The players and DM can experiment with new spelljamming ship designs themselves, or they might handle ship design as campaign activity undertaken by the player characters. Either way, the basic factors of ship design are tonnage, cost, and time.
    Tonnage determines ship size (by limiting the size of the air envelope), minimum crew size (a function of minimum rigging needed), maximum crew size (the amount of air available), the type of spelljamming helm that can be fitted, the number and type of ship-mounted weapons carried, and how much cargo space is available.
    Materials used in the construction of the ship's hull determine its cost (which determines Armor Class). Some special costs are keyed to tonnage (such as rigging and any ram fitted).
    Time is the amount of time needed to build, repair, or modify a ship. This comes into play in an ongoing campaign, when the activities of many characters need to be coordinated.

Shipbuilding Sequence

1. Pick Tonnage: determine hull size and cost
   
2. Select Ship Modifications
   
3. Determine AC
   
4. Determine MC and rigging required
   
5. Determine maximum/minimum crew size
   
6. Select helm type
   
7. Determine ship-mounted weaponry
   
8. Customize as desired
   

Ship Tonnage and Hull Construction
    Select the size of ship desired. Table 6-1 equates general ship types with tonnages.
    Hull Size: The easiest way to decide on a ship's size is to find an existing ship (like the Hammership) can be used, or a new one can be created. If a new shape is desired, the DM should oversee the process. The cost of creating a hull varies widely with the materials of which it is made (see Hull Cost).
    The maximum dimensions of a new ship can be derived from its tonnage, since a "ton" is defined as 100 cubic yards of volume. To figure a ship's dimensions, picture a cube of volume equal to the ship's then slice it up into "building blocks" from which the hull is formed. In short, multiply tonnage by 100, find the cube root (to convert the cube's volume to its side length in yards), and then multiply by 3 (to convert yards to feet, rounding off). Thus, a 100-ton ship can be shaped from a cube 65 feet on a side. The cube sizes for various ship tonnages are given in Table 5-2 on page 65.
    The dimensions of the basic cube can be altered as desired (e.g., a 30' cube can be shaped in several ways: 90' x30 'x10, 50' x27' x20', 125' x18' x12, etc). Final sizes can be rounded down to the nearest 5 feet for ease of figuring.
    Ships will have thickness that differs by material so that all material come to 1d10 Hit Dice per ton. A typical wooden ship has a hull thickness of 3 inches which would require a group of warriors hacking at it with axes for 30 hit points of damage before causing a breech in the hull (and having to deal with the ships hardness rating). A ship made of metal thickness would be about 1 inch thick and those of stone being 2 inches thick (also requiring 30 hit points to breech the ships hull as well).
    Note: A ship's deck should measure at least 10' of vertical space (double for giant sized creatures). Thus, the minimum height of a three-deck ship would be 30 feet.

    Hull Cost: To find the cost of manufacturing the hull, multiply the ship's tonnage by the base cost on the Hull Cost, Armor Bonus and Hardness table (Table 6–4). The Armor Bonus column gives the Armor Bonus of the material.
    The costs can be altered by a material's scarcity, and by the availability of qualified craftsmen. The DM can change the costs as desired. If other materials are made available in the campaign, their values should be set according to the base Armor Rating and base MC of the substances. The tables assume human capabilities and construction methods. Thick hull will cost twice as much and grants twice as many hit points (see Ship Modification – Thicken Hull).
    Creating a craft from precious gems or metals does not necessarily give any bonuses to its statistics. Much expensive construction is mere window dressing — kings and queens from the riches of worlds often place the prestige of their pleasure craft before its performance.

    Time: The basic required for new construction is one day per ton in a dry dock capable of handling ships designed for spelljamming operations. Some spelljamming cultures can reduce the time required by up to one-half. The arcane can reduce this time even more, if they are working on a familiar and standardized design.
    If sub-standard facilities are used, or if the required specialists are not available, the time required might be one-and-a half, twice, or even more times the base period.
    New construction is treated quite differently than repair for cost and time. The ship builders are much more interested in building new ships than in fixing old ones, and this is reflected in their charges and in the priority they give the work.

Table 6-1: Ship Types

Ship Type	&nbsp	Tonnage
Fleet Flagship	&nbsp	80–100
Fleet Flagship	&nbsp	60–80
Large Cargo Ship	&nbsp	60–80
Medium Warship Ship	&nbsp	40–50
Medium Cargo Ship	&nbsp	40–50
Small Warship	&nbsp	20–30
Privateer or Trader	&nbsp	20–30
Coastal or Groundling Craft	&nbsp	10–20
Shuttel	&nbsp	6–10
Escape Craft	&nbsp	0–5
Fighters (includes Flitters)	&nbsp	0–5

Table 6-2: Tonnage/Cube Table

Ship Tonnage	&nbsp	Size of Cube
100 tons	&nbsp	65 feet
80 tons	&nbsp	60 feet
60 tons	&nbsp	55 feet
50 tons	&nbsp	50 feet
30 tons	&nbsp	45 feet
20 tons	&nbsp	40 feet
15 tons	&nbsp	35 feet
10 tons	&nbsp	30 feet
05 tons	&nbsp	25 feet
03 tons	&nbsp	20 feet
01 ton	&nbsp	15 feet

Table 6-3: Hull Cost, Armor Bonus and Hardness

		Armor	&nbsp
Material	Base Cost	Bonus	Hardness
Bone	1,000 gp	+5	4
Bronze/Brass	2,250 gp	+9	9
Ceramic	750 gp	+6	3
Crystal	5,000 gp	+7	7
Earthen	1,100 gp	+2	5
Gems, Precious*			&nbsp
Ornamental Stones	2,500 gp	+6	6
Semi-Precious Stones	5,000 gp	+7	7
Fancy Stones	10,000 gp	+8	8
Precious Stones	50,000 gp	+8	8
Gem Stones	100,000 gp	+8	8
Jewel (Gem Stones)	500,000 gp	+8	8
Glass	5,000 gp	+1	1
Glassteel	8,000 gp	+10	10
Leather	300 gp	+2	2
Mercane Composite	2,250 gp	+13	8
Metal	2,500 gp	+10	10
Metal-Nephelium	4,000 gp	+10	10
Metal, Precious
Copper	2,500 gp	+8	9
Silver	4,000 gp	+8	8
Electrum	20,000 gp	+7	7
Gold	40,000 gp	+6	6
Platinum	160,000 gp	+10	10
Mithral	640,000 gp	+11	15
Adamantite	1,250,000 gp	+12	20
Stone	2,000 gp	+8	8
Wood	1,350 gp	+7	5

* The assumption here is the builder is not going to use gemstones that are very brittle or soft.

Ship Modification
    In this new version for spelljammer ship construction, I am introducing SHIP MODIFICATION, sort of a variation on feats that characters get. Ships get a base of three ship modifications plus an additional ship modification for every 5 HD the ship has (5 HD equals 5 tons) to a maximum of 20 ship modifications plus an additional 3 if ship is made of wood, 2 if ship is made of metal or stone, or 1 if ship is made of adamantite or mithral (If DM permits a ship may be purchased at extra tonnage, without increase in actual tonnage, so as to have more additional ship modifications &#151 the Triop is a good example of such a ship). For each ton of ship the ship has 1 HD, which in turn is equal to a volume of 2,700 cubic feet (100 cubic yards, ½ HD is equal to 1,350 cubic feet [i.e., ½ tons]). The following is the size table chart used in the ship construct chart.

Table 6-4: Tonnage/Cube Table

Ship		AC		Bonus		Creature Size
Tonnage		Modifier		Hit Points		Equivalent
¼ to ¾ ton boat		–2		+30		Huge
1 to 5 ton ship		–4		+40		Gargantuan
6 to 40 ton ship		–8		+60		Colossal
41 to 320 ton ship		–16		+80		Titanic
321 or more tons		–32		+120		Titanic

    The following is the list of Ship Modifications:

AWAKEN SHIP [Ship Modification]
Some living-ships are awaken have an intelligence rating greater then 2, and can perceive their surroundings.
Prerequisites: Living Ship
Benefit: Roll 3d6 to determine the ship intelligence and wisdom score. The ship gains 5d4 skill points with intelligence modifier being applied to each d4 rolled to determine number of skill points that a living ship has. A living ship never has less then 5-skill points regardless of its intelligence penalty.

BURST OF SPEED [Ship Modification]
This ship can briefly increase or decrease its speed.
Prerequisites: Nimble
Benefit: The ship when traveling in a straight line can briefly increase or decrease its TM by two points, even if it exceeds its usual maximum. It can only do this only once every four rounds and cannot make any “quick turns” in the same round.

FIGUREHEAD [Ship Modification]
Figureheads help sailors overcome superstitious nature and fears.
Benefit: Crews aboard a ship with a figurehead gain a +2 morale bonus to fear effect.
Figureheads run from 60–300 gp cost, with typically the most expensive being a painted full figured female that is smiling (made of wood).

FRESHEN AIR [Ship Modification]
Some living ships can freshen the air supply of the ship air envelope (example: the elven man-o-war).
Prerequisites: Living Ship
Benefit: The ship freshen the air envelope each day at a rate of 10 man-day per 1 ton of the ship's sails. Each type of ship differs as to what portion of the ship freshens the air supply (the elven man-o-war sails refresh the ships air supply, other ships might have an organ that purifies the air supply).
Cost: An additional 10,000 gp per ton of sails used by the ship. A typical ship that is not topped out will have 1 ton of sails per 10 tonnage of ship.

GHOST SHIP [Ship Modification]
The ship is an apparition that can manifest into reality.
Prerequisites: The ship perished with all crewmembers on board.
Benefit: The ship, crew and captain are now all undead. The ship has a Charisma score of 12–18 (10+2d4). The ship gains a defection bonus equal to its Charisma modifier. The ship also has 50% chance of being missed by any given ship.
Normal: Most captains of ships will never slay all crew that is aboard a captured ship least he spawns a ghost ship.

HAUNTED SHIP [Ship Modification]
The ship is haunted by either a friendly or more typically a unfriendly ghost or other form of noncorporeal undead.
Prerequisites: The ship must have someone die on board whose spirit is restless.
Benefit: While ship's crew might not been keen being on board a haunted ship, other ship captains are likely to avoid dealing with a haunted ship.
Special: The DM should create the haunting spirit and determine its goals, in most cases this spirit is bonded to the ship. While boon at times, this ship modification is often a bane.

HORN TUBES [Ship Modification]
The horn tubes are used to communicate with remote areas of the ship.
Benefit: Horn tubes consist of two tubes that run into every room on the ship. There is a receiving tube as well as a sending tube. By blowing through the sending tube, the user alerts the operator and can ask to be connected to a specific room of the whole ship. The operator connects the two tubes together, and the two distant room occupants can communicate with each other. When the communication is over, the operator unhooks the tubes, and awaits another communications alert.
Except in the case of an all-ship bulletin, only tow rooms can talk with each other. Three cannot be connected together. Also there is not limit to the number of communications that can occur at the same time.
Cost: These items cost 1,000 gp for an operator's console that can hold tubes for 20 rooms (Ships that have more than 20 rooms must get more than one console, and there is no limit to the number of consoles that can be used on a single ship). Each pair of tubes costs 50 gp each. Each console takes ½ ton of cargo space.

HIDE PLATING [Ship Modification]
Hide plating consists of covering the hull's outer surface with animal hides or similar materials. Using larger creatures is generally cheaper.
Benefit: This gives the ship a +1 Armor Class bonus if the creature's armor class is better than the ship's AC. In addition, certain types of hides, such as dragon skin, can be magically strengthened to +2 or even +3 at great cost. The table below shows the number of creatures needed to increase the ship's AC, according to size.
Restrictions: Until the number of hides required is attached to the ship's hull, the ship does not gain the AC bonus. Some creatures not have hides that would be suited for hide plating such as oozes. Alignment and culture may restrict use of these materials at the DM's option. (Most human and demihuman cultures would not allow the use of intelligent or near-extinct creatures.)
Cost: The cost is 20 gp per CR value of each animal used in the improvement. (Even the weakest creature is considered ¼ CR for purpose of calculating cost of hide plating.)

&nbsp	&nbsp	Needed per
Size of Hide	&nbsp	Ship Ton
Tiny (2 feet or less)	&nbsp	64
Small (2 feet to 4 feet)	&nbsp	32
Medium-sized (4 feet to 8 feet)	&nbsp	16
Large (8 feet to 16 feet)	&nbsp	8
Huge (16 feet to 32 feet)	&nbsp	4
Gargantuan (32 feet to 64 feet)	&nbsp	2
Colossal (64 feet to 128 feet)	&nbsp	2

IMPROVED RAM [Ship Modification]
The ship has ram either an improvement of a blunt or piercing ram, or has an advance ram type.
Prerequisites: Reinforced Frame, Ram
Benefit: The ship can have a choice of the following ram types: blunt (with the added bonus that the ramming ship takes only half the ramming damage), claw, cone, and grappling. Other specialized improved rams can be created (with DM approval).
Special: Ships with grappling rams can halve damage for each claw so as not take this modification more then once (example: Scorpion). This modification can be taken more than once.

INCREASED ARMOR [Ship Modification]
The ship's armor class is improved over what is normal for material and size.
Prerequisites: Reinforced Frame
Benefit: The ship is of advanced design and as such gain's a +2 bonus to its armor class rating.
Special:This feat can be taken up to 5 times.

LANDING (LAND) [Ship Modification]
The ship can land on the ground without crashing.
Benefit: The ship is designed to land on the ground safely, most ship with this modification use only one side of a gravity plane (otherwise cargo, mass, sails and weapons would be crushed and crew members killed upon landing).
Normal: A spelljamming ship normally cannot land on land.

LANDING (WATER) [Ship Modification]
The ship can land on water without crashing.
Benefit: The ship is able to remain afloat on water surface and has some form of movement while in water (i.e., sails, mechanical webbed feet etcetera). Naturally if the ship takes on too much water it will sink.
Normal: A spelljamming ship normally cannot land on water.

LIVING SHIP [Ship Modification]
The ship or a portion of it is alive be it a plant, animal or mineral base life form.
Benefit: The ship heals 1 hit point per day per 2HD that the ship has. Living ships do not have limbs (limb would require the ship to have the improved ram ship modification), nor do they have senses to perceive the outside world, and at best have intelligence rating of 2 (roll 1d3-1 to determine intelligence).
Even living ship does not have a Constitution rating.

LUCKY [Ship Modification]
The ship has a reputation for being very lucky.
Prerequisites: Ship was designed and blessed by a priest with access Luck Domain and has the skill: Profession (shipwright).
Benefit: The ship gains the power of good fortune, which is usable once per day. This extraordinary ability allows the ship to reroll one roll that was just made. The result of the reroll must be taken, even if it is worse then the original roll. This reroll may be applied to any of the ship's weapon (including it ram), or to a sailor making a skill check that is critical for the ship to make, or any other roll the DM sees fit.

MINIMIZE CREW [Ship Modification]
The ship requires less crew than what is needed to man the sails.
Benefit: The ship only requires one crewman per 2 tons of sails that he ship has.
Normal: A ship typically requires one crewman per ton of sails that the ship has.

NIMBLE [Ship Modification]
The ship is very maneuverable.
Benefit: The ship's maneuverability rating is increased by one

PLATING [Ship Modification]
Hull plating consists of covering the hull's outer surface with a stronger material than the hull, usually metal scales or plates.
Benefit: Ship gains a +3 armor bonus, but its MC Rating is reduced by one.
Example: A 60-ton giff Clipper ship is plated with iron. Its Armor Rating changes from 16 to 18, but its MC is reduced from Poor to Clumsy. The plating costs 24,000 gp.
Cost: 400 gp per ton of ship (The metal plating is 1/8 of an inch in thickness.)

QUICK TURN [Ship Modification]
The ship is can change direction very rapidly
Prerequisites: Burst of Speed and Nimble
Benefit: The ship can spin to face any direction at a cost of 2 TM point. In melee game, this movement must take place at the beginning or end of movement.

RAM [Ship Modification]
The ship has ram
Prerequisites: Reinforced Frame
Benefit: The ship gains the benefit of having a ram to use as a ships weapon. The ram can either be blunt or piercing. The damage the ship does is dependent on its size and speed it is traveling at (damage listed below is increased by 2d10 per TM that the ship is traveling at time of ramming).
Special: Ships can take this ship modification more than once (example: Illithid Dreadnought, which as two rams).

Size of Ship	Damage	Collateral	Critical
Huge	2d10	17–20 (1d4)	17–20 (x4)
Gargantuan	4d10	17–20 (1d4)	17–20 (x4)
Colossal	8d10	17–20 (1d4)	17–20 (x4)
Titanic	16d10	17–20 (1d4)	17–20 (x4)
Titanic II	32d10	17–20 (1d4)	17–20 (x4)

REINFORCED FRAME [Ship Modification]
The ship is less likely to suffer a collateral hit
Benefit: When determining if a collateral threat is a collateral hit, the ship with reinforced frame is considered to have +4 AC bonus only for the purpose of resolving the collateral hit.

REINFORCED HULL [Ship Modification]
The ship is more durable then normal.
Benefit: The ship gains +5-hit points.
Normal: For purpose of breeching the hull with none siege weapon the hull has 30 hit points per section of hull, 10 feet by 10 feet of area. Smaller section such as having just enough room to squeeze a medium sized individual through takes about 5 hit points with a hole about 4 feet in diameter.
Special: A Ship may gain this ship modification more than once.

SAILS [Ship Modification]
The ship has sails.
Benefit: Ship increases its maneuverability class by one. The ship's minimum crew is one per ton of sails.
Normal: Ships normally only have 10% of their tonnage being sails.

SHIP OF THE LINE [Ship Modification]
A ship of the line built to perform better then most ships.
Prerequisites: Reinforced Frame, 40+ ton ship
Benefit: The ship gains +1 initiative bonus and +1 dodge bonus to AC.

STREAMLINED [Ship Modification]
This ship is very fast.
Prerequisites: Ship has minimum sails that either: follow the gravity plane and/or follows the keel and/or place at very rear of ship (example: Eagle Ship)
Benefit: The ship's tactical speed rating is increased by one

SUBMERSIBLE [Ship Modification]
The ship is able to remain submerge under the water for an extended period of time.
Prerequisites: Landing (Water), Reinforced Frame, the ship must be air tight
Benefit: The ship is able to remain submerged for an extended period of time. The ship has 4 man-days worth of air per tonnage of ship.

THICKEN HULL [Ship Modification]
The ship's hull is twice as thick then what it is normally allowed.
Benefit: The ship hull is thicker requiring 60 hit points to breech and ship now has 2d10-hit points per tonnage. Wooden ships now have 3-inch thick walls, 2-inch walls for stone, and 1 inch for metal walls. In addition the ship gains a +1 bonus to armor class.
Special: While this is a hefty bonus, any helm trying to move the ship be treated as if the ship is doubled its tonnage, standard designs of 51 spatial tons or greater cannot be moved if thicken by standard helms. For example a squid ship that is thicken hulled cannot be powered by a minor helm despite that it only displaces spatially same amount of space that a normal squid ship does. Ships that have thicken hull cost twice as much to construct.

TOPPED OUT [Ship Modification]
The ship has 20% of their tonnage being sails.
Prerequisites: Sails
Benefit: The ship increases their maneuverability class by one higher then that of ship with sails. The ship's minimum crew is one per ton of sails, and a ship that is topped out has twice as much sails as standard rigged ship, it will require twice the number of men manning the sails then.
Normal: Ships normally only have 10% of their tonnage being sails.

UNIQUE QUALITY [Ship Modification]
The ship has something that is very unique about it. I may have built into it a unique weapon, like the Giff Great Bombard or the Gnomish Bola Ship. Other examples of unique qualities is a ship include the scro mantis that cannot land it water but is air tight, which allows it swap one prerequisite, such as "Landing (Water)" with another, such as "Increased Armor" so that it can submerge in water without taking in water for extended periods of time
Prerequisites: Reinforced Frame
Benefit: The ship has something unique which breaks normal ship construct by just a bit (i.e., swapping out one ship modification for another) or a weapon that is just plain strange. DM must approve all such unique qualities and no ship should have more two.

UNSINKABLE [Ship Modification]
The ship is said to be “unsinkable” because of its superb construction or material used in its construction.
Prerequisites: Reinforced Frame, Reinforced Hull, and 80+ tonnage in size.
Benefit: The ship gains the following advantages: +1 to ships hardness and AC and lastly it gains 20 hit points.

Sails and Culture
Many races in Wildspace view sails as demonstration of culture and attitude.

• The elven ships are grown from living plants. They have beautiful, lacy sails that form monastic and fragile wings over their ships, imparting an air of delicacy and elegance. Natural beauty and aesthetics are the highest goals of elven design.
• The neogi have sails resembling great, spiraling webs, and evoking the instinctive human and demihuman fear of arachnids. They also prefer ships that have a basic arachnid style to their construction. Long, multi-jointed legs used mainly for grappling attacks are standard features aboard these craft.

Common Ship Modification by Race If the DM wishes, each race has particular ship modifications that are found on nearly all their ships. Below is a list of such ship modification by race. Aarakocra: +1 TS; +1 AC with wood. Beholder: Unique ship design and weaponry. Drow: Adamantite hulls and repair facilities to work this material. Dwarf: Increased armor, when working with stone or gems materials this modification can be taken 6 times Elf: Freshen air and living ship Giff: Reinforced frame, also lots of bombards Gnome: Horn tubes and unique device Goblinkin: +1 AC or MC Halfling: +1 AC or MC Human (general): +1 AC or MC, or one special (example: Triop and Vipership). Human (groundling): -1 AC, MC clumsy when standard rigged. Human (Wa): +1 MC: double construction rate with wood. Illithid: +2 AC with thick wood; has MC as if rigged without standard rigging. Lizard Men: +1 AC. Mercane: Up to +3 overall, on any stat or combination of stats; build for others. Neogi: +1 MC; grapple-ram; lifejammer Scro: +1 AC or MC; claw-ram; usually doubles up on assigned crew. Thri-Kreen: +1 MC; ships MC “perfect” if under 4 tons. Vodonoi: Weapons have double range if manned by Enforcers/Destroyers; no alchemist fire.

Armor Rating and Hardness
    Most of the time, the construction material determines the armor class, hardness and maneuverability class of a ship. Some ships may be made of unusual material (DM decides the base AC, maneuverability class, and overall hardness) or may have different portions of the ship made of different material. Sometimes this results in all the above being improved (rarely), and some modifications will be mutually exclusive.
    These values should be recorded on the ship's Ship Record Sheet. The values may change during the testing of the optional Ship Architecture rules are used.

Maneuverability Class and Rigging
    A ship designed for spelljamming operations has a base Maneuverability Class that corresponds to its Material, Size, Rigging and Thickness of hull. All ships start with base Maneuverability Class of 'Average', which assumes they are 'Gargantuan' size, has no rigging, made of wood of standard thickness (3 inches). It should be noted that this applies only to ships that are built by those who understand the mechanics of space travel; otherwise the ships have a base Maneuverability Class of “Clumsy”.
    Those ships of Colossal in size drop their maneuverability class by one, and ships of Titanic size drop their maneuverability by two. Boats of Huge size increase their Maneuverability Class by one.
    Ships made out of metal (including precious metals) and Leather drop one maneuverability class, while ships made out of stone (including gemstones) and earth drop by two maneuverability class.
    No rigging mean that the ship does not has the expense of having rigging, but ships that have rigging improve their maneuverability class will be one class, while ships that are 'topped out' (i.e., have 20% of their tonnage being sails) increase their maneuverability by two. Ships with dwarven forges do not take a maneuverability penalty or bonus for rigging.
    Ships with thick hull, have maneuverability class be one class worse, the exception to this is ships made out of stone (including gemstones) and earth. Conversely ships that are 'gutted' (i.e., thin hulled) increase their maneuverability rating by one.
    Other Modifications like excellent design can increase the maneuverability rating by one (see Ship Design and Architecture).

Crew Size
    The number of crew a ship can safely hold is always equal to its tonnage. (Safe transport is equal to four months of possible travel time before the air turns foul.) The minimum number of crew a ship needs to properly function (without MC penalties) is the first number of the crew entry in the ship statistics section of the ship description.
    Crew Minimum: Generally, it takes one crewman per ton of sails. In other words, if a coaster is 20 tons it has 2 tons of sails, requiring two crewmembers (deck crew or sailors) to maneuver the sails. The captain, officers, helmsman, and navigator are added to he the deck crew to get the minimum crew size. When minimum crew is not available the maneuverability class is reduced (see Combat section). Ships that are topped out are a bit more maneuverable.
    Crew Maximum: Spelljamming craft have approximately 2,700 cubic yards of air per ton of ship (remember that while a ship 100 cubic yards per ton of volume, its air envelope is about 27 times larger in volume). This air has enough oxygen to support one man-sized crewmember for four months. Creatures and characters of different sizes use different amount of air (see Air Envelopes section).
    Weapon Crews: the number of weaponeers needed per weapon carried determines the number of crewmen a ship needs to man all weapons. Weapons crews are not included in the minimum crew needed to maneuver the ship. Most ships designers make sure that the number of the minimum crew and the weaponeers fall within the safety limit, but some do not (The giff Clipper, for example, typically carries only half the full complement of weaponeers).
    Weapon Crews: the number of weaponeers needed per weapon carried determines the number of crewmen a ship needs to man all weapons. Weapons crews are not included in the minimum crew needed to maneuver the ship. Most ships designers make sure that the number of the minimum crew and the weaponeers fall within the safety limit, but some do not (The giff Clipper, for example, typically carries only half the full complement of weaponeers).

Helm Selection
    Most ships of 50 tons or less are equipped with a minor helm. Most ships of greater than 50 tons are equipped with a major helm. Specific races typically use some helm types, and some are so rare as to effectively unique.

Weapon Selection
    All spelljamming vessels are capable of carrying large weapons. The craft's size determines the amount of space that can be dedicated to weapons.
    Only one-half of the ship's tonnage can be used for weapons. While exceptions do exist and are dealt with latter. All ships, however, regardless of their size, are able to carry at least one light weapon.
    The addition of weapons does not increase the overall tonnage of the ship. For example, an elven Damselfly, being a 10-ton vessel, can hold up to five tons of armaments. It might have one heavy and one light weapon, on medium and three light, or five light weapons. Heavy weapons take up 4 tons of space, Medium weapons take up 2 tons of space, and Light weapons take up 1 ton of space (Rams are considered light weapons for purpose of space).
    Turrets: Normally, ship mounted weapons only fire in a limited arc, depending strictly upon their placement. A weapon mounted at the rear of a craft can only fire in the aft firing arc; a weapon that points off the starboard can only fire in the starboard arc. Turrets are rotating platforms that allow weapons to be turned to face different targets quickly.
    Protected Turrets: These turrets provide shielding for weapon crew. They are double the cost of standard turrets, but gives 50% cover (+4 AC cover bonus, and +2 Reflex cover bonus) to the crew manning that heavy weapon. Small weapons can be moved easily without a turret, but they can benefit from the cover a turret provides. A turret is typically made of metal (hardness 10, 30 hit points) ½ inch thick. Cost of turrets is given in the equipment section of the Concordance of Arcane Space
    Dual-mount turrets: A dual mount for a large ship borne weapon does not increase turret size; a dual mounted medium ballista takes a medium turret. If the players wish to develop unusual mounts, the DM must approve the details.
    Example of Ship Design: The Hammership, for example, is a smartly built ship. Weighing 60 tons, it can safely hold 60 crewmembers, and it has a minimum crew of 24 individuals. Its three weapons (two heavy catapults and one heavy ballista) require 14 weaponeers to man all three. Added together, this means 38 crewmembers are necessary to run the ship and man the guns. Subtracted from the 60-crew maximum, the Hammership has 22 reserve crewmembers, should any “working” crew die for any reason or another.
    The Clipper ship, a giff spelljammer, however is not a smartly built craft. It weighs 65 tons with a minimum crew of 18. With 26 bombards, it requires 78 crewmembers to run just the guns! This means a total of 96 crewmembers are needed to run everything — nearly 50% higher than the ship's safe limit of 65.
    However, most giff Clipper ships have 65 crewmembers. During moments of peace, the crew loads all the bombards. A single crewmember stays with each of the 26 bombards, ready to fire at a moments notice. Inefficient, but it works for the giff.

Ship Design and Architecture
    This assumes that the players have commissioned or designed a new ship type and wish to build it. The stages of design are: planning, building, and the shakedown cruise.
    For the planning, a shipwright with profession - shipwright must be hired to oversee the project at an engineer's salary. Only one such shipwright can work on a design at one time. Completion of the plans for a design takes as long as building the prototype. Once the plans are complete, the ship can be built at the standard costs and time.
    Once the construction is complete, the ship must sail on a shakedown cruise of at least two weeks. At this time, the DM rolls 2d6 for MC, and 2d6 for AC. One die of each pair is a “plus” die and one die is a “minus” die. If the total is plus 2 or more, upgrade the MC by one or AC by 2 (superior design), if the total is –2 or less, reduce the MC by one or AC by 2 (Design flaw). If the total is 1, 0, or –1, the MC or AC is as designed. If on either results for AC or MC the result is a –5 the design is fatally flawed and must be abandoned.
    Ships of superior design will cost an additional 300 gp per tonnage of the ship, for really large ships it may be more economical to simply have more tonnage.
    Once at least three shipwrights have established a design with identical plans and identical generated statistics, the ship becomes generally available for volume production. The arcane, if presented with a prototype, may adopt and produced the design sooner if the DM chooses.

Profession (shipwright) (Wis; Trained Only)
    You are familiar with the techniques of ship design, construction and repair.
    Check: Normal maintenance and simple repair does not require a skill check. You need to make a Profession (shipwright) check when designing a ship. Ship designs require a minimum of one week to complete. Plans for a simple ship are straightforward (DC 15) to make. Ships with unusual features are harder, having a DC of 20+. Unusual features include: designed for space, better maneuverability, non-wood materials. Those of nonstandard shape (insect, fish, bird, etc.) increase the DC to 25 or higher. A failure means that another check, and another week of work, is required. A critical failure means the ship has some problems (bad maneuverability, structural flaws, and so on.
    Special: The Profession (shipwright) skill only allows you to perform simple repairs and modifications. The appropriate Craft skill (carpentry, blacksmithing, etc.) is required for anything major.

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