Player Character Ability Scores (CSH)

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AD&D game ability scores are unaffected by play in space. A high Strength score means the same thing in space as it does on the ground. However, there are some additional considerations that DMs and players should keep in mind. These considerations affect the relative importance of the attributes and indicate how the attributes should be generated.
Strength is not as important to spacefarers as it is to groundlings. Ship-to-ship combat occurs at great distances, where personal strength is not a factor, and the powerful blow of the strongest PC is insignificant in the face of a ballista bolt or catapult stone.
Nevertheless, not all combat occurs between ships. Strong PCs have all the advantages they have in groundling campaigns in a one-on-one fight.
Dexterity, in addition to its traditional groundling uses, is the basis for some spacefaring proficiencies, and the defensive adjustment that a dexterous character receives improves armor class and saving throws, even against ship-to-ship weapons.
Constitution is also less important here than in a groundling campaign. It provides a hit-point bonus at high values, governs the ability of a character to survive phlogiston stasis, and helps determine how long a character can last without food and water—an important concern on long space voyages.
Intelligence is the governing characteristic of a number of important proficiencies, including the critical Spelljamming proficiency that improves a spell-caster's performance in using a spelljamming helm. Also, while the Intelligence of the guiding spell-caster does not directly affect the SR of a ship with a spelljamming helm, high Intelligence can indirectly boost the pilot's SR in the long run, as it provides a 10% experience bonus to mage characters.
Wisdom. High Wisdom for priests, like high Intelligence for mages, provides an experience bonus that can boost the SR that the priest can generate in a spelljamming helm. Moreover, Wisdom governs the availability of priest spells, and magic loses none of its importance in a spacefaring setting.
Charisma governs the interactions between characters. Much of the worth of a character in a spacefaring setting is measured in his ability to move among the various societies of the spheres and to command NPC shipmates. A character's Charisma determines how successfully he can do this.
==Character Creation Methods==
As mentioned previously, SPELLJAMMER campaigns can be more challenging than many groundling campaigns. The DM should carefully consider the various character creation methods listed in the Player's Handbook with this in mind. In most SPELLJAMMER campaigns, methods III, IV, and V are preferred. Character Background
In a spacefaring campaign, character backgrounds can be even more important than in a groundling campaign. The essentially uniform mercantile culture of the SPELLJAMMER® campaign universe makes individual differences between the characters fade into the backdrop of the campaign. A vivid character history and origin can help keep a PC from becoming just another crewmember.
Character background in a SPELLJAMMER campaign should do more than define the character. It should make the character distinct from the other members of the group, and in many ways must mark the character for heroism.
Any background should identify the sphere and world where the character was born, and his station in life before going into space. A nobleman from Oerth, with the beginnings of magical training, will have a very different feel than an enslaved peasant from the empire of Shou Lung on Toril. As more details of the character's former life are developed, the character will feel more like a real person. (With the DM's permission, players may invent new worlds and spheres for their PCs' origins, and these planets may become campaign fixtures.)
Groundling Characters. Groundling backgrounds for SPELLJAMMER campaign characters must explain how the character got into space and why he can't or won't go home. Possibilities include:
* The character found a spelljamming helm that had fallen from a crashed ship. (If the crash was recent enough and not overly destructive, the entire ship might be available.) Using the helm, the character (and perhaps some companions) launched himself into space.
* The character was involved in an experiment with a flying machine. He may have been the machine's creator, a test pilot, an unwilling guinea pig, a stowaway, or an innocent bystander accidentally carried along.
* The character was captured by slavers (neogi, humans, or some other race) and taken into space. The character's background must explain how he escaped from his captors.
* The character was magically transported into space. This could happen through the misfiring of a powerful magical ritual, the opening of a one-way gate from a secret temple, or the workings of a magical curse.
* The character was recruited by one of the factions of space—the neogi, perhaps. His public origin matches one of the previous backgrounds, but he is secretly working for someone else. (Part of the campaign theme may involve the character's freeing himself from the faction's influence by regaining control of whatever is being used as a hold on him.) So-called "problem backgrounds" of nobility or wealth are easily handled in a spacefaring campaign. Prince Aldergon, seventh in line to the throne of Vembia, might be a powerful person in his own country, but in space he's just the son of an insignificant groundling chieftain, and all his family's wealth and power back home isn't much good when he's in a different sphere. The DM can be tolerant of a player who wants a noble title for his character, so long as the nation ruled is far away and has no bearing on play.
Spacefaring Characters. Well-detailed spacefaring backgrounds can strengthen the campaign even more than groundling backgrounds. Even though he, too, was most likely born on a planet, the spacefaring character has had more contact with the SPELLJAMMER campaign universe than his groundling cousin. Thus, his background will weave more detail into the spacefaring setting. Some background concepts include:
* The character's mother is an inhabitant of a spaceport. The father was an itinerant spelljamming captain who flew off one day and never returned. Such a character is motivated to seek the father who abandoned him, with motives of curiosity, concern, or revenge.
* The character was a member of a military force, either a large one like the elven Imperial Fleet or a smaller mercenary force. The character has retired from life as a paid soldier.
* Many members of the character's family are spacefarers, as opposed to inhabitants of a spaceport. They may be merchants, pirates, couriers, or explorers, but the character's reputation is colored by that of his family. The character may be trying to overcome a bad reputation, clear the family's good name, or live up to everyone else's expectations.
* The character was born into slavery. He and his family escaped (although some of them may have died in the attempt), but the character remains somewhat brutal and violent, especially when in the presence of slaves or slavers.
* The character was born hundreds or even thousands of years ago, but was lost in the phlogiston. He has only recently been reanimated and is seeing the universe through millennia-old perceptions. There are huge gaps in his understanding because he missed many events (like the CJnhuman Wars) that shaped the Known Spheres. Nothing is as it is supposed to be, yet everything is almost familiar. The character may hold antiquated beliefs, like a hatred for the hadozee, and therefore be difficult to deal with in the modern universe.
* The character is a member of a rare minor race (the DM and player must determine the characteristics of this race) or a member of a primitive society. Everywhere the character goes, he is mistaken for an animal or is the subject of intense curiosity.