Starting in a low magic country

[madtinker]

I've been kicking an idea for a campaign around for a while, and was hoping for some input before I try to get it off the ground.

Basically it would be fairly standard DnD 3.5, but what race the character plays would determine where they are from geographically (denoted with accent, perhaps dress, and predisposition to other races). Some peoples would be unfriendlier towards other nationalities and so on. I would be flexible with this, and provide it as an option for character flavor. The big sticking point is I want to start in a low magic country. The background is that this is a theocracy that has bred into the people a fear of all 'witchcraft,' which would include druid, wizard, sorcerer, and probably ranger magic, with only church affiliated clerics and paladins being socially acceptable, and in fact, revered.

Mechanically speaking, a player could reasonably play any available class, if he or she was from another country, but would be recognized as such. Magic users would be distrusted and any display of their prowess would probably result in a visit from the paladin enforcers. Depending on the use of the magic they could end up with jail time or even execution. (All with reasonable opportunities to role play out of a bad situation - railroading is to be avoided at all costs).

Given the cultural bias, it would be very difficult to begin play in any of these classes without a good backstory explanation as to how they came by their training/aptitude. If the party explores other lands, multiclassing would certainly be a viable option.

My questions are these:
What problems do you see with this scenario?
Could it be exploited/abused?
Does anyone have experience with such a scenario, and how did it turn out?
Anything else you'd like to contribute

This would be my first time DMing, so anything you have to contribute is appreciated.

[Myrmex]

I'm working on a similar campaign setting, and I have the following work arounds for arcane casters dealing with the theocracy:

1. Play a manifester. There are no rules against them, as they tend to be quasi-religious organizations and hang out in monasteries.

2. Play a hedge-wizard. Home grown, have to hide your witchcraft. You studied stolen books of forbidden lore. In my campaign, the high magic gnomish kingdom crashed and burned a few hundred years ago, sending hundreds of thousands of gnomes eastward. They brought their magical knowledge with them. Loosely based on the Jewish diaspora in medieval Europe. This is a big source of where to find arcane knowledge.

3. Be a war wizard from the south. They guard the southern deserts against incursions from monsters, and are hired out to be blasters in the military. Come with papers and a seal of approval, but must check in with local church officials wherever they go or face serious sanctions.

4. Be a tower wizard from the north. They study magic on an island in an inland sea where their witchcraft is well isolated. They are hired out to cast spells that archivists can't get a hold of, mostly used for utility reasons (cracking a magic seal, transportation, quickly erecting walls). They also come with papers and face similar restrictions as the war wizards.

5. Be a sorcerer or bard. Magic just happened, you were thoroughly scourged by the church, and now have your papers (and a few scars). Or you are keeping your powers hidden and don't have the proper papers, and have to be careful.

6. The theocratic empire is crumbling and can no longer afford the purging crusades against arcane casters in the distant reaches of its territory In the past couple generations, arcanists have set up towers on leylines in the wilderness. You could be one of their apprentices.

7. Druidic magic is on the rise as the wilderness begins to encroach on civilization. If you play an elven race, chances are you have some connections with a forbidden druidic circle. Alternatively, you simply have come to revere nature in hopes of taming it for your community.

Make sure not to be too much of a jerk about punishing the arcane casters, though.

[madtinker]

I like the idea of registration. That could work really well for this. I forgot to mention that this will be core only, but any of those concepts could be built into the background. I was thinking a light punishment for using magic for good could be something like a penance quest: go get this relic from an abandoned mountain monastery or some such.

Good input, thanks.

[Storm Bringer]

In such a nation, three things would likey happen:

1) those with arcane talent ( sorcerer, hedge wizards, etc) would tend to try and pass themselves off as somthing else, and would have a 'cover' profession, ("Me? a wizard? Gods, no, I'm just a scribe. I translate books!"). obviously, player would tend to go for day jobs that would make sense for their lifestyle (ie. adventureing). Bards could just about hide thier magical talents under thier skilful music and such, so i'd imagine they'd still be fairly common (particauly if only a smallish number of wandering musicians developed the powers, i.e. were 'bards' and not expert commoners).

2) Since those without arcane knowledge have been fed a load of bull about arcane power, and most havn't studied devine magic either, this means that they have very little clue about what a wizard could realisticaly do. This means two things, mainly:

A) When planning agianst the party, they wouldn't take arcane magical abilties into account. they wouldn't plan for the party to be able to make people fly, or for one old man to fireball 30 guardsmen, or too make a whole though a ten foot stone wall, or...

B) when suddlenly conforted with an arcane caster, these people will be faced with something capable, as far as they know, of anything. If the 2nd level party wizard threatens to ploymorph the guard and his entire famly into small, tasty lambs for supper, or turn the castle into marshmallow, the guard isn't going to know that the wizard can't do that.

The most common reaction for low-level guards to any display or arcane magic would likey (barring serious reglious brainwashing) be to flee in abject terror form the foul witchcraft before they lose life and limb.

3) devine users of magic would be even more 'special', as the only souce of magic. Rangers would probley get a lot more respect if they played thier cards right ("truly, the gods have blessed me with these gifts!").


these only really stay true for the general populance who are ignorant of magic. people like the paladin crusaders would be familar with magic and so not fall into these pit traps.

[Myrmex]

Re:
2a

While your average commoner may not know anything (they never know anything), in any reasonably sized community, you can expect that someone there will know about arcane knowledge. Clerics have both knowledge: arcana & spellcraft on their lists. If they have spent the last 1,000 years purging heretics, one could also expect that not only would they know of an arcanist's capabilities, but be intimately familiar with their strengths and weaknesses. My theocratic organization is similar to the Warhammer 40k Smurfs, where centuries of slaughtering arcanists has made them better at slaughtering arcanists.

So while you may get away with abusing a small town or hamlet who doesn't have anyone that could stop a band of adventurers, if word gets out, you are not only in trouble for griefing a small town, but also in for it with the Inquisitors. And the Inquisitors definitely know how to handle arcanists. For larger communities, I imagine they would have specialized anti-arcanist units, probably led by a cleric, with a couple Mage Slayer psychic warriors & an archivist filling the traditional wizard role. At the very least, when the town guard sees the fireball go off, they know who to run to.

2b
The wizard may make a bluff check, with a relevant circumstance modifier (+2 to +20), depending on what sort of display the wizard has just demonstrated and what he's trying to convince the target of.

[Storm Bringer]

point. I mentioned it very breifly at the bottom of my last post, but your right, it would be more important than i made it out to be.

still, at the lowest levels, it would be true.

[Lycanthromancer]

Considering the sheer, overwhelming power of T1 and T2 spellcasters, pissing them off IS A VERY BAD IDEA.

When someone can blow up your entire continent with a thought, you'd best be currying favor unless you have people at least as powerful on your side. This is the case even when you're dealing with level 1 mages, because they may just grow up to be the next Simbul.

And even then, it's like the Cold War; stiff and polite at worst, because when the compost hits the windmill, everyone gets pwnd.

This is made doubly bad when you stop to consider that you live in a low-magic zone, so you've purposefully castrated yourself.

[Lycanthromancer]

Oh, and this doesn't even include how laughable it is to expect a nation full of fighters and paladins trying to protect itself from those walking weapons of mass destruction out of the various monster manuals.

"Oh, the tarrasque is rampaging through your country? Sorry, but the last time I traveled through your country, minding my own business, you tried to have me drawn and quartered. You obviously feel you can deal with a powerful wizard, so feel free to take care of this little problem yourself. Goodbye, then."

[Emmerask]

Well wizards aren´t that earth shattering if you don´t abuse rules(or the lack of rules) and ban certain things (epic spellcasting, polymorph and wish would be the first three that come to mind there are other of course)

After that casters are still very powerfull and could kill lots of people but could not destroy whole armies/lands/continents/worlds/the universe anymore ;)

Some Monsters would need to be reworked or just banned too (anything with a wish spell for example)
The terrasque isn´t all that dangerous there is only one and it hibernates most of the time if put in a far enough country it will never see this kingdom :smalltongue:

But all in all I agree that somethings would need to be done to explain why spellcasters haven´t yet overrun the kingdom yet

[Lycanthromancer]

Well wizards aren´t that earth shattering if you don´t abuse rules(or the lack of rules) and ban certain things (epic spellcasting, polymorph and wish would be the first three that come to mind there are other of course)

After that casters are still very powerfull and could kill lots of people but could not destroy whole armies/lands/continents/worlds/the universe anymore ;)

Some Monsters would need to be reworked or just banned too (anything with a wish spell for example)
The terrasque isn´t all that dangerous there is only one and it hibernates most of the time if put in a far enough country it will never see this kingdom :smalltongue:

But all in all I agree that somethings would need to be done to explain why spellcasters haven´t yet overrun the kingdom yetYes, it definitely strains verisimilitude, unless there are extenuating circumstances. Maybe that part of the Material Plane is actively hostile to spellcasters and creatures with supernatural talents, and the country is surrounded by high-magic nations (which keep out the bigger nasty critters).

Otherwise, it doesn't make sense.

[Fortuna]

Unless I am going blind, it is in fact CLERICS who are at the head of this organization. CoDzilla works well enough to prevent overrun by wizards, doesn't it?

[Lycanthromancer]

Unless I am going blind, it is in fact CLERICS who are at the head of this organization. CoDzilla works well enough to prevent overrun by wizards, doesn't it?Not so much. Druids and wizards are both more powerful than them. Not to mention archivists and erudites. They help a bit, but they don't have nearly the versatility to keep rein on the other Tier 1 classes by themselves.

[madtinker]

The concept is that Clerics run the day to day affairs and the people believe them to be in charge. Haven't decided yet on the ruler himself, be it a corrupt council or a warmage disguised as a benevolent cleric. But they/he/she will definitely be very powerful.

As far as relations with other nations, my concept is that most of them are fairly small, the only large empire being the dwarves of the middle sea. Geographically, we are in Britian, and the dwarves would be roughly the Roman Empire. But our little nation still has plenty of mettle, and I might adapt the cleric spell list, or as has been said, ban a few of the more abusable arcane spells.

All good input: keep it coming!

[Myrmex]

point. I mentioned it very breifly at the bottom of my last post, but your right, it would be more important than i made it out to be.

still, at the lowest levels, it would be true.

Oh, absolutely, but then, I don't think it would be much different than any other low level game where magic is too costly and rare to be seen much in homlets and the like.


Considering the sheer, overwhelming power of T1 and T2 spellcasters, pissing them off IS A VERY BAD IDEA.

When someone can blow up your entire continent with a thought, you'd best be currying favor unless you have people at least as powerful on your side. This is the case even when you're dealing with level 1 mages, because they may just grow up to be the next Simbul.

And even then, it's like the Cold War; stiff and polite at worst, because when the compost hits the windmill, everyone gets pwnd.

This is made doubly bad when you stop to consider that you live in a low-magic zone, so you've purposefully castrated yourself.

Archivists & Clerics are T1, Favored Souls are T2. Manifesters are T1 & T2, as well. All of the above get access to virtually the same shenanigans as wizards, plus divine gets the mandate of a deity, which means plot-centric access to epic magic & artifacts.

[Myrmex]

The concept is that Clerics run the day to day affairs and the people believe them to be in charge. Haven't decided yet on the ruler himself, be it a corrupt council or a warmage disguised as a benevolent cleric. But they/he/she will definitely be very powerful.

As far as relations with other nations, my concept is that most of them are fairly small, the only large empire being the dwarves of the middle sea. Geographically, we are in Britian, and the dwarves would be roughly the Roman Empire. But our little nation still has plenty of mettle, and I might adapt the cleric spell list, or as has been said, ban a few of the more abusable arcane spells.

All good input: keep it coming!

There's a class called archivist that you can find here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20051007a&page=3

Note how it can learn spells from ANY divine list? Now go check out all the wonderful domains. He gets access to almost all the must have wizard spells, as well as super powerful cleric spells.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Unless I am going blind, it is in fact CLERICS who are at the head of this organization. CoDzilla works well enough to prevent overrun by wizards, doesn't it?

Clerics and wizards get access to many of the same tricks... but they don't get Incantatrix.

[Myrmex]

Clerics and wizards get access to many of the same tricks... but they don't get Incantatrix.

Incantatrix just lets you do a bunch of damage. Whoop-dee-doo.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Incantatrix just lets you do a bunch of damage. Whoop-dee-doo.

Apply metamagic effects to spells for free, add metamagic effect to existing spells for free, steal other people's spells, reduce metamagic costs...

Ever want to persist every great buff ever? Guess what, you can!

Ever want to have persistent buffs but not expend your own spell slots to have them? Guess what, you can totally do that!

Want to persist other people's buffs? Guess what, you can do that too!

Arcane casters also get Genesis (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/genesis.htm), Celerity, Polymorph spells, Disjunction, Maw of Chaos, Time Stop, Planar Binding...

[Myrmex]

Apply metamagic effects to spells for free, add metamagic effect to existing spells for free, steal other people's spells, reduce metamagic costs...

Ever want to persist every great buff ever? Guess what, you can!

Ever want to have persistent buffs but not expend your own spell slots to have them? Guess what, you can totally do that!

Want to persist other people's buffs? Guess what, you can do that too!

And divine casters get access to divine metamagic. kthx.
Manifesters get access to infinite powers/day.


Arcane casters also get Genesis (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/genesis.htm), Celerity, Polymorph spells, Disjunction, Maw of Chaos, Time Stop, Planar Binding...

So do archivists & manifesters. An StP Erudite gets all that, and more.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

And divine casters get access to divine metamagic. kthx.
Doesn't allow you to apply metamagic effects to other people's spells, apply metamagic effects to existing spells, or steal spells though.


Manifesters get access to infinite powers/day.

So do archivists & manifesters. An StP Erudite gets all that, and more.
Oh, how thou hast laid low my argument that wizards are superior to clerics by bringing into the argument classes that are not clerics to prove me wrong!

[Myrmex]

Doesn't allow you to apply metamagic effects to other people's spells, apply metamagic effects to existing spells, or steal spells though.

k.


Oh, how thou hast laid low my argument that wizards are superior to clerics by bringing into the argument classes that are not clerics to prove me wrong!

Well, have fun with that strawman, then.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Well, have fun with that strawman, then.

First, someone asked if Clerics could hold their own against wizards.

Then, I said no because of things like Incantatrix and various wizard only spells.

Then, you said archivists, manifesters, and erudites could get those spells.

Now, since the original question was about clerics vs wizards, and my response was to it, I believe it was reasonable for me to assume that your response, which directly addressed me via quoting my post, was going to be in a similar veinl?

If your point was that wizards do not have exclusive rights to those spells, I agree, but that was never the point. The point was that wizards get things that clerics do not.

[madtinker]

I'm not really looking to find out who is more powerful: in this world, it isn't an issue yet.

As I said, this will be almost exclusively a PHB, DMG, and MMI game, so most of that stuff won't be available.

[Logalmier]

Apply metamagic effects to spells for free, add metamagic effect to existing spells for free, steal other people's spells, reduce metamagic costs...

Ever want to persist every great buff ever? Guess what, you can!

Ever want to have persistent buffs but not expend your own spell slots to have them? Guess what, you can totally do that!

Want to persist other people's buffs? Guess what, you can do that too!

Arcane casters also get Genesis (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/genesis.htm), Celerity, Polymorph spells, Disjunction, Maw of Chaos, Time Stop, Planar Binding...

I can't believe you didn't mention Persisting Time Stop. =P