Arctic campaign criticism

[A Lawful Rogue]

I was thinking of running a campaign set in the frozen North and Tundra. I had been planning on setting it up so that various tribes would fight for power and the metal to make weapons is scarce. I want magic to be thought of as "Dark" or "Forbidden" without eliminating it entirely, as the people would likely be highly superstitious. So I've now laid it all out, if you need to know more please ask. Can someone take a look and mention any obvious pitfalls? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Krazzman]

The problem I see coming and the ones that I have, if you take a specific setting, you have to rewrite the fluff. Example for this is Rashemen in Faerun. AFAIK most tribes do have Witches/Sorcereresses or Druids/Clerics (aka Shamans) as leaders.

[Waker]

Another consideration you have to make is the result of magic being "dark or forbidden". If magic is uncommon, you have to figure out how are the mundanes going to deal with the party members who have access to magic. What will you do when the party just charms the big, bad chieftain? Or any number of other situations. A lack of spellcasters also means a lack of magical items.

What is it that makes magic "dark or forbidden"? Does the act of using magic attract the attention of inhuman monsters (outsiders, aberrations, elementals)? Are there unintended side effects of magic (think fallout effects; altered weather, disease, spoiled food)? Or maybe magic warps the users themselves, damaging their bodies and warping their psyche.

[Saintheart]

Perhaps rather than making all magic looked down, consider making only certain forms of magic as verboten. It's an arctic setting; maybe spells with the [Fire] descriptor or of a flashy kind like that are looked on as the work of evil. Rationale being some sort of magical calamity a while back that involved an overpowered Fireball dropping an entire village through thin ice into a lake or something. Or maybe fire-based casters ruled over the icefolk until they managed to overcome them.

This way your characters still get to use magic, but you hobble their best weapons -- fire spells -- against ice-based creatures. Or something along those lines. You could just about pick certain whole schools of magic as looked down on rather than an elemental school.

[Alefiend]

If magic exists, chances are it is considered useful—even if it's distasteful. Maybe arcane practitioners live apart from the rest of society, but are still called upon when "cleaner" methods won't suffice. Nobody messes with the arcanists, not only because they can melt faces but because you want to be able to get them on your side when necessary.

You can do something similar with divine casters. Cleric/Favored Soul types might live within the community but be given a lot of fear-based respect. Druids would wind up living like arcanists, alone in the wild or with a small group of followers.

However you handle casters, items are going to be a puzzle you need to solve. Characters want (and often need) magical toys to let them do their jobs and live to tell about it. Those items have to come from somewhere, and saying they are just extremely well-crafted mundane items can only go so far. Where do magic items come from, and is there any stigma attached to their use?

[GreyMantle]

A couple of things:

1) If this is a lowmagic setting, and you're using D&D, your game is going to be E6. This is not actually arguable. Like, at all. Otherwise, your characters are going to be incapable of completing even basic challenges.

That being said, you could choose to use a lot of magic items. Just refluff them as being blessed by the spirits or whatever, rather than powered by traditional magical energies. This would significantly alter the feel of the campaign, but it would open up its level range at least until level 10 or so.

2) If you want magic to be dark and forbidden, this is an excellent chance to break out the weird casting classes. Just totally ditch the wizards, clerics, druids... They do not appear at all. Instead, use the warlock and binder, because they're cool and flavorful. You'll probably want to buff the warlock just a bit, because otherwise it's just a bit on the weaksauce side. A few more invocations known, extra skill points, and an extra d6 or two for Eldritch blast is usually enough. If you want to do a bit more buffing/houseruling, you could also use the shadowcaster or maybe the hexblade. Even the incarnate or totemist could work. Dread Necromancers can appear as hardcore villains.

So you'd still have a fair number of magic-using classes for players to utilize, but none of them would possess world-shattering powers, and they'd all be pretty funky. And, in a superstitious world, people who make pacts or are descended from fiends, or who draw upon the souls of fallen gods, etc. are certainly going to be treated with a fair amount of suspicion and mistrust. Which I'm assuming you want.

[Alefiend]

Awesomesauce

These are great ideas. I thought about suggesting E6, but decided not to for some reason. Using alternate casters is a terrific thought.

[Namfuak]

I don't see why magic items can't be particularly well made mundane items. +1 or more bonuses are easilly fluffed as mundane, but so good they can pierce basic damage reduction. Keen weapons are just easier to use, so getting in a good strike is more likely. Obviously magical enhancements like flaming won't be used by tribesmen, but at least they have something. Armor could work the same way.

[kenjigoku]

Do your adventure in Icewind Dale, in the frozen north of Forgotten Realms.
FR has some stigma vs magic culturally.
As others have said E6 (found here) (http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/206323-e6-game-inside-d-d.html) is a great way to limit magic and make it feel more special and limited.
(edit) Also, look up Frostburn (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20040911a), some really cool cold weather rules in that book. Ban shivering touch.

[Jacque]

I have tried / am trying to run a low-magic yet still epic campaign. I too tried to ban the amount and accessability to magic items. I considered using adjectives as master worked, grandmaster worked etc., instead of placing the usual +1, +2, +3 etc. bonuses, but I abandoned the idea as I didn't just want the same game in new wrappings.

Instead, I required all tier 1 and 2 spellcasters to have two martial levels prior to any spellcasting levels (or LAs). This was to always keep the spellcasting two levels below the actual appropriate encounter level thus giving enemies a head start on their defenses against magic.
I also did it to emphasize on the dark and gritty world which required fragile spellcasters to take the two non-spellcasting levels even just to survive.
Finally, it gave the tier 3 and higher classes a head start thus making them more viable. I always wanted a powerful spellcaster in my world to be something similar to a high level beguiler instead of a wizard or cleric.

Needless to say, one of my players rolled up a combat cleric which my house rules seemed to cater quite nicely. Oh well, nothing is perfect I suppose.

Another thing I have enjoyed is the marvel of giving out actual magic items. The more common magic items like stat increases, armor increases etc. have become more and more available, but I still write up storylines and background stories for the more powerful magic items (and I refer to them as artifacts). All magic items are hard earned but it is truly a bone tossed that my players enjoy and appreciate. I also write up a lot of unique magic items.

Of course, the system does nothing to prevent the obvious gap that martial characters rely more on magic items than spellcasters. But fortunately, it's a campaign and I do my best to suit my encounters to the abilities of the characters - sometimes even removing Damage Reduction, lowering Armor Class or weaken the Attack Bonuses.

Oh, and btw, I would love to play a low-magic campaign in an arctic setting!

[nedz]

Instead, I required all tier 1 and 2 spellcasters to have two martial levels prior to any spellcasting levels (or LAs). This was to always keep the spellcasting two levels below the actual appropriate encounter level thus giving enemies a head start on their defenses against magic.


This isn't going to work because classes which progress in power quadratically will overtake classes which progress linearly, they will just do it two levels later. T1s and T2s are not an issue at low level, its from mid-level upwards that the difficulties begin. That said this approach would allow you to run E8 without exceeding the limits of E6, you could even just force the T2's to take a single non-caster level without any untoward effect.

[A Lawful Rogue]

I see what you mean, and I agree that magic is an important part of D&D. What about the shaman from the Oriental Adventures guidebook(p. 22). It could easily be adapted to fill the "Cleric" role. I also like the idea of not having forbidden magic, only specific branches of forbidden magic. Maybe fire magic and Necromancy? Thanks for the input. Any more would be appreciated.

[eggs]

Flavorwise, I'm the Shaman would definitely be interesting. But if the goal is keeping the strong casters in line, the only think keeping the Shaman weaker than the Cleric is its lack of explicit splatbook support (SpC even recommends expanding its spell list; it just lacks specific spell names).

[A Lawful Rogue]

Flavorwise, I'm the Shaman would definitely be interesting. But if the goal is keeping the strong casters in line, the only think keeping the Shaman weaker than the Cleric is its lack of explicit splatbook support (SpC even recommends expanding its spell list; it just lacks specific spell names).

I wasn't really trying to make it weaker so much as fit it to the world. But I see your point. If anyone has any suggestions for lower tier spellcasters that would fit the campaign please let me know

[137beth]

You want a low tier spellcaster? Truenamer.

Oh, you meant a REAL spellcaster. At that point, your best option is homebrew. OR require that all casters multi-class (e.g. at least 1/3 of your class levels must be in a non-caster class).

[Fouredged Sword]

A suggestion for the world that allows magic items, and discourages magic casting without any hard rule changes. Tell your characters that they had better be prepared to make all spellcasting discrete (invisible spell makes most buff and many other spells that do not cause things to explode fine)

One way to make magic forbidden is to just plain have people forbid it. Ok, a old empire of magic users ruled harshly the land 300 years ago. They took all the food and luxuries leaving everyone else to struggle to survive. Some of the older dwarves and elves remember it clearly. They tapped into a power that should not have been and all arcane magic users got eaten by an arcane horror. Now anyone who uses arcane magic is seen as a potential tyrant in the making and shunned.

Evocation, Enchantment, Illusion, Necromancy, conjuration, and transmutation are all feared, as those where the weapons of the empire. If you use such magic you had better hide it well. Most villages will turn you out in the cold if they find you use magic, and earning their trust back will be a difficult feat. There are exceptions. Spells that heal and aid are mistrusted, but allowed. Abjuration, Divination, and some small segments of conjuration have earned a degree of hard earned acceptance for their ability to guide and help villages.

The advantage of such a world is that while the empire is gone, all their stuff remains. Magical items are not all to uncommon. Nobody is making them anymore, but in the day of the empire, arcanist bodyguards all carries at least +1 weapons and armor and captains carried +2 to +3 weapons. Specialty weapons of even higher levels have been made. Other wondrous items also had been made in great quantities, and have been spread far and wide after the fall. Many adventurer has dreamed of finding a lost outpost of the empire to loot of magic.

The magic items are seen as spoils of war and are marks of pride and status to carry. The wielders are seen as those brave few who have the will to spit in the eyes of those who once held magic all for themselves.