Re: New helm being Submitted to Compendium

<<<<<Let's see.  Enhance maneuverability.  Rudder of maneuverability (or one
of the other various devices).  Spelljamming proficiency.  Spells (and
magical items) that enhance SR.  With one proficiency check and two
spells I can improve SR by two and MC by one.  That assumes you don't
allow multiple SR and maneuverability enhancing spells to stack in your
game.  Also you presume that many ships have an SR better than one or
two.  I submit that in a balanced SJ campaign this will generally not
be the case (the more high-powered the campaign, the more ships so
you'll still end up with many that aren't that fast, unless you're
playing Under the Dark Fist as it was written, in which case we should
just drop the discussion here).  Also in even a high powered campaign
these dreadnoughts still end up like they did in WWI, massive battle
platforms that are unstoppable centers of fleets.  Now you can always
invade that asteroid base because nothing can stop you from reaching
it.  If the enemy has no bases left, who needs to fight his fleet?
Assuming he hasn't wasted it in the useless effort to defend those
bases.>>>>

Well that is a lot of enhancements must be a high powered game. That being
the case then both sides would probably have 500 ton ships so the balance is
maintained.
But it is possable that the DM can rule in his campaign that a Merchant helm
will shut down if a Rudder is used or any other SR enhancements are used at
the same time the helm is on. You could say that the magics tempararly
cancel out each other. Perhaps the reason the Merchant helm is cheaper is
that it doesn't channel the magic/mana as effecently as a normal helm. Maybe
it could even give off small amounts of magical radiation that over time
could affect the user of the helm. This is just an idea. However in my
campaign we have been using ships even higher than 500 tons for years.
However the nations using these ships must be at a certain Magical level
(It's just like Tech level.)
Normal SJ settings would rate a Magic Level 4 while say Greyhawk (assuming
no SJ knowledge) is ML-2, and FR is a ML-3 (again assuming no SJ contact. A
nation that can produce larger than 100 ton ships would have a ML of at
least 5 and a Tech Level of 5 or more. Most core worlds (FR, Greyhawk,
Krynn) would be at TL-3 Medieval. Renaissance would be TL-4 (Standard SJ
setting.) So these nations are rare in the area where the SJ campaign is
taken place. However there are some Beholder nations that have these large
ships. Needles to say we have had some pretty cool adventures with them.


<<<<Even if we leave all the above aside you end up with other problems
(assuming you're sticking to standard SJ).  Case in point:  the neogi
are not much of a threat because even their 100 ton deathspiders are
now no match for your average cargo hauler.  They can't pack enough
troops on board to overwhelm the crew and marine complements of your
average trader any longer.  Before the neogi were a credible boogyman
for SJ because only the elves could match their most common ships in a
straight ship on ship fight.>>>

Why not? Does a modern day oil tanker have a crew of thousands? (They do
not.) In a Cargo hauler I don't see the need of a large crew unless it is a
wartime situation. And in that case the hauler might have an escort.