I have another "game" built with assorted rules fixes and that might be considered house rules covering the current (5e) edition of Spelljammer. there were some inconsistencies and odd issues in the published books. It can be found at: link to another game

Blue highlights and quotation marks both for speech.

Orange highlights for OOC

All shades of Red and Green for the DM

Italics, Blue highlights, and quotation marks for public telepathy (Thri-Keen, mostly).

Private Lines for other telepathy. If the folks reading it aren't supposed to see it, don't make it public, please. Treat it as an alternate language called "private line".

Keep your personalization of magic effects within Tasha's guidelines: No added powers, no duplication of other spells. This, in particular, means no glowing unless it's mentioned in the spell description. Access to light, in particular, is likely to be a challenge in this game on occasion.

Do not send unsolicited skill rolls, please.

Not only might you not actually be able to attempt what you think you can, sometimes, but it might not be the right skill. Also, I don't want you to let the die result color the RP result I give you. And, sometimes, the Passive roll is the proper choice, in which case, there's nothing to roll for.

I will call for rolls when appropriate, and I will have you make as many rolls as possible. Certainly all attacks, damage, and save rolls. Any physical activity with immediate obvious results.

However, Knowledge rolls will often be made by me. Perception rolls, too. After all, if you roll a 20 and I tell you you see nothing, you'll act differently than if I just tell you that you see nothing, and do the roll blind. Why? Your character wouldn't know the difference, so why act as if it does?

Also, it's a bit quicker sometimes, and I use a lot of passive knowledge rolls for anyone with actual training in a skill or tool. Untrained (including Bards using Jack of All Trades) do not get passive rolls.

And, finally, I use language groups for passing along common knowledge from skill/tool training. This includes ship board functions for those that have Vehicles(Space) and those with training in Medicine to diagnose relative damage. Amongst other things.

IC is closed to posting during combat. I'll take our individual posts and string together the round, then post it.

All combat posts should be made on your private threads, along with any questions. <red>I prefer a 24 hour turn around for combat<red>. If you miss the round I'll ahve you take the Dodge Action.

Post your initiative for the first round, and all intentions and actions (including hit and damage rolls) for every round. Please don't assume a miss. Their may be other factors you don't know about, including Advantage form something someone else has done.

And please, copy and paste all die rolls to your thread with your move.

Please remember to post Reactions (any and all you're wanting to use) as well. If you have and post both of Absorb Elements and Shield, for instance, I'll use whatever is triggered first. I know at least a few of you have more than one, between spells and class abilities. After the next round is started is a bit late, and can change the whole end of round wrap up everyone else is already responding to, so please, plan ahead.

I'll process turns in initiative order. usually not much changes, other than which target you aim at, really. Sometimes, however, it does in which case I'll stop and let those who haven't gone yet react, but that will be extremely rare. Remember, rounds are only 6 seconds and things are moving quickly. And some of those 6 seconds are already gone by the time you can react.

You may not make plans OOC between rounds, as there isn't time (IC) and it's really metagaming, but you may make plans IC during combat. Simply post your speech and I'll repost it. Of course, this means both sides are hearing it, as well. There are ways around that (this is a psi adjacent campaign, after all), and you folks have some of them, but they can be cumbersome and they are still happening during combat.

Also, please include an unmodified D20 roll for emergencies. things like quick saving throws, Advantage or Disadvantage being imposed (or that you knew about but forgot to act on) and that sort of thing. It helps speed things up quite a bit when such comes up. I'll roll such as needed as well, to speed things up, as some folks can only check in once or twice a day.

Roll damage separately by type.

Basically this means that if a weapon does some sort of elemental damage as well as it's base damage, roll the two types of damage separately.

This makes it easier to figure out reductions and bonuses due to resistance or vulnerability.

In addition, even if the damage types are different, their reasons might be, and shou be rolled separately, as well. Hunter's mark damage, for instance, should be rolled separately from weapon damage. It probably won't matter as often, but it will matter on occasion.

This will make such damage results easier to apply correctly. Or not at all, if, for some reason, they don't apply when the player thinks they do.

And back to General information:

As a general rule of thumb I treat the ranks of bodies in front of you as cover.
1 Rank  is half cover, +2 AC and Dex Saves
2 Ranks is 3/4 cover, +5 AC and Dex Saves
3 Ranks is total cover. Very hard to hit with direct fire and even some indirect fire.

Size of the target can affect this, of course, as can other factors. Really tall targets are easier to hit, really short ranks give less cover, etc. Such modifications are subjective and can't really be given hard and fast rules for.

This is becoming a House Rules thread...

In any event, the rules say that you can recover half your ammunition by taking a minute to search the battlefield. This presupposes the battlefield is actually searchable.

When firing ship to ship (sea or space) this generally isn't the case. Sometimes not even when targeting something on the same ship, if you miss.

So, instead, I assume most misses either go off into the distance, lost forever, or shatter (deform in the case of a sling or firearm bullet) on a wall or other hard surface that interrupts their flight.

Hits, on the other hand, may have a chance to be recovered if the body isn't lost. A DC 10 Survival roll is usually enough to cut a piece of ammo free of the body it's in. Circumstances may raise this number, of course. And a dagger or appropriate tools will be necessary. Training in both Leatherworking tools and Survival will give Advantage on the roll.

Ok, this game has telepathy, which is new(ish) for me to DM.

Please do all broadcast telepathy in PL so that people that don't know it's happening don't know it's happening.

When the target is an NPC (including familiars, Defenders, and others attached to PCs, but not the actual PC him or her self), send to me, please.

When you're mind reading, send that to me in a PL (or your private thread), and I'll do whatever is necessary to get the info if the target is a PC, and send it along to you. (If it's an NPC, same procedure, but a faster response time.)

Thri-keen I'll deal with as needed. They can be a bit of a pain, but it's a useful pain if they're pulling helm duty.

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And let's put mental communication in italics, just to underscore the difference between it and speech.

Remember, all telepathy is sent through me (in a Private Line) to juggle the various and quite different rules you each use.

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Addendum:

Using a familiar's sense would work with telepathy much like using the Helm to shift viewpoint: if you're in range (determined by actual body placement) it should work.

Note that using a familiar's senses is concentration. So is using a Helm. It's one or the other, not both.
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:56, Fri 15 Dec 2023.

During an encounter the current worker watchstander will likely be running around below banging on doors. This presupposes he knows there is an issue, which means if he's on the main deck when it happens (50%/50% chance).

Helmsman will always know, unless he's caught by surprise (rare, but not impossible, especially in an asteroid cluster or belt). If it's one of the telepaths, then he can warn the more mobile watchstander, if needed.

Off watch will be below or above, also 50%/50%. Cabins and food are below, but above has the view. The Helmsman, if a telepath, can also warn these 2 or 3, but he may have to pick who to warn first, which means time switching viewpoints and all that. I'd check the main deck, tell whoever is there, then check the lower deck (which has several non berthing rooms to check, so can take a bit: Cargo, Galley, Mess, and the room below the bridge, which you can just shout at through the hole in the floor).

Night watch will be below, in cabin, and asleep (or their race's equivalent) and will be unarmored and unarmed, although they can grab their weapon as their free action, assuming it's just a single weapon (a quiver is a second object).

There are two speeds:
Spelljamming Speed, which is 100 million miles per day (approximately the distance from the Earth to the Sun. (Please dont' call it Warp speed...even if it basically is).
Tactical Speed, which is the speed listed in the 5e rules (Spelljammer or Saltmarsh)

In the old days of 2e is was measured in hexes of 500 yards or multiples thereof. This will matter momentarily.

Two factors determine if you drop form Spelljamming speed to Tactical speed: Size and Distance of another object.

Size: In 2e, anything big enough to be a ship or bigger) which was anything of 1 ton displacement or more, would cause a ship to slow to tactical speed. this could take a bit of distance, making encounters a random distance within a basic limit of 25 hexes. Now it's left to the DM. I still use that size, pretty much, which has a volume of 10 cubic feet (10'x10'x10').

Distance: It used to be the upper limit of a Helm's detection range was 25 hexes. You'd drop out of Spelljamming speed so you didn't fly into anything so fast both you and it ceased to exist. A D20+5 determined hex distance, but ships moved much faster then.

Now it's left to the DM with 3 general ranges given, depending on how fast you want combat to go, and how much warning you want both sides to have. I used a system that combines the middle and long ranges. , and is more or less, in keeping with the old system. I have set Helm detection range limits to 2000'. That's less than 2 hexes old system, which gives you an idea how much speeds have changed.

Now, with coasting effect from the imposed speed change, you will encounter a ship or other object 1d20x100' away. Could be very close, could be several rounds away. If it's too far for some reason (usually because they are running away) we can speed things up in play on occasion, but this will usually give folks using light and (possibly) even medium armor time to get their armor on.

Keep in mind when traveling asteroid clusters and belts, that you'll be dropping out of  SJ speed quite a bit, and it might seem like something of a roller coaster ride.

Also note: While at Spelljamming speeds you're EXTREMELY unlikely to encounter anything. It would have to bee to small to slow you down, and directly in front of you. Even a degree of and it will be missed entirely. And if it's big enough to slow you down, the helmsman will feel it until it enters your air envelope.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:48, Tue 19 Dec 2023.

This is Melville times and before, of course.

Basically, "Chowder" was, originally (apparently), a generic term for the ever full pot of stew kept ready for sailors needing to eat. Add hard tack and a measure of grog (watered down rum) and you were set, more or less. Af6ter the cause of scurvy was determined, some dried or stored fruit was added.

More or less. I'm no expert, but that's the high points: Dried veggies, diced salted meat, and water into a pot, heated on a low fuel brazier.

Then the term was used for a particular seafood dish in a nautical part of New England, and Chowder comes to meat sea food, particularly clams. Milk north, tomato sauce slightly south.

But, for our purposes, it's just stew. Probably pork, possibly beef (neither hereford nor angus), depending on where you  get your supplies, and you folks are closer to space swine ranchers, so pork.

With the advent of something remarkably like a dutch oven, you can make bread rounds. And all a dutch oven is, is a cast iron pot. Check your PHB equipment list...

In space we add a bit of magi8c to the mix. An Earth mercantile firm made it's way into space with a flat iron plate enchanted with Heat Metal by a local druid. They sold the rights to it (and a small brick over design made to incorporate it) to the Mercane, and they have their artificers (who also know Heat Metal) making griddles and Iron pots of a self heating nature. Unattuned command word driven items. Usually with the words for "On" and "Off" engraved plainly on them.

With a HotPlate and a properly made brick over, you can bake bread of all sorts and types, sweet and savory. With the Iron Pots you can do anything you can do in a dutch oven or iron pot.

So... lots of stew, some fresh bread, and, with the HotPlate, anything grill and griddle friendly. Assuming you have the proper foodstuffs to work with.

Seagoing craft have several targets: The Wheel, the Oars, the Sails for instance. In Space those are all replaced by the Helm, and it's usually inside the ship, so it's not a target.

That leaves each weapon as a separate target, and the hull as a target. Taking out the weapons gives you time to beat on the other ship in safety...unless they have spellcasters or a launch that can reach you.

The hull, of course, will disable everything BUT the weapons, leaving the ship unable to fly, even with a functioning helm. It will, literally, be falling apart. However, it has a damage threshold. Do enough damage with a hit, and it's damaged. Do a bit too little, and it ignore the whole hit.

Pick your targets as you feel works best for you. The only wrong answer is the one that costs you the fight.

Ships, especially larger ships, are basically flying dungeons. After you board, if you search a ship, it's a room to room search using whatever deck plan I have handy for it, with whatever changes I've made for that particular ship.

if the ship is empty of crew, I may just post a link to a deck plan, assuming one is on the internet somewhere. but if there is crew left on board, then I'll treat it like a dungeon, describe the room your in, and any openings. I will not post the deck plans for you, especially on a larger ship or one with an altered deck plan.

Mapping a dungeon is the purview of the players. There is even a tool skill for it. If one of you want to make a map I will post a link to it, and even roll your skill if it's wrong and possibly correct your mistakes (or possibly not). But your character will need to carry the tool kit and be working on t he map the whole time.

What I will do on my own, is make a separate read-only thread for the room by room description. This will keep the room description from getting lost and make it easy to refer to so I don't have to keep reposting it when you are doing something in a room for a bit.