# Forum > Gaming > Roleplaying Games > D&D 5e/Next >  Getting Phogiston into 5e?

## Witty Username

So, I just picked up Spelljammer:Adventures i
In Space. One of my players is interested in playing a Giff, so wanted the grab.

So, I am not unhappy with the books so far, I haven't looked at the Adventure module or the bestiary yet. The quick notes was the space rules are vague but functional (this is 5e, vague is the norm). But I was disappointed that the Astral Sea(Astral Plane) was used rather than the fever dream that is Wildspace.

The big thing that I am wanting to port to 5e is Phogiston, the gas that fills Wildspace and is all sorts of strange stuff.
So the straight rules from AD&D (as far as I know):
-Phogiston is highly flammable, any flames (including magical flame such as fireball) are tripled in both size and damage.
-Phogiston can only exist in Wildspace, any taken into a world shpere will disappear
-Phogiston weakens the connections between worshipers and deities, divine casters (I would assume in 5e this would mean Cleric, Druid, Paladin and Ranger) cannot cast spells higher than 2nd level in Wildspace due to this
-Phogiston suspends life energy, any living creature within it without a protective air envelope (one that is not fouled air) will be petrified until brought to a safe location

Would this be fine as a straight port to D&D? are there any modifications you would make to this to add it to 5e?

----------


## JNAProductions

> So, I just picked up Spelljammer:Adventures i
> In Space. One of my players is interested in playing a Giff, so wanted the grab.
> 
> So, I am not unhappy with the books so far, I haven't looked at the Adventure module or the bestiary yet. The quick notes was the space rules are vague but functional (this is 5e, vague is the norm). But I was disappointed that the Astral Sea(Astral Plane) was used rather than the fever dream that is Wildspace.
> 
> The big thing that I am wanting to port to 5e is Phogiston, the gas that fills Wildspace and is all sorts of strange stuff.
> So the straight rules from AD&D (as far as I know):
> 1-Phogiston is highly flammable, any flames (including magical flame such as fireball) are tripled in both size and damage.
> 2-Phogiston can only exist in Wildspace, any taken into a world shpere will disappear
> ...


1) _Fireball_ is already really good._Firebolt_ is a decent cantrip. I don't think letting a 5th level PC throw out a 24d6 _Fireball_ is good-that's 84 average damage. To put that in perspective, a 16 Con Wizard casting that spell has 37 HP-meaning that if they're in the blast radius, they're dying even on a PASSED save.

2) Seems fine.

3) That would do literally nothing to a 4th level Cleric, but make an 11th level Cleric pretty damn useless.

4) Seems fine.

----------


## Jervis

Something to keep in mind about how the Phlogiston works is that, while yes fire spells are increased in power, theyre also centered on the caster. Cast fireball and it gets centered on you. Its why magical fire is a death sentence. Someone on twitch (Magonus  something I think) made a spelljammer redux that was considerably better than the hot garbage that is official 5e spelljammer from what I saw when someone showed it to me. Legitimately fan rules for spelljammer are infinitely better than the insult of a ruleset we got. I try not to be massively negative most of the time but the rules for spelljamming are almost unusable.

Also its not the Phlogiston that weakens divine casters, its that the gods have very little power outside of their spheres of influence. Thats why they cant give out spells easily. This rule works fine if you use long adventuring days rules so long rests take a week or something. Just dont make a excessive number of encounters between planets.

----------


## Millstone85

There seems to be some confusion here.

Wildspace is what is inside the sphere. The Phlogiston is what is outside the sphere. The job of the sphere is to keep the Phlogiston away from Wildspace.

----------


## Witty Username

> There seems to be some confusion here.
> 
> Wildspace is what is inside the sphere. The Phlogiston is what is outside the sphere. The job of the sphere is to keep the Phlogiston away from Wildspace.


At least in AD&D, as I understood it inside the sphere was worldspace, and outside Wildspace, or more accurately each world's space had a unique name:
Krynnspace
Realmspace
Oerthspace
Etc.

This model to explain some of the funk with these settings interacting

For example Oerthspace (Greyhawk), is a Geocentric universe where Oerth is the literal center, while the Forgotten Realms (Realmspace) is a helio centric universe, that and stars don't exist so much as they are portals to the fire plane.
D&D is weird.

Hm: wiki disagrees with me, apparently. Either way, Phogiston is what I want to bring in, I guess both the setting and the substance.

----------


## Corsair14

Its pretty easy just to ignore the crap in 5e about there no longer being spheres. Most of that kind of canon lore and mechanics are extremely easy to port over from 2e into 5e without any work really. Then again, 2nd is very easy in general to port over to the point I have ran 2e modules and simply adjusted HP since 5e characters are so ridiculously overpowered. 

As someone else said, popping off a firebolt or the cantrip in the phlogiston is typically a really bad idea. Ships dont even use lanterns although stuff like continual light is fairly common in spelljammer.

----------


## Witty Username

> 1) _Fireball_ is already really good._Firebolt_ is a decent cantrip. I don't think letting a 5th level PC throw out a 24d6 _Fireball_ is good-that's 84 average damage. To put that in perspective, a 16 Con Wizard casting that spell has 37 HP-meaning that if they're in the blast radius, they're dying even on a PASSED save.


Yeah, AD&D is pretty intense, centering on the caster as mentioned (I didn't actually see that in the original rules, but it makes sense) would probably be good for keeping it from being exploited. I guess it depends on how willing we are to watch as a party wizard goes off like a grenade.
Maybe centered on caster and double damage instead? That makes knock outs more or less guaranteed but death still requiring poor rolls.




> 3) That would do literally nothing to a 4th level Cleric, but make an 11th level Cleric pretty damn useless.


Actually digging up the rules again, it looks like the exact specifics are left to the DM, just that 1st and 2nd level spells shouldn't be affected. In AD&D it worked as I understand by way of the spelljammer helm prevented a caster that used it from casting until they rested their mind. So the rule of thumb was the Cleric would lose nothing by being the pilot.
But either way, it looks like this could be waved, or maybe the divine people can't restore spells of 3rd level or higher long resting in the Phlogiston? Would that be more reasonable.

----------


## Lapak

> Actually digging up the rules again, it looks like the exact specifics are left to the DM, just that 1st and 2nd level spells shouldn't be affected. In AD&D it worked as I understand by way of the spelljammer helm prevented a caster that used it from casting until they rested their mind. So the rule of thumb was the Cleric would lose nothing by being the pilot.
> But either way, it looks like this could be waved, or maybe the divine people can't restore spells of 3rd level or higher long resting in the Phlogiston? Would that be more reasonable.


These were always about spell recovery in 2e, not casting. As I recall, a cleric could sail into the Phlogiston with a full boat of spells and cast them all normally, but they wouldn't be able to get them back. And that even extended to other _spheres_ where your god was not worshipped, which meant clerics had to find a compatible god in the local sphere, start spreading the worship of their god, or (again, IIRC) burn a 2nd-level spell slot on a spell that was designed for opening a channel to your god.

----------

