Re: Damaging living Spelljamming ships?

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From: Spelljammer Setting Discussion
[mailto:SPELLJAMMER-L@??????.???????.com] On Behalf Of Dreamer
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 5:11 AM
To: SPELLJAMMER-L@??????.???????.com
Subject: Re: [SPELLJAMMER] Damaging living Spelljamming ships?

Thanks for finding the reference!

 Yes, I know, but it was nearly 10 years ago, I can't remember everything
that far back!lol I only remember that it had to do with druids using
healing spells on elven ships and the response was the sectional hit points
scheme you referred to.

As I understand your comment a Heal/Harm can only work on one
hull point, and hence ten hit points (-1D4), at a time?

 Yes that about sums it up.

Do you think this some sort of "large objects have sectional hit
points" scheme? 

Possibly, but I think it refers more to the sense of structural integrity
vs. loss of life measured. 

If you hit a SJ vessel with enough normal damage, then you divide
the number of hit points done by ten to find out how many hull
points you do. I don't recall any rules about only being able to
damage one hull point at a time, which makes me think a sectional
hit points scheme isn't normall in use. Actually the SJ rule for personal
weapons used against ships is the norm, just like in your example above.
Most spells that are not area effect are adjudicated the same way. That is
why the disintegrate spell does only one hull pt of damage, the area of
effect is <= the 10x10x10 cubic volume of one hull pt of ship.


I am not clear why Heal/Harm, and in partcular CLW/CSW/CCW, don't
work on trees - they don't fall in the list of things Cure Light
Wounds doesn't work on in the AD&D 2nd Ed PHB. 
You are right, I was in error in my last posting. They will work on plants,
they just won't regrow lost structure/hull points. That would require
grafts, regenerate spells, or plant growth controlled by elves, druids or
rangers familiar with the crafting of the structure in question.

 The logic seems to be whether the damage repaired referred to structural
damage or its hit points as a measure of life. E.G., you can chop off one
limb from a tree and damage it structurally, but not do enough damage to
kill it outright (barring decay and parasites); alternately you can chop up
all the limbs and the trunk of the tree and not only destroy it
structurally, but also do enough damage to kill it too. So while a CLW might
restore the hit points of the severed limb to the tree as a whole, it won't
necessarily restore any structural integrity (hull points) lost. To heal the
example tree it would have to be put back together before hit points could
be cured. We may apply the same logic to elven ships and any other plant
based structure like the tree homes that arboreal elves live in.

For interest, look at the Live Oak spell (priest 6th, PHB pg.228)
which has an interesting application for Plant Growth in that it
can be used to heal 3D4 hit points, instead of making the live
oak (fake ent/huorn) bigger. If this was usable on an elven
living ship then you could say Plant Growth would repair one hull
point.

 This is the ref that the sage advice column used for the healing/repair of
elven ships.

The implication could be taken that DnD is only interested in
healing trees that are mobile. Or, that something about making a
tree mobile by using a Live Oak spell on it means that Plant
Growth can be used to heal it. Even if the second was the case
then maybe there is a spell you can put on an elven living ship
so it can be healed?
I don't think we need to go that far. It seems to me that use of the Plant
growth to restore the damaged spar, truss, bulkhead etc and then use a cure
type spell to heal the graft would be sufficient. 

I don't think that I have seen a revised system where hull points
are 100HP rather than 10HP - but this does seem a little too
good!
	I honestly can't remember the source of the newer HP ratio, but it
may have actually been a typo in a supplemental for the SJ books. I seem to
remember something about different construction materials having more or
less HP per Hull pt depending on its type. Also I seem to remember the old
2ed AD&D castle and keep guide saying roughly the same thing about
structural pts of wood vs. stone/metal etc...

Also this reminds me a little of the Palladium SDC/MDC problem,
which I had hoped was dead and buried! No, like a zombie, it still shambles
about terrifying the natives.

(Sorry, I probably shouldn't mention non-DnD games systems.)

I had not even thought about animals which act as living spell-
jamming vessels, star dragons etc - that is a can of worms that I
hadn't even started to open!
That can I already have opened in abundance. Kindorii riders, small jammers,
certain types of space-going dragons, even skaaver sleds.
(Hmm. Gigantic worms as SJ vessels... Hmm. [grin] )



I was trying to draw a comparison between a living creature being
on negative hit points, and the way SJ ships that have lost more
than 50% hull points start loosing function. Generally living
creatures on positive hit points are assumed not to have lost
limbs or organs, so I thought that this logic might be useful.

I was not claiming that living vessels might lose consciousness
by taking more than 50% of their hull points, and that this would
alter how they responded to a Helm.

Partly it was about if you could get a Harm spell to work on a
living SJ ship, and I didn't think that just one spell should be
able to effectively near total demolish a ship.

okay, I see what you were getting at, and yes that is part of the reason I
am sure that the guys that wrote the SJ rules went with the only damages one
hull point logic. In the earliest D&D space ship adventures preSJ,
disintegrate read area effect as "one object or 10 cubic '" 2ed changed the
"one object" part and limited the spells effect to items of a given size
that would fit within 10 cubic '. Now you have to ask does the ' mark read
as feet indoors and yards outdoors or just feet or just yards?

V/R FC2 Riley, James R. 
cel: 228-249-2967
e-mail: jamesriley@???.net

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