this? Paizo :) They have a supplement coming out on Golarian's system and travel therein. Announced at Gencon.
*edit* PF Campaign Setting supplement name: Distant Worlds, due February 2012.
Iirc, there have been several other Spelljammer threads btw. Thanks your my hero.
I'm running a space game right now that is a mashup of Greek mythology, our solar system, the shadows of a dark moon update from 3.5, star wars, firefly, illithid invasion, and the kitchen sink. Each planet is the home of a single race,created by its patron god. We are three sessions in and it has been slot of fun.
I have always thought a spelljammer game would be fun, alas I have never played one.
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greatamericanfolkhero wrote: dartnet wrote: I am thinking of doing a Spelljammer game for Pathfinder. An one else done anything with this? Why yes, yes I am. (those are the house rules for my upcoming game.)
Quite the hate for combat expertise I see.
LazarX wrote: Tom_Kalbfus wrote:
You need some method to make magical space travel work. There was a movie not too long ago with a similar feel to Spelljammer. Zathura is what it was called, in that movie a magical board game caused a house with three kids to be sent into space, the house had its own gravity much like Spelljammer had.
Zathura wasn't a space movie... it was a knock off of Jumanji. And it wasn't space... it was a game world. Houses aren't usually that good in retaining heat and light in an interstellar vacuum. Irrelevant, this is fantasy, not science fiction, and as the denzens of a fantasy setting don't have the means to construct a scientific space ship, they will construct a fantasy spaceship instead. The Gamemastery Guide lists several kinds of ships for nautical adventures, I think the first step is to adapt them for space travel. The Sailing ship, Warship, and Galley can be adapted for space travel with the appropriate magical device. I'm not sure we couldn't use a type of Helm, but perhaps our version doesn't have to consume the spells of spell casters. It could simply be a magic item with a connection to the Ethereal Plane, such that it makes the sails and oars of the ship to which its attached imperveous to the currents of the border Ethereal plane while simultaneously existing on the material plane, the Hull too for that matter, that means creatures such as ghosts phantoms and such cannot pass through these surfaces, it also allows the ethereal currents to fill the sails of spacegoing ships and provides propulsion, inertial control, gravity, and life support for these ships as they travel between the planets. A space sailor on the deck of these ships would perceive no motion while the ship travels in space alone, when two ships come within tactical distance, both ships slow down to the listed maximum Speeds of the GM's Guide relative to each other, that is the two ships velocities average out to a frame of reference and each ship can move at its listed tactical speed within that frame of reference until both ships seperate beyond a maximum tactical distance. To the sailors manipulating the sails, it feels as if they are filled with wind, to the rowers pulling the oars, it feels as if the oars are dipped into a liquid with the similar resistance to water and the ship is magically propelled through space.
I think the term "Helm" is not copyrighted, we just have to give it characteristics different from the Spelljammer setting.
Quote: Yes there will be a method.... it's already in game... Interplanetary Teleport. I assume that they'll do something for ships, but it will have to be different than helms, and they can't use the term wildspace either. It'll be some sort of spacey thing but it won't be Spelljammer. Teleport is so boring, the point is to have encounters while traveling through space on the way to various destinations in space, a teleport spell just cuts across that distance, it is for higher level spellcasters who want to save time and avoid encounters on their journey. One normally can't teleport a whole ship, and when teleporting to an unfamiliar destination, one doesn't know what one is getting into.
Actually Zathura was a book before it was a movie, and it was written seperately, not as a sequel to Jumanji, but it happens to be the same idea except for a different setting, it is a different kind of space than the one our spaceships travel to, for instance their encounter with reptilian aliens "Lizardfolk" whose spaceships are fueled by furniture plundered from the house and other things that will burn in their furnace. What makes it fantasy is that and the means by which those children and their house end up in this space, a magic boardgame. "Zathura" might make a great name for the RPG if it were available, the boardgame being just another magical device that got them there.
LazarX wrote: greatamericanfolkhero wrote: dartnet wrote: I am thinking of doing a Spelljammer game for Pathfinder. An one else done anything with this? Why yes, yes I am. (those are the house rules for my upcoming game.)
Quite the hate for combat expertise I see. It was a request from several players that I happened to agree with. I've never seen it actually used in game. It's only been a feat you set on fire to get other, better feats.
greatamericanfolkhero wrote: LazarX wrote: greatamericanfolkhero wrote: dartnet wrote: I am thinking of doing a Spelljammer game for Pathfinder. An one else done anything with this? Why yes, yes I am. (those are the house rules for my upcoming game.)
Quite the hate for combat expertise I see. It was a request from several players that I happened to agree with. I've never seen it actually used in game. It's only been a feat you set on fire to get other, better feats. Pretty much my feeling on Weapon Finesse. I think it is built into finesse-able weapons already. Can you see a real life fencing tourney & somebody trying to hack with a rapier? I believe the proper training with such weapons make them Dex based anyway.
xorial wrote: greatamericanfolkhero wrote: LazarX wrote: greatamericanfolkhero wrote: dartnet wrote: I am thinking of doing a Spelljammer game for Pathfinder. An one else done anything with this? Why yes, yes I am. (those are the house rules for my upcoming game.)
Quite the hate for combat expertise I see. It was a request from several players that I happened to agree with. I've never seen it actually used in game. It's only been a feat you set on fire to get other, better feats. Pretty much my feeling on Weapon Finesse. I think it is built into finesse-able weapons already. Can you see a real life fencing tourney & somebody trying to hack with a rapier? I believe the proper training with such weapons make them Dex based anyway. So far as I've read, very little of it has to do with spelljamming rules, most of it has to do with individual characters. I do not see the justification for starting characters out at 2nd level for a spelljammer campaign nor for maxing out the hit points of their first two levels, these are individual DM decisions. I could easily start out a spelljamming campaign at 1st level with a party of 1st level characters investigating a dungeon located in an asteroid, it works the same as any other Pathfinder campaign until you get your characters on spelljamming ships. I don't see psionics as a necessity either, as a spelljammer campaign doesn't require them and can get by with just magic only.
R_Chance wrote: Paizo :) They have a supplement coming out on Golarian's system and travel therein. Announced at Gencon.
*edit* PF Campaign Setting supplement name: Distant Worlds, due February 2012.
Oh, really? I'd heard rumors, but I had no idea it was that imminent. (Wasn't at GenCon, dammit.)
LazarX wrote: Zathura wasn't a space movie... it was a knock off of Jumanji. So if two books by the same author have the same basic premise, a film based on one is a "knock-off" of the other? Okay, then.
Quote: And it wasn't space... it was a game world. Houses aren't usually that good in retaining heat and light in an interstellar vacuum. Yes, it was a game world. But the situation was quite "real," so to speak, and was created by the (magic) game.
So it was space. Raygun-gothic space fantasy, true, but space nonetheless.
Quote: Yes there will be a method.... it's already in game... Interplanetary Teleport. I assume that they'll do something for ships, but it will have to be different than helms, and they can't use the term wildspace either. It'll be some sort of spacey thing but it won't be Spelljammer. The word "helm" itself, as Tom_Kalbfus pointed out, probably isn't WotC IP and can probably be used—at least in the nautical sense. The exact mechanics of steering the vessel, however, would have to be different. As for words for "space," my guess is that "aether" and "void" are fair game.
I also agree with Tom in that just using teleport spells would feel like a bit of a cop-out. Aside from that, even interplanetary teleport has its limits: Your destination has to be at least relatively safe (i.e. somewhere you can breathe), and you have to at least be aware that it actually exists.
That said: Hopefully, it won't take any of the more ludicrous cues from Spelljammer—depowering clerics of certain deities once they're off their homeworld, for one. (Keep in mind that I quite liked Spelljammer. It just had some silly details to it.)
LazarX wrote: Tom_Kalbfus wrote: Spelljammer was fun. Now will Pathfinder adopt the whole nine yards, with 500,000 gp Helms, hammerships, and planar gravity fields for small objects?
Paizo can't touch ANY of it. WOTC IP again. Nothing of Spelljammer is open content. Dragonstar on the other hand..... I'd be interested to know the copyright status of Shadow of the Spider Moon, actually. The section on GolarionSpace in the Inner Sea World Guide bears more than a passing resemblence... ;)
Arevashti wrote:
That said: Hopefully, it won't take any of the more ludicrous cues from Spelljammer—depowering clerics of certain deities once they're off their homeworld, for one. (Keep in mind that I quite liked Spelljammer. It just had...
I think doing away with crystal spheres would be a good idea, using a teleport spell to teleport interstellar distances would be a good idea, this teleport spell would have certain conditions placed upon it however such that the ship to be teleported must exceed a certain distance from the local primary start before it can be teleported. The teleport affects the entire ship, everything on it, and its atmospheric envelope. Basically a substitute for a hyperdrive in classic science fiction.
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I love Spelljammer and have every TSR supplement. I actually like the idea of the crystal spheres and the phlogiston. Although, I wasn't too keen on clerics being cut off from their deities. I think we chucked that rule.
Using up a caster's magic spells for the day was harsh, so to keep that character relevant, (I was usually the DM) I allowed them to acquire an artificer type helm early on. So I would like to see that go or be redone.
I am looking forward to Distant Worlds.
theshoveller wrote: I'd be interested to know the copyright status of Shadow of the Spider Moon, actually. The section on GolarionSpace in the Inner Sea World Guide bears more than a passing resemblence... ;) Was that the Dragon Spelljammer revamp? Most of the material in Dragon is not open content, sadly.
Tom_Kalbfus wrote: I think doing away with crystal spheres would be a good idea, using a teleport spell to teleport interstellar distances would be a good idea, this teleport spell would have certain conditions placed upon it however such that the ship to be teleported must exceed a certain distance from the local primary start before it can be teleported. The teleport affects the entire ship, everything on it, and its atmospheric envelope. Basically a substitute for a hyperdrive in classic science fiction. Yeah, crystal spheres I could do without, even if they were open content.
As for the teleportation hyperdrive? Well, here's where I confess to having come up with a similar idea when I was thinking about how to do "raygun gothic" as unabashed magitek space fantasy rather than as (at least an an attempt at) standard soft s-f. So...I approve.
Arevashti wrote: R_Chance wrote: Paizo :) They have a supplement coming out on Golarian's system and travel therein. Announced at Gencon.
*edit* PF Campaign Setting supplement name: Distant Worlds, due February 2012.
Oh, really? I'd heard rumors, but I had no idea it was that imminent. (Wasn't at GenCon, dammit.)
LazarX wrote: Zathura wasn't a space movie... it was a knock off of Jumanji. So if two books by the same author have the same basic premise, a film based on one is a "knock-off" of the other? Okay, then.
Quote: And it wasn't space... it was a game world. Houses aren't usually that good in retaining heat and light in an interstellar vacuum. Yes, it was a game world. But the situation was quite "real," so to speak, and was created by the (magic) game.
So it was space. Raygun-gothic space fantasy, true, but space nonetheless.
Quote: Yes there will be a method.... it's already in game... Interplanetary Teleport. I assume that they'll do something for ships, but it will have to be different than helms, and they can't use the term wildspace either. It'll be some sort of spacey thing but it won't be Spelljammer. The word "helm" itself, as Tom_Kalbfus pointed out, probably isn't WotC IP and can probably be used—at least in the nautical sense. The exact mechanics of steering the vessel, however, would have to be different. As for words for "space," my guess is that "aether" and "void" are fair game.
I also agree with Tom in that just using teleport spells would feel like a bit of a cop-out. Aside from that, even interplanetary teleport has its limits: Your destination has to be at least relatively safe (i.e. somewhere you can breathe), and you have to at least be aware that it actually exists.
That said: Hopefully, it won't take any of the more ludicrous cues from Spelljammer—depowering clerics of certain deities once they're off their homeworld, for one. (Keep in mind that I quite liked Spelljammer. It just had... How about CypherGate CG-1? 4 adventurer's step through the CypherGate each week to explore strange new worlds...
Helm is definitely not trademarked, Aether space would be perfect, since hte Aether has a flow to it so you could use sailing vessels, you just ignore gravity with your airship, and low and behold, the Aether has oxygen in it as well!! Fantasy...
btw phlogiston is legal to use also, it's from greek myth. unfortunately, can't use neogi or illithid or beholdlers, but..there are plenty of other nasty creatures out there to inhabit the aether.
(Did anyone else ever correlate the Star Frontiers Races that popped up in Spelljammer?)
Xaaon of Korvosa wrote: Helm is definitely not trademarked, Aether space would be perfect, since hte Aether has a flow to it so you could use sailing vessels, you just ignore gravity with your airship, and low and behold, the Aether has oxygen in it as well!! Fantasy...
btw phlogiston is legal to use also, it's from greek myth.
Yeah, those precise terms are older than radio. But copyright is an odd beast and has resulted in many a frivolous lawsuit, some of which don't even have the good sense to fail.
Quote: (Did anyone else ever correlate the Star Frontiers Races that popped up in Spelljammer?) You mean how rastipedes and possibly xixchil = vrusk and hadozee = yazirians?
While we're on the subject of hadozee/yazirians: it has occurred to me that games need more playable races with patagia.
Creeping Death wrote: I love Spelljammer and have every TSR supplement. I actually like the idea of the crystal spheres and the phlogiston. Although, I wasn't too keen on clerics being cut off from their deities. I think we chucked that rule.
Using up a caster's magic spells for the day was harsh, so to keep that character relevant, (I was usually the DM) I allowed them to acquire an artificer type helm early on. So I would like to see that go or be redone.
I am looking forward to Distant Worlds.
I wasn't too keen on the handling of clerics either. I get into this argument all the time on Spelljammer conversion boards on Facebook & The Piazza. Too many old school gamers want to convert the setting, but want to keep ALL of the 2e rules that were superseded in 3e/PF. I think a more appropriate way to handle clerics, in a 3e/PF game, is to require a caster level check with a DC determined by how far out of step the cleric is to the local pantheon.
xorial wrote: Creeping Death wrote: I love Spelljammer and have every TSR supplement. I actually like the idea of the crystal spheres and the phlogiston. Although, I wasn't too keen on clerics being cut off from their deities. I think we chucked that rule.
Using up a caster's magic spells for the day was harsh, so to keep that character relevant, (I was usually the DM) I allowed them to acquire an artificer type helm early on. So I would like to see that go or be redone.
I am looking forward to Distant Worlds.
I wasn't too keen on the handling of clerics either. I get into this argument all the time on Spelljammer conversion boards on Facebook & The Piazza. Too many old school gamers want to convert the setting, but want to keep ALL of the 2e rules that were superseded in 3e/PF. I think a more appropriate way to handle clerics, in a 3e/PF game, is to require a caster level check with a DC determined by how far out of step the cleric is to the local pantheon. I like the DC check for clerics to regain/use spells. Having it offset by how fancy/elaborate their personal worship area/shrine is on their ship. This would give a good reason for clerics to build on on their ship. I suppose in an area where the people tend to travel via spelljammer more often, the gods could be in more than one sphere or certain gods would have a "foreign exchange system"; The god of war for sphere x will help/grant spells for visiting clerics of the god of war from sphere y and such, thus reducing or eliminating the DC.
I was working on converting Savage Tide to Spelljammer, not that long ago.
Arevashti wrote: theshoveller wrote: I'd be interested to know the copyright status of Shadow of the Spider Moon, actually. The section on GolarionSpace in the Inner Sea World Guide bears more than a passing resemblence... ;) Was that the Dragon Spelljammer revamp? Most of the material in Dragon is not open content, sadly.
Tom_Kalbfus wrote: I think doing away with crystal spheres would be a good idea, using a teleport spell to teleport interstellar distances would be a good idea, this teleport spell would have certain conditions placed upon it however such that the ship to be teleported must exceed a certain distance from the local primary start before it can be teleported. The teleport affects the entire ship, everything on it, and its atmospheric envelope. Basically a substitute for a hyperdrive in classic science fiction. Yeah, crystal spheres I could do without, even if they were open content.
As for the teleportation hyperdrive? Well, here's where I confess to having come up with a similar idea when I was thinking about how to do "raygun gothic" as unabashed magitek space fantasy rather than as (at least an an attempt at) standard soft s-f. So...I approve. The main reason I don't like Crystal Spheres, is because that makes the stars one sees in the night sky have nothing to do with the stars that are actually out there. I prefer "what you see is what you get" a crystal sphere produces a fake night sky, the stars are nothing but lights or decorations placed on the inside of each crystal sphere by the gods for all mortals to see, and I'd much rather the stars be something more than that such as distant suns for instance. As for astrophysics, I'd like the standard rules to apply, as far as stars and planet formation is concerned. Stars should come in different colors from red dwarfs (type M), orange(type K), yellow (type G), white (type F), Blue-white (Type A), Light blue (Type B), and blue (type O), I'd like there to be red giants, red supergiants, other sorts of giants, white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes, all following the laws of physics as far as they are concerned. The departure occurs where characters are concerned. Asteroids have 1-g fields and their own atmospheric envelopes just like ships. 1-g is the smallest gravity for the small objects, planets can have 1-g and greater. Large objects g-fields and atmospheres overule those of smaller objects. So a ship that enters the atmosphere/gravity field of an asteroid loses its own seperate gravity and defers to that of the larger asteroid. (that is if the ship turns upsidedown in relation to that gravity field, anything that's not tied down falls out.
Small non-round objects have planar gravity fields, that is up to the edge of the atmosphere objects fall to the gravity plane where the direction of down reverses itself and then fall back up through that gravity plane bobbing up and down until air resistance causes it to settle half above and half below the gravity field. (Assuming of course there are no objects in that gravity field to hit.)
Larger round objects have round gravity fields similar to a planet, in this case the gravity field diminishes according to the inverse square law of Isaac Newton, where the planar gravity fields extend only to the edge of the atmospheric envelope and suddenly cut off to zero in the vacuum.
The universe follows the laws of our universe except where magic has altered them, is the basic principle I'm working from.
A Steampunk based SpellJammer would be interesting as well.
Some mad Alchemist figured out how to infuse gravity into the airship itself, so the ship themselves generate their own gravitational fields. It could be a Lode Keel, built from solid lodestone.
As a byproduct it also maintains it's own atmosphere due to the magnetic lines of flux it creates. Incorporate a Bottle of Air into the design for fresh air and voila.
Or it can easily be done with magic item design. They would effectively be near artifacts, owned only by the most powerful on a planet for space faring ships.
I did my own SJ 3.5 setup a few years back. It used modified 2e rules for ship movement, and even had some prestige classes revamped from the Shadow of the Spider Moon article.
Like 2e, spellcasters lost their spells, but there were ways to not lose them all. Really, ship mobility was only important in ship-to-ship combat. Otherwise, a 1st level adept could fly as fast and as well as a 20th level wizard. In the game, NPC crewmembers were often multiclassed adept/expert/warriors, so one guy losing his spells was no biggie. In 2e (or now), a wizard would be basically helpless without his spells, while a cleric or bard could still at least fight fairly well, if nothing else. Full casters didn't want to lose their spells to fly the ships.
I decided crystal spheres were there, but transparent and easy to traverse. You saw a real universe, not a "painted on" version. That always bugged me. The sphere was just the boundary at which you entered the phlogiston, and the physics of space travel changed between spheres. The hex grids (1.5", not 1"; better scale to the paper ships) worked as well in 6 second rounds as they did in 60 second rounds. You'd get 2 ships next to each other, then space them 10 hexes apart, reducing the scale to 3X speed/round. Worked great.
Gravity on the ship was handled by the helm, so there was a real "down," though ship gravity could be affected by planet gravity (like in Firefly).
I loved the concept of SJ, even if the execution wasn't all it could have been. I hope Paizo does come up with some rules for space ship travel, and some imaginative ships for us to use and fantasize about. I really liked all the fanciful ships in the War Captain's Companion, though I thought a lot of the published adventures were just awful, and made my own for the setting.
I got a lot of good info HERE.
Give me planets and magical ships to take there! I'm ready!
Professor Xane Rourke wrote: A Steampunk based SpellJammer would be interesting as well.
Some mad Alchemist figured out how to infuse gravity into the airship itself, so the ship themselves generate their own gravitational fields. It could be a Lode Keel, built from solid lodestone.
As a byproduct it also maintains it's own atmosphere due to the magnetic lines of flux it creates. Incorporate a Bottle of Air into the design for fresh air and voila.
Or it can easily be done with magic item design. They would effectively be near artifacts, owned only by the most powerful on a planet for space faring ships.
The was an RPG produced by GDW called "Space 1889" that occured in the age of steam, spaceships were invented by Thomas Edison with his "Either Impeller", there was no method for producing gravity, and the only planets of interest were Venus, Earth and Mars. But I guess that's not what you'd call "steampunk" is it. It was more of a Wellsian, Jules Verneian setting.
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Tom_Kalbfus wrote: The main reason I don't like Crystal Spheres, is because that makes the stars one sees in the night sky have nothing to do with the stars that are actually out there. I prefer "what you see is what you get" a crystal sphere produces a fake night sky, the stars are nothing but lights or decorations placed on the inside of each crystal sphere by the gods for all mortals to see, and I'd much rather the stars be something more than that such as distant suns for instance There actually is an advantage to the Crystal sphere model for stars. In Krynn many of the more important events in history are marked by changes in the constellations. (Such as the disappearance of them when Raistlin goes on a slaughterfest on the gods of Krynn)
Benicio Del Espada wrote: I did my own SJ 3.5 setup a few years back. It used modified 2e rules for ship movement, and even had some prestige classes revamped from the Shadow of the Spider Moon article.
Like 2e, spellcasters lost their spells, but there were ways to not lose them all. Really, ship mobility was only important in ship-to-ship combat. Otherwise, a 1st level adept could fly as fast and as well as a 20th level wizard. In the game, NPC crewmembers were often multiclassed adept/expert/warriors, so one guy losing his spells was no biggie. In 2e (or now), a wizard would be basically helpless without his spells, while a cleric or bard could still at least fight fairly well, if nothing else. Full casters didn't want to lose their spells to fly the ships.
I decided crystal spheres were there, but transparent and easy to traverse. You saw a real universe, not a "painted on" version. That always bugged me. The sphere was just the boundary at which you entered the phlogiston, and the physics of space travel changed between spheres. The hex grids (1.5", not 1"; better scale to the paper ships) worked as well in 6 second rounds as they did in 60 second rounds. You'd get 2 ships next to each other, then space them 10 hexes apart, reducing the scale to 3X speed/round. Worked great.
The whole crystal spheres in phlogiston thing seemed rather arbitrary to me I could not find a justification for it. And if giant Dyson Sphere like things are floating in a sea of explosive phlogiston, then how can one tell if one comes out of the sphere at the "waterline" or not? Also these spheres are so unbelievably huge, it makes it kind of hard to suspend one's disbelief, they are basically huge artifacts of the gods. If I had my druthers I'd dispense with them altogether. I like one whole fantasy universe under a consistent set of laws however fantastic and magical they may be. Space is essentially a vacuum like our own universe, only magic makes it possible to have sailing ships in space. Also in the Spelljammer rules, the spellcaster has too much to do with the ship's performance in space, I'd rather the ship just be a magic item and have the crew of the ship factor into the speed and maneuverability of the starship. A flying carpet works after all, a wizard would enchant the ship just as one would a magic item, and cast a permancy spell on it, and after that it is all up to the crew (sailors and rowers) to manuever the ship through space. The velocity a ship travels is space is proportional to how fast a naughtical equivalent to that same ship would travel on a planet's oceans, but much faster in space of course except during tactical encounters. (When two or more ships close within a certain distance of each other.)
Quote: Gravity on the ship was handled by the helm, so there was a real "down," though ship gravity could be affected by planet gravity (like in Firefly).
I loved the concept of SJ, even if the execution wasn't all it could have been. I hope Paizo does come up with some rules for space ship travel, and some imaginative ships for us to use and fantasize about. I really liked all the fanciful ships in the War Captain's Companion, though I thought a lot of the published adventures were just awful, and made my own for the setting.
I got a lot of good info HERE.
Give me planets and magical ships to take there! I'm ready!
I never liked the Spheres myself so I came up with an alternate way back in 2E.
I had ships traveling and moving in normal space within the area that the crystal sphere encompassed. To leave the current system the ship had to travel to the edge to the system where the sphere would have been. There they activated their helm and entered the phlogiston. Once in the Phlo you traveled to the next system where you exited the flow at the edge of the system where the sphere would have been. It turned the Phlo into a fantasy hyperspace. You still had to navigate the flow and you may have to travel through multiple spheres to get to your destination.
I never used the limitations on clerics. It never made sense. You call and your god answers, period.
I also did away with the loos your spells part of the helms.
I loved everything else about the setting; especially the Rock of Bral.
SM
StarMartyr's description is a lot like mine. The sphere was the point at which you could go into hyperspace or warpdrive, or whatever. Within it, you went 100 million miles/day. In the phlo, speeds were unmeasureable.
Just a note.
Helm is definetly not copyright.
Hence.
"Take the Helm Number one!"
sigh...I just hope Pathfinder does their take on it, everythign they have touched turns to gold, and i am much happier with their work and thought then much of the old TSR. they make so so things, better.
DragonBelow wrote:
I tried to get a PBP game going but it didn't gain enough steam.
my next game will be... in space!
If it's another PBP, count me interested.
Tom_Kalbfus wrote: The main reason I don't like Crystal Spheres, is because that makes the stars one sees in the night sky have nothing to do with the stars that are actually out there. It just seemed overly cheesy and simplistic to me. (Back when the original Spelljammer was a going concern, I had some vague idea—akin to StarMartyr's but not nearly as coherent—as to how I would do it.)
Nos wrote: Just a note.
Helm is definetly not copyright.
Hence.
"Take the Helm Number one!"
Of course not. It's a well-established nautical term.
I've still seen some fairly silly lawsuits over word usage. (Thinking of a company that rhymes with this.)
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
StarMartyr365 wrote:
I never used the limitations on clerics. It never made sense. You call and your god answers, period.
I would have problems with a cleric of Mystra getting his prayers answered on Krynn. (aside from the fact that she's divine corpus delecti) If you go to a plane where your deity has no worshippers, in my book you're stuck with whatever spells you have left until you either establish a base of worshippers or convert to a native diety. Druids have it easy, as long as they're on a world. There's precious little nature in wildspace and none in the phlogiston.
Dark Dungeons had a chapter on cosmology, and it's very influenced by Spelljammer, while leaving out some of the more ridiculous concepts. Since you can download it for free, I'd advise anyone interested in this subject to take a look.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Kthulhu wrote: Dark Dungeons had a chapter on cosmology, and it's very influenced by Spelljammer, while leaving out some of the more ridiculous concepts. Since you can download it for free, I'd advise anyone interested in this subject to take a look. Wasn't that the name of one of Chick's little black pamphlets?
It was. And in fact, the bits of flavor text and gameplay examples that are peppered throughout the book use the same characters, such as Black Leaf, etc. Kind of a thumb in Jack Chick's eye.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Kthulhu wrote: It was. And in fact, the bits of flavor text and gameplay examples that are peppered throughout the book use the same characters, such as Black Leaf, etc. Kind of a thumb in Jack Chick's eye. They should be advised that since the pamphlets are copyrighted, he might have grounds for legal action, if it drifts into his crazy radar.
Tom_Kalbfus wrote: Professor Xane Rourke wrote: snip The was an RPG produced by GDW called "Space 1889" that occured in the age of steam, spaceships were invented by Thomas Edison with his "Either Impeller", there was no method for producing gravity, and the only planets of interest were Venus, Earth and Mars. But I guess that's not what you'd call "steampunk" is it. It was more of a Wellsian, Jules Verneian setting. True, I would definitely consider Space 1889 to be steampunk, I actually picked up the Space 1889 Savage Worlds book recently as well.
LazarX wrote: They should be advised that since the pamphlets are copyrighted, he might have grounds for legal action, if it drifts into his crazy radar. He'd lose. While fair use is a tricky little beast, parody is unequivocally covered.
Which isn't to say that he couldn't raise quite a bit of a stink in the meanwhile.
StarMartyr365 wrote: I never liked the Spheres myself so I came up with an alternate way back in 2E.
I had ships traveling and moving in normal space within the area that the crystal sphere encompassed. To leave the current system the ship had to travel to the edge to the system where the sphere would have been. There they activated their helm and entered the phlogiston. Once in the Phlo you traveled to the next system where you exited the flow at the edge of the system where the sphere would have been. It turned the Phlo into a fantasy hyperspace. You still had to navigate the flow and you may have to travel through multiple spheres to get to your destination.
I never used the limitations on clerics. It never made sense. You call and your god answers, period.
I also did away with the loos your spells part of the helms.
I loved everything else about the setting; especially the Rock of Bral.
SM
Here's a concept why invent something like Phlogiston in the first place, doesn't Pathfinder already have an ethereal plane? There are two types of ethereal, border ethereal and deep ethereal. Now lets say the border ethereal is the realm of ghosts and other insubstantial creatures, it is coterminous with the prime material plane. The other ethereal is the deep ethereal plane.
Now according to some old and discredited theories of physics, light waves were said to propigate through a medium called the ether, in much the same way that water waves propigate through water and sound waves propigate through air. So what if the border ethereal was not only the realm of ghosts but also the realm through which light waves propigated through, which would also explain why you could see ghosts but not touch them.
Now we know that the center of a solar system is the Sun, and as one moves further and further away from the Sun, the light waves spread out. At a certain distance, lets say 100 Astronomical Units the light waves spread out so much that they can push back against the deep ethereal no more and the Sun forms a bubble of vacuum 100 AU in radius, if a ship moves past that, they end up in the deep ethereal and would follow the rules for travel in that realm until it encounters another vacuum bubble created by another star. Starlight passes through the deep ethereal plane, and stars are visible in that plane, but movement at tremendous speeds becomes much easier within the deep ethereal plane than within a vacuum bubble otherwise known as a Prime material plane.
One can thus also sail one's spaceship to the outer planes as well, so if one is not careful they may find themselves entering one of the nine hells or the Abyss. I think the elemental planes of Earth, fire, water, and air are also accessible via the ethereal plane. Now a planeshift spell can get one there, but so too could a spaceship traveling beyond the maximum radius of the local prime material plane vacuum bubble.
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Tom_Kalbfus wrote: The whole crystal spheres in phlogiston thing seemed rather arbitrary to me I could not find a justification for it. And if giant Dyson Sphere like things are floating in a sea of explosive phlogiston, then how can one tell if one comes out of the sphere at the "waterline" or not? There's no "waterline" in the phlogiston. The phlogiston is not a liquid where the crystal spheres are floating, it's more of a space/gas thing.
I, for one, liked crystal spheres, especially given Spelljammer's design constraints (which was that the previous settings, especially Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, and Greyhawk all were part of it). As someone else pointed out, the constellations changing have been an important part of Krynn's history - and it's hard to justify a setting where you can travel from Krynn to Toril but changes in Krynn's constellations don't affect Toril's.
In addition, they mesh very well with folklore and mythology. People have believed all sorts of crazy things about the sky and its construction, but the whole "infinite universe where the stars are actually just different and very distant suns" thing didn't show up until the 16th century. And let's not even get into the whole "world on the back of a turtle" idea, which is explicitly supported by Spelljammer, as is something along the lines of Yggdrasil (one Spelljammer adventure even had a crystal sphere where the planets basically hung off branches of a celestial tree).
Greek mythology also had many instances of things being turned into constellations in the heavens, to honor them. That kind of thing works poorly when the stars are just big fusion reactors dozens or hundreds of lightyears away.
IMO, the main problem with Spelljammer was that they focused on the wrong thing. They spent a lot of page count in the core manuals on how to turn your regular campaign into a Spelljammer campaign, and on the makeup of Greyspace, Realmspace, and Krynnspace and traveling between them (I recall that there was something weird going on there, where the connection between two of the three being one-way due to phlogiston currents or somesuch). Spelljammer would probably have been more well-received had they focused on making it its own thing rather than an inferior way of traveling from one world to another (Plane Shift or, at that time, Teleport Without Error working vastly better). Something like the Astromundi Cluster (a box set describing a single crystal sphere with only a few actual planets and tons of asteroids, as a result of various cataclysms) should have been the first supplement for Spelljammer, not the last.
LazarX wrote: They should be advised that since the pamphlets are copyrighted, he might have grounds for legal action, if it drifts into his crazy radar. Arevashti wrote: He'd lose. While fair use is a tricky little beast, parody is unequivocally covered.
Which isn't to say that he couldn't raise quite a bit of a stink in the meanwhile.
The last time I looked at the Dark Dungeons RPG, it had no authors listed, and everything that wasn't OGL was released into the public domain. It might be hard to even find someone to sue.
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