I am still playtesting aspects of the new rules for SJ, and I learned a bit in the first big ship combat.

First, the rules recommend spells and personal weapons over siege weapons.

I'm not entirely sure I agree, at least when it comes to weapons. Melee weapons are for boarding, and you don't want to board alone (Derrin did that, sort of, and look what happened), so they must mean ranged weapons. The only such with an range are arrows and bolts. They won't overcome Thresholds, and won't really do much to weapons, so they are for anti personnel, and the guard rails add to AC.

Spells, on the other hand, if they have a range and do over 15 points regularly could be effective against hulls. If damage is lower, just against siege weapons. Until 11th level, the siege weapons do more damage than a cantrip. They may not hit as easily, however, and they take 3 or 5 people.

Spells are also limited in number (so are siege weapons, by ammo count, of course). However, the right spell with a decent range can do quite a bit. Astron used fireball twice. Each time he hit a cluster of siege weapons (check opponent deck plans on line, if you like. I won't be posting them), the weapon crews, and the ship's hull.  Only the crews received saves, because Space ship stats (and the DMG) fail to give object saves (unless it's a groundling ship, then I have save info from Saltmarsh).

Gaining levels will give more spell slots and higher level spells, but you'd need a new ship and more crew for more weapons.

Also, about half the crew is just watching during ship combat with siege weapons. That's a problem.

My advice, going forward: Put all your non spell casters on one weapon, let the spell casters cast away until they are out of spell slots (or are unwilling to use any more spell slots), then they can man the other weapon. If a weapon is undermanned, it can still fire, just more slowly.

But you're going to need to work that out before hand.

All of this is to say: We can streamline ship-to-ship a bit, and get more PCs involved, but it's a joint DM/PC effort. And that means mostly PC.

Also please note: on reading the fine print, I noticed Repeating Shot (and most weapon grade Artificer Infusions) to be limited to simple and martial weapons. Siege Weapons are neither, which is best illustrated by their fixed attack value. The free ballista ammo and Loading Action with an Artificer will no longer be in effect, going forward, should you acquire another Artificer PC.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:40, Wed 24 Jan.

Using the Nightspider as an example we have an AC of 19 and 300 hits.
Ballistas and Mangonels have an AC of 15 and 50 or 100 hits, with no Threshold, so they make better targets.

Note that wooden ships are closer to AC 15.

Ballista and Mangonels have their own Attack adds, (+5 or +6). This means you can hit an AC of 19 about 1 time in 3. At an average Ballista damage of 16, you'll need nearly 20 hits, or 60 rounds of ammo to disable a Nightspider. But wait, there's more (or less). Hulls have Thresholds of 15, so nearly half your hits won't count. That puts it up to 40 hits or 120 rounds of ammo to disable a Nightspider.

Some ships more hits, some less. Some are wood hulled, some are stone hulled, a Nightspider is metal hulled. Hull material determines AC.

Ballista bolts cost 5 gp, and (assuming a weight between Javelin and Spear) weigh 2.5 pounds each. 100 ballista bolts cost 500 gp and takes up 250 pounds of cargo. And it doesn't do much good in cargo, so you need 1 or 2 more crew digging it out during combat. This is why 10 rounds at each weapon is standard: Space in important on a ship in space, and so is combat access.

So... ammo has become treasure.

I have probably already gone through your character sheets and added ranges to your spells for a quick reference. If not, I'm working on it.

Remember that you have to actually be able to see your target. This is automatic for Hull or Siege Weapons, but anything Small behind a guardrail will be too well covered to target.

While I won't tell you how effective a spell is before you actually use it, AOE spells will damage the target, the hull if it's not the target, and the nearby crew. What that means will vary by spell. Single target spells will only effect the target (probably), but might have side effects.

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The spells you've used so far:
Fireball: It hit the targeted weapon, the weapon crew, and the hull under the weapon. It also hit adjacent weapons and their crews, but that was as much a factor of the Nightspider deck plan as anything, and you can't count on it for any random ship. It also started fires everywhere. Of course, a  good crew just loses a round putting them out, but that's still a round with fewer incoming attacks.

Fire bolt: It hit it's target when the roll was right, and it had the potential to start small fires that could delay firing a round.

Fly: It let someone board another ship alone. In the case of Neogi this turns out to be a mistake. They charm folks. And it's a nasty and effective charm.

Boarding from the Wyrmling when it's Rammed something requires a front guard rail only access. The front guard rail is 20' above the gravity plane, but the ram seems (from the map) to be well braced, aslope all the way up to the forecastle deck. So, no falling damage jumping over the rail.

The ram seems to be 30' long, and part of it will be inside the other ship, but getting through whatever room is there in the hull will be single file. It will be 15' of move to the hole, roughly, plus half move to get through the hole. Which works out to 30' of move.

If you have more, great, but if you have less, it will require a Dash action to get through the hole in one round. Or you can wait a round.

Mostly this shouldn't matter much for this crew.

All this presupposes you were at the guard rail of the Fore castle. There is room for 4 of you currently, but once the figurehead is in place, only 2 of you. The rest will have at least another 15' to move, possibly more. for you it will take at least 2 rounds to get through.

Again, this is with no open decks. That is a rare circumstance (You're hunting Far Realm types, so Rare isn't always going to be Rare). Nightspiders have their dome, and Tyrant ships are, well, built for beholders, so they're different. The rest should be an easy automatic jump from anywhere on yoru chosen docking side (port or starboard) to the other ship.