Re: Helm limitations

>     OK, I've played Spelljammer on and off for about 7 years, and just
> the other day I noticed something in the Lorebook of the Void that I'd
> never noticed before. Under the descriptions of the Hammership and the
> Man-o-War it lists power type as major OR MINOR helms. How can a minor
> helm power a 60 ton ship? Is this a misprint, or do you think minor
> helms were originally supposed to have an upper limit of 60 tons
rather
> than 50? Thinking about it it seems to make sense to me that this was
> originally the case since otherwise why would there be so many ships
> that are 60 tons? You would think that ship designers would want to
> design ships to be at the upper limit of what a minor helm could
power,
> so you would think that if the upper limit was supposed to be 50 tons
> there would be a lot of 50 ton ships out there and not so many 60 ton
> ones. What do people think?

I've had this dilemma from the beginning and here's the solution I
came up with:

Like any good merchants the Arcane have implemented quality control. 
90% of minor helms are actually good for up to 60 tons.  10%, however,
are only good for 50-59 ton (1d10+49) vessels.  So the Arcane only
guarantee their helms to 50 tons, anything more and you got lucky. 
I've ruled the same applies to major helms also and that they're
actually good to 150 tons (look at the prices for helms and you'll
find this is equivalent).  Only the elves know about this (that's how
they get 100 ton armadas+40 flitters) as major helms are much rarer in
space.  Most people are aware of the realities with minor helms,
however, because they're the most common helms.  That's why so many
ships are designed to fit the 60 ton slot.  Of course it's always a
nasty surprise when your players try to take their minor helm to run
that hammership and find it can't do it! (EDMG)
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