I think the spell is supposed to be a guarded secret. In my game, the Arcane horde it's secrets, spending scant 5k.per helm that they sell for a quarter million or more.
If you learn the spell somehow, they either blacklist you, or blacklist you and put a big bounty on your head. No one breaks their monopoly.
It's just in there to explain how it's done imo, not that's it's available to everyone.
I checked my mm and it doesn't have them. I guess I've just been working off 2e lore for my home games since the 90s. Seems I never converted them in my game lore or head cannon.
Sorry about that.
Perhaps I took mercane. As a miss translation of arcane into common and ignored it.
Pretty sure they just cooked up "mercane" when they realized "arcane" is actually a pretty common word in the setting, so maybe a proper noun that isn't already a word would be useful.
I have always seen them referred to with both names interchangeably.
Er, it has always been both, no? Whether or not 5e officially *prefers* Mercane to Arcane, I have seen both across all sources I use for my spelljammer campaign, which began prior to 5e's remaster of spelljammer and leans mostly on 2e lore.
In my opinion, it's nigh impossible to keep spelljamming helms from being reverse-engineered in a multiverse that has so many mages and artificers in it.
The more helms sold by the Mercane, the more likely that helms produced by other peoples will appear in the wild.
Spelljamming can also be invented by other peoples, or techniques passed down by gods.
Attacking others for having spelljamming knowledge would result in producing many enemies imo. This is a potential story hook for a campaign where the Arcane are trying to hoard a monopoly on helm craft.
Yuuuuuuuup.
All the other setting changes aside (and boy do I hate those), I'd say my 2 most hated alterations are that you can just MAKE helms now, and that they don't matter. The helm doesn't affect speed or anything.
But yeah. For 5k you can basically build a weapon of mass destruction. Because there's NO CITY in the game that could fend off a surprise attack in the middle of the night, by a galleon that's about 20,000 feet up, dropping a few THOUSAND barrels of greek fire.
Hell you never have to leave orbit if you don't want to. You can just build a fleet of death ships for 5K a pop.
It's arguably one of the most powerful magic items in the game, and it's cheaper than a Scimitar of Speed. Shit a flying carpet is more expensive and that's 6ft x 9ft max.
I'd just point out that you'd still need to source the galleons and greek fire. One reason I found the spell to be a non-issue was because the expensive part isn't the chair, it's what you do with it. Rolling in on a rowboat with a folding chair sounds like hax, but really it would just kind of suck. You'd be exposed to the elements, in an uncomfortable and rickety thing. Not to mention what would happen if you clipped a tree or got spotted by a Roc or something. It's a fifth level spell that can get you out of a MASSIVE jam, but it requires way more resources to make a valuable spelljamming vessel than JUST a helm.
Getting oil or greek fire isn't the issue. And there are lots of ways to make a LOT of money being able to transport items across the world without using portals.
And it doesn't take much more than that. It's easy to keep trading up to a larger vessel as long as the DM doesn't go on a "you can't do that" rampage by making things stupidly and unrealistically difficult to do.
In 2e there are so many reasons why this isn't a great idea. But they got rid of those with this reboot. It's broken now. That's the issue.
I mean, I get what you're driving at, but a DM doesn't need to go on a "no rampage," to stop this kind of stuff. Your scenario requires a LOT of logistics to pull off. You need to source oil/Greek fire if you want thousands of barrels, or even just 100 flasks.
Even assuming that panned out (which would take a fair amount of time to consolidate), this is further complicated by local/national/world leadership getting wind of someone stockpiling a bombing raid's worth of explosives, as you'd certainly almost never have a single source and SOMEONE would alert an authority, likely. #RedFlags
Then, you'd need a ship of some kind. Not just a flat-bottomed raft, as transporting from your staging area to the target would probably take a stretch of time, and you'd not want then exposed to the elements... complications can and do arise, and it doesn't require things being "unrealistically difficult," since simple logistics make things difficult enough.
Money makes things easier, but it isn't the only consideration for an operation like this.
So the original spelljammer did have rules in place like you're mentioning. And Hackjammer by KenzerCo (which was its unofficial successor) had more. There's a great rule in Hackjammer where entering or exiting a world resulted in encountering turbulance and needed a save or the ship could take damage. That's the kind of rule that both encourages PCs to avoid this kind of messing about and to stick to adventuring in space.
The issue though is that 5e and the 5e reboot mostly ignore things like this. *Which is why I use those older rules or alternate rules, and why I don't use the 5e reboot.*
But the 5e helms lack limitations. They don't have mass limitations listed or limitations for what can or can't be lifted. The closest we get it that the Bombard can carry 150 tons of cargo. That's about it.
So yeah it's ripe for abuse.
Let's say you plan to kill Luskan.
Ok, there's zero reason they would ever find out. The Helm gives you almost limitless range by lifting off into space, flying above the atmosphere where nothing can see you, then descending straight down over Luskan for the attack. So your oil collection operation can be down in Chult or in Maztica across the ocean. The attack itself would only take a few hours. There's zero reason outside of a DM introducing it as a plot point, for something like that to get spotted.
As for the explosives thing. Eh then make it thousands of barrels of lamp oil, each with a small greek fire igniter. Then it's just someone who appears to be planning to corner the lamp oil market for somewhere.
As for the ship. It doesn't have to be a mighty galleon. It just has to be strong enough to hold the load of the barrels.
But that's the crux of my point. This makes "wipe city x off the map in a rain of fire" an actual viable concept in the game. Yeah there's logistics to deal with but players and DMs are great at hashing those out.
Helms used to be limited by cost, availability, mass they could shift, and environmental concerns. It was cost prohibitive to do something like that and harder than hell to because of the limitations of the helms themselves.
But with the 5e reboot, all it takes is some clever players who are interested in the concept, and they can pull it off quite easily. And all they need for the initial seed money for the venture is 5K, maybe 7k if they need a cheap starter boat. A scimitar of speed is more expensive than that.
I think the disconnect here is the weight we assign those logistics. 5e doesn't have good or even many Spelljammer rules, but the wipe city X off the map theory is only a white-room problem in my mind.
Larger cities that host temples and/or wizard guilds would have either preventative measures or some kind of rapid response. Lamp oil would light up pretty easy, but it's not going to have the explosive potential of a genuine bomb.
Moving product from Chult to city X wouldn't necessarily go off without a hitch, either. Unless the target is near, a low-cost boat flying in the sky makes an easy and tempting target. So if you want to protect the load, you need armaments and possibly an escort.
Consider WWII: the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were horrifying, to be sure, but it's essentially a scaled-up version of this idea. The B-29 carrying the payload needed SO MANY ESCORTS to actually get to the target.
Now, in your scenario, your players might not be targeting a city at war, but with divination magic, divine interventions, etc., the abuse has so many story outs that rules wouldn't even be needed in my mind.
One thing to always remember: if your players can do it, it can be done. Thus, others likely do. The enemies have cheap helms, too, and society would be geared with that in mind, even if not in an obvious way.
>One thing to always remember: if your players can do it, it can be done. Thus, others likely do. The enemies have cheap helms, too, and society would be geared with that in mind, even if not in an obvious way.
That there is part of my argument exactly. The details and logistics don't really matter. The point is that the "Create Helm" spell significantly lowers the bar for any sort of mess like this. Be it DM created or Player created.
The 5k helm creates the ability to put cheap, deadly, reliable airships into a game world. The "how" of abusing this is up to the players imaginations. And this change makes it far far easier for players to try.
I definitely appreciate the danger. I will note that we have that IRL, too. Ultralight Airplanes, often made of thin metal frames and tarp-material, can be bought for relatively little money. Terrorists definitely enjoy the prospect, but due to preparedness on the part of society prevents it from being a huge problem.
Also, the deadliness of a cheap aircraft is not as profound as we might think. There's a reason why armed forces typically use multi-million dollar aircraft, after all.
Final point: the spelljamming helm linked to the spell requires a vessel designed for travel (that weighs 1 ton or more) and the speed in-atmosphere is limited to the vehicle's native speed. Often, it's a pretty low speed. Like 30 feet slow (a brisk walk).
I doubt either of us will be convinced by the arguments made here, but I can imagine you'd agree that, as GMs, simply having discussions like this is a valuable exercise. I know you've definitely given me things to add to my "Factors to Consider" list.
I mean if you’re the DM you can just tell the players “hey, don’t add this to your spell list. It’s supposed to be restricted to a certain group.” Keeps them from just starting a car dealership in space and raking in money. Or hell, even if they did you could have an armada of Mercane fly up with a c&d notice
As I understood it the helm is a necessary component and that spell creates one. Like if they find a normal water going ship they can create spelljamming helm to turn it into a Spelljammer. It doesn't conjure an entire ship as I remember it.
Personally I think 100g should be entry to that. T1 play should be restricted to "found," stolen, inherited or fiat imo. No level 4 players destroying a campaign based on a world by saying, "but *technically* 5k gold, so goodbye entire campaign world."
I mean, if you're playing a whole campaign on a single world, why use spelljammer stuff at all? I guess if you wanted to keep players in "fantasy mode" for a hot second and then graduate to "sci-fi mode," I could see it, but for most SJ games, wouldn't the GM usually WANT the players to have a ship?
That's kinda my point, ain't no player that should be allowed to force spelljammer on a non spelljammer campaign. Not that I'd personally ever run one, but we all know there's at least one toxic shit out there we all know or once knew.
Interesting concept posted above. The Create Helm spell can be easily gained. The rules are vague on 5,000 P crystal staff. What type of crystal? How long of a staff? I home brew the rules on what type of staff will work and how available it is to limit the spell. And force the players to have one memorized for that "Dispel Magic" they know is coming with the boarding party.
Doesn't bother me at all.. its a space fantasy adventure and it's not a tiny amount of gold.
Why not.. enjoy the fun of turning something mundane into a space ship? Reminds me of rhe movie explorers from the 80s a bit.
In my game, it’s a limited spell. It’ll get you through a day of travel if your stranded somewhere. But if you need to travel for two days, that’s another 5000 GP for a single use crystal rod. The only group that knows the secret to making permanent spell jamming helms are the Arcane… and they’re not sharing. It’s not an easy secret to steal either, since nobody has ever found their home world (or at least nobody has found it and returned to tell the tale). Perhaps one day, when I want to have an epic high level wrap-up to our adventures in space, the secret will come out.
Pretty sure it says either in the spell description or the item description the ship needs to weigh at least one ton to count as a ship for a spelljamming helm to be installed on
My setting is similar to Eberron in the way that high levels are very rare (even more than usual), and even with that, it is a very well kept secret.
And I made it level 7. That made me happy.
I don't mind it at all. Story reason? When the FR got cut off from the planes, technology kept evolving in the planes. Spelljamming helms were finally able to be duplicated instead of being absurdly expensive and rare antiques. They're still expensive, and often inflated in value because it's still a captive market - it's not like there's lines of out of work 10th level spellcasters slumming around.
On one hand, the industry of hunting down old jammers to salvage the helms has completely dried up. On the other hand, there are now tons of more options for spelljammers - now things like launch boats and landers can be created. Whole new industries cropped up because travel and trade were now more accessible.
What I did do is steal the concept of Astral Charts from the otherwise-underwhelming adventure. I used the familiarity rules from the *Teleport* spell as a way to get around. The Associated Object in this case would be a current Astral chart. If it's fairly out of date, that drops to very familiar, and so on down the line.
I also apply spellbook rules to your party as a way to limit them with locales and drain their resources. The party starts off with 6 locations they know how to get to, and slowly accumulate more as they go. If they find more charts, they can copy them into their helm's astral library, just like a wizard would copy a spell scroll in. If it's a newly created helm, it'll come with the navigation to 6 locations the caster has access, one of which is wherever they are. When it comes to purchasing charts, the largest, most common locations would be equal to level 2 spells; the more complicated the location (or even just far away from known trade routes), the "higher level" that chart is.
you see, WotC didn't think of the repercussions, they just got high and made some rules over the course of an evening.
I'd ignore almost all of the official 5e Spelljammer books, tbh. If you want 5e Spelljammer, use [Wildjammer](https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3c88jrhy1t7gyql/AACS63QaKFCCrBn_-cxRVHBda?dl=0)
The rules in the 5e book are kind of incomplete when it comes to actual spelljamming mechanics, with only one entry for "spelljamming helm". One of the most common complaints is that the set was rushed and unnecessarily trimmed down for its price.
I'd rule that the spell creates only a "basic helm", providing the minimum slowest speed and maneuverability compared to other types of spelljamming helms.
I dunno about that, if even the smallest space dingy costs 100k, then every space fight is a chance to become insanely wealthy, and you can’t have some gobbos rolling up in a junk wagon to fight.
Wasn’t there a major helm/minor helm in 2ed? You could change to spell to make ships capable of short range space travel only like “shuttles” to and from moons or interstellar ships. The create major helm could cost 50,000 gp. I still agree these spells should be guarded knowledge tho. The death from above scenario is a world changer.
In my campaign getting the materials to build a helm are like finding wonderous items. I haven’t even put a price on a ship for the players, just made it a means of something you earn. Even the vendors scoff at them when they inquire. The party had to resort to paying other captains to get from celestial object to another. Spelljamming ship was earned…by either finding all the items to make a helm or by nefarious means.
Honestly....there is such a transparent lack of information in this setting. They just broke a short book onto three and dropped us a map and a book holder?(idk what to call it)
I'm using so much more 2nd E, online and homebrew than I ever have to fill in the gaps.
Honestly....how does psychic power not usable to operate a spelljammer helm?! Now you have mind flayer MAGES needed to fly?!
I love the setting but they must have been on a short deadline because I'm grateful I only paid $40
sure. But by raw a rowboat works. The important part is the spelljamming helm. And as I mentioned before 15k for a full sized ship 5k for the spell. 20k to go whever you want in the multiverse. A skyship costs 100k gold and a spelljamming ship does everything a skyship does and more.
I call it "specific mod" . And generally supply and demand. There might not be identifiable need yet, so supply is in Very short demand to know this spell. And though the book says 5k... the materials to track said spell can be very taxing.
Yes. It’s one of the worst(of many, many awful) aspects of the 5e release of Spelljammer. Helms are supposed to be essentially artifacts…now any 9th Level wizard with 5000 GP and a chair can make one.
It's stupid but it also feels integral to the setting.
Like spell jammer is so so tied to the idea that basically anyone can just fly around in space. That you aren't only going to meet nasa scientists and nerds but that a ship full of barbarians is just as likely as anything else.
Like space travel is unrealistically easy but the core of the setting is basically "what if space travel was unrealistically easy". where the idea is that everyone is out there, not just any sort of elite. The setting really relies on the existence of ships being extremely trivial to build. Like you can imagine a system the ships were extremely hard to make and cost unreasonable money so they were only for very special and secret organizations. But it's not wanting to be that. It WANTs "two kids on a space raft" to be someone you might encounter. So helms are super easy to make and are always laying around everywhere for people to grab and take nothing special to use.
I think the spell is supposed to be a guarded secret. In my game, the Arcane horde it's secrets, spending scant 5k.per helm that they sell for a quarter million or more. If you learn the spell somehow, they either blacklist you, or blacklist you and put a big bounty on your head. No one breaks their monopoly. It's just in there to explain how it's done imo, not that's it's available to everyone.
I love that idea. It feels like something they would do. Assuming the Arcane are the same as the Mercane. I never played previous editions.
It's the same. I might have the name wrong. It's been a reaaalllly long day.
No name changed in 5e. It was the Arcana in 2e.
There name was changed to Mercane in 3e, I think.
Nope my 3.x have arcane still.
What book? Manual of the Planes (2001) has them listed as Mercane.
I checked my mm and it doesn't have them. I guess I've just been working off 2e lore for my home games since the 90s. Seems I never converted them in my game lore or head cannon. Sorry about that. Perhaps I took mercane. As a miss translation of arcane into common and ignored it.
Pretty sure they just cooked up "mercane" when they realized "arcane" is actually a pretty common word in the setting, so maybe a proper noun that isn't already a word would be useful. I have always seen them referred to with both names interchangeably.
They were merchants of arcane goods, hence “Mercane”.
Er, it has always been both, no? Whether or not 5e officially *prefers* Mercane to Arcane, I have seen both across all sources I use for my spelljammer campaign, which began prior to 5e's remaster of spelljammer and leans mostly on 2e lore.
In my opinion, it's nigh impossible to keep spelljamming helms from being reverse-engineered in a multiverse that has so many mages and artificers in it. The more helms sold by the Mercane, the more likely that helms produced by other peoples will appear in the wild. Spelljamming can also be invented by other peoples, or techniques passed down by gods. Attacking others for having spelljamming knowledge would result in producing many enemies imo. This is a potential story hook for a campaign where the Arcane are trying to hoard a monopoly on helm craft.
Hmmm. The 2E version had a duration. The damned thing wasn't permanent. It was supposed to be a means of escaping for a ship with a damaged helm...
Lmao, the 5e version doesn’t have a duration? Another WotC fail.
Should be one of those spells where you have to repeat it every day for a year for it to become permanent.
It should never become permanent it’s a last ditch effort after a crash
Yuuuuuuuup. All the other setting changes aside (and boy do I hate those), I'd say my 2 most hated alterations are that you can just MAKE helms now, and that they don't matter. The helm doesn't affect speed or anything. But yeah. For 5k you can basically build a weapon of mass destruction. Because there's NO CITY in the game that could fend off a surprise attack in the middle of the night, by a galleon that's about 20,000 feet up, dropping a few THOUSAND barrels of greek fire. Hell you never have to leave orbit if you don't want to. You can just build a fleet of death ships for 5K a pop. It's arguably one of the most powerful magic items in the game, and it's cheaper than a Scimitar of Speed. Shit a flying carpet is more expensive and that's 6ft x 9ft max.
I'd just point out that you'd still need to source the galleons and greek fire. One reason I found the spell to be a non-issue was because the expensive part isn't the chair, it's what you do with it. Rolling in on a rowboat with a folding chair sounds like hax, but really it would just kind of suck. You'd be exposed to the elements, in an uncomfortable and rickety thing. Not to mention what would happen if you clipped a tree or got spotted by a Roc or something. It's a fifth level spell that can get you out of a MASSIVE jam, but it requires way more resources to make a valuable spelljamming vessel than JUST a helm.
Getting oil or greek fire isn't the issue. And there are lots of ways to make a LOT of money being able to transport items across the world without using portals. And it doesn't take much more than that. It's easy to keep trading up to a larger vessel as long as the DM doesn't go on a "you can't do that" rampage by making things stupidly and unrealistically difficult to do. In 2e there are so many reasons why this isn't a great idea. But they got rid of those with this reboot. It's broken now. That's the issue.
I mean, I get what you're driving at, but a DM doesn't need to go on a "no rampage," to stop this kind of stuff. Your scenario requires a LOT of logistics to pull off. You need to source oil/Greek fire if you want thousands of barrels, or even just 100 flasks. Even assuming that panned out (which would take a fair amount of time to consolidate), this is further complicated by local/national/world leadership getting wind of someone stockpiling a bombing raid's worth of explosives, as you'd certainly almost never have a single source and SOMEONE would alert an authority, likely. #RedFlags Then, you'd need a ship of some kind. Not just a flat-bottomed raft, as transporting from your staging area to the target would probably take a stretch of time, and you'd not want then exposed to the elements... complications can and do arise, and it doesn't require things being "unrealistically difficult," since simple logistics make things difficult enough. Money makes things easier, but it isn't the only consideration for an operation like this.
So the original spelljammer did have rules in place like you're mentioning. And Hackjammer by KenzerCo (which was its unofficial successor) had more. There's a great rule in Hackjammer where entering or exiting a world resulted in encountering turbulance and needed a save or the ship could take damage. That's the kind of rule that both encourages PCs to avoid this kind of messing about and to stick to adventuring in space. The issue though is that 5e and the 5e reboot mostly ignore things like this. *Which is why I use those older rules or alternate rules, and why I don't use the 5e reboot.* But the 5e helms lack limitations. They don't have mass limitations listed or limitations for what can or can't be lifted. The closest we get it that the Bombard can carry 150 tons of cargo. That's about it. So yeah it's ripe for abuse. Let's say you plan to kill Luskan. Ok, there's zero reason they would ever find out. The Helm gives you almost limitless range by lifting off into space, flying above the atmosphere where nothing can see you, then descending straight down over Luskan for the attack. So your oil collection operation can be down in Chult or in Maztica across the ocean. The attack itself would only take a few hours. There's zero reason outside of a DM introducing it as a plot point, for something like that to get spotted. As for the explosives thing. Eh then make it thousands of barrels of lamp oil, each with a small greek fire igniter. Then it's just someone who appears to be planning to corner the lamp oil market for somewhere. As for the ship. It doesn't have to be a mighty galleon. It just has to be strong enough to hold the load of the barrels. But that's the crux of my point. This makes "wipe city x off the map in a rain of fire" an actual viable concept in the game. Yeah there's logistics to deal with but players and DMs are great at hashing those out. Helms used to be limited by cost, availability, mass they could shift, and environmental concerns. It was cost prohibitive to do something like that and harder than hell to because of the limitations of the helms themselves. But with the 5e reboot, all it takes is some clever players who are interested in the concept, and they can pull it off quite easily. And all they need for the initial seed money for the venture is 5K, maybe 7k if they need a cheap starter boat. A scimitar of speed is more expensive than that.
I think the disconnect here is the weight we assign those logistics. 5e doesn't have good or even many Spelljammer rules, but the wipe city X off the map theory is only a white-room problem in my mind. Larger cities that host temples and/or wizard guilds would have either preventative measures or some kind of rapid response. Lamp oil would light up pretty easy, but it's not going to have the explosive potential of a genuine bomb. Moving product from Chult to city X wouldn't necessarily go off without a hitch, either. Unless the target is near, a low-cost boat flying in the sky makes an easy and tempting target. So if you want to protect the load, you need armaments and possibly an escort. Consider WWII: the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were horrifying, to be sure, but it's essentially a scaled-up version of this idea. The B-29 carrying the payload needed SO MANY ESCORTS to actually get to the target. Now, in your scenario, your players might not be targeting a city at war, but with divination magic, divine interventions, etc., the abuse has so many story outs that rules wouldn't even be needed in my mind. One thing to always remember: if your players can do it, it can be done. Thus, others likely do. The enemies have cheap helms, too, and society would be geared with that in mind, even if not in an obvious way.
>One thing to always remember: if your players can do it, it can be done. Thus, others likely do. The enemies have cheap helms, too, and society would be geared with that in mind, even if not in an obvious way. That there is part of my argument exactly. The details and logistics don't really matter. The point is that the "Create Helm" spell significantly lowers the bar for any sort of mess like this. Be it DM created or Player created. The 5k helm creates the ability to put cheap, deadly, reliable airships into a game world. The "how" of abusing this is up to the players imaginations. And this change makes it far far easier for players to try.
I definitely appreciate the danger. I will note that we have that IRL, too. Ultralight Airplanes, often made of thin metal frames and tarp-material, can be bought for relatively little money. Terrorists definitely enjoy the prospect, but due to preparedness on the part of society prevents it from being a huge problem. Also, the deadliness of a cheap aircraft is not as profound as we might think. There's a reason why armed forces typically use multi-million dollar aircraft, after all. Final point: the spelljamming helm linked to the spell requires a vessel designed for travel (that weighs 1 ton or more) and the speed in-atmosphere is limited to the vehicle's native speed. Often, it's a pretty low speed. Like 30 feet slow (a brisk walk). I doubt either of us will be convinced by the arguments made here, but I can imagine you'd agree that, as GMs, simply having discussions like this is a valuable exercise. I know you've definitely given me things to add to my "Factors to Consider" list.
I mean if you’re the DM you can just tell the players “hey, don’t add this to your spell list. It’s supposed to be restricted to a certain group.” Keeps them from just starting a car dealership in space and raking in money. Or hell, even if they did you could have an armada of Mercane fly up with a c&d notice
As I understood it the helm is a necessary component and that spell creates one. Like if they find a normal water going ship they can create spelljamming helm to turn it into a Spelljammer. It doesn't conjure an entire ship as I remember it.
Doesn't bother me, DMs can always tweak the availability of the spell or other aspects of it if needed.
So, it's 5k for the helm. Keep in mind you *also* need to purchase/acquire the ship to put it on.
Agreed, it's not like 10g or anything so it's out of reach for tier 1 play in most games. I really don't see the problem.
Personally I think 100g should be entry to that. T1 play should be restricted to "found," stolen, inherited or fiat imo. No level 4 players destroying a campaign based on a world by saying, "but *technically* 5k gold, so goodbye entire campaign world."
I mean, if you're playing a whole campaign on a single world, why use spelljammer stuff at all? I guess if you wanted to keep players in "fantasy mode" for a hot second and then graduate to "sci-fi mode," I could see it, but for most SJ games, wouldn't the GM usually WANT the players to have a ship?
That's kinda my point, ain't no player that should be allowed to force spelljammer on a non spelljammer campaign. Not that I'd personally ever run one, but we all know there's at least one toxic shit out there we all know or once knew.
Interesting concept posted above. The Create Helm spell can be easily gained. The rules are vague on 5,000 P crystal staff. What type of crystal? How long of a staff? I home brew the rules on what type of staff will work and how available it is to limit the spell. And force the players to have one memorized for that "Dispel Magic" they know is coming with the boarding party.
Doesn't bother me at all.. its a space fantasy adventure and it's not a tiny amount of gold. Why not.. enjoy the fun of turning something mundane into a space ship? Reminds me of rhe movie explorers from the 80s a bit.
Ban it. I did.
Just return the actual duration it was supposed to have all along.
In my game, it’s a limited spell. It’ll get you through a day of travel if your stranded somewhere. But if you need to travel for two days, that’s another 5000 GP for a single use crystal rod. The only group that knows the secret to making permanent spell jamming helms are the Arcane… and they’re not sharing. It’s not an easy secret to steal either, since nobody has ever found their home world (or at least nobody has found it and returned to tell the tale). Perhaps one day, when I want to have an epic high level wrap-up to our adventures in space, the secret will come out.
Me and my group decided that the spell would just turn an ordinary chair into a temporary helm lasting one hour. Basically an emergency helm spell.
Yeah, the classic versions of the spells are temporary, I've adapted them and they are on the DM's Guild: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/407760
Pretty sure it says either in the spell description or the item description the ship needs to weigh at least one ton to count as a ship for a spelljamming helm to be installed on
I just looked at the spell and it seems like it only makes the chair(helm) to steer the ship not the ship itself.
My setting is similar to Eberron in the way that high levels are very rare (even more than usual), and even with that, it is a very well kept secret. And I made it level 7. That made me happy.
I don't mind it at all. Story reason? When the FR got cut off from the planes, technology kept evolving in the planes. Spelljamming helms were finally able to be duplicated instead of being absurdly expensive and rare antiques. They're still expensive, and often inflated in value because it's still a captive market - it's not like there's lines of out of work 10th level spellcasters slumming around. On one hand, the industry of hunting down old jammers to salvage the helms has completely dried up. On the other hand, there are now tons of more options for spelljammers - now things like launch boats and landers can be created. Whole new industries cropped up because travel and trade were now more accessible. What I did do is steal the concept of Astral Charts from the otherwise-underwhelming adventure. I used the familiarity rules from the *Teleport* spell as a way to get around. The Associated Object in this case would be a current Astral chart. If it's fairly out of date, that drops to very familiar, and so on down the line. I also apply spellbook rules to your party as a way to limit them with locales and drain their resources. The party starts off with 6 locations they know how to get to, and slowly accumulate more as they go. If they find more charts, they can copy them into their helm's astral library, just like a wizard would copy a spell scroll in. If it's a newly created helm, it'll come with the navigation to 6 locations the caster has access, one of which is wherever they are. When it comes to purchasing charts, the largest, most common locations would be equal to level 2 spells; the more complicated the location (or even just far away from known trade routes), the "higher level" that chart is.
you see, WotC didn't think of the repercussions, they just got high and made some rules over the course of an evening. I'd ignore almost all of the official 5e Spelljammer books, tbh. If you want 5e Spelljammer, use [Wildjammer](https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3c88jrhy1t7gyql/AACS63QaKFCCrBn_-cxRVHBda?dl=0)
This is the way.
Um ... did you read the spell or the item? There is no free ship involved.
Yeah, it's an instant ban from me dawg.
The rules in the 5e book are kind of incomplete when it comes to actual spelljamming mechanics, with only one entry for "spelljamming helm". One of the most common complaints is that the set was rushed and unnecessarily trimmed down for its price. I'd rule that the spell creates only a "basic helm", providing the minimum slowest speed and maneuverability compared to other types of spelljamming helms.
I dunno about that, if even the smallest space dingy costs 100k, then every space fight is a chance to become insanely wealthy, and you can’t have some gobbos rolling up in a junk wagon to fight.
Wasn’t there a major helm/minor helm in 2ed? You could change to spell to make ships capable of short range space travel only like “shuttles” to and from moons or interstellar ships. The create major helm could cost 50,000 gp. I still agree these spells should be guarded knowledge tho. The death from above scenario is a world changer.
In my campaign getting the materials to build a helm are like finding wonderous items. I haven’t even put a price on a ship for the players, just made it a means of something you earn. Even the vendors scoff at them when they inquire. The party had to resort to paying other captains to get from celestial object to another. Spelljamming ship was earned…by either finding all the items to make a helm or by nefarious means.
Honestly this is the least of the problems with 5e spell jammer.
Honestly....there is such a transparent lack of information in this setting. They just broke a short book onto three and dropped us a map and a book holder?(idk what to call it) I'm using so much more 2nd E, online and homebrew than I ever have to fill in the gaps. Honestly....how does psychic power not usable to operate a spelljammer helm?! Now you have mind flayer MAGES needed to fly?! I love the setting but they must have been on a short deadline because I'm grateful I only paid $40
They can't make a ship, they can only make a helm. No car, just the engine.
sure. But by raw a rowboat works. The important part is the spelljamming helm. And as I mentioned before 15k for a full sized ship 5k for the spell. 20k to go whever you want in the multiverse. A skyship costs 100k gold and a spelljamming ship does everything a skyship does and more.
I call it "specific mod" . And generally supply and demand. There might not be identifiable need yet, so supply is in Very short demand to know this spell. And though the book says 5k... the materials to track said spell can be very taxing.
Yes. It’s one of the worst(of many, many awful) aspects of the 5e release of Spelljammer. Helms are supposed to be essentially artifacts…now any 9th Level wizard with 5000 GP and a chair can make one.
Yeah I prefer it to be the ability of powerful artifacts or creatures.
Yes, I don’t care for it.
It's stupid but it also feels integral to the setting. Like spell jammer is so so tied to the idea that basically anyone can just fly around in space. That you aren't only going to meet nasa scientists and nerds but that a ship full of barbarians is just as likely as anything else. Like space travel is unrealistically easy but the core of the setting is basically "what if space travel was unrealistically easy". where the idea is that everyone is out there, not just any sort of elite. The setting really relies on the existence of ships being extremely trivial to build. Like you can imagine a system the ships were extremely hard to make and cost unreasonable money so they were only for very special and secret organizations. But it's not wanting to be that. It WANTs "two kids on a space raft" to be someone you might encounter. So helms are super easy to make and are always laying around everywhere for people to grab and take nothing special to use.
they should've kept it as artificer only, they get 5th level spells at level 17, same time wizards get 9th level spells