Spelljammer: The WORST D&D Release To Date

Spelljammer is about D&D in space right? Nope. This new release basically says: no. It's about mobile dungeons moving around to various different places kinda....plagued with vague ideas and contradictory or hidden information. This is a waste of money and I feel sorry for the authors who were obviously rushed, undercut, and used as a vehicle for profit.
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[@HowtobeaGreatGM]

*Thanks for watching!* Do you have the new Spelljammer? What are your thoughts on it? Let us know in the comments below!

[@357Dejavu]

I bought the books. The monster book is good. The adventure is average. The rules are where it severely lacks. I’m home brewing ship combat because my players really want to play this. I don’t mind home-brewing at all (I love it). But I want to home brew to add to the game not to fix the game. On page 29 the adventure refers to a spell that is not even in the game as treasure you can get.

[@corneredknight368]

While I don't disagree with the overarching criticisms made here, there are a few physics issues that are misunderstood, that mean some of the criticism aren't valid. The main one is range. While it is true that a projectile weapon will continue indefinitely, if it hasn't hit the target quickly, it is no longer flying towards the target. Maybe there needs to be some extra rules for stationary targets, but limiting the range of weapons to an abstracted amount justified as the distance the projectile can cover in 6 seconds, is appropriate. As a lesser point, freezing is space is not that big of a deal. While there is barely any heat in space, there is also next to no matter, so there isn't anything for our own heat to drain into. By the time a person radiates enough heat for hypothermia to be an issue, suffocation will have long killed them. Again maybe we need rules for the outside case of warforged, but in general, not a factor. One more: breathing doesn't use up air, it reduces the oxygen content and increases the carbon dioxide content. having the air go bad rather than run out is appropriate.

[@AlanAndrei]

This is what happens when you put diversity as a method of employment rather than ,meritocracy. I feel like if they had a guy that loves war games, painted Ship models growing up, and had played DnD Spelljammer 2nd edition, these books would have come out a lot better. Instead they focus on people who want characters to look like them - thats all they bring to projects now.

[@elderdovahhunter9579]

It is quite a conundrum for sure. Although the same could be same for every book. To me, a book is worth the inspiration/ideas that I can take, adapt, change, re flavour to fit the style for another campaign or different adaptation. Does the book do that? Yes and no. I definitely understand the points made about the rule book. Lots of uncertainties and vague points. Although for a setting as complex as Spelljammer, it does need some of that. Having exact rules for every little thing, at least to me, sucks the joy out of it. Although some groups might enjoy the resource management of “ok we need to refill our air so we don’t suffocate”. But do we really need an equation to work out when it runs out? Probably not because unless your groups is really into that, it’s not what some people want to focus on. Is that an excuse for why it’s written as such? No, nothing is really an excuse. BUT. I try not to think things as vague, rather I always try to think of it as “open ended for DM interpretation”. Is that my optimist side of things. Yeah. The adventure book side of things, I was extremely pleased with for a couple of reasons. With a fresh new wave of players coming in, new dms and players need something easy to process and the adventure does that really well. It outlines that each part should take 2-3 hours (1 average session) and focuses on leaving a cliffhanger and the end of each part to keep players enticed. I think it sort of nails the Guardians of the Galaxy vibe. Has plenty of absurd and wacky moments but the serious nature of the plot is still present. Is it perfect? Of course not. None of the adventures are. BUT the thing it does really well is inspiration and things to take apart, use in another game or it can be easily adapted or changed. If you were to take the books as face value, sure I agree with the point of view that it’s not one of the best books. However, I personally believe it’s worth having a look at if you are seeking ideas, for a similar setting or to run your own adventure. Take what works, and tweak things that don’t to improve your own games. Sorry for my long winded opinion. Haha. But good video nonetheless, and I hope a new spark can get you to take another look and alter ideas to match your style of game.

[@thejames11]

Still better than that of the sword coast adventurer’s guide which almost forgotten and has very little of it that isn’t reprinted in new books.

[@diestormlie]

"We realised our Space Combat system wasn't fun. So we suggest that you don't use it. What do you mean, 'just make Space Combat more fun!'?"

[@brandonstone2754]

The section on ship weapons is literally: Don't

[@diestormlie]

@@brandonstone2754 ...I don't think the WotC Designers really understand their target audience for Spelljammer. Either that, or they don't *want* to.

[@FrostWolfPack]

@@diestormlie I think its the later, What I have seen how much they have put emphasis on some other books like the radiant cidadel that I have just scimmed over.

[@DhinCardoso]

That's WOTC, they really don't care - D&D One will be much worse and will devour everything else and the TTRPG will suffer

[@TheAcherion]

@@DhinCardoso lets just play gurps

[@Zeithri]

This edition of Spelljammer sounds like it was written by people that hate space battles, and barely get naval combat, all they want is pirates swinging from ship to ship going yarrr.

[@TroySpace]

Swinging from ship to ship going yarrr would probably be the recommended way to get a hold of this product. Then you open it, go "Yarrr?" and then toss it overboard into the cosmos.

[@IAMDARKWOMAN]

Looking at the credits, this product only had 5 people on it. Chris Perkins was not only the project lead, he also was pulling triple duty by being the writer for the bare ass rules AND the adventure developer for the adventure. The skeleton crew on this ship was really bare bones!

[@oldstump1628]

But I like swinging ship to ship going “yarrr” .

[@steppahouse]

My first impression was that out was written by people assuming there were going to be a lot of new players joining with this book.

[@jonasateo]

I mean, to be fair, swinging from ship to ship going yarrr seems like it covers ~70% of what most players want to do x]

[@ToddHowardWithAGun]

Imagine making a spelljammer book with no rules about the spelljammer. This is like making a pirate module without rules for pirate ships.

[@DivusMagus]

That basically saltmarsh. The ship rules are very skimpy and only like 3 people for anything during combat.

[@sicariusdracus]

This! I bought the box set, and it was sealed and no preview. I was like, spacecombatand spelljammer class, gimme.

[@parttimehero8640]

The joke is that wizkids will release 4or 5 packs of "ship scale" miniatures... Seems not even WizKids knew the extent of the book.

[@AoRArchAngel]

@@DivusMagus My immediate thought, glad someone said it lol.

[@kev_whatev]

Oh you mean Ghosts of Saltmarsh

[@keyrtan]

Friend: “Why is your book full of sharpie notes and cross outs?” Me: “Because it was a first draft.”

[@SolomonPleasent]

The thing that upset me was how a race has a Fire Arms mastery and then proceeded to not anywhere in any of the books give an example or two of fire arms. Literally the only place you can find fire arms is the DMG and I feel like if a player is playing this race, they should have an easier time seeing examples of the things they are supposed to have proficiency in.

[@SpookyMarine]

This book and the recently released alpha version of DND One is making me a full time Pathfinder 2e player and GM instead

[@epsilon-eleven]

Firearms were introduced in the Critical Role supplement books. They're on DND Beyond as well, but I don't remember if they're in other books.

[@dwightweiers830]

Oh, but if you pay money to D&D beyond every month you might be able to find that, sheesh.

[@FireBorn790]

So I'm only at the 'space combat' section and... all I have to say is... Traveller. I know it isn't D&D but there exists in Traveller a system that makes space combat exciting and interesting, while ALSO allowing and promoting boarding actions (especially if you're playing as or fighting against space pirates). It clearly can be done and while I don't know much about the AD&D Spelljammer... it feels kind of integral to any 'in space' kind of game.

[@FireBorn790]

And from a brief skim of the AD&D Spelljammer book... it definitely looks like they cover this stuff in some detail there - including I see a reference on a section about Celestial Mechanics talking about the movement of planets within wildspace themselves where they show a very nice formula for calculating travel time between two celestial bodies. I do start to wonder why WotC seem to have lost the excitement that it seemed like the writers at TSR did about providing needed background material for the products they release. But maybe I'm looking with nostalgia goggles at the older releases as a fan of AD&D 2e as I am. *shrug*

[@IAMDARKWOMAN]

There's a great Ship Combat expanded document. It's currently in version 1.3!

[@E.J.Crunkleton]

2cd edition had rules for facing, movement and turn rates for ships; used firing arcs and lots of fun new weapons that were linked to specific races or factions; Had rules for ramming and damage to ships. excellent lore and race specific ships like the "elven man o war" that incorporated plant life to maintain the air supply; and even rules on how long a ships air supply could survive in space based on its size and the number of crew.

[@rotwang2000]

I remember one game that ended our Traveller the New Era campaign on the spot. We are being pursued by a ship, launches a missile and the one player completely lost it because the missile tracking us makes a 180° and he said that it would get infinite acceleration and disintegrate the rest of the session was one long discussion. With the GM saying it's fine and the player trying to explain this is impossible. Deadlock, end of campaign.

[@curtduval481]

@@IAMDARKWOMAN Version 1.3 of what document/book/system?

[@EclecticMystic]

It seems like WotC are pushing this "writers room" style of DMing, where things like running out of air or ship-ship combat area just situations the DM announces and the player's just react. It's not based on a shared understanding of the world the players can rely on. It's just a set of situations the DM can apply to spur a reaction. Which is something DMs are capable of doing already, regardless of if there's rules for it or not. So it just comes across as lazy. Personally, I think what happened was that survey they did on "which setting do you want to see" came back with big numbers for Spelljammer and Planescape, which someone in charge didn't like, since they clearly don't like the setting. So they pumped out a book, stripping it of many of the features that made it "Spelljammer" and just focussed on the parts they think matter: monsters, races, equipment, dungeons. It's a real shame.

[@upsidely]

They are pushing the do the bare minimum because you're the market leader by a mile and have a rabid fanbase that consume everything you spew out model

[@BrickInTheHead]

Minor point - I think guy is wrong in his criticism about the air fouling rules. That IS the process of running out of air, and basically exactly what was in 2e spelljammer. It's the process of the breathable air turning into carbon dioxide - which eventually kills you. There's plenty to criticize in the books, but that's not really one.

[@QCreyton]

@@BrickInTheHead what he seems more to be criticising is the fact that no matter what the air takes the same amount of time to foul no matter how many people are on the ship since there is just a stated time that it takes and makes no reference to individual rate of use. Then there's the issue of it not actually talking about the size of the air bubble, just that it exists. It also doesn't cover anything like what happens if say a fully depleted air bubble comes into contact with an otherwise fresh or partially depleted one, which would be important if you wanted to run some sort of encounter where your players come across another ship adrift with its crew having suffocated. It's just kinda ill conceived all over and just thrown at the public with the mechanics just raising questions without a hint of an answer. It's just a bit of a shame.

[@Nerobyrne]

I remember when the DM of a group I was with at the time got really really mad at the release of Strixhaven, because while she liked the setting she hated that there were no adventures included in it.

[@fiorasvante6527]

@@QCreyton Well, that's where the problem lies, I guess. For grognards/old-school players, that's part of the enjoyment For me, I could care less about how much air each person needs, the simpler the rules on this, the better so nobody has to be doing logistics instead of adventuring. The rules about fouling are perfect for me! Can you let us new players have nice and simpler things? If you want the complex ones, the old books are always there for you

[@pinkdaveandchaps3697]

To me the announcement for One D&D seems conveniently timed for the amount of backlash that they might have realized they were going to get on this, just another one of those "buy our product and get excited for next product do not think about the quality of our product." Type of mentalities

[@omok2]

Or spelljammer is the end of an Era, it was probably being developed prior to the decision for one d&d so they rushed the finished product

[@DAEDRICDUKE1]

Do not ask questions, just consume product.

[@The_Breaded92]

​@@DAEDRICDUKE1 the Disney Marvel mission statement right here 😆

[@gyarc]

I think you're onto something here, but my first thought was the other way around - were all the good writers and designers at WotC so busy carefully preparing the One D&D playtest that they just outsourced this one? I'm really sad it's likely this bad, as I was really looking forward to it, but I'm tempted to get it ust to check the authors lists.

[@erroneous6947]

I figured one D&D was essentially just to squash any momentum Gary gygax’s kid has.

[@bobbylawrence1259]

Something disappointing is that I would've expected something akin to the starship roles in starfinder, the sci-fi spin off to pathfinder which itself was based on D&D 3.5e. Some of the community believe that spaceship combat boils down to one or two people making rolls, but starfinder has 5 roles for the PCs to help work the ship. I am preparing to play a pirates campaign in Pathfinder 2e and I bought a piece of homebrew off Pathfinder infinity, called Smoke and Sail. It includes things like magical ammo for cannons, new navel combat rules, new skill feats, a host of NPC ships, with a good amount of the design being obviously influenced by starfinder. I got the bundle of PDF + Foundry VTT module for $15 and it has more thought and care put into it then the spelljammer rule-set. I am not calling Smoke and Sail perfect, it just got revised by the creator not that long ago, but wizards could do much better when it comes to the rules. Rules are the hard part of RPGs to be perfectly honest. Often the lore can be spitballed by a GM or ripped from other media, but homebrewing always has a chance of creating a imbalance in the rule-set because typically it is being playtested live in game at that moment. This is part of healthy 'cross pollination' with RPGs, I wished they took more from starfinder and as others mentioned, star wars RPGs.

[@SilverDragonAcademy]

I used the Starfinder ship rules to make some ACTIAL ROLES for Ghost of Saltmarsh. Didn't end up getting to use them though. I feel like I'm going to have to do something similar for this it seems.

[@sammybowker7823]

I've been using a supplement called Dark Matter that has easy to understand ship to ship combat, it's been an absolute blast.

[@tonysaunders1324]

I actually know the author of Smoke and Sails, and they are fantastically thorough. They have another supplement with the same level of care for NPCs that I'd highly recommend. I actually think the Pathfinder Infinite Community in general takes a lot of care with their products, and that's even considering Paizo usually does a bang up job themselves.

[@jamietrollope3259]

Hey, I'm the author of Smoke & Sail. Thank you for supporting the product, Bobby! I hope you guys enjoy it when you sit down to play. If anyone is interested in picking up a copy for the pathfinder 2e table, it's currently on sale for $7.99 over at Pathfinder Infinite. I definitely took inspiration from the best parts of starfinder ship combat (roles and upgrading the ship) but I'm very happy to keep iterating and releasing errata as I get feedback from folks. Ship combat is an area I really love in rpgs and felt it was a niche that was missing in Pathfinder 2e currently, especially with enough crunch and detail to make it meaningful.

[@bobbylawrence1259]

@@tonysaunders1324 Woops, yeah I checked and it is called Pathfinder Infinite, not infinity. It seemed like the natural counterpart to discuss because Pathfinder and D&D are like chimps vs apes, same genus of TTRPG. Also TBH while some moves WOTC has been making like buying out DNDbeyond is good, I feel like many D&D 5e players just know 5e and what WOTC standards are. Having the both the Archives of Nethys SRD and the resources released by Paizo themselves makes homebrewing with Infinite on another level. Side note, tell the author if you can that the main thing that attracted me to their offering is that they had a updated Foundry VTT module, often authors get ahead of themselves and I skip over cool stuff because of how much pain in the ass some of the coding and setup is for a single campaign. I hope more people add modules to their offerings and they deserve the high praise.

[@Sammo212]

100% agree, I’m literally selling mine during a “geek yard sale” thing next month. This release is embarrassing…there are more marketing people credited than all the writers and game designers combined. Really makes me convinced to avoid “planescape” and dragonlance 5e products.

[@Ragsna]

you´re selling? OG spelljammer or this new one? I´d like to buy the OG one, thx.

[@ThorsShadow]

@@Ragsna He's obviously selling this new one. Because that's what the video is about. Conrext clues, mate.

[@Ragsna]

@@ThorsShadow I would never assume. ;)

[@scollin8096]

“There are more marketing people credited than all the writers and game designers combined.” Big fricken yikes 😬😬😬

[@Sammo212]

@@Ragsna lol naw, I'm keeping my old stuff. I'm getting rid of this newer garbage.

[@candycadet528]

Wait. The meding cantrip can restore 24 hp a day/1 hp an hour?! And the dock for repairs in magical space has workers with tools repairing at 1/24 that speed? Why not hire people who only learn the mending cantrip and nothing else, train them for like a month or two as an investment and be 24 space docs, outshining every competitor????

[@macoppy6571]

That exists in two other settings already: Eberron, and Ledgers & Accountants: the TTRPG. Keith Baker is stepping back from WotC and prefers that Eberron be unreachable from other settings' multiverses.

[@PhoAgne]

Mending restore 1d8 + casting ability mod and may be cast only once per hour. Interesting part some of the people found mentioning of a spell "Repair Objects" in the the Light of Xaryxis adventure but this spell isn't described in the Astral Adventurer's Guide!

[@drewb1979]

@@macoppy6571 Based

[@getthegoons]

@@drewb1979 Baker can be pretty cringe but I at least respect he wants to protect his setting from otherworldly bullshit.

[@TheOnlyToblin]

Because that would take actual worldbuilding. Not something WotC has ever cared shit about.

[@MisterDragon]

This kind of stuff is why I general have trouble with 5th edition. I was asked for a friend to help patch holes on official adventures for her as a first time DM because the official supplement in dungeons and DRAGONS forgot to give the Int 16 dragon A MOTIVATION!

[@ADiceySituation]

Which one was that, the first chapter of Tyranny of Dragons?

[@MisterDragon]

​@@ADiceySituation Yes. The book never gives the dragon motive, relation to the cult or anything. Apparently it shows up as a throwaway boss in a later book but the DM in question had nothing to work with for if the players wanted to engage with the dragon in any way besides the scripted path and then no way to find out unless they bought the second book which doesn't do anything either besides saying he's "loyal to the cult". Oh and I've been corrected that he was just an adult and thus Int 16. You'd think that the first major villain that the game throws at you, the awe inspiring dramatic flair that opens the adventure, is actually relevant and not some random flunky that gets hits once and then poofs out of the story until near the end of the next book.

[@mewbinator7397]

It's almost like the DM would have to make something up......oh nooooooooo

[@thfkmnIII]

@@mewbinator7397 we might as well tell wotc to go fk themselves and theys moms cuz making homebrew gon be more coherent at this point

[@MisterDragon]

@@mewbinator7397 that's the point though. That's why I had to come in an patch the holes. Not everybody is like that. A better written module gives suggestions for alternate ideas or highlights where they left a gap. This was just... Nothing. We basically rewrote the entire opening chapters to turn it into something but then you may as well not have bought the book at all.

[@StoicMindproxy]

A Long, long time ago, when 5e was in its infancy I bought a book called Sword Coast Adventure Guide, a book of utter uselessness, and came to conclusion. I don't purchase any product until I have seen detailed reviews of it. And so was able to avoid this shine but ultimately hollow encounter. The End.

[@MarkShaw001]

This x10. We are decades past buying all the things D&D to complete a system. Decades past trusting that material would be provided for us that we can use to entertain our players and enrich our fantasy worlds. I have found so little from WoTC that I am willing to spend money. I dearly miss the days of TSR; even with the faults back then at least I could get my money's worth out of a product. As DMs we know we have to put the work in. Develop our own method for something and anything at the whim of a player. I cannot find the worth in the current material to even care about new products; I wait for the reviews, find out its crap, don't purchase and wait for the next disappointment from WoTC. I know that seems like a bit negative spin, but I really have been fed up with the material being produced. I've slowly switched most things over to GURPS with our own documented rulesets, like a software changelog. We've all been much happier playing together and a lot more comfortable with our investment in our gaming world.

[@Boonedale]

The SCAG was actully good. It gave a broad update to the setting and gave player options that could be exploited. It wasn't meant to be a complete world setting sourcebook.

[@markalexander6036]

@@Boonedale Yeah, I was about to say the same. Sword Coast Adventure's Guide is kinda neat. I like the additional info about the gods, pantheons, and the new character backgrounds. I can see some people being disappointed by it not having much in terms of additional races, classes, and spells though.

[@StoicMindproxy]

@@Boonedale It does say on its cover thou: "Explore the Swordcoast in this campaign sourcebook..."

[@StoicMindproxy]

@@markalexander6036 My reason for not liking SCAG is this. It's a book with no tools for DMs to make the conceptual space into a playable one.

[@jamesknauer540]

Like anything else in the D&D verse, if you want a proper spelljammer, you have to build it yourself.

[@kobaltblueknight]

Homebrew rule: The range given for ship weapons is the distance they travel in one round. You can extrapolate from there where the shot would be each round after the first based on where you were when you fired the shot, and where you were aiming it. You can then use this to see what might get hit in later rounds if something moves in the path of the shot. The attack roll is only used for the initial attack. If the attack misses, and the shot continues, or you fire at something out of range; avoiding the shot in later rounds requires a vehicle use check

[@dpneisess]

I think you’re on to something. I mean, a round of combat is 6 seconds. So it’s not really homebrewing anything to say that your space ballistae hits what you’re aiming at in the turn you fire it at a specific range. Because after the turn your ship, their ship, and all the planetary bodies continue to move. So having a max range of the weapon does make sense in space because we’re also talking about time. It’s just that instead of falling to the ground, your cannon ball misses because everything else moves relative to the cannon ball.

[@Alefiend]

This is why it's important to get product information from more sources than just the D&D team. I never cared about Spelljammer at all, but the recent release had such beautiful art, and the updated setting sounded so intriguing, at least when described by the people who designed it, that I considered looking into it. Sounds to me like evocative art is all we got, and I'm glad I didn't spend the money.

[@NDT-hw7nr]

I highly disagree, I absolutely didn't want to even consider this spell jammer for my 4x tables. At the encouragement of a friend I picked it up and read all 3 books and I actually REALLY like it. After explaining it to my tablet, 2 out of the 4 want to play it now

[@Thornspyre81]

Wow, that echoed me to a tee.

[@Vilik-nm7ry]

@@NDT-hw7nr Its just art and stat blocks. There are no real substantial rules in these books. This rendition took a fat steamer on the 2e source material that was actually fleshed out and worth playing.

[@NDT-hw7nr]

@@Vilik-nm7ry agree to disagree. I know I can run this where my tables will love it. I know my tables, and these books provided me with everything I'll need to run spelljammer sessions with ease. I honestly would've never considered it before reading these books, not usually my thing.

[@NDT-hw7nr]

@@bean9315 I'm a weirdo I suppose lol I don't like super rule heavy things. It allows me to make the game how I'd like versus stuck in 4000 pages of looking crap up the entire session lol

[@TheForeverDM]

For all the flaws and issues the old Spelljammer had (ADnD2), it explained and described THE SPELLJAMMING and the laws of this FANTASY space so much better... Why they couldn't adapt it or recreate it with all the resources available to WotC eludes me.

[@Mugthraka]

cause that would require them to ACTUALLY WORK for a change, and not just trying to pander to Twittards for the clout...

[@borderlands10]

That's kinda all it did in 2e though, it just explained the fluff and slapped random rules in between the fluff. The formatting of older editions was god-awful.

[@grr-OUCH]

That is because D&D writers back then could also do math

[@donkeysaurusrex7881]

@@grr-OUCH THAC0 is sort of a “You must be this intelligent to play” bar which is sort of sad because it isn’t a very high bar.

[@benjamingasaway9882]

I played 2e when it was still the current edition, never got to play Spelljammer back in the day. I can however offer some insight short version is complexity. The more complicated an idea is the more supporting underpinning it needs to operate second edition is full of tables, it made the game very math heavy but it did define things. The trick is to define things without limiting creativity, and that is where this fails.

[@TalonSky]

Why in the nine hells would they think you should track ship movement/weapons with character-scale feet?! Star Wars systems figured this out thirty years ago! Just do abstract range bands: ships start, say, five bands away. Opposed pilot checks to close/retreat a band. Going outside the 5th band means sensors lose the other ship, getting within the same band means you can board. Weapons can be fired from any band, but the more bands a shot passes through the more of a penalty to hit it has. Maybe some weapons do better when at a certain range. There, that took 30 seconds to think of and it's intuitive. Hire me, WotC.

[@kurtacus3581]

Except you kinda didnt do it in 30 seconds. How do these "bands" interact with characters? How far away is a single band? If i want to cast a spell at opposing ship then how far is it from mine? Do bands apply same penalty to attack on characters as it does for a ships cannon? If a ship is out of normal range of my characters weapon do i then apply a penalty and disadvantage? I just dont see the problem with using feet. This whole system is based in feet already, why complicate it with arbitrary "band" distances?

[@neb985]

The speeds are meant to be based on sailing vessels, which generally move at around 4mph

[@borderlands10]

Because movement in feet is far easier to work with and that Star Wars movement system sounds fucking abysmal.

[@swaghauler8334]

@@borderlands10 Try using Light Seconds. It's what we used in Traveller in lieu of its range bands. A single Light Second is 300K Kilometers of distance or speed. So we gave ships speed and weapons' ranges in Light Seconds or fractions thereof (we had 1G of Traveller acceleration set at 1/10th of a Light Second). We also used the MSK, or Mega-Statute-Kilometer (from Space Above and Beyond) equalling 1 Million Kilometers or 3.3 Light Seconds, and the Astronomical Unit which was 1.5 MSK or 5 Light Seconds (our more commonly used unit of measure because it was easier to use). By doing both range and speed in light seconds, you have one unified scale for large distances.

[@Sorrowdusk]

@@swaghauler8334 😱OMG the crunch and that's how the cookies crumble 🍪

[@PoliceTelephoneBox]

This makes me even more worried about their "One D&D" plan. Just another company trying to get on the "don't buy it, rent it with a subscription fee forever!" bandwagon. Glad I watched this, as I was considering checking this book out. I have a feeling Guy could flesh out better space rules in an hour than the hacks behind this book could in the month they probably spent on this.

[@steveschenker1380]

Dude, I didn't realize it was a subscription thing... Looks like I'll be playing 5e till TWO DnD, aka 7e. Also, are we all just going to call "One DND" 6e? I will probably call it 6e.

[@whitewolf44a]

@@steveschenker1380 I will call it 5.5 probably

[@matthuck378]

I use old Photoshop and other software (Krita, Blender, etc.) for digital art and image manipulation now because I won't give Adobe a monthly fee for the rest of my life. There's no way I'll ever do that for D&D.

[@tootsmcdunno5244]

@@matthuck378 I wish I could do that, but I lost my discs from my old Photoshop many moves ago. And my laptop doesn't have a disc drive anyway!

[@matthuck378]

@@tootsmcdunno5244 If you dig around on Adobe's site, you can find free legacy versions. CS2, I believe, is actually free to download. I lost my disc ages ago, but that worked for me. CS2 is about 15 years old, but it works just fine, and I know it well.

[@colinoconnor318]

I like this channel's thoughtful videos and I have some problems with the new books, but a lot of this is a bit unfair. I've run three sessions now using these rules and they have been really fun. Here are some things about the video that I find to be good critiques, followed by some things Guy says that don't really make sense to me. 1)Travel speed - Movement speed in combat is simple enough but there really should have been more clarity on travel over long distances. Can I get to the moon in a matter of minutes or a matter of hours? Traveling at max speed seems to mean I can get there in minutes but can I travel at max speed between a planet and a moon? Similarly, I wish there had been better characterization of the star systems like hex maps or something to flesh out how travel and exploration work in space. And why no love for Realmspace, the default setting for this edition? Additionally, as Guy mentions, ships outrunning each other should get more attention, though the normal chase rules in the DMG would probably work fine (but I haven't tried this yet). 2) Space combat - I've seen the critique many times that the book doesn't provide rules for space combat. It does, of course, (see below), and in a way that allows players to keep using their hard earned character abilities and to use their ships to fight big monsters, but there are some things missing. I would really like if they included some guidance as to how ships impact the CR of encounters. CR is an imperfect metric, but it would be good to know how the difficulty changes if your enemies have a given ship, if you have a given ship, etc. You could calculate this by hand but you shouldn't have to and it gets very complicated. 3)Ship Weapons - The weapons do not take 3-4 rounds to fire as Guy suggests, they take 3-4 actions, and the book makes clear that these should be taken by multiple crew members crewing the weapons using side initiative so those actions can happen more or less at once. This strongly implies that your ship should have hirelings or NPC crew members to fully crew weapons. Unfortunately, the book doesn't go so far as to provide guidance on hiring crew, how much they cost, where to find them, etc. This kind of thing is in the DMG and elsewhere but a little more clarity on how to fully crew a ship would be appreciated. Now for where this video didn't make as much sense: 1). The air bubble thing: When you breathe in real life, the air doesn't disappear. You turn it into less breathable air and exhale it. So if you are in a bubble of breathable air, over time, the bubble will become less breathable (foul) but it won't go anywhere. Guy seems frustrated that there aren't any rules for the air disappearing but I don't know why there would be. The air thing is really not a useful critique of the book. 2) I'm not sure why people keep saying there are no rules for space combat. All the ships have an AC, HP, and weapons with ranges and damages. You can use the ships to shoot other ships (or, more usefully, their crew or weapons) and damage them. Use side initiative so multiple crew members can crew a single weapon and fire it in one round. This is all in the book. My players all appreciate not needing to learn a new game system and that the ships fit nicely into the usual system of combat. I have used the system presented in this book and it works and is fun. 3) This video spends a lot of time on the critique that, because the maximum range of one of the weapons is 2,400 ft., then encounters must start at 2,400 ft and then you need to use every round to get closer? I can see some scenarios where you that might happen but, isn't it just up to how the DM designs the encounter? Longbows have a maximum range of 600 feet but I don't think I've ever started a normal encounter at 600 feet. The range of the weapons really doesn't have to determine how you start your combats at all. The book advises designing encounters to start at 250, 500, or 1000 feet. Wildspace is supposed to have plenty of clouds and asteroids and debris everywhere (this is medieval fantasy space, not real space) so no combats should really be about just shooting from as far away as possible. Not to mention, 2,400 feet is the maximum range (normal range is 600. Beyond that you have disadvantage) of a single weapon which is unique to a single ship which is one of the three ships priced at 50k. They are the most expensive (i.e. the rarest) ships. Using that situation to criticize all the combat is not really fair. All the other weapons are 120/480 or 200/800. 4) Regarding weapons in space having infinite ranges: range has always been less about how far the projectile can possibly travel and more about from how far you can reliably aim. That's why the range of bows in the core rules doesn't change if you're firing from the top of a cliff or something. Sure, if you fire a cannon in space, the cannon ball could theoretically travel forever, but it wouldn't be sensible to have a player roll to hit a target 500 million miles away. They can't aim at it. Could siege weapons from the DMG have different ranges in space? Well sure, but this is fantasy space. A mangonel wouldn't work at all in real space. I appreciate that they keep things simple and allow me to use content from the DMG in Spelljammer without fussing. Weapons in this game having maximum usable ranges is normal and expected. This book, (and a lot of the recent books) leave some things to be desired, but I think this book is fine for putting space ships in D&D. A lot of the major critiques seem to be coming from people who would probably be happier playing a war game or a sci-fi game, who aren't playing 5E, or who haven't run a game with these rules.

[@cliffordohrnberger]

Absolutely solid points for the most part. I was agreeing with him about range and coming up with a system to fix that and realized through doing that, it's already built in if you just remember range is about timing a hit as much as getting the ammunition that distance. The air bubble complaint makes absolutely no sense, it sounds very clearly exactly how long the air 'lasts' even from his critique.

[@nickyarbrough8392]

I strongly agree with all of this. I think that it's generally a solid release that feels just a LITTLE bit incomplete. I'm of the opinion that they'd have been better served by dropping the adventure and redirecting that effort and time into more content in the guide book in order to flesh out the setting a little bit more and to expand upon some of the less obvious game play implications that are nevertheless almost inevitably going to come up, most glaringly the CR issue and balancing ship encounters. Some way to customize the ships with different weapon loadouts and such, giving the players a way to progress in terms of ship power would also have been extremely nice. Overall I don't dislike it, am happily folding it into my campaign, and think that the criticism it's getting is overstated, but if anyone's primary interest is the ship to ship combat and whatnot I just don't think there's enough meat there to build a whole game around. I do think that a lot of the more vociferous criticism is from people who wanted something other than what the designers intended it to be, which is more of a difference in opinion than it is a failure of the product.

[@SwiftNimblefoot]

THANK YOU! Finally someone who actually read the book and not just accepts this youtuber's word like it is from the prophet's mouth.

[@SwiftNimblefoot]

@@nickyarbrough8392 I wish they spent more space on adding the lore on the setting, IE the various empires and races. Sure some get fleshed out in the bestiary, but I wish it was more like the 2E Spelljammer book. Anyway, it is nowhere as bad as the youtuber likes to portray it, and certainly a huge improvement over the neutered Ravenloft book with removed alignments. Also, ship to ship combat has rules, this youtuber straight up lies about that, and Wizkids even made minis to support it. The air bubbles always existed like this in 2E too, again if this guy knew the old book he would have understood. That's why most ships have some vegetation or keep creatures that can create oxygen.

[@cookiestyleguy5886]

Another point of contention that I’ve found in the book is it never actually explains what space entirely is. Of course we know what space is like in the real world, but in a world like D&D, where instead of planets there are realms and planes, it’s reasonable to think space might behave differently, or just be an even more expansive plane. However it gives you none of that info, not how far planets are apart, are there solar systems, what is in space? Is it a vacuum like real space, or is there some sort of magical gas occupying it. So the options the book leaves you range from real space, where solar systems are light years apart, radiation is a constant threat, and where every action will fully experience Newton’s third law. Or you’re practically just taking a cruise.

[@tabithaalphess2115]

Yeah, they really leaned into the idea that D&D space is just the ocean, complete with copy-pasted sea creatures and coastal animals. In some cases, they'll literally just call it "space seagull". They could've gotten a bit more creative and called it a gall or something, and maybe make it look more like a flying fish with like ice crystals on its back and have it be a bold scavenger native to nebulas that started lurking around docks and spelljammers because their warmth melts the ice crystals on their backs, making flight and scavenging easier, especially snatching rations from adventurers' hands while they're snacking on deck. It took me less than a minute to come up with that, but Wizards couldn't be bothered. But even though they completely leaned into the idea of it just being the ocean, they didn't include a lot of details relevant to that experience. Hell, the Treasure Planet movie put more thought into these details than Wizards did for their spelljammer book. It at least explained the rules of how space worked in their universe, and they didn't just make it feel like sailing in space. There were legitmate sci-fi and astrological elements that made it feel more unique

[@pokotarohero7903]

So then should we skip the books and just try to get the notes from the Adventure Zone team on how their plane jumper ship works?

[@Maverick2736]

You know what's worse? Space is actually different and much more fantastical and interesting in D&D. Every planetary system is surrounded by gigantic spheres of impenetrable dark ceramic called "crystal spheres", which can only be crossed through dangerous portals that temporarily form on them at random. Beyond the "wildspace" within the spheres (and the influence of the gods within them, bad news for clerics and warlocks) lies the "phlogiston", the chaotic rainbow ocean of incredibly volatile and flammable ether full of unknown, bizarre dangers between the stars through which an experienced spelljamming captain has to sail in arcane river-like flows to get to other crystal spheres in their perpetual, ever-changing motion. *_And all of that awesome shit is missing from the Spelljammer book about spelljamming._* Fuck's sakes.

[@IAMDARKWOMAN]

conveniently, the have the original box set available for Print on Demand now... funny how that works.

[@spdnb]

@@Maverick2736 can...can I use this for my setting?

[@colbyboucher6391]

Granted if this air "bubble" is totally sealed (which it must be in a vaccum), there's no reason for it to eventually "run out' of air, the air just becoming foul seems more reasonable. And I don't particularly think long repair times are a big deal. If anything I wish D&D encouraged that level of downtime more often.

[@orwin5445]

At the cost and time it takes it would be faster to just do an adventure or two on planet and buy another ship than wait for repairs. Also mending is significantly overpowered comparatively.

[@colbyboucher6391]

@@orwin5445 Are Spelljammers really that cheap??

[@orwin5445]

@@colbyboucher6391 I'm also assuming you would sell the partially functioning spelljammer as a part of that, but they aren't terribly expensive, no.

[@TheJoshman01]

In ad&d 2nd thats basically what happens, I think it can also "shrink" if a ship is overcrowded, but that may have been a homebrew thing.

[@borderlands10]

@@orwin5445 Jesus, talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Downtime is something that most parties barely get at all and having your ship repaired is a perfect opportunity to explore an area to see if there's anything interesting to do.

[@PhoAgne]

The most jarring for me was the chapter "Creating a Wildspace System": 3 sentences which are just "look at what we done and come up with something I dunno". New people wouldn't know about the Spelljammer's planet types, they are vastly more different and very fantastic! With Suns being balls of fire (somewhat expected) or portals to Fire Planes, planets being made not only from earth but water (at least mentioned) and air! And even some conflict between two classifications system with the 2nd one also recognizing living planets!

[@doxkowalski915]

In Fizban's it was the "chapter" about draconic classes, that is simply "I dunno just make the existing classes dragon based". For all the hype and all the amazing art they're including the core is more and more disappointing.

[@getthegoons]

@@doxkowalski915 amazing art is pretty subjective too. Like I get the appeal of 5e art, but older dnd art just looks better to me usually.

[@doxkowalski915]

@@getthegoons Can't disagree. I can vividly recall the images from my 3.5 monster manual I bought years ago. My favorite style will always be the one used for Eberron, all the details made it work so well.

[@nicolocorbellani9807]

@@doxkowalski915 honestly even the art wasn't that good , the only art pieces i really liked were the astral elves and even then their city was just some generic futuristic city , like they had such cool clothes but their buildings are souless glass skyscraper. Also it's a shame that there isn't a counterpart to them because it seems that they are allied with sun dragons ,how cool would be to have evil elves allied with moon dragons and maybe their style could be more geometrical and round to mimick the moon dragons.

[@Geminilion100]

Same shit they pulled with Van Richten. Albeit in that book they destroyed everything before telling you to make your own.

[@theDMLair]

Excellent analysis, Guy! This convinces me more and more that many of the folks writing/designing these books DO NOT actually play the game. Or, it's like you said, the material is rushed and not playtested. The latter seems most likely, though I increasingly wonder about the former.

[@Runescape12345]

Will you ever do your own look into it?

[@tophatsntales]

This is what we've been saying for more than half a decade now. I'm not really surprised anymore...

[@klaykid117]

It makes me dread the upcoming "1 D&D" thing

[@boomerkobold3943]

You’re only just now figuring that out?

[@webbmyers]

That's funny. This convinced me that the people writing this edition of Spelljammer HAD actually played the original. Ship to ship combat and navigation in the original took up most of the content of the rules and most of the time at table and yet, it was by far the most boring part. "Crash and/or board the other ship" was always the best tactic because anything that stopped us having to use the grids and paper minis was great. If we were the kinds of gamers that enjoyed playing complicated rules on tactical maps we would have been playing Warhammer or Battletech. Spelljammer is supposed to be space fantasy. It's Buck Rodgers and Star Wars. The ships are just a backdrop to move you between fantastical places.

[@SunShadow878]

I can't believe one of the most beloved settings and concepts was handled poorly like this. It's like we were betrayed, honestly. I was so hyped to make a Spelljammer campaign but now I feel discouraged.

[@Aphranteus]

I am afraid to see what they will do with Planescape...

[@Silkyfin_]

You need to check out aetherial expanse, it's just spelljammer but way WAY better

[@Yandarval]

Stuff like this, to a lesser extent, was in the OG Spelljammer. Ship construction comes to mind. It has been 20+ years. I recall that not one official ship could be made using the provided rules. Forcing THAC0 in was a terrible choice. Ships just dont work like that. Range as mentioned in the vid was also an issue.

[@simmonslucas]

WOTC wants all the releases to insinuate creative ideas and lore, but wants the DM to homebrew rules and systems or boil everything down to a single d20 roll. I have 2 kids both my wife and I work, simply don't have that much time to invent rules that describe and support a fun, engaging, and creative session on top of plot, PC plot, worldbuilding, dialog, and crafting or cartography... And in Spelljammer, I want a robust system for ship to ship combat. It is easier to ignore rules then to create them. I have already committed to play PF2e or smaller more narrowly focused indie games. D&D is trying to be everything to everyone and that recipe makes plain white bread.

[@generalsci3831]

Fair review. I already started making my own space travel system after having some experience with a naval battle I ran in 2021 and an airship battle I ran this year that will have a follow-up in a couple of weeks. I really just wish WotC would acknowledge that their current grid is great for people on foot and that they'd need a different one for fast moving and huge vessels. Even the smallest of starships from something like... Star Wars is magnitudes greater size and mass than an ancient dragon. Just give us a macro scale to solve these problems. And give PCs something to participate in while in a fight. It's wild that Dimension 20's StarStruck was able to showcase a brilliant five way space battle and WotC was working on Spelljammer thinking, "Yeah, this is fine."

[@rafaelcalmon2858]

Sincerely, your comment was way more productive than watching the video. I always feel like suggestions are more helpful than just pointing the flaws and calling stuff sh&%. I'm trying to think of ways to improve the naval battle system to incorporate the weapons rather than letting it be just about boarding ships. I'm also doing the same for the Battle of Strixhaven and the academy life part of that book because of it not being as developed as I hoped. That's why I can't agree with the point of this video, of it being THE WORST D&D book. Every setting book I acquired so far in 5e had me wanting to do the same thing: improve upon it.

[@unhingedarc2162]

I also do want to point out that dimension 20 was able to utilize a virtual tabletop, for that reason was it so successful in space combat. If they were using physical tabletop for space combat, they would come to find many of the difficulties that WotC would be encountering if they were (hopefully) seeking to resolve this issue

[@buttmunchmcnugget328]

@@unhingedarc2162 To that point though, even if it had been on a table with Minis, each character/player in starstruck had a job on the ship to contribute to the whole battle. Seeing Marge take her Combat turns to do banking and business on her phone and having it be just as exciting and relevant as Gunner Channel shooting stuff and Skip piloting was eye opening as far as how to make each character feel like they are contributing to a space battle. D20 is some of the best actual play you could hope for, and their ability to make a RPG system work for Them is amazing.

[@davidmc8478]

This interview describes what it’s supposed to be like. I don’t understand why it’s not all in th book kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z5OUZq2XeJuBqdU

[@negative6442]

@@unhingedarc2162 No, you don't need to have massive ships take up huge amounts of space on the board. Pathfinder 1e for instance has a naval combat system where the grid is 30 foot squares instead of 5 foot squares, with each ship taking up a maximum of 4 of these squares. If the combat goes too far to one side of the board, simply readjust the ships so they're backin the middle.

[@Randomizer411]

Looking forward to the dozens of homebrewed rules that fix all the problems in the official books.

[@Jerry7Msa]

Let's hope they don't go the Bethesda route in the future.

[@Captain1nsaneo]

A bad product wastes the time of good people to fix it.

[@Randomizer411]

@@Jerry7Msa now that you mention it, WotC being the TTRPG version of Bethesda fits surprisingly well: Buggy product launches with typos and rules issues that are only fixed by homebrew/modding. Endless re-releases of special edition books with slight tweaks that never address core issues. More and more ambitious project promises that turn out to be untrue or just new paint on old systems. My god... It's already happening!

[@The_Yukki]

5e in a nutshell

[@peteonretreat2023]

Check out Wildjammer!

[@andrasfogarasi5014]

14:07 Obligatory correction on the effects of a vacuum: A vacuum does not cause objects to freeze in any reasonable amount of time. As there is literally no material to conduct heat, the only way an object can cool is through thermal radiation. Vacuum otherwise acts as a perfect insulator. So depending on how much sunlight an object is exposed to, its albedo, its radiating surface area, and its internal heat distribution, a wide range of effects can be observed, such as heating up over time and cooling down over time. But this effect takes hours for small or irregularly shaped objects and millennia for larger, more spherical ones. If you wish to see the wide range of effects which are possible, look at the planets. Their average surface temperatures range from -200°C to 464°C. Things exposed to space do not necessarily cool, but if they do, it takes a long time. However, space does offer other horrifying ways to die. The one everyone knows about is of course suffocation, but it doesn't happen the way it would on Earth. When your lungs are exposed to vacuum, they don't just fail to absorb oxygen, but they actively remove oxygen from the blood. This causes a person in space to lose consciousness within 12 seconds. Another notable effect is that low pressures cause water to boil below body temperature, which results in humans first becoming bloated sacks of steam and then eventually deflating into dry husks. Don't expect this steam to be hot though. If repressurised, this steam will instantly turn back into body-temperature water. And even if you are impervious to suffocation or low pressures, there are more insidious long-term health consequences to space exposure. You see, in space, there is a significant amount of ionising radiation, especially near stars. This doesn't really kill you, it just causes you to develop a sunburn. And skin cancer. Or if the exposure is intense enough, radiation sickness. Space is fun.

[@JannPoo]

I've read of some arguments on the subject that the body would still become cold very quickly unless it's exposed to sunlight. The reason is for something that you mentioned yourself, water would become steam and leave the body. That's how the body would cool off. Water is very conductive and it always brings some heat with itself when it evaporates. And with no pressure it would keep evaporating and thus taking heat away at very low temperatures, so it could easily even cause the body or part of it to go below 0 C°.

[@chrisbaker8533]

Don't try and bring science into our vaguely, somewhat suggestive, maybe not so much, but titled as such, space fantasy game.

[@victorsangabrielg]

The way I explain distance is the fact that it takes time for the projectile to reach it's target, so It will always miss, even if it reaches it's intended destination. "Captain, someone from the enemy ship fired an arrow that is going to reach us in 15 seconds, what are your orders?". "Let me think...ehhhh.....move?"

[@nyarparablepsis872]

100% agreed. And it also makes me even more apprehensive about the forthcoming Planescape release. I *love* the setting, and dread to think what they'll turn it into.

[@DaHuntsman1]

It feels like WOTC has adopted a mindset of "keep things as vague as possible so as not to offend anyone or restrict the DM in any way" which is good and bad for various reasons, but it is bad because it leads to situations where DM's don't have the tools or rulesets available to make a RAW ruling for alot of different scenarios that can pop up in a game.

[@Kassiaterabbitslayer]

Ya to the point that I wonder why heroes are needed in this fantasy utopian world where everyone pure and innocent. The villains and his minions can't even be cruel they must be misunderstood. Least we offend someone in founding culture for our world

[@DaHuntsman1]

@@Kassiaterabbitslayer Its not neccessarily that, but its just so many other things that WOTC either completely retconned or changed, some of which were frankly needed and some of which aren't.

[@Kassiaterabbitslayer]

@@DaHuntsman1 I am not saying my comments is wotc thought process but to me without grievances and conflict even petty or down right offensives ones. The question lingers in my mind about why a utopia doesn't exists why multiple gods exist if no differences exists. Why n how did cults ever form why more than 1 nation exist. By trying to pacify and purify the world from anything which may generate drama or conflict it feels so fake and for me leads to the question where is the Crack that the evils can exploit

[@DaHuntsman1]

@@Kassiaterabbitslayer That is a lingering issue i have with WOTC, especially when it comes to certain settings *cough* Forgotten Realms *cough cough*

[@ExeErdna]

@@Kassiaterabbitslayer The crack is "why is everything a bit too good?" It feels like somebody found the multiversal spell to control everybody. Nobody's evil yet people must still go on adventures where nobody's really hurt or threatened less they really mess up. Why make a world where everything is harmony? That's just gonna enable people to push it to be worse than Dark Sun. Like Dark Sun you had hope, like mess was BAD yet you had hope you could push a bit closer to something better. A lot of the new content lacks threats which means people gonna put in worse one. Like my main example is Strixhaven like those colleges in the lore fight with each other just as much as they fight other students. To the point you most likely won't make friends with other college students. Strixhaven ended up just high school with magic and ironically a lot of aspects to do it's own events properly.

[@jbriggsiv]

I've already introduced Spelljammer, as well as Planescape, to my players ages ago. I used my old AD&D books for lore and altered rules based on Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Descent into Avernus since they both give good examples of vehicle customization and combat. I haven't read these new rules yet, but it sounds like I may just stick with my homebrew mechanics. They work just fine, and since my AD&D conversions tend to be more challenging than standard 5e material (5e Tiamat is a joke, I made her an actual goddess), i think it will keep my players more engaged.

[@MasterJosh01]

Oh yeah, there’s no lore in the book. There’s no other spheres, or “systems” other than the 2 in the adventure. No mention of other settings or maps, in fact there no phlogiston or “astral sea” maps because everything is always in motion and just randomly floating about. So the Rock of Bral could be just outside of Realmspace or incredibly far. Oh also, no map of Realmspace either! It just says have the PC’s start on any world and then they escape on a spelljammer docked in a bay and got the Rock. Nice map of the Rock if Bral, but no lore about it or other interesting NPC’s. The adventure is very railroady. Don’t buy it. Old stuff is way, WAY better.

[@Dirty20]

I'd suggest writting them up somewhere. There will be a lot od DMs wanting a full ruleset for it

[@ravingbean9766]

@@MasterJosh01 I got Bruce Heards Callidar. Its Space Adventures. Its really good. He was one of original Spelljammer devs and he even said it was released half finished, as TSR needed the money. This is even worse.

[@snieves4]

This

[@dwrichter]

@@Dirty20 Wildjammer is free, and so much better.

[@kalel1805]

I was a relatively late bloomer when it came to D&D, having only recently starting to look at older settings in other editions. From what I gathered, each published setting is suppose to have an identity and purpose. Forgotten Realms is a great setting when you just want a standard high fantasy game. Kinda basic sure, but that is it's purpose. Dark Sun is when you want that post apocalyptic feel, with the setting having specific rules to how that setting can impact your characters, the kinds of stories told, even changing how magic can work and having psionics. Spelljammer's identity is based around space exploration, the concept of space working on fantasy rules, eldritch shit, more psionics, ships and ship to ship combat. It feels a lot like Disney's Marvel formula, everything unique and special about this setting has been stripped away and made to conform to one singular identity, and to release product as fast as possible and then immediately move on to the next product. Edit: They only good thing I have to say about new spelljammer is the artwork and the spelljam's album. The music is very Flash Gordon/70's esque and the artwork is fucking gorgeous. Only good things I've got to say though...

[@niklass1641]

The 2nd edition material is VASTLY superior. Especially with it's detailed 3D ship to ship combat rules.

[@RipVanWinkleXX]

Which is sad since that wasn't really that great. Even the author hated it lol.

[@lord6617]

And the admittedly racist/bad stuff in 2e was mainly fixed in 4e releases, they literally had all of their work done for them they just needed to not screw it up...

[@niklass1641]

I highly suggest everyone pass on the $50 for this "5E stage dressing" and just get the PDFs of the original Spelljammer material as it's readily available for free. It's not hard to translate it into modern stats.

[@skullman1234]

I too was disappointed with the Spelljammer books, however, fort different reasons. I am a fan of the idea of Crystal Spheres and the Phlogiston found in earlier editions. Crystal Spheres were the Casing around various settings' universes and also prevented Phlogiston to enter the space to allow life. Now the spheres don't exist although they reference them in an infuriating way, and the phlogiston doesn't exist anymore. On the inside of the cover, there is a QR code that takes you to an official survey. I encourage people to fill it out if you have feedback on the books.

[@AlanAndrei]

The whole Multiuniverse of DnD was perfect and very interesting, with the inner and outer planes (Planescape adventures) and the material planes encapsulated by Crystal Spheres. Now they fucked it all up mixing the Astral plane with the Material plane. Its studid, makes no sense, and ruins the whole thing.

[@nyanbrox5418]

I don't care about ship to ship combat, i am a wizard, I want to win fights and combat with spells not oversized pea shooters, but this, this is what I have been upset about, actually this is what i thought the video would be about, like, removing the power system I loved about D&Ds multiverse, the thing that makes all D&D worlds make sense with different rules and laws and Gods, just, and the space zombie ghost things that look to take you over to get back into crystal spheres to get to afterlives, my gosh, so cool removing that, like, makes sense, D&D going mainstream means that DMs who want to add certain elements are unable to if the multiverse between worlds follows different rules, the rule set of spelljammer and outside of crystal spheres is the most important set of rules, because it governs how the rules within the spheres make more sense, logic and santiy is the exception to a vast unforgiving sea of dense space nebulaeic farts even the gods fear and dread and crystal spheres being easily passed by high level wizards teleportation or surface portals but not something mere invention could help with was so cool

[@screeno42]

@@nyanbrox5418 There was even this cool lore tidbit I heard about how no one, not even the gods, know who or what made the spheres, no god has been able to break one, and yet a broken one has been found with no knowledge of what happened. It's such a cool "ooooooh shit" mystery, and now it's all in the bin.😞

[@davidkoudelka10]

@@screeno42 That's...actually kind of scary...😰 I did once hear as well no god has dominion over the Phlogiston and cannot enter it, so as such clerics and paladins cannot call upon their divine powers! The sheer look on the players faces when they find that out for the first time much be AMAZING😂😈

[@screeno42]

@@davidkoudelka10 fortunately, the power cutoff isn't that sudden. The god's influence simply grows weaker as you move away from their sphere. Plus, paladins draw their power from an oath rather than a god, so they may not be effected at all depending on the oath. Additionally, gods can assert their power from other spheres so long as they have followers in it, and can ride spelljammers themselves, though they lose many of the perks granted by their divinity while in the phlogiston, so it's a rare occurrence.

[@E.J.Crunkleton]

For the Grognards, my 2cd edition Spelljammer was easily incorporated into my 3.5/pathfinder adventures some 20 years ago. It would be fairly easy to make the changes into the bounded accuracy system that 5th uses Food for thought for anyone that is turned off by the last 15 years of money chasing.

[@drewb1979]

I turned off bounded accuracy in my game and I never looked back. We don't mind big numbers and we like seeing them get bigger. It's a satisfying form of progression.

[@jonahpedersen5429]

Loved me some old school Spelljammer.

[@E.J.Crunkleton]

@@drewb1979 I feel the same. By the time you get to level 16-20 and the numbers get tricky it's time to retire anyway.

[@E.J.Crunkleton]

@@jonahpedersen5429 I love it nowadays too! I just ran a campaign where the party stole an artifact from a powerful kingdom and stowed away on a spell jamming ship to escape. Hilarity ensued when they tried to take over a ship with 3 12th level mages on their home turf.

[@unshackledjester]

This is why I have ignored all of the 5e books aside from spells and just converted 3.5e materials for my games. Bounded accuracy sucks for anyone that wants actual exceptionalism as a concept for players and feels like the Harrison Bergeron of ttrpg methodology.

[@oscarwind4266]

I hadn't heard about this till last week but I also expected starship combat in my startship combat rule book.

[@Mugthraka]

WotC motto "thanks for the 50$ now go fuck yourself and ask your DM to fix/tweak whatever holes we left or things we din't do, you can't expect us to ACTUALLY work now do you?" Before releasing a staged Interview where they are patting themselfs on the back and sucking their own dicks at how great the new book/module is, oh and don't forget to get the Deluxe/collector edition of the same book with just 5 more artworks and alternative cover for 120$...

[@nerdiboy5128]

I hope that someone improves the rules; or gets the writers at Wizards of the Coast to DO THEIR JOB. Because out of all the settings, my favorites are Eberron, Spelljammer, and Dark Sun. I was always interested in Sci-fi more than fantasy (I still like fantasy, just not as much), but then I learned that I could combine them, I could have my cake _and_ eat it, I could mix peanut butter and choclate to get a Reese's cup. I read Paul Herbert's _Dune_ , the Foundation series by Issac Asimov, Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, Edgar Rice Burrough's Pellucidar and Kaspak and Princess of Mars. All these great fusions of science and magic, creating vistas of wonderful imagination. And I wanted to try and do something similar to that. I wanted to create small hangers within a Spelljammer that would contain smaller corvette and fighter craft that would get in aetherial dogfights, narrowly avoiding gravity wells, black holes, and arcane energy blasters. I wanted to design Primary Life Support System (PLSS) spacesuits to avoid decompression sickness and stellar radiation. I wanted to play as a human artificer from OUR world, who accepts a call to adventure and (though he doesn't _naturally_ possess arcane ability) becomes the mechanic for the Spelljammer, fixing leaky pipes, maintaining the electrolysis device that generates oxygen from the moisture used in the ship's hydroponics section (can't survive in a vacuum without having something edible, and lord knows the powderized Instant MREs are indigestible, flavorless gunk in the best of times, tooth cracking bricks at absolute worst if left on the shelf for too long), recharges the Photonic Rays on the bow of the ship so they still have charge when engaging enemy vessels, refueling the hydrogen-fusion reactor in the middle of a catastrophic computer systems malfunction. I WANTED MORE FROM THIS!!! 😭

[@SpiritOfBagheera]

What did you think of the 3.5 Spelljammer: Shadow of the Spider Moon setting/rules found in Dungeon Magazine 92? Only 46 pages. But I thought it covered just about everything you'd need to run a good campaign, including ship-to-ship rules and tokens for ship combat.

[@ViktorTheMusician]

Honestly, "pitching a cool theme and just not delivering" has been a recurring trend with 5e. Lowkey I think the root problem is they want every setting to have swords.

[@Sorrowdusk]

Can we have chain ⛓️ swords ⚔️, axes 🪓, and glaives? Maybe some magelock pistols🔫? Like I feel like Amazon's New World in SPAAAAAACE! 🚀🏴‍☠️ could be cool.

[@razorboy251]

I disagree. I was not the worst D&D release but it was a disappointing one. I think there are modules that are far worse than the Light of Xaryxis adventure in the Spelljammer set, and I was much more disappointed with Monsters of the Multiverse as a book than I was with Spelljammer set.

[@bavettesAstartes]

It has been a while since I was excited for a new adventure, like I was for Storm King's Thunder and Out of the Abyss, or for a book like I was for Xanathar's and Tasha's. I hope this is not a trend that will continue on for next few years. Wizards is kinda losing me here

[@pinkdaveandchaps3697]

I will at least agree that the module is not the worst, in fact I'm planning on running it since I bought it, but like people were expecting ghosts of salt marsh to actually have boat combat, even more so where people expecting space boat combat in spell Jammer

[@razorboy251]

@@bavettesAstartes FWIW I personally quite liked Frostmaiden (ran it two and a half times) though it does need work. Wild Beyond the Witchlight was a lot of fun with the right group. I just finished going through Radian Citadel and ran a couple of adventures form it: there are at least 5 good to excellent adventured in that book (though maybe not enough to warrant buying the book). These days I mostly look to non-WotC products for excellent adventures (or not D&D entirely).

[@candycadet528]

I can see that point, but as someone who did not own the books that they merged for Monsters of the Multiverse, I think Spelljammer might take the cake anyhow. At least I could avoid buying 1 Bestiary with the expansion box.

[@razorboy251]

@@pinkdaveandchaps3697 On the topic of Ghosts of Saltmarsh: I ran that one twice, once using the rules in the book and once using my own rules. The ship combat rules in GoS worked out OK but not great, so that's why I wrote my own for the second time I ran it. I also had Guy's nautical book but it ended up being too complicated to run - it was too crunchy for me and my group.

[@JustMeYeahhh]

About the limited range of projectiles: could the phlogiston act against their movement? I imagine a similar effect to air resistance. At some point, the projectile stops being deadly, if decelerated enough.

[@Sockacroc]

D&D books that don’t let you play as a hippo < D&D books that do let you play as a hippo

[@crankysmurf]

As a big fan of the 2E Ravenloft campaign setting I was very disappointed with Van Richton's, mostly because they skimped out on the details like the Dark Lords ("Oh just use the normal monster statblocks") and the Domains of Dread. My heart sank when I saw that Spelljammer would consist of three 64-pages books. It seems like WotC putting profits over quality by keeping the page count low, and thus information, low to save on printing costs. I believe their reasoning is that they know people will fill in the gaps by publishing on DMs Guild where WotC gets part of the 50% cut - win-win for them!

[@asskicker4000]

That is so scummy and I would not be surprised

[@Boonedale]

That just makes WoTC lazy AF in my book. Relaying on the playerbase to do their work for them.

[@Mugthraka]

Yeah VrgtR was very lazy, barebone and not worth the price tag... The Domains have like 4-5 pages of stuff and like 10 of these domains are barely a paragraphe long... What in the fuck?...

[@theophrastusbombastus1359]

Good to see somebody steering away from the toxic positivity that seems to be pervading the hobby You can dislike something and offer constructive criticism without being mean. How else are we meant to grow if we're not allowed to utter anything they don't want to hear? Otherwise you just hear and repeat more of whatever is in the echo chamber of "yes people" I shall be checking out other videos (as this one was simply one "Guy's" opinion after all) but I'm grateful for the honest opinion and I'll take it on board before I commit to any purchase

[@hawesomeness]

Guy, could you do another video discussion on the original spelljammer vs this one? I’ve never played the original and have no idea how this newer version differentiates from the older one.

[@Boonedale]

2e Edition Spelljammer has a fully fleshed out ship to ship combat system, crew needed per ship, explained the cosmoiligy of star systems, how to create a random unknown star system, had different types of planets, moons, stars and a host of other things related to Spelljammer as a setting (which it was back then).

[@Nobody-bh4rh]

Repeat after me: Play a game built for the setting you want. Stop shoving the square peg of D&D into round holes.

[@Lurklen]

There's nothing wrong with D&D happening in space, or being a roving spacefaring adventure game (instead of a roving land or seafaring one) but there do have to be some kind of rules actually written for it. My brother's and I given a weekend could write up rules to address the criticisms he had here. We don't pay for this stuff because it's impossible to do, we pay because they are supposed to be pros who can do it well enough and with enough polish we don't have to. It really shouldn't be that hard to slip D&D into a space game, people already do it on their own and it works fine.

[@QMulative]

"What about the freezing?" And the boiling. Can't forget about the boiling while you're freezing out there.

[@charminggamer4716]

Glad to hear I'm not the only person who's disappointed in this book. I've lost all faith in wizards, just feels like a greedy company now trying to rip off its fan base.

[@trappedinamerica7740]

They have to keep making money or they stop making the game completely. Sorry it’s just how capitalism works.

[@brandonstone2754]

It's literally a setting that entirely revolves around magical ships that allow realm to realm travel, needing and having no realm of its own. For a realm that's ALL ABOUT SHIPS there is absolutely nothing in the book...about ships. 0/10

[@daniellugo6461]

Company needs to make money, I don't fault them for that. They just need better and more committed designers for adventures and for mechanics that enhance the experience without bogging it down..

[@cameronmcleod8419]

@@trappedinamerica7740 Damn, it's almost as though there are some glaring flaws in capitalism that need to be addressed

[@Sanguivore]

@@trappedinamerica7740 Is making money and making a good product somehow mutually exclusive?

[@natester2342]

This book made me very very worried about what wizards is doing, I was very excited about the Dragonlance book coming out but now I'm cautious about it which sucks cause I love d&d and hope wizards can get back to making great content

[@vinspad3]

The Dragonlance book is large, nearly 80 more pages of content than Spelljammer. SJ's problem was it is the 2nd smallest campaign supplement we've ever seen (Sword Coast is smallest and SCG received multiple adventures to fill in the blanks). It's a content problem. If each of the three books were given 20 more pages it still wouldn't be as large as Dragonlance would and the rules might actually be fleshed out, monster manual would be full of wild ideas instead of mostly reskins, and the adventure would have larger lore implications. Instead, it limps along at less than 200 pages.

[@noblegalifreyan4551]

Imagine expecting good quality content from a company that rushes out product and gives no shits to the concept of fun. I'm sick of wotc products being lazy cashgrabs

[@I..cast..fireball]

Yea im not pre-ordering Dragonlance.

[@chromegaman]

This is why, if I ever run or play this module, I will be using DMG survival rules combined with nautical combat modules for more dynamic travel.

[@jamesonstalanthasyu]

To me one of the main weird things of Spelljammer are the ships and travel and combat. Sure there are funky worlds to go to, but there were many other ways to get to them already, or just have your homebrew world be the Rock of Bral or whatever. It was the ships creation and operations that made Spelljammer a unique product.

[@Kymlaar]

This reminds me a lot of the problems my friends and I have with 5E in general. It is more valuable than the book, but it does not like hard rules on anything beyond the core mechanics. Beyond that it relies heavily on the GM making a decision on the spot about how to use a skillcheck or spell in some non-standard way.

[@ZiddersRooFurry]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has issues with 5E.

[@The_Murder_Party]

Mmm, pathfinder... actually tells you what any of the rules do, and there are rules for everything... martials are even fun!

[@flintyewwood7563]

It seems like they are trying to streamline a lot of rules as things continue and cut too deep on this one when it comes to mechanics

[@brandonstone2754]

It's literally a setting that entirely revolves around magical ships that allow realm to realm travel, needing and having no realm of its own. For a realm that's ALL ABOUT SHIPS there is absolutely nothing in the book...about ships. 0/10

[@dirtywhitellama]

I preordered it. I was so excited I volunteered to DM for the first time to run it. I am very disappointed. I ordered a print on demand of 2e and will be adapting that instead for the most part. Well, I learned to never preorder anything from WOTC again and just wait for reviews instead.

[@camillebourgoin9662]

" I ordered a print on demand of 2e and will be adapting that instead for the most part." : The free Wildjammer pdf do it already for you.

[@kgoblin5084]

"Well, I learned to never preorder anything from WOTC again and just wait for reviews instead." I would advise instead you change this to never preordering anything from anyone, unless you can see satisfactory levels of preview content

[@fightingcorsair7297]

Accurate review, I think. I was also surprised by the lack of what would seem to be basic info in this book. Why do I have to go to the Saltmarsh book for reference on what crew positions are? Why are the two new backgrounds missing the traits/bonds/flaws section?

[@daltigoth3970]

Considering that traits/bonds/flaws are not included in the One D&D playtest rules, I suspect those aren't going to exist anymore. Strixhaven also left those out for the new background it introduced, though it did still have the examples for personality. In any case, I wouldn't necessarily chalk that up to laziness as many seem to be suggesting. Rather it may have been a design choice to leave them out even if they had written some in order to normalize not having them. In my experience, most players forget about them anyways and don't play into what they chose to put in those boxes.

[@TheVoltage2]

I agree the book is lacking, I want to start that off. However, I am confused by your complaint about air. A ship has 120 days of air for its average crew size. In the case of the Bombard it is 120 days for a crew of 12. On day 121, the quality of the air has suffered to the point it becomes slightly toxic. The air gives you the poisoned condition (disadvantage on attacks and ability checks). On day 241 the air has suffered so much it is no longer breathable at all, you begin to suffocate and would follow the rules for suffocation. It's like being trapped in a sealed container. The quality of the air over time IS how long it takes to run out.

[@davegilmore2564]

I have to agree with your assessment here, Guy. My son picked up the set when it released and I had a lot of the same questions you did. I felt like there was a bunch of handwaving around the parts that would make being in space different and exciting. But you never have to worry about air or gravity or travel. So it's basically just a new place with new monsters. No new rules or things you have to deal with

[@joshuarussell3284]

I think a good system to model space combat in would be FTL: Faster Than Light. Having the PCs move around to repair damage or target specific ship systems would help keep players engaged

[@QCreyton]

Sadly, there aren't any ship systems other than the helm. It's literally the everything for the ship and the book doesn't cover any of the other types of spelljammer ships that do actually have separate systems that could allow for that sort of action.

[@rubaiyat300]

@@QCreyton Well there should at least be weapons, but agreed that this product specifically doesn't do much there. And of course the various magic users ought to be able to do stuff regardless.

[@FiveSolasMap]

Seems to be a lot of laziness in the designers these days. I understand giving freedom to DMs, but we already have that intrinsically! When you make a book that introduces something like this, give us rules for it and we can judge them as we please!

[@PaladinQuinn]

More likely it's the editors the designers more likely try to be detailed but have their content cut.

[@austinburnett882]

I was so excited to plan a spelljammer campaign with this book coming out and now it seems i waited for nothing. It seems I would have to make up rules for literally everything I'd want to do anyway. I would be interested in seeing a video on what you'd recommend as an alternative for those who were hoping to run a spelljammer campaign. Or supplements to this book for those who bought the book but need more information/rules to effectively run a true spelljammer adventure.

[@daltigoth3970]

I would suggest you read the book rather than relying on the opinion in this vid. It is nowhere near as bad as he's making it out to be. He has seriously misunderstood or completely missed a lot of what IS in the book, then complained about it not being there or not making sense.

[@marktan3368]

I just read the whole book in 10 minutes by skipping the monsters and characters races. Not really anything here.

[@Mugthraka]

@@daltigoth3970 you are giving the book too much credit. A LOT is missing, not explained or barely mentioned or covered.

[@Mugthraka]

Honestly you can use the Wildjammer rules. Its an Homebrew pdf that a guy made last year, he simply converted AD&D spelljammer stuff to 5E. NOT everything is really neccesary imho, BUT it can be a good source to cover for whatever the 5E rules are missing (crew positions and specific actions, tactical manoeuvres, different types of helms, upgrades and weapons/ammo for ships, new spells, weapons and gear for Jamming characters)

[@ExeErdna]

@@Mugthraka Thanks for bringing up Wildjammer since it's basically what we have to work with.

[@divinkitty9452]

I love Spelljammer. It really reminds me of the Treasure Planet disney movie with how things are set up and flavoured. So, it's incredibly disappointing to find out that 5e took the piss with the setting. Might as well run Starfinder if I want Spelljammer.

[@SwiftNimblefoot]

Starfinder is more hard sci-fi than fantasy, and the classes are piss-poor with very few spell options. The envoy class is basically only useful for diplomacy and combat support.

[@divinkitty9452]

@@SwiftNimblefoot I completely disagree given the fact that when I use a drift engine me, my ship, and my entire crew tear a hole in reality to a separate dimension where I could accidentally crash the ship into a shard of hell. Among other things, but that alone is pretty heavy science-fantasy.

[@LegendayBobe]

@@SwiftNimblefoot and a 5e barbarian is literally only good in combat.

[@epsilon-eleven]

@@LegendayBobe If all you do is dungeon-crawl and min-max, maybe. The barbarian in my game does plenty besides combat - actually does a lot of the investigation stuff, tracking, and acts as "party mom." She also makes potions because her background skills + class skills allow her to do that.

[@chrisgenson2278]

Something I noticed with the new Spelljammer books: The paper is MUCH thicker than other 5e books. It's as if they went with a thicker paper so that they did not have to print as many pages. Honestly, I think that is what happened. And you're right: Oh boy is it vague. One last thought. I will NEVER have giant space hamsters or killer clowns (throwing pies from ballista, check the art) in any game I run. Ever.

[@MinscFromBaldursGate92]

But Space Hamsters have been a thing in 2e Spelljammer.

[@TyanFH]

If I had had to pay for this, I would be upset. It has so much potential and yet... I love the new races and the adventure is a good one but I have to agree that it misses the mark sadly.

[@theophrastusbombastus1359]

You didn't have to pay for it?

[@DE4DF1SH]

Don't ask so many questions

[@fallout9287]

Didn’t pay for it either😂

[@dranskysbattlemaps]

I was so hyped for the new Spelljammer release, pity they just made another moneymaking machine from such wonderful setting. Well, it's good that still we have our good ol' homebrew or transcriptions from ADnD Spelljammer sourcebook

[@reidurbjorn]

I've been easing back from D&D, and Wizards just keeps giving me more reasons to do so. It's unfortunate, but I feel like there are much better games out there.

[@larsdahl5528]

Perhaps that is a good thing! At least we can hope that people convert away from murder hobo wargaming, switching to role-playing games instead.

[@FaptainCalcon750]

I’d say that Pathfinder 2e is a much better and more balanced GAME than 5e, but, not necessarily a better system for a given table. And I think that there are so many rules light, narrative driven games(like the ones from the Powered by the Apocalypse engine) that do the simple and fluid roleplaying idea way better than 5e does. I hope the dip in quality in Wizard’s products convinces more and more people to branch out to other systems.

[@drmadjdsadjadi]

I LOVE that you call it “British Summer Time.” The US calling the time change “Daylight Saving Time” v “Standard Time” is confusing because it is technically impossible to “save” either time or daylight by simply changing the clock because nature does not care how we measure the passage of time.

[@moebeustrip]

I love the new Spelljammer module. D&D is not a tactical simulator, it is an RPG. For ship vs ship combat I just run theater of the mind. Once the ships get within range I switch to battle maps. As far as making your own worlds, there are plenty of resources already printed that give you a framework for creation.

[@mchamberlain7408]

Same. I love it 🤷

[@taragnor]

Honestly this is about what I'd expect from a modern game. D&D as a simulation game kinda faded with after 3E. 4E/5E are built on the premise that every PC has something meaningful to do and in naval combat, it will take them out of their element. What good is the cleric for instance if it's the ship taking damage? How can the rogue hide or use sneak attack on another ship? Is the fighter even proficient in using catapults and ballistae? And if the PCs ship gets destroyed, well what then? Is it just a TPK? Running any large scale combat, whether it be a naval combat, a war or whatever is tough to do. The simulationist way of handling things is to take focus away from the PCs and instead put it on the large scale conflict. Effective the soldier units or the ships become main characters and the PCs are sort of there. The ship generally has it's own character sheet, and even ways to customize it. The conflict is flavored as "Your galleon faces off against the mind flayer ship, which vessel prevails?" Modern style is basically treating the ship as a plot device. It takes you from A to B. Sometimes things interfere with it, where it needs more fuel or it's damage and need repairs, whatever. The focus of the conflict remains on the PCs themselves, so it becomes "Can the PCs repair the warp drive so the ship can escape, or will the mind flayer boarding parties take it over first?" I don't think either style is necessarily wrong. It's similar to the storytelling difference between an FPS wargame versus a ship management game like FTL: Faster than Light. In the FPS you're grounded in the situation of that one soldier with little impact over the whole battle unless the game gives you that as an objective. It's a personal story about your soldier. Sure maybe you end up having a big impact, but it's generally not like you're piloting the battleship. In the ship management game, the ship takes center stage and while you may command crewmates from time to time, ultimately the fate of the ship is the important thing. The crewmates exist essentially as a bonus to the ship.

[@josephpotter5766]

5e I'd agree with that. But I've been playing Spelljammer since AD&D and I ported it to 4e easily. 4e was actually easier to port it to than 3rd, in part because party roles and hyper-tactical map based combat were the expected play mode. 5e has basically become a storygame.

[@kiwi3085]

@@josephpotter5766 I really like 5e for that though. It's what got me into D&D in the first place. I feel like hyper fixating on exact rules is a mistake and just bogs down the game.

[@josephpotter5766]

@@kiwi3085 I feel like this is a generation difference. When I started playing in the 80's tabletop roleplay games had just speciated out of wargaming, and tended to be much more simulations than they are nowadays. Back in the nineties and early 2000's there was a huge debate within the community over the interplay between simulation, gamism and narrative as the key drivers of the hobby. At the moment 5e, Powered By The Apocalypse and various storygames are really leading the hobby in a much more narrative direction. But I grew up with Twilight 2000 and Rolemaster, so I tend to lean the other way. The younger generation are alright, good gamers and I relish every game I've had with people who've only just started into the hobby in the last ten years. But there are still a few dinosaurs like me from the old days that prefer mathematical rigour to underpin everything to a much greater degree of specificity than is popular nowadays. If you don't mind me being bold. I'd suggest that you may also enjoy the Cypher game system, it's similarly rules lite like 5e, but I find it more flexible and it's very strongly player facing. It's my favourite of the new breed of less simulation heavy systems. In either case. Stay well, keep gaming, enjoy what you enjoy and don't let anyone tell you different.

[@kiwi3085]

@@josephpotter5766 Yeah I think that's the biggest difference. I'd heard that early D&D was essentially scaling wargaming down to a single character rather than an army (although at least AD&D very much still expected you to raise a small army with henchmen) and it really shows with how overly complex they make things like combat interactions between different weapons and armour. THAC0 might be more "realistic" to old heads but I feel that just majorly bogs down the more important aspect which is the storytelling. For people that really want a more number crunchy Diablo-esque kinda game I really feel like Pathfinder is the game for them and I don't really get why they keep trying to cling to a game that just doesn't share that same core philosphy anymore. I feel like if I really wanted to do the more simulation kind of stuff, I would just play a video game. I don't want most of my time being doing calculations, I'd rather have my computer do that.

[@josephpotter5766]

@@kiwi3085 Completely agree on the idea that D&D and other games of the early era grew out of wargaming, but it's not really about simulation vs narrative. Its about a balance of simulation vs narrative vs gamism. All games have a balance of those three. D&D 3.5e was peak simulation, far more than AD&D. 4e was peak gamism, not trying to be a simulation, or a narrative system, instead being a pure tabletop skirmish game. 5e is a lot more narrative leaning, but the thing is, it's actually an uncomfortable mix of gamist and simulation elements as well. There is a pleasure to be found in mastery over systems, and a lot of people really enjoy crunch in their games because it allows them to experience the feeling of system mastery. It's the same pleasure you can get from being really really good at anything from making your own electronics to playing the guitar, figuring out how to put things together to do exactly what you want mechanically. If you really feel that the storytelling aspect is the part that's most important... well, I can't recomend more than that you stop playing D&D, because it's not as good at the things you want as other systems that are actually geared to directly favour story and narrative. Powered By The Apocalypse games or player facing systems like Cypher simply do that better. At this point, D&D leans narativist, but it's weighed down by it's history to the point it really doesn't do any of the three pillars really well.

[@lotrotk375]

Thanks for the heads-up! I felt very disappointed after purchasing Ghosts of Saltmarch for NOT setting the stage for true naval adventures. I ended the campaign after 5 sessions when I realized that. Had some good hopes for Spelljammer. Instead I decided to purchase your "Complete guide to nautical campaigns"

[@Zierohour1]

the last 4-6 years of D&D writing, rules making, rules errata, and story telling has been absolutely horrible. As someone who has spent money on almost all of wizard's products over these years, They need to get their heads out of their asses and remember why they exist as a team: to tell good stories and help others tell their stories well. Not release another half-baked cash grab. I'll put this next to the watered down, harry potter cardboard you sold me last time.

[@rhysjonsmusic]

Just so happens that's also around the same time Wotc started acting really woke, coincidence?

[@Sorrowdusk]

@@rhysjonsmusic I don't really see a connection.

[@MC-gj8fg]

While I appreciate the simplicity of 5e...the rules for ship to ship combat go beyond simplicity into downright laziness. No maneuverability to dictate where I can aim what, no crit effects, no list of upgrades and equipment for spelljammers, no concern for the skill of the crew on ship operations. All the details that imparted so much flavor to ship combat in 2E Spelljammer are gone. Did Wizards dedicate an entire afternoon to drawing up the Astral Advenurers Guide or were they able to whip it up in an hour? That they expected me to pay money for this product is as baffling as it is insulting.

[@michaeldrescher841]

From what I've seen, the vast majority of players and gms hate starship combat in games like starfinder. So I feel it makes sense to parry it down to face to face combat which people do enjoy plus offers cinematic boarding action. Bad ship weapon range; I argue anything further and the target will have moved so the range represents an effective range (ie. It isn't how far the projectile can go in space it's how far it can go and reliably hit a moving target.) No air running out rules; 120 air is poisonous, another 120 air is deadly, but the air isn't running out is the complaint. I say it's CO2 levels rising, the air is becoming toxic. Air doesn't mean oxygen. Am I missing something? I'm getting a copy of spelljammer soon, hopefully this helps some people, not trying to cause a fight, just curious about the dislike.

[@Dannydarko27]

When Call of the Netherdeep came out, i had the sense that it was made for more experienced dms. This feels like it was made for advanced dms, when it wouldve been a good starter for new people

[@crankysmurf]

So I guess it's a good thing I still have my 2E Spelljammer boxed set to reference.

[@starscream71288]

The repair part of this is the most distressing to me. The rest of the issues can be fixed easily enough, but the idea of having a ship that takes damage take so long to fix is just nonsensical. It is inherently prohibitive to the premise of the adventure.

[@voicetest6019]

Particularly when they have to add specific rules to prevent all damage from just being fixed with Mending. Doing another campaign with homebrew boat rules and the mending cantrip just solves almost all problems and helps keep things flowing. If they wanted to add a downtime mechanic to the ship, they should have said that after X long period the ships need a "de-fouling" of some sort for a short period of downtime, as most repairs can be done with the mending cantrip.

[@Amarok410]

its almost like it encourages space piracy? pursue ship, dont shoot ship because long range bad, but they may still shoot at you? board their intact ship, take it over and scuttle/scrap your damaged ship because repairing it just takes too much time. and now youre a space pirate and probably not welcome in many ports anyway.

[@voicetest6019]

It doesn't, because unless you have a way of making your ship faster, *you will never catch a ship, because they all go the same speed.* Which is where shooting it would come into play, shoot at the things making it go, so that it can't move as fast, or at all, *then* attack it. You still very much need ship weapons for the first step of pirate actions: chase down and disable the ship.

[@RottenRogerDM]

If you check the DM screen it hints that carpenter tools repair damage too.

[@individualismincarnate6467]

I think they just made it prohibitive because they want the focus to not be on space combat...but combat *in* space. So if damage is a thing and takes a long time/hard/expensive to fix, then we don't want to do that because of those reasons, so just board the ship, much easier. Then we don't need all the expansive rules of apace combat because nobody will do it....

[@deepfriedsammich]

The worth of this project is entirely crippled by one simple fact: To make the material remotely playable and useful, the DM will have to ADD material, clarifying rules, and rulings that make things make sense that will amount to creative work on his/her part that is three or four times the amount of material in the original books themselves. The people at WotC responsible for this insane, self-destructive mad-cap nightmare process for designing projects or deciding on them in the first place need to be FIRED. This needs to happen immediately, if not sooner, while there are still people left who will buy D&D material and play the game. This is becoming a recurring phenomenon at WotC and it absolutely needs to stop, before the company goes belly up. Kobold Press is putting out material and projects and campaigns for 5E that should cause "creatives" and project leads at WotC to die of shame, if they had any pride to begin with. Kobold doesn't even own the IP rights to D&D itself, which you would think would mean a big advantage to WotC, but no, Kobold is kicking their butts and managing to make money selling superior products.

[@trogdor8764]

Colville's Strongholds & Followers did pretty much the same thing. It says "yeah, your keep can totally be a pirate ship if you want" but includes no rules for ship to ship combat. And when I went to their discord for advice I was basically told by the community to ignore ship to ship combat and just skip straight to boarding.

[@alike2833]

Tbf, in there it sounds like they were just including another idea while not having a full ruleset to back it up. It is still a full content of new ideas. Here, the one idea they had, "DnD in space" has no rules beyond telling the DM to just do what they think makes sense.

[@BlackTearDrop]

@@alike2833 Yeah, ship combat wasn't the main focus it was just the suggestion that your Stronghold could be a Ship. The book fulfilled it's purpose. Spelljammer literally concerns space ships and not having defined rules kinda sets it back. I'm always the proponent of Rules First. Improv Later. If a book requires me to make up a major thing myself I wonder why I needed to buy a book.

[@trogdor8764]

While that's fair, the point I was trying to emphasize was that MCDM's discord community seemed to be of the same opinion as this book.

[@willchurch8376]

If Colville's book had been about pirate ships, that would be a bad take. Since it is about strongholds and followers, it seems less so. If they told you to handwave the absence of rules covering the hiring, care or maintained employment of followers, it would be different.

[@adammiller8617]

So, would a Star Wars/Star Trek/B5 RPG be acceptable to the fan bases if they lacked rules for ship-to-ship combat? Given how much space is taken up by the ships, with tiny paragraph descriptions and full page deckplans, I wonder if ship-combat rules were yanked at the last (relatively speaking) minute and they didn't have time to rewrite.

[@Pit_Wizard]

WotC has just been getting worse and worse with these releases. By this point half a dozen 3rd party publishers have already done science-fantasy space settings for 5e, and they've all done a better job than this. Amazing.

[@rabbidchickenfilms]

honestly most of these seem fixable with the slightest bit of homebrew/house ruling.

[@joelbethell6879]

Great review, thanks. As an aside, I own Ghosts of Saltmarsh (bought it for the nautical adventures) and actually did not know that it contained ship rules! What a pleasant surprise (and I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I didn't know this hugely important detail about the book). Cheers!

[@LadyGagagamemnon]

Thanks for making this video. Felt so frustrated that I paid $60 for a $25 campaign module (amazing art though)

[@sherylcascadden4988]

I played Spell Jammer first edition ADnD, and it was fun. Either the DM made up a bunch of stuff, or almost everything you covered was covered in the the original rules. Both mages and clerics can cast the spell "refresh air", potted plants can help also, and can grow food. Each had a man/days or man/hours rating. Projectile weapons travel in a straight line unless gravity interferes. Incoming projectiles can sometimes be dodged, but the bigger your ship, the more likely your gravity field will draw them in, and the bigger target you are. We had several "adventures" on ship that used all four different ways of travelling in space. Sounds like your version only had two of them. It's been 35 years since I played this, and my memory is hazy, but the two DMs willing to run Spell Jammer both did a great job so I think they had a lot more to work with and the current writers are just being lazy. Haven't even seen the new version, but agree with you: waste of money even if it's only four dollars.

[@JarieSuicune]

So just play ADnD? Or Pathfinder, I guess? Having ACTUALLY got this pack and read through it for my own DMing purposes, it's rather great! If you want to base your entire opinion on nothing but a few peoples' heavily negative opinions on it while refusing to accept the possibility that other opinions are not only valid but may actually be more accurate, that's up to you. As a quick point: Does the book say a fired object merely stops suddenly at a set distance (as is implied in this video)? No, nor do ANY rulebooks of any edition (to my knowledge) state that about any projectile in any conditions (Does your crossbow bolt just STOP midair after traveling 240 ft.? No, duh.). The point of setting a range is to make it clear that after that point you are incapable of being the cause of the projectile to hit something because even in zero gravity it still travels with a set velocity rather than infinite speed! So, yes, of course the projectile keeps going further with technically infinite range but you aren't going to hit something intentionally at that point! But maybe the concept of physics and accuracy being related to each other is lost on those who prefer to only nitpick. I dunno, got tired of this video after getting to that point. I generally do like his videos, but this was not one of those.

[@JacksonOwex]

YEAH! It was a TOTAL of 192(ish, my quick math might be wrong) of pages for something that has probably THOUSANDS of pages of information from it's history! As SOON as I heard "THREE 64-pg books I knew it was going to be garbage! Besides they are working on the "Totally not a new edition" edition of D&D! I was surprised to see it be as little change as it is, or as it SEEMS to be right now!

[@fredvieth2587]

I have not read the book and will not seeing the reviews. A few points were i agree / disagree with Guy -Range: In space combat is limited by the target / muzzle velocity. At 6:04 you postulate a cannon with a range of 2400 ft. Lets assume it has a muzzle velocity of 1200 ft/s (close to an earth cannon). Acting on a 6 second turn an example creature moves 30 ft across the deck, the cannon take one second to fire, and the ball travels for 2 seconds. At the end of the turn and 2800 ft from the cannon the apposing spelljammer takes its turn and moves 40 ft no longer in the path of the ball. When doing ranges for unguided weapons in RPG space combat I would specify a point blank range (based on muzzle velocity and the setting sensor / maneuvering speed) where the damage happens in one round / during the attackers turn and fizzle range (when the projectile self destructs or the magic fades. unlimited for most weapons). Any projectile is treated as an environmental hazard after leaving point blank range. Against not maneuvering targets like planets or asteroids you can shoot them at extreme range limited only by your sensors / starcharts. Spelljammers do avoid space debris. -What to do as the ships close in: Prep for combat; drink / cast buffs, plan tactics, make ability checks to identity combatants or loot, hurl insults or threats, persuade the opposition to surrender, all of these and more. You bring up ranged weapons, some of the later turns will be for arrows and spells. I love prep rounds before a fight. 36 is more that i would want but i will always take extra as they can be passed. -For PCs boarding does make sense. They are not a navy sinking the enemies for the crown (some games they may be) but on a quest for loot or macguffins. If they "sink" a ship at 2000 ft range with cannons any survivors have 20 or more turns to hide, destroy, or throw out into space things worth having. Also in a ranged engagement both ships are likely to take damage. You cover damage later but with limited ways to heal a spelljammer damage will stack up and can leave you stranded. -Air: i think you are missing the point. Air is not expended (aka air mass is not lost to space) but the O2 is used up. the book tells you after 120 days the O2 is low and CO2 and CO are so high the air bubble is noxious. After 240 days you are "out of air". The length of air should change for changing crew numbers but that is an abstraction i do not mind. Most table do not track food, water, air, ect to reduce book keeping. -Damage: I would rule the 1 HP a day is the basic rate for the lost tier of docks. they may be able to travel to better docks for faster repairs. Also downtime, this is an excuse to give a party down time and with how official books values down time the PCs may want it in large amounts. I am more disappointed they did not have the ships function less well wen damaged. Having the ships "bracket" when damaged would also solve the escaping / perusing problem. -Lack of vacuum rules: come one, in a setting dominated by the cold embrace of hard vacuum how does it not have rules???

[@WittyDroog]

Feels a lot like the Strixhaven release too, I know a lot of reactionaries got all miffed about "barista jobs" but that really missed the issue that for an adventure that revolves around a magical school there really wasn't any meat to making it feel like a school. Sure there was fluff details but it begs the question whether that needed to be a D&D book if it wasn't going to offer some unique mechanics. Especially with the whole One D&D design philosophy, having these setting books differentiate with unique focuses is going to be critcally important but in a lot of instances these have been misses. And it's not like they HAVEN'T made an adventure book with unique mechanics before, I quite like the Theros book and even the Forgotten Realms-based Dragon Heist feature a lot of fun and unique "set pieces" that are not only in addition to the core rules but also inspirational on how to adopt for other stories (I like the shifting encounters based on the seasons and how the season/villain tweaks each one). Really hoping that Dragonlance will be evidence of the ship righting course.

[@thomaswhite3059]

The reactionaries being shitty especially sucks because it makes me feel uncomfy to say "yeah I didn't care for x" and then I feel an immense need to be like "but not for shitty reasons."

[@RYTime-p2r]

Thanks, was thinking of going back to DnD from Starfinder but thanks for the review to know that it's still utterly trash.

[@JacksonOwex]

Firstly(because it appears that you mistake Spelljammer for a new version of the game not just a "new"(it is to 5E) setting), this is just a setting book. Well it was SUPPOSED to be a setting book but at 64 pages how much of the setting can you really put in there?! I want to lead with my TTRPG history! I've been playing D&D for almost 30 years(and no I'm not as old as that makes me sound, I started young), I will NOT suggest that you go back to it! I guess if you want a VERY, VERY simple, vague, bland, mechanically boring game D&D 5E is perfect(it's a GREAT introduction to TTRPGs) but if you want to TRULY have mechanics that give you choices to make your character TRULY feel different than others of it's class and subclass, you're going to want to play Pathfinder 2! Heck, you're even already partially familiar with some of the mechanics having been playing Starfinder!

[@shawnwolf5961]

@@JacksonOwex Oh I don't know, you could include rules that a player and DM will actually NEED TO BE FUNCTIONAL instead of relying on the DM to have to spend hours homebrewing this crap before a session. They could put *that* in the rulebook.

[@bavettesAstartes]

@@JacksonOwex I disagree with Pathfinder, but I agree this has been worrisome of late. I used to devour books from 3rd and 2nd edition about settings with incredible gusto, from Greyhawk to Forgotten Realms and even Spelljammer and Planescape. But it seems that no one is releasing content like that anymore. Even today I still open the 3rd edition books for Forgotten Realms whenever I prepare a game or need to check some information on a place, on their customs, languages, population, etc... I love how 5e is simple, but I hate how shallow it still feels now after almost a decade of content.

[@RYTime-p2r]

@@JacksonOwex I don't get where you would assume I think it's a new version of the game. Either way, looks like 5E is still not interesting and continues to be the most bland and wokewashed RPG system to date.

[@garyvincent7397]

Ive been writing my own version of it since its release, it combines the best of both versions, with a much slower to travel and hard to navigate astral sea and a series of dangerous but fast and direct phlogiston rovers called the flow network, its for my own spelljammer campaign ive been working on in preperation but once i finish it i dont mind sharing it if anyone wants too

[@meikahidenori]

A few of these rules sound like they were designed more for theatre of the mind than for miniature/digital table top. As someone who finds ANY rule or ablity that rely on range & movement affects utterly useless in my game this vagueness doesn't bother me as it probably would people who use minis or need this information for digital. The fact they're trying to appeal to both camps just doesn't seem to work very well.

[@scottboyer8450]

Very informative, thank you. Would you be willing to compare it to the original AD&D version in a short video?

[@lockwoan01]

Personally, having just ordered it, I got it to complete my collection. That, and with the Giff and Plasmoid races in it, I can now complete the main Cooper Gang from the Sly Cooper series, as well as Team Monster from Monsters Versus Aliens, so that I can set up campaigns with characters that, mostly fit, the cannon characters in the actual sources.

[@noblegalifreyan4551]

Consoom

[@lockwoan01]

@@noblegalifreyan4551 What?

[@noblegalifreyan4551]

@@lockwoan01 don't ask questions just consume product and then get excited for next product

[@lockwoan01]

@@noblegalifreyan4551 Funny. No, I just like getting ideas for characters and such. Now, I'm hoping for a Modern book.

[@MostlyHarmless-42]

This is the way WOTC seems to have been going for some time... rushing out half finished books to satisfy some demand but not providing the details needed to actually work them, or do any work other than to give players, not GMs, new toys... and toys that are often broken. I bet there is a bunch of new races presented in this book and a few new spells and maybe magic items. At least they are doing a playtest for Dungeons and Plushies (as the initial ONE D&D playtest document out so far seems to again make it harder for the DM to provide any challenge to the players). So far though, it doesn't seem like anything in the playtest actually covers any issue that players have with the GAME of D&D. Its a bunch of cosmetic issues issues designed to be more 'inclusive' but really doesn't change anything except weakening the already underpowered D&D DM (meaning the DM will have to do far more work to provide an appropriate challenge to the players)

[@nathanmichael167]

Make wotc like magic with a release every 3 month. profit

[@robbunchanumbers]

5e seems to be focused on handwaving away the dry tactical and strategic stuff (for better or for worse) so this is not a surprise to me. I imagine some industrious writer will release proper tactical rules on DMsguild. What I'm most excited about with this release is the miniatures!

[@suddenllybah]

which is a shame, at least for me, a person brought into D&D through 4e, which did that, and had rules for vehicles and also spelljammers.

[@kereminde]

@@suddenllybah Yes, but we had years of people crapping all over 4e so it's no surprise we had a knee-jerk reaction in the next edition to avoid that sort of thing.

[@Sorrowdusk]

I forgot that Gygax and Friends were originally miniature wargamers who loved crunchy stuff.

[@sammybowker7823]

I've been playing a campaign for a few months and we're using a supplement called Dark Matter that is 100x better than Spelljammer. It's ship to ship combat is easy to understand and FUN AS FUCK!!!!

[@EternalDM]

Same! I’ve played Dark Matter and the ship-to-ship combat is just 👌🏼 👌🏼

[@melkior13]

the original Spelljammer had other box sets - including one dedicated to ship combat - War Captain's Companion - also the did away with the crystal spheres and the phlogiston - which was a downer I think

[@zacharyharwell351]

This is an interesting little microcosm of the sort of thing that has led me to become dissatisfied with 5th edition in general (though that's obviously also me and my players as well). I'm a semi-new DM at this point with ALL of my experience having started with 5e and the vague semi-advice that the edition almost seems FOUNDED on is extremely difficult to learn to run without a large amount of time, energy and stress. I've been burnt out even trying to prep for quite a while (nearly a year and a half) because of the investment I need to do just to have a half okay game. Me and a friend of mine (player from the previous games I mentioned) are currently looking into PF2e at the moment and are really liking what we see by comparison. Oh, and to be clear, I'm not saying 5e is just BAD (I'm not gonna be one of THOSE TTRPG people), I'm just saying me and my buddy have decided that 5e, for us, is too limiting in its options and too vague in its advice for us. I really enjoyed my time at first with 5e, and if you still like it (DM or player) than that's awesome; I will only say that if you have any complaints about it, maybe check other systems to see if they do what you like about 5e and maybe more. Especially with 5e going the direction it is with this Spelljammer release (and seemingly with this One D&D stuff), I know personally I'm finding a lot of reasons to jump ship. Or Spelljammer. Happy Gaming folks, and lets roll some dice!

[@JorisVDC]

It's almost like they started writing the rules and then they realized that DnD Characters have no specific skills or proficiencies for space combat. The solution? Skip the space combat and just have ships move in boarding distance. Yet there is no mechanic to catch up or run away from each other. So basically you are having infinite chasing scenes. It's almost like you need to write a complete set of rules which handle space travel, space combat, hyper space navigation and other stuff. It is comical that you don't need to worry about food in space but the air just runs out after 240 days. Which seems like a very long time which shouldn't matter but how do you refresh the air? So this rules seems to make space ships useless after a year of use. Sad that a book is released with such a poor quality. Thank you Guy for pointing this out. 50$ for eye candy is quite expensive.

[@ExeErdna]

Like a lot of proficiencies and tools aren't used right, they just did this and they think it's cool to do it again. I'm glad there's a lot of homebrew fixing things. Since D&D is basically only existing as a brand at this point the fans been making better everything for a while now.

[@borderlands10]

Is it really *that* hard to use navigator's tools to chart a course through the stars in order to travel? Or use vehicle proficiencies to maneuver the ship like a cart or normal boat? And combat really isn't that hard to do as it's little different than fighting on the open seas, just with less gravity between the vessels. Also is it too hard to use the normal chase rules but instead of using Dex or whatever you use, you just use your vehicle proficiency to make checks in order to catch up to the enemy vessel?

[@JorisVDC]

@@borderlands10 Sure , we can do all these things. But if you can use all the existing rules, why didn't they mention it. And, what is the difference between on planet and off planet? I can imagine a DM who bends the ruled to make it feel like space combat. Ways to mess with the air-bubble, to target the traction of an enemy ship.