Of gods, spheres, and magical chairs: A short examination of Spelljammer and 5th edition D&D Part 1

Note: For a quick lesson on the basics of Spelljammer, check out my Spelljammer 101 post.


Way back in time, back before Wizards of the Coast owned D&D, it was owned by TSR. Due to management decisions, many strange things came about, best of which is Spelljammer.


I love Spelljammer, and though it has it’s problems… quite a few of them… the heart of it is of silly space adventures, swashbuckling action, and weird creatures not seen elsewhere in D&D.

…And it sadly hasn’t gotten any real support since its original line ended back in 2e.


So, of course, the fans have done their best to adapt it to newer editions, including 5th, but there is a problem. Two major ones in fact, in my opinion. Both of them stem from a conflict with 5th editions’ design philosophy: Spelljamming helms leave their user magicless until they can regain their spells, and divine casters can’t gain spells from their gods outside a sphere where their god has influence.


Let’s take a look at these two issues and consider how necessary they are to Spelljammer, and how they might be made to work in 5th edition. Starting with:

Helms taking all spells from their users

You are a powerful mage, the forces of the universe bend to your whim, you are ready to take to the stars and explore wildspace! You gleefully move to the spelljamming helm, curious to see how quickly you can master this new toy. Sitting down, preparing for this artifact’s power to flow through you… and then your magic is gone. All your spells have been drained from you, into the chair. How can you defend your ship if you get attacked? If you need to send a Message or escape quickly?

Basically, having to lose your magic just to pilot a ship kinda sucks. Sure, it FLIES, but you are just useless until you take a long rest, from the very start of the adventure!


How does this conflict with 5th edition?

Losing all your spells isn’t very fun. Having your powerhouse spellcaster reduced to a slightly tougher commoner isn’t very fun.

Is this a necessary part of Spelljammer? definitely not. Spelljammer does not need its helmspeople to be magicless. That said, it can add an interesting cost to piloting a spelljamming ship though, so should it stay? It certainly doesn’t have to stay in its current form, but let’s look at the options, as a sort of scale:

1. Leave it as it is. (The purist’s stance) Honestly, I’ve never played Spelljammer, not back in the day and I’ve only DM’d a 5e Spelljammer game which I’ve been putting off solidifying rules for. It’s possible that I’m overthinking it and it isn’t as big of a deal, but I don’t feel like that is true. The PCs could hire a spellcaster NPC to pilot for them, but that is also a trade off of losing all their spells or not getting to pilot the ship themselves. Might not be an issue for some people, but I wouldn’t want to impose that on someone that does see that as an issue.
2. Leave them with at-will abilities. A slight step away from the original “lose all spellcasting”, leaving the helmsperson with cantrips and other spells they would be able to cast at will would at least allow them to defend themselves and contribute to the adventure. Definitely preferable to option #1, but only a little.
3. All spell slots of highest level. It’s a bit jump from “all your spells” to “your most powerful spells”, and now that I think about it, it really does work. It’s a bit of a moot point for first or second level casters, but Spelljammer really seems to be more designed for fifth level and higher. And honestly, now that I’m writing this out, this one makes a lot of sense. It has a cost, that cost makes sense with how much the helm is powered, and it leaves the helmsperson enough magic to feel at least somewhat useful.
4. Helmsperson chooses a number of spell slots. Now we are letting the players make the decisions, how much are they willing to sacrifice to improve the ship’s maneuverability? This can also have an added limit to the number of spell slots, both to keep them from dumping all of them in and then feeling useless later and to reduce any decision paralysis. Limited to one spell slot would be simplest, but more might be more interesting.
5. Attunement by spellcasters only. Attunement is a wonderful mechanic, and with a slight tweak can work decently for helms: Multiple people can attune to it. Because nothing would be more annoying than stopping after each helmsperson’s shift to let the next one attune.
6. Attunement by anyone. Similar to the previous, but obviously, not limited to spellcasters. This is kinda where I feel that it begins to lose flavor. I suppose if it isn’t requiring the loss of spell slots, then it isn’t super dependent on spellcasters, and this allows non-spellcasters to use it, it might make it more fun for players who aren’t currently/don’t like playing spellcasters to try to pilot the ship.
7. Sit on helm. No attunement required, just need to put your butt in the chair. Why am I even putting this here? I don’t like it for several reasons, most of all because it feels lazy.

What option will I go with in my game? This has basically been my way of forcing myself to think about this and make a decision and I am definitely leaning towards #3 or #4. Honestly I really would like to test out #4 to see how the players react to it. 1 and 2 seem too harsh to be fun, and 5 to 7 lose a bit of the flavor in my opinion. I will probably write up rules for #4 and maybe #3 and post them at a future date.

Something else that I will need to address when I write those rules: The warlock problem, how to handle short rest spellcasters? I could either impose that it doesn’t last as long or isn’t as powerful… I will have to think about it.



Next time, I will examine the other big issue: Clerics being unable to regain their spells outside of a sphere where their deity has influence.