Why Spelljammer Sucks | Game Changer Highlights #dnd

A short extract from the latest episode of Game Changer, where we looked at how to make Spelljammer's ship-to-ship combat more fun!
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#dnd #dungeonsanddragons
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[armorclasshero]

This is why the point of ship combat in the pre-cannon era was to board enemy vessels. No one in their right mind did anything else in Greek and Roman times.

[YourLottery]

The thing the WoTC D&D design team needs most is a mathematician. So many bad design decisions could have been nipped in the bud by doing some relatively easy math.

[Dunklesteus]

21 rounds of combat is what, 2 minutes? For a ship with only 3 weapons, that sounds impressive tbh.

[fadeleaf]

That moment when it's more viable for the Fighter to just shoot the ship with a longbow than relying on the armaments on board

[Zyvo]

This is the first D&D book I skimmed through and actually read like 50% of it. I agree, ship to ship combat is terribly long, but you dont want the ship blowing up after 5 rounds of combat. Also, I feel like the Gallion is just artificial terrain that moves, they arn't really meant to be another enemy, the players simply use this artificial terrain, and it's gravity mechanics, to fight the other in a much less straightforward approach than fire at it with magic until it explodes.

[Aether_Veilborne]

Sounds like there should have been a Siege Weapon Feat created at some point.

Something along the lines of:

¤ You add 1/2 your proficiency bonus to attack and damage rolls of Siege Weapons.

¤ When you take an Action to Load, Aim, or Fire a Siege Weapon, you can perform another one of those action as part of that action.

¤ You deal twice as much damage against objects when attacking with a Siege Weapon.

[maniacmagge]

i ended up just putting a homebrew twist to nearly the whole book. Made it so you targeting specific sections did more dmg or debilitated movement or dmg output, made special ammo so you can do it faster, added the equivilent to star fighters for faster movement and dpr, as well and lastly made items and roles so that its not just PCs rolling their singular weapon but rather teleportation to jump onto and board ships faster or longrange staff cannons to allow spellcasters to attack at longer range.

[AxCrowned]

I loved this episode and the idea you implemented. Perfect for my idea of a world where space is just water, and the planets are close enough to sail to easily

[davidgreen]

It says in the book that once you get in range of personal weapons, it's better to use those than ship weapons. My players just try to get close enough to teleport on board

[saccherrirhysha]

What do we do Capt?
Wizard?
Fireball. Sure. Why not.
Sorcerer?
Metamajic fireball into a big dirty snowball. Sure, why not.

[boxofmadness]

well, this makes the players think of other alternatives, first, usually dnd groups are of 6 players, 6 people manning a ship isnt a lot, you usually needed between 30 people per mast that the ship had, so give your players some crew then make one player be the captain or make the ship belong to an npc and make them the captain, the captain can use its bonus action to command the crew to fire, which leaves the players free to do as they please, they wanna shoot the balistas? sure, let them, maybe they could gain special actions while using the ship weapons, like taking riskier shots but that deal more damage, or use special ammunition, let the players be able to board enemy ships, maybe you dont use ballistas to destroy the enemy ships but instead shoot harpoons with cables and the objective is to land enough harpoons so you can drag the enemy ship and board them

[michaelhathorus]

Which is why Ballista, historically, were anti-personnel, not anti-ship. Also, yes, the rules for siege engines generally suck in D&D 5e. Increase the range by 100 ft, add 1d extra damage and hey-presto, fixed. Want to make it MORE accurate, have siege weapons do double damage against Large or Smaller creatures and you get the party taking cover from the enemy fire.

[AGenericFool]

I love spelljammer as a setting so much so just homebrew that shit outta here

[jackbarman]

The book literally says that it is almost always more efficient/effective for a character to use their magic or personal weapons that use the weaponry on board the ship (let the crew do that). Also if you want powerful ship weapons, look at a giff ship, they have a giant cannon with a ship built around it.

[SpookyFraiser]

One way to help combat this is using the combat variant rule it suggests: where everyone on one side takes their respective turns before the other group does. This speeds it up slightly vs going player by player by npc by npc. I like the setting and books (obviously stuff id love to change) but I imagine like most experiences its a case by case issue

[AnnoyingNewslettersPage]

Sharpshooter plus the Feast of Legends Order of the Baked Potato ability to grant themself and all allies within 20ft advantage on attacks for the next two rounds seriously improved shipboard weapons.

Although, in retrospect, we entirely missed the damage threshold entries in our rush to save the world and eventually the galaxy in the Light of Xarysis. However, since it applied both directions, to their ships and ours, it was still fair and/or balanced™️©️®️

[mr.bigglesworth]

I think this is perfect for a DM
If combat is too long.... The DM cam adjust.
If there's no way to board another
The DM can get creative.
I've DM'd one time and only for a one shot but even I'm like "why can't you improvise as you go.... Just like DM's already do"

[Jaedeok]

"But you're supposed to get close and board instead of fighting ship to ship. The book says so!" If you take the embarrassingly slow speed of an average ship (40 feet), it takes 8 rounds to close distance at the shortest range, 16 rounds at medium range, and 32 rounds at long range to even close the gap to board. If the other ship is trying to avoid you, you'll never catch them unless you have a faster ship like a shrike. And I'm not even going to calculate how long it takes to get free of an average sized planet's air envelope because I promise you it's silly.

[domcyber]

126 seconds, thats how long this encounter would be. 2 minutes is an insane and impossiblely long time to completely destroy a space galley?

[zth]

I HAVE QUESTIONS:
1. This is space, should disadvantage even apply?
2. What about crits?
3. Back to 1, what about changing distances?