PF Low magic campaign

[Ryulin18]

Hey guys. Everyone has failed me. I'm sick of starting a campaign only to have all 6 players turn up with a cookie cutter wizard/cleric/druid build.
So I'm bringing the hammer down and I'm going to start a low-low-low magic campaign.
My entire world is based around large Magocracies (mage run countries) and at the first session, everyone will roll a percentile and the highest can play a pure magic user. I'll be disallowing everyone else from playing pure casting groups (such as sorcerers, clerics, druids and to a lesser extent alchemists) but will still be allowing rangers, paladins and bards.

I was reading the economicon (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Dungeonomicon_(DnD_Other)/Economicon) and realised how a villager would have to sell his whole farm and stuff to make the money for a basic adventurer kit. So I'm also cutting money down to the bone, starting gold of 50gp...

I think this will push my group to roleplay, worry and think about their characters on a much larger scale instead of throwing their wads of money and superior magic around.

Back to the point, any ideas of experiences that would help me do this?

[metabolicjosh]

Its you game but i would be upset by that a little.
Just start at level 0 and play to the first conflict then have classes be picked after that.

[GreenZ]

This could be very interesting so long as everyone wanted to play such a game; remember that many people play PF and such in order to escape normal life and feel like the big, great, powerful force PC's usually are.

If I were to run such (which I might someday should the opportunity arise) I would do as the above poster said and start them out at 'level 0', as a commoner of some kind, introduce the plot of the campaign in which the party is chosen among candidates to solve problem X for their village, and lead into a town/nation/world threatening string of plots that forces them to become heroes.

There's a type of story called 'The Hero's Journey' that I think aptly applies to such a campaign; the magnitude of power should slowly rise as the characters level and magical aid should come in the form of great boons and gifts to the heroes during their journey.

Make sure to appraise encounters, abilities, and skills appropriately, without magical aid otherwise trivial things such as flight, DR, invisibility, or even simply great Stealth or Perception skills can easily turn into a TPK. If you are going to limit magic, also do this for enemies; enemy wizards, bosses or such, should be feared but not invincible, should the party do anything but attack him directly reward the party by limiting his magical abilities a bit (like as if he's already used several spells that day or such.) Since you are limiting magic; be careful to not allow the campaign's level to reach too high, after about 10th level magic begins to have a really dominating effect on combat.

If you want your players to care about their characters then the most major point is finding a balance between difficulty and survival. If you kill PC's without penalty the players will throw caution to the wind and end up caring little about their characters; yet, if you make encounters too deadly but don't allow PC's to come back easily they won't be able to play. The best way to avoid this is to REALLY limit how often you kill PC's; the best way to do that is to monitor your encounters very closely.

[avr]

Also note how much of a pain getting rid of certain conditions will be if the one pure spellcaster is not a cleric; there will likely be PCs who have little to do for at least a couple of sessions at a time, maybe longer. You may want multiple/backup characters for them to play while their main character is blinded or whatever. A DMPC who does healing would work but could engender resentment if not done well.

The silly way costs scale in D&D is the economic problem IMO. Starting at 50 GP won't solve that.

[Grail]

Is there a reason in game, why that in a world that is run by mages, you are playing a low magic campaign?

Is there a reason in game, why you are limiting starting funds to 50gp?

Some characters need more money, as equipment is part of their character. The martial classes specifically. They need their armour and weapons to be effective. Saying that, if there is a reason, fine, but just consider that when you tell your players 50gp, they'll all look to play characters that don't need money as much.

Personally, I love low magic games, but this just sounds like you're blocking character options not for the game, but for other reasons. If you're worried about your players just optimizing all the time (and it sounds like you are), don't play PF. If you're players aren't mature enough to want to roleplay their characters and worry about them, play a different system.

Take them out of their comfort zone. Play something rules-lite, whereby characterization is more important than the numbers on the sheet.

[Answerer]

Dungeons & Dragons, and by extension any variant thereof, including Pathfinder, is abysmal for this.

If you want to play this, and your players are interested/willing to try it, then I implore you: find another system.

Dungeons & Dragons, particularly 3.x, is based on the relative commonness of magic. 3.x, in fact, is about as high-magic as I can imagine.

And the game works terribly without it. It's a poor, poor system, being forced into something it was never designed for. It will work very poorly.


Before someone starts with the "oh yeah, well I had lots of fun in my low-magic 3.x campaign!" – that statement is irrelevant. You can have lots of fun doing nearly anything with a good group of friends. It doesn't change the fact that D&D 3.x was not designed for this, does not support it and in fact leaves little of the system actually left. There are systems that are designed for low magic, and they deserve to be used when you're looking for what they can provide.


Finally, "punishing" players is just lame as hell. It's a game, and it's their game as much as yours.

[QuidEst]

I would say be a little laxer than that. Disqualify classes with casting scaling from level 0-9. Witches, Sorcerers, Wizards, Clerics, Druids, Oracle and Summoners (SLAs go from 1-9, and their spells cover 0).

That leaves the non-casters (Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Rogue, Cavlier, and Gunslinger if included), late casters (Paladin and Ranger), and slow casters (Bard, Alchemist, Inquisitor, and Magus).

Alchemists are the least "casty" of all the options- I'd let them in well before Bards. They're mixing up stuff they can drink- they aren't even officially arcane casters.

Getting rid of all casters means there's little point in playing Pathfinder- most of the cool new classes they added are slow progression casters. Cavalier is really weak, and Gunslinger flies in the face of the "not much money" thing, so I'd let at least Alchemist and Inquisitor in. I concede that Magus could get awfully OP if he's the only one with a magic weapon, even if it's for a limited time.

Suggested modifications:
-Remove Eldritch Heritage.
-Start with three traits.
-Give bonus feats periodically.
-Remove any Alchemist discoveries that allow others to use their extracts/mutagens, but leave potions in if they're willing to pay the cost.
-Encourage (but don't enforce) archetypes that make classes less cast-y or blast-y. (Eg. Vivisectionist Alchemist for sneak attack damage in place of bombs.)

Personally, I would enjoy this as a setting in which I could make a lower-op Bard and have them be a powerful and useful character for a change. What, you say, that's not the point? Well, when the T1s are away, the T3s will all play.

[eggs]

My entire world is based around large Magocracies (mage run countries) and at the first session, everyone will roll a percentile and the highest can play a pure magic user. I'll be disallowing everyone else from playing pure casting groups (such as sorcerers, clerics, druids and to a lesser extent alchemists) but will still be allowing rangers, paladins and bards.
Ew.

What Answerer said. D&D is terrible for this, and using it is just going to bring attention to the arbitrary removal of the somewhat interesting aspects of the system.

[QuidEst]

My entire world is based around large Magocracies (mage run countries) and at the first session, everyone will roll a percentile and the highest can play a pure magic user.

I think this right here is the biggest problem. Present everybody with the same options. One player rolling lucky and getting a Wizard means it sucks for everybody else. Make those options the ones that your NPCs get. Playing as poor, low-magic characters is fine. Playing as poor, low-magic characters in a city patrolled by the scrying eyes of the ever-vigilant Wizards run by the mean ol' DM who hogged all the best classes is not fine. Kings can be supported by their royal Alchemist, the court Bard, and the clergy's chief Inquisitor (probably with a more fitting name there).

[That_guy_there]

I've been through a few low to no magic D&D games. ... but the DM banned ALL casters and used the Complete Warrior options for Limited martial casters. It was sub optimumal but since everyone went into the game knowing it was extreme low magic we built characters around that.

UNfortunately most of the earlier posts hit it sort of on the head, D&D doesn't really sustain this. IN 3.5 i jumped on the TOB since it wasn't "actually" magic (and then shattered the balance we had, so... cheating wins?).

Pathfinder has almost the same problems. A Dm i play with is running a "Hunger Games" style game, we have yet to play. I'm going with an Unarmed Fighter archetype with a focus in the Crane Manuever tree. My feeling is a high AC and ability to AoO/ Defensive fight is better than trying to overwhelm with Damage and Attacks in these types of games.

I think you're going to find another problem is going to be the PC you let have full casting. He's going to quickly outstrip the others and cause a major gap in power and ability, as well as crushing non-magic NPCs. (Which in turn is going to cause you to throw Magic empowered NPC who are going to cause lots of buthurt for the Martial PCs).

[DrDeth]

Dungeons & Dragons, and by extension any variant thereof, including Pathfinder, is abysmal for this.

If you want to play this, and your players are interested/willing to try it, then I implore you: find another system.
Finally, "punishing" players is just lame as hell. It's a game, and it's their game as much as yours.

Right, right and right.

It's Ok to say "No full casters as PC's in this campaign world, it's like starting off as the Lord High Mayor or Prince.' But don;t do Low magic. It's the mark of a DM that can't handle his players any other way.