Ship to ship combat can play a significant role in the Spelljammer setting. It is important for the rules to integrate as seemlessly as possible with the D&D character combat rules. The ship combat round has been reduced to 6 seconds to match that of normal combat rounds so boarding actions will flow at the same rate as the ship combat. All of the movement, ranges, and hex sizes have been adjusted to fit this change.
Initiative
At the start of the first round each ship helmsman rolls a d20 for initiative. This roll is only modified by the quality of the crew. Ties are broken by the quality of the crew, then by best MC, if there is still a tie roll to break the tie.
| Green | -2 |
| Average | 0 |
| Trained | +1 |
| Crack | +2 |
The ship with the highest initiative moves first. Then the second highest and so on until all ships have moved. If there are still enemy ships, the next round begins in the same order and continues until one side is victorious of escapes. A ship may escape by getting 25 hexes away from all enemy ships at the end of the turn.
Ramming
If at any point a ship enters a hex with another ship, it may attempt to ram. If the ram attempt fails and the ship entered on the hex side that the target ship is facing, the target ship may attempt to ram at this point. If there is no successful ram, the ships continue with their movement.
Ship Weapons
Firing ships weapons that are loaded is a reaction and can be resolved at any point during movement, with the weapons on the ship with the highest initiative firing first in the case of simultaneous firing.
Most ship weapons have to be reloaded. Each weapon has a rate of fire (ROF) which determines how long it takes to reload with a few weapons crew. All weapons begin combat unloaded as it is dangerous to fly around with loaded weapons, and it can damage the weapon and/or reduce its effectiveness.
As an example, a medium ballista has a ROF of 1/3. This means it can fire once every 3 rounds. It takes 2 full rounds to reload before it can fire again. Combat begins, it reloads on rounds 1 and 2. It may fire on round 3. If it does fire on round 3, then it must reload on rounds 4 and 5, and so on.
If a weapon does not have it’s full compliment of weapons crew, it adds one round to reload time for each crew member it is missing.
Any character that has proficiency with ship weapons or a weapon specialist npc, may add their proficiency bonus to one weapon they are commanding during combat.
Boarding
Once a successful grapple attempt is completed, boarding combat will ensue. This combat follows normal character combat rules. Rounds are the same length in ship combat and character combat. Grappled ships can not move. If there are more than the two grappled ships in combat, resolve the ship round first and then proceed to the character round.
Groundlings in Space
Adjusting to life is space is not always easy on groundlings. It typically takes a few months (2d6 weeks) for characters to adjust to life in space. During this time they are at disadvantage in any situation of abnormal gravity. That could be moving from one gravity plane to another during combat, firing a ranged weapon at a target outside of the characters current gravity well, of any instance of being in zero gravity. This effect will pass once the adjustment time is completed. This does not apply to character who begin in space.
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