Helm discussion

Good Morning,


     I thought I might join in on the helm discussion.  But I need a
provision for your understanding.  Our campaign was spelljamming for a
couple months before we could find any references.  Then I learned about
e-bay, and discovered Mr. Westermeyer, and the SJCouncil.  So we had to come
up with a lot of stuff off the cuff, from half-remembered player input.  Not
to mention sketchy references on the internet that all assumed I knew things
I didn't.
     So we worked out a system that pleased the dm's and players alike.
Then we got the rules, read them and took a vote.  Everyone liked the way we
played better.  (And I gave all of them 850,000 experience points for
showing such wisdom!)   ;-)

     The value of the helm isn't too much of a problem in our campaign,
because helming really is a game for the higher level mages.  Lower level
mages can always apprentice, or serve on deck defending the ship, but really
won't be useful at the helm for quite a while.

     We allow any helm, to move any size ship.

     Level X 10 + spells / ship's tonnage.  Minor helms use about 75% of
that power.  (In a nutshell!  I can put up the rest of helms and rules on
request, but this was the pertinent part.)  Furnace helms use about 2500 xps
a day, and provide ship's power of 100, etc.  (100 ton ship can move SR1)

     Sounds ludicrous to people who always knew the rules, I'm certain.  But
we had to make do.  Anyways the benefits, have been good.
     Lower level pc's in general have trouble raising the funds for ship
buying, and all ships come without helms.  (It was the only way ship prices
made sense to us!)  There are places where you can hire descent helmsmen
that have their own helms, but this is really expensive, and a lot of these
people don't play at speculation, they want their cash, upfront.  (Come with
us, and you can have a big share of the treasure!)
     However, when a few 10th level plus characters get together to go check
out a realmspace map, these people have an easier time hiring, and borrowing
money.  And maybe even finding helmsmen ready to speculate a little.
     Networking helms are very popular in our campaign for obvious reasons,
but being rare, and very expensive helps.  And it made sense to us, because
our rules keep the serious spelljamming in the hands of the higher level
pc's, who usually can get that kind of money.
     Yes, there are pirates out there, ready to blow your ship apart for
that major helm, or that ki helm, but that also keeps it in the higher pc's
hands.  And provides descent reason to hire a bunch of lower level schmucks
to work on the ship in its' defense.  (It works for us.)

     There are NME's.  As living critters, you can attach a number of them
onto your ship, (engineer prof, animal handling prof.)  But no matter how
many you have they never exceed SR3, and only fly in sunlight.  (Magic
doesn't trick them.)  On a minor note there we do have a competition at our
favorite space station.  Pod races.  Affix some NME to your favorite small
craft, and let's go.  The course includes dark spots, slalom, some parts
where you have to navigate through incoming ships that are invited to make
things difficult, though deadly force will be punished, etc.
     The manna sails are also in great demand.  We allow multiple uses of
them.  Giff love 'em!  There is a clipper ship in our game, that easily
reaches SR5, (A difficult speed to reach, in a large ship.)  There are some
serious problems with the manna sails, and using them with even the smallest
degree of safety requires an engineer, and crack crew on the rigging.  (Did
I mention that they have a tendency to jump to SJ speeds?  And then drop out
again near objects 3 tons or greater?  Very dangerous for the crew.  Not so
good for the ship.)  (wink.)

     Next, for further spelljammer blasphemy.  A mage cracked the secret of
making helms.  It is linked to the Spelljammer itself.  Yep.  The ship that
started it all literally.  Everywhere it goes, it spreads spores.  Each 100
million miles space, has a 1% chance of having a spore in it too.  We have a
10th level spell that can call one if there's one to call.
     A major helm requires 5 of these spores as the major ingredient, other
helms obviously differ.  Otherwise go back to the spells, or buy from the
arcane.  We even have a group that tried buying a pool helm from the
illithid.  (if you decide to try this, i can only hope they find you as
tasty as they did our group.  %^$#!)
     Anyway, we now have a very high level mage, powering a 125 ton ship at
descent power for a very good price to the crew, because it gives him the
chance to look for helm spores.  (This particular mage cannot figure out how
the arcane do it so cheaply!)

     Next we use a much larger sphere map.  about 400 spheres, but before
this letter, I think had a few players
convinced it was near infinity.  I took ideas from star trek, the wonderful
home pages of this fine group, fantasy books, any sphere I could find or
think of.  Placed them on a matrix, and rolled randomly where pc's went.
Now, though they're starting to get some good maps of their section of the
sphere's.

     These were the solutions that settled for us, the issues of cost,
creating new helms.  (We have a very popular helm now that allows paladins
to act as helmsmen.  Lvl.x10\ship's tonnage)

I hope they add to this discussion in a positive way.
Bob