In the original Spelljammer, and maybe 5e, but I didn't read that book, one had to be a magic user to pilot spelljammers. The spelljamming thrones that were used would remove that mage or cleric's ability cast spells for the day.
Well. No longer!
Anyone can pilot a spelljamming chair under normal circumstances. It's not very quick, but, it is cheap. Gone are the days that a PC who wants to fly a flitter down to the surface of a planet, but would be worried that the two hour trip would drain them of all their spells for the day. Instead your spells, and manifestations, power maneuvers and boosts to the ship.
A nonspell casting character can move a ship, but it always takes the maximum amount of time to get from one point to another. I will be
stealing using the Starfinder rules for inter planetary travel (found here:
https://aonsrd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=180) with the Drift replacing the Phlogiston, so the listed times for thrusters may be used in sphere while out of sphere are the drift times. There is also no Absolom Station in every crystal sphere, even though the Rock of Bral could fill this space, as there is no
Starstone in every system. In the the Chained Sphere, what the crystal sphere what holds the Pathfinder setting in, Absolom station doesn't exist. Also, there are no drift beacons, people use Jammerlabes, the Spelljammer equivalent to astrolabes, to find their way. Also, while their are no thrusters, the time needed to warm up and move under tactical speed is the same.
Once a spell caster, or manifester, is placed upon a spelljamming chair, the random time comes into play.
A caster can sacrifice a number of spells to move faster. By using up the energy of a spell, you can reduce the time of travel by a day per 10 spell levels (0 level spells are considered to be 1 instead of nothing) sacrificed up to a maximum of 50% of the time, when on a minor helm, or 75%, when on a major helm. For example a 10th level wizard has at minimum 20 spell levels they can use to cut the time down by 2 days. Once these spells are sacrificed, the speed boost lasts for the entire trip. Multiple spell casters can boost this speed as well, by sitting on the throne after the first spellcaster boosted it, but few do so as this drains multiple spellcasters that could be needed to defend the ship. Using the -2 days above, a boosted Spelljammer would make a planet to planet trip in 1 to 6 days (1d6+2-2). Other spell casters could reduce this by a maximum of 4 days, making the trip take 1 to 4 days, on a minor helm or 6 days on a major helm, 1 or 2 days, but few bother unless time is of the essence. Some shipping companies will employ the maximum boost, but the cost is usually to high for most to afford as these high level wizards expect a high compensation. The reduction can never reduce the time to less than a day.
Manifesters are figured a little differently. A wizard may have 20 spell levels available to them, manifesters instead have power points. A 10th level Psion will have 88 base power points, they would have to use 44 PPs to reduce the time by one day. A 20th level wizard has 40 spell levels, so a manifester would have to use a quarter, aka 86, of their PPs to reduce the time by the same amount a wizard would.
Ship Combat
As combat under normal circumstances could take weeks if not months of real time to complete, most combats will start with a skill challenge. The person on the helm will make a three Fly checks vs the opponent ship's pilot. The other PCs can assist with whatever skill they would like. Best two out of three determines whether the ship of successful party either catching the other ship or evading determined by what the desire was with any potential ties go the the defender. If both are interested in combat, then normal combat rules will apply.
This message was last edited by the GM at 10:09, Sat 04 May.
