Low Magic campaign

[Provengreil]

Our group wants to do a low magic campaign, our current campaign will probably be ending within a couple of sessions, and it looks like it'll be my turn in the DM seat again. we really only know the rules to 3.5, and most of the players aren't very receptive to new games, so that's the system we're using. (also, I prefer to stick with faerun; I've worked with it far more than any other setting, and I'll be on less than familiar ground as is)

Can anyone provide some helpful tips on how to make this work, seeing as 3.5 is based on the idea that magic is accessible? good challenges, relevant house rules, banhammer suggestions, anything helps.

[PollyOliver]

Assuming you're leaving the base classes themselves around the same (i.e., the casters still cast), you're going to have to be very careful not to completely gimp the non-casters. Comparatively, casters lose the least when you take away their toys. Because most are SAD or at worst really dependent on two attributes, if the wizard can't get two stat-boosters, he'll survive on any given point buy as long as he has the minimum intelligence to cast his spells (and in fact can cast spells to bump it up, if necessary). On a small point buy, a melee combatant might really need a STR or DEX or CON item. If a wizard doesn't have fancy armor, he'll use mage armor and blur and stay in the back. If a melee fighter doesn't have fancy armor, he's either dependent on the wizard or screwed. Etc.

Also, high level monsters are CR-ed upon the idea that you have the necessary tools to break their DR and that you have, for example, a cloak of resistance to shore up your worst save. Some fights also break down when the melee-ers don't have access to a source of flight. If your players are fighting an ancient dragon and have no flight, you might be looking at a TPK, even at appropriate CR.

IMO, the biggest problem at low levels is healing (few wands and potions), and the biggest problems later on are saves, DR, and flight. At high level, flight is probably the biggest.

This means non-casters should get something to compensate, either bestowed upon them by the DM or at least pointed out to them at character creation. Vow of poverty might become a valid option for someone other than the druid. ToB grants a slow form of flight as a stance. Races with wings should be available (dragonborn, raptoran). Another option is for the casters to take item creation feats and as many of the non-casters as possible to have UMD, so they can use wands, but this is basically just a way to play a high-magic came in a low magic world, and might be defeating the purpose of the exercise.

You might also consider nerfing casters a little and lowering encounter difficulty or doing something to help non-casters to compensate--maybe along the lines of bonuses as a class feature, for example to saves and one or two stats, like VoP-lite.

Also: If you really want to be low-magic, Faerun is really not the place for it. It practically oozes magic out of every pore. But in any case--if you really want magic item access to be limited, take the banhammer to the artificer, and hard, and take a look at item creation feats (and definitely enforce crafting times.)

[Provengreil]

thanks for the reply.

I will probably nerf casters themselves somehow, so as to make magic itself fundamentally harder or even dangerous to use, through some house rule or other, not sure yet.

[Zaq]

thanks for the reply.

I will probably nerf casters themselves somehow, so as to make magic itself fundamentally harder or even dangerous to use, through some house rule or other, not sure yet.

That's still going to result in the mages being shining stars of awesome until they supernova. While some people like that, it gets hard to be in a party with a guy who's going to either totally upstage you, completely fail to contribute, or turn himself into a radioactive pile of goo. On every turn. (I am, perhaps, exaggerating for comedic effect, but I do believe that you get my point.)

I'd toy with the idea of banning full casters outright. This means that the party is going to have almost no access to any but the most basic spells (and perhaps not even those), but it also means that you won't have the party be dependent on the Wizard to the point to unfairness or a lack of fun.

[PollyOliver]

Yeah, I agree with Zaq. I wouldn't make go so far as to make them potentially useless/explody. The point is for everyone to be able to contribute with some reliability. Maybe nerf spells known or spells per day depending on the class, or bump back spell level progression a couple levels to be more like to a bard's (at which point you get rid of bard, replace it with prestige bard, or nerf bard even harder)? Or ban outright, I guess, if you're looking for a stronger option.

[Provengreil]

Yeah, I agree with Zaq. I wouldn't make go so far as to make them potentially useless/explody. The point is for everyone to be able to contribute with some reliability. Maybe nerf spells known or spells per day depending on the class, or bump back spell level progression a couple levels to be more like to a bard's (at which point you get rid of bard, replace it with prestige bard, or nerf bard even harder)? Or ban outright, I guess, if you're looking for a stronger option.

well that one's actually easy because my entire group does not like bards. we could remove it entirely and nothing at all would change.

nerfing spells known is interesting as a house rule. the goal is to make magic rare, obviously... what if spells per day by class level were reduced? makes the casters think a lot harder about when to lay down the spells. We take the idea of a low magic campaign to mean that all characters are martial, or gishs at best. this would encourage that pretty significantly, i think, while still allowing magic to function.

[The Glyphstone]

First, ban the T1 full casters. No wizards, clerics, or druids. this still allows bards, rangers, and paladins as partial/half casters. Even if they get a single spell per day, the existence of their spell lists means you won't have a low-magic world, only an out-of-place low-magic party. For a properly low-magic feeling in the world, everyone needs to be limited or eliminated.

Second, have something to address the scaling of D&D's wonky math. Monsters, even nonmagical ones, assume PCs have magic gear appropriate to their level in their attack and AC scores, and if you don't, CR goes even further out the window than usual. The easy solution to this is making various grades of 'masterwork' gear. A basic sword would be unmodified, but a master-crafted blade would give +1 hit and damage, priced like a +1 sword but representing skilled workmanship instead of an enchantment. An 'amazing' sword might give +2, all the way up to the legendary hermit-smith dwelling in a cave on Doom Mountain, the only man in the world with the talent and knowledge to forge a +5 sword. Most enchantments will be unavailable with this method, unless you can find a way to fluff them nonmagically.

Third, cook up some alchemical healing herbs or something similar. If your group hates bards, only rangers and paladins will be able to (poorly) heal through magic, so you need either reliable nonmagical healing or adventures that allow for a week or two of bed rest in between fights.

[Sarco_Phage]

An 'amazing' sword might give +2, all the way up to the legendary hermit-smith dwelling in a cave on Doom Mountain,

I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.

http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll260/gzu117/Hermit-Smith.png

At any rate, like Glyphstone and PollyOliver note, healing is perhaps the largest barrier for a low-magic campaign. 1 HP per Class Level per 8 hours is not exactly an ideal healing rate. You could ramp up natural healing or go the kingsfoil route.

[Epsilon Rose]

Since your set on doing this in Faerun may I suggest some whys that might lead into some hows?

First Faerun is high magic (it even has the word Fae in the title). So why are you suddenly in a low magic world?
Well maybe some eldritch abomination has shown up and nuked the magic grid. That would give the a good reason for your party to not be the only non-magic mooks in fae and has some useful implications.

The first is that most of the true casters are out. Things that draw on odd sources of power (like binder and warlock) could still be in at your discretion or out do to magical radiation. The group could also be fluffed as people who have been purposly training without/little magic (because they don't trust it, are magic nulls even normally, or simply feel if they do that they'll be even better with magic) and give them (and not necessarily the rest of the world) the defensive bonus from UA to alleviate the lack of enchants.
I'd also recommend looking at urban arcana or something similar. It's not D&D but it is d20 and relatively low magic (no one gets 9th level spells) so it shouldn't be to hard to modify to fit. One important note about it though, it's set in near modern times so you'd have to change some stuff (of course since I imagine you're familiar with the world circa 2002 you could just switch it to their setting if you're feeling braver than your first post would indicate).

[Provengreil]

the hermit thing made me lol, thanks for that.

master smithing sounds like a good idea, and i think enchantments like keen could get through.

I think the alternate rule of armor giving damage conversion to subdual could be useful here to help with the healing part. I can also remove the required casting levels from the craft alchemy skill and get some new items for that, i've always felt it was limited as is.

[Treblain]

How about making most magic in the world available only through magic items, which are ancient artifacts the characters find or acquire in their travels? It adds a uniqueness to the magic; you hesitate about using that wand of cure X wounds, because you might go a while without finding another one. People fight wars over a single wondrous item. This makes players have to think creatively to be effective with whatever random weapons, armor, wands, and scrolls they find, instead of buying exactly what they need in a store. This gives the DM a chance to throw out interesting items from the MIC that no one would ever buy from MagicMart because they're suboptimal.

Ban Tier 1 and 2 classes plus anyone else who gets 9th level spells. Ban crafting entirely, but keep Artificers in a reduced capacity, as support characters capable of imbuing their allies weapons and items with magic abilities temporarily. Give everyone UMD as a class skill, or alternatively, make it so only Artificers can get UMD, so everyone must dip it if they want to use any magic. Every actual magic item they find takes a UMD check to activate, so it's always a roll of the dice whether magic works or not. Make the party treasure each scroll as unique and precious, a one time opportunity to cast a powerful magic spell.

[Sarco_Phage]

I remember something about Dragonlance, where either after or during the 5th Age, all magic in Krynn... went away. Any magic that was could only be attained by draining the magic out of extant magical artifacts or artifacts that had previously been in contact with wizards, meaning that you could probably pawn your lowly +1 sword for 50,000 GP.

And also I think natural Sorcerers were fairly rare, but I can't be sure.

[Provengreil]

to epsilon rose:

what if I ran it on an alternate material plane in which most magic was dead, and there were only a few pockets in which it functioned appropriately, and even there it's quite feeble? or, it doesn't even have to be an alternate plane, it could be an escape from a plane with this trait. that could explain the lack of magic despite the general faerun setting.

@ treblain:

That also sounds good. actually, really good. as far as artificers go, most of the rest of my group is not terribly serious about looking for new material and most likely doesn't even know the class exists.

[druid91]

You must make mundane things more valuable. Make getting a masterly crafted sword equivalent to a magic one.

Just make more interesting mundane options.

[Epsilon Rose]

to epsilon rose:

what if I ran it on an alternate material plane in which most magic was dead, and there were only a few pockets in which it functioned appropriately, and even there it's quite feeble? or, it doesn't even have to be an alternate plane, it could be an escape from a plane with this trait. that could explain the lack of magic despite the general faerun setting.

The first one works to some extent, but you're not really in faerun at that point and it doesn't make any sense to assume the same history. That said, I always think it's a good idea for a dm to create their own world.

The second one doesn't work at all. The party might not have access to magic classes or starting magic gear but there won't be anything to stop them from getting some. Even worse their enemies would logically have access to the full complement of casting and magic gear.

[Dsurion]

Well, in terms of weapons and equipment, Psycho had this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=180831), though I can't comment on how good or bad it is, it seems solid enough.

About healing... Yeah, I don't like the way it's set up in 3.5. Conan d20 helped this out a little. The Heal skill is actually useful:

Short-term Care: Providing short-term care means spending 10 minutes cleaning and sewing up wounds, applying herbal poultices and so on. After each combat in which a creature is wounded, up to one character may give him short-term care. If the Heal check is successful, the patient regains (one per character level) + Con modifier in hit points (minimum one).

It certainly won't patch anyone up to full, but it's pretty damn good when you have no means of alternative healing. Speaking of which, days of rest actually heal faster, too:

A character recovers (3 + Constitution modifier + 1 per character level, minimum 1) hit points per day of rest. If the character undergoes complete bed rest and does nothing for an entire day, he recovers double that minimum 2 hit points).

[Daftendirekt]

The only low-magic campaign I've played in did just one thing: No magic above 4th level existed at all in the world. Go!

[Sarco_Phage]

The only low-magic campaign I've played in did just one thing: No magic above 4th level existed at all in the world. Go!

So the only means of resurrection are literal deus ex machina or the druid spell Reincarnation? I like it.

:xykon: Liches would be less powerful, though still a physical threat.

[Daftendirekt]

Yeah. We faced a Medusa, and my Raptoran got turned to stone. And that was that. Stone to Flesh is a 6th level spell. With him gone, half of the party's motivation was gone (Good move, DM), so we started a new psionic campaign instead. Then we scrapped that one after a while and are now playing 4e because one of the guys in the group wanted to prove to us that it doesn't completely and utterly suck.

He proved his point, but I still like 3.5 better.

[Sarco_Phage]

Lord, I don't even want to know what facing a Banshee would be like.

Also, the Wizard's job would be reduced from ending the fight in a single go to blowing things up and buffing the party.

[Dsurion]

Also, the Wizard's job would be reduced from ending the fight in a single go to blowing things up and buffing the party.You say that like it's a bad thing :smallbiggrin:

[KingRexII]

One way to create a low magic feel but without completely losing potentially essential magic is the use of incantations (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/incantations.htm). Even if you outright ban all spellcasting, you can still have spells like Raise Dead, Teleport, Heal, et cetera available. For things that you're OK with being cast frequently or in combat, you can just tweak the incantation so it's not so prohibitive. For more powerful effects, keep the costs high enough that the PCs will really need to think carefully about casting the spell.

So if they're up again something that almost necessitates magic, they'll still have the tools, but they might need to be a bit more creative in how they use those tools.

[Cespenar]

The Reserve Points (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/reservePoints.htm) alternate rule is also a good one to use in a world without magical healing.

[Sarco_Phage]

The Reserve Points (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/reservePoints.htm) alternate rule is also a good one to use in a world without magical healing.

Seems a bit video-gamey. Like using Call of Duty's walk-it-off health system.

[Cespenar]

Seems a bit video-gamey. Like using Call of Duty's walk-it-off health system.

HP itself is incredibly video-gamey. This at least gives off an air of a short-term/long-term stamina system, and is handy in a campaign without magical healing, IMHO.

[Sarco_Phage]

HP itself is incredibly video-gamey. This at least gives off an air of a short-term/long-term stamina system, and is handy in a campaign without magical healing, IMHO.

Good point. On the other hand, a low magic system without tech-based healing and without the HP mechanic would be hilariously lethal.

[Cespenar]

Good point. On the other hand, a low magic system without tech-based healing and without the HP mechanic would be hilariously lethal.

Possibly, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'd very much like, for example, to have a system where several mooks with crossbows would provide a grave danger to even a very seasoned veteran. But that's hardly on topic. Sigh.

[Sarco_Phage]

Possibly, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'd very much like, for example, to have a system where several mooks with crossbows would provide a grave danger to even a very seasoned veteran. But that's hardly on topic. Sigh.

I'd suggest the Warhammer Fantasy RPG or the 40k RPG Dark Heresy. Although in DH, the reason the crossbows aren't as lethal is because you're wearing powered armor.

Also? Riddle of Steel. Amazing system with horrifyingly murderous combat.

Anyway on-topic, healing shouldn't be that much of a problem once you're out of the rocket tag stage, as long as your players play smart.

[Firechanter]

I've played in a low magic 3.0 game for a long time, so I can tell you quite a bit about it. 3.5 is essentially the same.

First and foremost, as the others have already said, what a low magic setting really does is make casters even more awesome. If you allow them, you need to seriously nerf them.

What we did was: ban Wizards and Sorcerers completely, and nerf the Cleric and Druid spell lists. For example, no Magic Vestment, no GMW, kick out most flashy Evocations if those don't fit into the world.
Another option would be to reduce all casters' spell progression to that of the Bard, while keeping most of their spell lists.

Secondly, make up your mind how you want to handle magic items and WBL. If you interpret "low magic game" as "items with plusses to anything are uber-rare", your game will start coming apart at about 7th level and get continually worse. In short, you must provide some means to improve Armour Class. In a low-magic game, AC is everything (while saves are not so important).
I suggest the following:
- keep armour and shields with plusses, and just define them as exceptional mundane workmanship. For example, it's not a +4 chain shirt, it's an "Artificer's Chain Shirt". You may want to cap shields at +3, however.
- implement character-inherent AC progression to make up for the absence of amulets, rings and other AC items. +1/2 levels should do nicely.

If you want to restrict ability-enhancing items, you might in turn hand out more level-dependent ability boosts. In Conan for example, in addition to the single ability increases at 4th, 8th etc., you also get universal increases at 6th, 10th etc., i.e. all abilities go up by 1 there.

All that said, D&D just isn't very well suited for low magic gaming. Conan D20 is a bit better but has its own shortcomings. Savage Worlds may be useful but has a completely different play style, "look and feel".

[Jacque]

I DM a low magic campaign and our most significant houserule is that all full progression casters are required to take two startinglevels in a non-caster class. It fits well with nerfing them, making spellcasters like bards a more viable option, and gives the sense of a more gritty world where even spellcasters needs to learn a thing or two about physical challenges to survive.

[The Glyphstone]

What levels do your campaigns usually cap out at? If you were playing to 20, that wouldn't really affect magic level at all, just slow 9th level worldmutiliating from lvl17 to level19. If you usually stop at 10 or so, I can see it making a difference.

[Parra]

Have you considered E6 for a low magic campaign? Its still 3.5 but with a level cap of 6 (improvements made through additional feats thereafter). Casters never get to the insane power creep stage, as magic never goes beyond level 3-4

[Yora]

We've been playing pretty well with that.
High-level D&D just mandates a huge amount of magic. The whole system is based on having a golf bag full of magic weapons, hundreds of scrolls, potions, and wands, and the ability to blast entire armies to eeny teeny pices. Also the high level monsters are all highly magical and mostly orginating from other planes, which I also consider to be part of a high magic setting.

With E6, you avoid that and deal with humanoids and even animals for the whole campaign.

[Daftendirekt]

We've been playing pretty well with that.
High-level D&D just mandates a huge amount of magic. The whole system is based on having a golf bag full of magic weapons, hundreds of scrolls, potions, and wands, and the ability to blast entire armies to eeny teeny pices. Also the high level monsters are all highly magical and mostly orginating from other planes, which I also consider to be part of a high magic setting.

With E6, you avoid that and deal with humanoids and even animals for the whole campaign.

E6 sounds pretty neat, care to provide a relevant link?

[BIGMamaSloth]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/206323-e6-game-inside-d-d.html there you go.

[Provengreil]

What levels do your campaigns usually cap out at? If you were playing to 20, that wouldn't really affect magic level at all, just slow 9th level worldmutiliating from lvl17 to level19. If you usually stop at 10 or so, I can see it making a difference.

depends on the campaign. the only one I came close to finishing was red hand of doom, and my PCs decided they were going to be done after brindol. mostly they find some unexpected way to impale themselves before everything can play out, most recently and notably by attacking a group of wizards they'd already allied with. a low magic campaign would probably happen in lower levels, starting at 2 or 3 and going to 10, tops. The lower amount of magic normally seen at these levels would help, i think.

the E6 thing looks pretty neat; we game on sundays, so i'll talk to them about it tomorrow.

[Forum Explorer]

For a really big change that I'm not sure how successful it will be:

HP fills up completly after resting. Every spell you cast deals damage to the caster. (Yes even cure X wounds)


Simpler solution is just to ban the main casters and keep the partial casters or weaker ones like Dread Necromancers, Warlock and such and such.

Monster selection will have to be a bit more careful

[mabriss lethe]

A quick and dirty low magic rules-set that I've used before. This isn't so much a guide to creating a low magic world, as it is a guide to creating a viable Tier 3 play experience, so YMMV and all that. That being said, Use it as a starting point if you like, nerfing more if you feel you need to.

Ban all tier 1 and most(if not all) tier 2 classes from play: There are still a few ways to become amazing superwizards, but they're difficult, time consuming, and a huge investment quest-wise. (refluffed PrCs like Sublime Chord and Ur-Priest with huge RP/quest entry requirements.) It means that there are still a handful of truly powerful magic users running around, but they're legendary figures that use their might to shape events, but rarely get directly involved in the day to day affairs of humanity. It also gives your players something to work toward if they really want that or ignore it if they don't.

Now boost the NPC Adept up to a PC class and maybe give it a few bonus feats or class features. The Bard and the Adept have become your Go-to sources for magic, followed by the half casters. All those crap PrCs from Faerun sources with half casting suddenly look a lot more useful

It's up to you how you treat Invokers like the warlock and the DFA. I leave them in, because now they have a definite place in the scheme of things. They actually shine now as a source of serious power in the world without throwing game balance out the window. (and my low-magic world is more of a 50-75% magic world.) (Warlocks also become the source of many magic items)

Alternate systems: Psionics requires the same nerf as normal magic. Psychic Warriors and Warminds are the new standard, while eliminating the Psion and the Wilder. Incarnum classes don't really require any tweaking and can be played as-is. Binders fall in the same sort of category as the Warlock/DFA. If you leave them in, they become, comparativelyspeaking, very heavy hitters. Tome of Battle seems fundamentally tricky at first, since it relies on a progression analogous to Tier 1 casting. I'll admit, I was loathe to leave it as is at first glance, then I really dug into it and looked. 9th level maneuvers are pretty much on par with 6-7th level casting, and an initiator will usually only ever know a small handful of them, so it fits right in with the level of play I'm looking for.

Magic Items: These can be tricky. In general, leave them be. If you feel you must limit access to them, remove the idea of the Magic-Mart. There are a few sources around if you want to purchase magic items outright, but they're often in distant lands and require a caravan run to get to them. Another thing to think about is making magic items over a certain GP value unavailable for sale and only found in the vaults of a few wealthy collectors or in the bowels of some dungeon or tomb.

One thing I did that worked nicely was an Out-Of-Character Wishlist for each of the players. Each player gave me a list of 5 magic items, 3 armor enhancements and 3 weapon enhancements that they wanted to eventually give their characters. I told them up front that they may not get *exactly* the items in question and almost assuredly wouldn't get all of them, but that I'd use those wishlists as references on occasion when determining loot or adventure hooks.