PDA

View Full Version : Low-magic world balance.



Benjamin Vazque
2012-11-26, 11:15 AM
I'm starting into a new campaign, and the very low-magic nature of the world implies some character restrictions which I'm worried about the effects of from a game-balance perspective. The choices I've made are...

1) I'm running an essentially e6 campaign. I want to keep players within the bounds of what humans are actually capable of.
2) My biggest problem with e6 is that it discourages multi-classing (taking a second class automatically prevents you from becoming the best at your primary class, while in the standard game it only puts advancement in your current class off a level. So I'm allowing my players seven levels, with the caveat that only five of them can be in any one class.
3) I'm toying with the idea of cutting back on the provision of hit points in exchange for more feats and skills. I seriously dislike the idea of players simply walking into a pack of bandints and taking twenty daggers to the back and still fighting. I haven't made up my mind on this one, though.

As for the low magic...
4) I'm ruling out the Cleric, Wizard, and Sorcerer altogether. By level six they've all got magical abilities that simply don't exist in my world.
5) I'm ruling out any spell that involves teleportation or summoning.
6) Given that magic is unstable and unreliable in this world I'm giving every non-level-zero spell a failure rate. The failure rate will increase sharply as spell levels increase. Try to cast a level three spell, and there's, say, a seventy-five percent chance it fizzles on you. In exchange for the failure rate, however, I'm going to relax, or possibly remove altogether, limitations on how many spells can be cast per day.
7) Magic items will be EXTREMELY rare, or possibly simply non-existant. If they do exist they're durration as "magical" items will be limited. After a day, or a weak, or a maybe a month, the magic leaks back out of the sword, and it becomes just a normal sword again.

8) I'm going to be occasionally assigning allowing my players to take extra feats or skills between levels.
9) I'm working on a dark age technological level, so access to metal arms and armour will be limited, although by no means non-extant. My characters will be mostly noblemen, so they will have access to such gear at game start, but improving or replacing it may proove problematic.

All of the above decisions flowed directly out of game-world decisins. They are, effectively, fluff decisions. I'm seeking the opinions of wiser men than I as to their crunch consequences.

Benjamin A. Vazquez, U.E.

Yitzi
2012-11-26, 12:06 PM
You're essentially forcing multiclassing at higher levels, are you sure you want that?
Feats and skills won't really compensate for substantially cutting back on hit points, especially against large numbers of weaker enemies. The ability to add your BAB as a dodge bonus to your AC, however, probably will, especially if you play with 3d6 instead of d20. It will also make for a more defensively oriented game, which is probably a good thing. In this case, the maximum boost from Combat Expertise should probably be halved, to prevent AC from being boosted too much.
If you remove cleric, wizard and sorcerer entirely, that significantly weakens crowd control abilities and healing, you sure you want that? It also means that anyone without splatbooks can't play a caster other than a bard or druid, you want that? A better idea might be to severely restrict the spell list, giving only the effects that you want to be available (if you tell me what a powerful caster should be capable of, I may be able to suggest guidelines to fit the fluff).
Removing teleportation isn't really a big deal for e6 anyway, summoning (as opposed to high-level calling) is sort of niche so also won't be missed too much.
The failure rate means that casters pay a price in action economy rather than endurance, which probably isn't a bad thing. It does mean that a party with a bard or druid to heal can adventure all day, since out of combat it doesn't matter if you have to cast several times before it sticks.
About removing magic items:
1. Make sure you also remove all monsters that require magic items to fight, or modify them to be fightable without magic items.
2. Make sure to give the party something else to spend money on.
Extra feats or skills between levels shouldn't be a problem as long as you keep the number tightly controlled and take it into account when designing encounters.
If by "dark age" you mean equivalent to the real-world period right after the fall of Rome, metal weapons/armor should still be fairly available, though masterwork might not be. If you mean after an almost total collapse of civilization, on the other hand, then metal equipment could easily be unobtainable.

Benjamin Vazque
2012-11-27, 02:31 PM
1. I'm perfectly comfortable with forcing multi-classing. Essentially, at high levels you no longer have eight classes but fifty-six (bard with a little paladin, druid with a little monk, etc...) Presumably not all fifty-six combinations are going to work well, but even if only thirty of them make sense that's still a great deal more variety than eight. It furthers the goal (which I'm aiming at in a number of ways) of forcing characters to be more distinct, more individual, more unique.

2. I'm not worried about some of the tactical losses in terms of crowd control and healing. I'm creating a negotiation-heavy, combat-light campaign. Combat won't be absent, but it nevertheless remains that characters may look back at the end of the campaign and realise they made more diplomacy rolls than attack rolls. Furthermore, I'm tailoring encounters to the world, not the players. Which means that many, and perhaps most of the player's scrapes will either be victories the PCs can win with their hands tied behind their backs, or situations where the best advice they can be given is "Run, now".

3. One of the things I want to keep as an absolute ceiling on power is the inability of players to simply fight their way out of a hostile army. If the players are serving at a foreign court, and they tick off the king enough that the king calls in fifty or sixty level one warriors I want to PCs to NEED to surrender, or else find some other creative solution (take the king hostige, cut their way out of the smallest collection of soldiers, make some threat or another, what have you...) Which means I need to keep them weak enough that they, in fact, couldn't take on fifty level one NPCs at the same time.

4. "Dark age" is not actually a precice analogy for what I'm looking at. Indeed, as the history geek in the room I'm practically ashamed of using it. The culture in which my characters are living is directly based on the Germanic tribes north of the Roman Empire around the year zero. I've been picking and choosing, though, and I've inserted some traits from the Celtic tribes of the same era and the native groups of the Ohio river valley around 1200. I may also start looking at various Polynesian chiefdoms to see what I can steal from them. Settled agriculture, heriditary chiefdoms, polytheistic gods, strong clan and family ties, fortifications and towns, the largest of which vaguely approximate cities if you keep your standards for "city" low. There are two more advanced cultures whose heartlands are miles distant from the center of action, but which nevertheless have some impact on the world - traders, diplomats, odd ideas filtering through. The first culture is a mesh of the Roman Empire and the Roman Republic. The second culture is roughly Persian, although it's the one I'm fuzziest on at the moment. Technologically I'm dividing the arms, armour, and equipment list roughly into thirds. The most primitive third will be available locally. The middle third will be standard in the homelands of the Latins and Persians, but difficult or impossible to acquire locally. The most advanced third doesn't exist. I haven't yet done an item-by-item determination for this list, though, so I may wind up shifting these groups. You make a good point about metal not necessicarily being an important determinant here. There are almost certainly iron-workers around.

5. I can describe exactly what I want a high-level caster to be able to do.
- Be rare. The PCs may be able to do magic (some of them), but they're an exceptional lot. In the world at large magic-workers represent one in, say, ten thousand people, if that. That has implications for how the general populous reacts to magic users, and how easily it would be to find someone to do something the party can't do itself. It also means that I'm going to be discouraging a party make-up that's overwhelmingly magical.
- NOT be able to make things materialize out of nothing, or vanish into nothing, or otherwise violate the laws of conservation of mass.
- NOT be able to do anything really flashy (fireballs and the like - I'm OK with crude illusions, or even more sophisticated ones, so long as it's clear that the illusions are precicely that).
- Be able to rearrange things by magical means. Picking up a box and making it float across the room would be perfectly acceptable. So would something like feather fall. Creating a hole in a stone wall (by having the stone reshape istself, not by having the stone disappear) is also perfectly in line with what I'd approve of.
- Be able to create illusions, possibly even relatively sophisticated ones, although not ones that would persist after the caster's attention was broken.
- Do basic healing, and possibly even more impressive healing. I wouldn't even be radically opposed to reintroducing some of the healing spells excluded by virtue of going e6.
- Be able to charm people and animals, although stopping well short of full mind control.
- Be able to produce emotional states (fear, remove fear, courage, confusion, most charm spells would fit here too).
- Minor buffs and debuffs, although nothing game-changing on that front.

I'm not thinking that one caster can necessicarily do all of the above, and all of them are somehow covered by the non-primary caster classes, but reintroducing a generic caster class would be kind of cool if I could make the fluff work. I don't want the distinction between a weak and a powerful caster to be expressed in terms of what they can do. I want it to be expressed in terms of failure rate. So, say, a level one bard could ATTEMPT to cast a 3rd-level spell, but would have a 99% failure rate. A level five bard could attempt to cast exactly the same spell and have, say, a 25% failure rate. I'm still working through concepts on this one, though. I may have difficulty meshing it with the D&D rules.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-11-27, 11:57 PM
Yeah, it... does... not really sound like D&D is the kind of system that you want. I mean, you're probably going to wind up houseruleling so much that you wind up with a barely recognizable d20 system. Which isn't bad, as such, but is... something to be aware of when pitching things to your players.

You probably want to try for a different system, in all honestly. I'm not the most knowledgeable about these things, but I'm sure there are better games for low-power, diplomacy-heavy games.

Yitzi
2012-11-28, 10:21 AM
3. One of the things I want to keep as an absolute ceiling on power is the inability of players to simply fight their way out of a hostile army. If the players are serving at a foreign court, and they tick off the king enough that the king calls in fifty or sixty level one warriors I want to PCs to NEED to surrender, or else find some other creative solution (take the king hostige, cut their way out of the smallest collection of soldiers, make some threat or another, what have you...) Which means I need to keep them weak enough that they, in fact, couldn't take on fifty level one NPCs at the same time.

In that case, I think the best approach might be to give everyone (PCs, NPCs, you name it) a bonus d4 of hit points, and reduce all existing die sizes by one (this will be an advantage up until level 5 or so, and then be a disadvantage, making it harder for high-level enemies to deal with large numbers of low-level enemies). You also might want to ban Great Cleave.


5. I can describe exactly what I want a high-level caster to be able to do.
- Be rare. The PCs may be able to do magic (some of them), but they're an exceptional lot. In the world at large magic-workers represent one in, say, ten thousand people, if that. That has implications for how the general populous reacts to magic users, and how easily it would be to find someone to do something the party can't do itself. It also means that I'm going to be discouraging a party make-up that's overwhelmingly magical.

All high-level PC classes are rare. If magic-workers should be rarer than non-magic PC classes, then the best way to do that might just be to require a "magically capable" ability as a prerequisite, with that ability either being a feat, or meaning lower ability scores (so 10 points lower point-buy if using point-buy, or rolling 4 3d6s and 2 4d6b3 instead of 6 4d6b3 if rolling for abilities.)


- NOT be able to make things materialize out of nothing, or vanish into nothing, or otherwise violate the laws of conservation of mass.

So ban the summoning and creation subschools, as well as any transmutation that changes the size of something. If teleporting something from/to elsewhere is undesired as well, ban all subschools of Conjuration except for Healing.


NOT be able to do anything really flashy (fireballs and the like - I'm OK with crude illusions, or even more sophisticated ones, so long as it's clear that the illusions are precicely that).

So ban anything with a normal energy subtype. (Force effects like magic missile might stay, being a crude form of telekinesis.)


- Be able to rearrange things by magical means. Picking up a box and making it float across the room would be perfectly acceptable. So would something like feather fall. Creating a hole in a stone wall (by having the stone reshape istself, not by having the stone disappear) is also perfectly in line with what I'd approve of.

So keep force effects and transmutation, and maybe lower the level of some transmutations (such as Stone Shape) to make them attainable.


- Be able to create illusions, possibly even relatively sophisticated ones, although not ones that would persist after the caster's attention was broken.

So all illusions have duration of concentration, up to {whatever the given duration is}.


- Do basic healing, and possibly even more impressive healing. I wouldn't even be radically opposed to reintroducing some of the healing spells excluded by virtue of going e6.

So lower those spells' levels and you're good.


Be able to charm people and animals, although stopping well short of full mind control.

At a max class level of 5, that (and the next thing) should be all that Enchantment is good for anyway. Dominate Person isn't available until class level 7.


- Minor buffs and debuffs, although nothing game-changing on that front.

With a cap at level 5, the transmutation-based ones should stay minor already, although necromancy non-fear debuffs may need to go.

Some things you didn't cover as possible or not, and that you'd need to decide, are:
-Protective spells. Should they be able to defend against other magic, should they be able to defend against physical attacks (and should such defense require their attention for each attack, or a cast-and-forget)?
-Divinations. Should they be able to magically acquire knowledge?
-Raising undead. Should they be able to do that?


I'm not thinking that one caster can necessicarily do all of the above, and all of them are somehow covered by the non-primary caster classes, but reintroducing a generic caster class would be kind of cool if I could make the fluff work.

You come up with the fluff, and tell me what rules you're using for ability scores and decisions about the stuff you didn't cover, and I can probably write you some crunch. (I presume the generic caster class would be to replace the existing stuff.)


I don't want the distinction between a weak and a powerful caster to be expressed in terms of what they can do. I want it to be expressed in terms of failure rate. So, say, a level one bard could ATTEMPT to cast a 3rd-level spell, but would have a 99% failure rate. A level five bard could attempt to cast exactly the same spell and have, say, a 25% failure rate. I'm still working through concepts on this one, though. I may have difficulty meshing it with the D&D rules.

Just use a table or a formula. Here's an idea: The failure rate is equal to 50%Xspell level/(caster level+1), capped at 99%.

Friv
2012-11-28, 10:35 AM
As a vague, possibly easier suggestion that will result in somewhat fewer headaches:

Instead of banning wizard, sorcerer and cleric outright (and incidentally, why are they banned but not druid? Druid is basically just "nature cleric"), have them be a prestige class that requires 6 ranks in a related skill. That limits them, under your e7 system, to Level 4 instead of 5, and thus second-level spells.

You can then re-introduce individual 3rd level spells that you like, if there are any, as individual 1/day use feats that players can buy if they know second-level spells and are Level 7.

*EDIT* I missed your failure rate idea. That would make this plan not work so well. Also, you'd probably have to ban Conjuration and Evocation outright.

Thinker
2012-11-28, 11:04 AM
I'm starting into a new campaign, and the very low-magic nature of the world implies some character restrictions which I'm worried about the effects of from a game-balance perspective. The choices I've made are...

1) I'm running an essentially e6 campaign. I want to keep players within the bounds of what humans are actually capable of.
2) My biggest problem with e6 is that it discourages multi-classing (taking a second class automatically prevents you from becoming the best at your primary class, while in the standard game it only puts advancement in your current class off a level. So I'm allowing my players seven levels, with the caveat that only five of them can be in any one class.
3) I'm toying with the idea of cutting back on the provision of hit points in exchange for more feats and skills. I seriously dislike the idea of players simply walking into a pack of bandints and taking twenty daggers to the back and still fighting. I haven't made up my mind on this one, though.

As for the low magic...
4) I'm ruling out the Cleric, Wizard, and Sorcerer altogether. By level six they've all got magical abilities that simply don't exist in my world.
5) I'm ruling out any spell that involves teleportation or summoning.
6) Given that magic is unstable and unreliable in this world I'm giving every non-level-zero spell a failure rate. The failure rate will increase sharply as spell levels increase. Try to cast a level three spell, and there's, say, a seventy-five percent chance it fizzles on you. In exchange for the failure rate, however, I'm going to relax, or possibly remove altogether, limitations on how many spells can be cast per day.
7) Magic items will be EXTREMELY rare, or possibly simply non-existant. If they do exist they're durration as "magical" items will be limited. After a day, or a weak, or a maybe a month, the magic leaks back out of the sword, and it becomes just a normal sword again.

8) I'm going to be occasionally assigning allowing my players to take extra feats or skills between levels.
9) I'm working on a dark age technological level, so access to metal arms and armour will be limited, although by no means non-extant. My characters will be mostly noblemen, so they will have access to such gear at game start, but improving or replacing it may proove problematic.

All of the above decisions flowed directly out of game-world decisins. They are, effectively, fluff decisions. I'm seeking the opinions of wiser men than I as to their crunch consequences.

Benjamin A. Vazquez, U.E.

That's fine. E6 is fun.
Why not let players gestalt instead of progressing a level once they reach level 6? Allow it to add class features, but not hit points (as that would be messy to keep track of). It would also even out classes that multiclassed before level 6, as they'd be able to add gestalt levels until level 6 so that they can unlock more capabilities.
The HP by feats rule is so that characters can fight more challenging opponents than a group of level 6 would normally be able to handle. If you want your players to get one-shotted by everything CR 10 and higher, that's fine.
Turn them into prestige classes. It's better that way. d20 Modern has rules in their SRD for prestige class casters.
That's fine. There aren't too many of these for low level magic anyway.
You should just ban all casters if you want to do this since the spells won't be worthwhile anyway. A 75% failure rate means that on average, in a fight that lasts 6 rounds, the caster would have been able to do something once and sometimes twice. That sounds pretty boring.
A better way would be to rewrite spells so that there's a partial effect and then allow a die roll to get a full effect. That way you get your randomness without completely ruining any sort of enjoyable play for people who spell cast. Your work around of unlimited casting just means that out of combat people spam all of their spells to do everything. (Oh. This door is locked. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Got it!)
Magic items aren't necessary, but their effects often are. You could allow class features or advanced feats that emulate the effects of many magical items.
That would be kind of cool, but you should systemize it. Having people randomly and/or arbitrarily gaining feats/skills would be kind of annoying. Maybe attach it to a time-to-learn type system and have manuals that can be studied to learn feats/skills.
If you want this to matter, you need to have a system for weapons and armor to be lost and/or broken (and repaired), but not so often that it happens every other fight. If you just want the aesthetic, you don't really have to add any mechanics.

Absol197
2012-11-28, 12:40 PM
My favorite ways to do failure rates for spells is to require a casting roll, just like you have to make an attack roll to hit someone. As an easy way to calculate it, your bonus is equal to your caster level + your ability modifier + any equipment or feat bonuses (you can make feats like Spell Focus grant a bonus to this, making specialization more appealing).

For DCs, you can do something like 10 + 5 X spell level: 0 = DC 10, 1st = DC 15, 2nd = DC 20, 3rd = DC 25. You can increase or decrease the multiplier as you see fit, to make spells harder or easier to cast. This means that a 1st-level bard could definitely try to cast a 3rd-level spell, but with a modifier of +5 (assuming an 18 Charisma), they need to roll a natural 20 (5% chance) to succeed. This keeps the base system of casting and everything else the same (1d20 + modifiers), while still giving you that success rate.

I usually put in a chance of bad stuff if you roll too low, as well. Usually it's, "fail by 4 or less, no bad stuff; fail by 5, bad stuff; fail by 10 or more, very bad stuff." My usual bad stuff wouldn't really work for your setting, but I could come up with new things if you wanted. And I'm sure others here could help you, too :smallsmile: .

The other thing I might recommend is something similar to what I did for my Avatar: the Last Airbender system. Each bending technique had two levels of effect: basic and advanced. The basic effect was really small, but could be used at will. The advanced effect was much stronger, and got even stronger for every 5 by which you beat the DC, but could only be used once per day. Additionally, each technique could be learned more than once, and doing so increased the basic effect in strength by a little bit, increased the advanced effect in strength by more, and let the bender use the advanced effect an additional time per day.

You could do something similar with your spells, allowing the basic effect to be at will, and then stronger effects be limited. Casters could choose to focus on one spell or small suite of spells, which they could be powerful with, or be generalists, but not able to create the biggest effects around.


~Phoenix~

Thinker
2012-11-28, 12:56 PM
My favorite ways to do failure rates for spells is to require a casting roll, just like you have to make an attack roll to hit someone. As an easy way to calculate it, your bonus is equal to your caster level + your ability modifier + any equipment or feat bonuses (you can make feats like Spell Focus grant a bonus to this, making specialization more appealing).

For DCs, you can do something like 10 + 5 X spell level: 0 = DC 10, 1st = DC 15, 2nd = DC 20, 3rd = DC 25. You can increase or decrease the multiplier as you see fit, to make spells harder or easier to cast. This means that a 1st-level bard could definitely try to cast a 3rd-level spell, but with a modifier of +5 (assuming an 18 Charisma), they need to roll a natural 20 (5% chance) to succeed. This keeps the base system of casting and everything else the same (1d20 + modifiers), while still giving you that success rate.

I usually put in a chance of bad stuff if you roll too low, as well. Usually it's, "fail by 4 or less, no bad stuff; fail by 5, bad stuff; fail by 10 or more, very bad stuff." My usual bad stuff wouldn't really work for your setting, but I could come up with new things if you wanted. And I'm sure others here could help you, too :smallsmile: .

Spells already have saves, spell resistance, and/or (sometimes) attack rolls. Giving them another way to fail simply discourages people from casting spells. Spellcasting may be broken, but that doesn't mean you should try to "balance" it by making it suck to play.

Your system runs into a similar problem as the OP's. Your players spend entire encounters just hoping to successfully cast a spell while everyone else does everything. How is that fun? The flip side is that you make everything easy to achieve, thus negating the purpose of your system. The only logical option is thus to make it so that the characters must invest all of their resources just to have a 50-50 shot at succeeding, which also means that their characters will be fairly bland from a mechanical standpoint.

Don't try to balance casters by making them unfun. Try to balance casters by remaking the magic system (and spell lists).

Absol197
2012-11-28, 01:40 PM
Spells already have saves, spell resistance, and/or (sometimes) attack rolls. Giving them another way to fail simply discourages people from casting spells. Spellcasting may be broken, but that doesn't mean you should try to "balance" it by making it suck to play.

Your system runs into a similar problem as the OP's. Your players spend entire encounters just hoping to successfully cast a spell while everyone else does everything. How is that fun? The flip side is that you make everything easy to achieve, thus negating the purpose of your system. The only logical option is thus to make it so that the characters must invest all of their resources just to have a 50-50 shot at succeeding, which also means that their characters will be fairly bland from a mechanical standpoint.

Don't try to balance casters by making them unfun. Try to balance casters by remaking the magic system (and spell lists).

Except it does work. I've seen it in actual play. In the actual system I use, a caster can take 10 on casting checks if they're not threatened. That means that you can always succeed on your lower-level spells (and what constitutes "lower-level" increases as the character levels up), but to get the really powerful ones, you're gambling. It's a lot like Power Attack, actually, where you're gambling you ability to hit against your ability to do a lot of extra damage. Just because you can't always pull out your biggest guns doesn't mean that you're completely useless. The one I wrote up quickly above is just trying to give an idea to the OP about how it works, and trying to keep within his design goals.

Actually, all the things you mention as potential points of failure already have a mundane equivalent. With armor class, miss chances, damage reduction and energy resistances, saving throws against add-on effects, plus the range limitations, the two are quite comperable.

As for remaking the magic, system, that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm re-doing it to be like my bending system, because I have comfirmed proof that that works well :smallsmile: .


~Phoenix~

Thinker
2012-11-28, 02:13 PM
Except it does work. I've seen it in actual play. In the actual system I use, a caster can take 10 on casting checks if they're not threatened. That means that you can always succeed on your lower-level spells (and what constitutes "lower-level" increases as the character levels up), but to get the really powerful ones, you're gambling. It's a lot like Power Attack, actually, where you're gambling you ability to hit against your ability to do a lot of extra damage. Just because you can't always pull out your biggest guns doesn't mean that you're completely useless. The one I wrote up quickly above is just trying to give an idea to the OP about how it works, and trying to keep within his design goals.
So at level 1 with an 18 in your casting stat you have a 45% chance of success with your spells. At level 2 this jumps all the way up to 50%! At level 5 you need to roll a 25 or better to actually use your highest level spell available or add 15 while taking 10. Assuming a +6 from your casting stat and +4 from some sort of feat, you still only succeed 25% of the time. It gets worse from there. Low level spells can still be useful, even at high levels, but failing to use your awesome new abilities until you've had them for 10 levels doesn't seem very rewarding. You might as well just flatten the class to only get up to 5th level spells and then give them some class abilities.

Power attack should not be used in a situation where hitting is an actual gamble. Most good builds that use power attack are pretty much guaranteed to hit because they move the penalty to attack to a penalty to defense. They're just adding damage with BAB as a limiter for how much damage they add.


Actually, all the things you mention as potential points of failure already have a mundane equivalent. With armor class, miss chances, damage reduction and energy resistances, saving throws against add-on effects, plus the range limitations, the two are quite comperable.

Video games have a better design philosophy than PnP when it comes to players doing things in encounters. Players should rarely have their attacks/special abilities/spells simply fizzle or never work. They should always work, though not necessarily at full effect.

Absol197
2012-11-28, 03:09 PM
So at level 1 with an 18 in your casting stat you have a 45% chance of success with your spells. At level 2 this jumps all the way up to 50%! At level 5 you need to roll a 25 or better to actually use your highest level spell available or add 15 while taking 10. Assuming a +6 from your casting stat and +4 from some sort of feat, you still only succeed 25% of the time. It gets worse from there. Low level spells can still be useful, even at high levels, but failing to use your awesome new abilities until you've had them for 10 levels doesn't seem very rewarding. You might as well just flatten the class to only get up to 5th level spells and then give them some class abilities.

Once again, the numbers I used in my first post were just an example that would help achieve the OP's goals. For the system I use, bending/casting is a skill, meaning you can gain an additional +3 at 1st level, up to a +4 from synergy, and up to a +9 from Skill Focus, +5 with each element/school Focus feats, as well as from -4 to +5 from environmental effects, with another potential +5 from equipment (magical foci that grant a spellcasting bonus are a thing in this system, and grant bonuses equivalent to those a magical weapon grants on attack rolls).

Total bonus possible at level 1 (once again, assuming base 18 in casting stat): +5 (ability) +4 (skill) +3 (Skill Focus) +2 (School Focus) = +14; range of +10 to +19 with environment. That's hitting 2nd-level spells guaranteed, with a 50% chance to hit 4th-level spells.
At level 20: +14 (ability) +23 (skill) +4 (synergy) +9 (Skill Focus) +10 (Greater School Focus) +5 (equipment) = +65; range of +61 to +70 with environment. That's guaranteed 9th-level spells.

Of course, very few are going to get the maximum possible ability score, and have all the applicable feats all the time, but look at the ranges. If 9th-level spells have a base DC of 55, then a modifier of +45 allows you to cast them without fail. You can subtract 20 from the listed modifier and still make it. You could take off all three feats, or drop the ability modifier by 6, remove the synergies and Skill Focus and drop the equipment bonus by a little. There's a lot of leeway in what you can change around and still get that result. And if you can get environmental factors in your favor often, you can drop even more.


Power attack should not be used in a situation where hitting is an actual gamble. Most good builds that use power attack are pretty much guaranteed to hit because they move the penalty to attack to a penalty to defense. They're just adding damage with BAB as a limiter for how much damage they add.

Maybe in Theroetical Opimization, but I don't talk in those terms. I always talk in actual gameplay, and I've never seen anyone take Shock Trooper in actual gameplay. Maybe the groups I play with are against the norm, but I can only speak to what I know. And what I know is that Power Attack is a gamble. And, as you've probably guessed by now, I use Pathfinder as a base for most of my stuff, so Power Attack works differently, and Shock Trooper doesn't exist. That's possibly why I didn't think of it :smallsmile: .


Video games have a better design philosophy than PnP when it comes to players doing things in encounters. Players should rarely have their attacks/special abilities/spells simply fizzle or never work. They should always work, though not necessarily at full effect.

I agree, I was simply pointing out the similarities between mundane's failure points and magic's failure points in the base system, and trying to show that having multiple failure points in my system (which you pointed out as a flaw) was already present in another main part of the system.

As far as everything having an effect, once again, that's what I'm doing, such as the basic effect of flesh to stone causing incremental petrification, less on a save, and the advanced effect being a that effect progressing quicker.


~Phoenix~

Yitzi
2012-11-28, 05:53 PM
Power attack should not be used in a situation where hitting is an actual gamble. Most good builds that use power attack are pretty much guaranteed to hit because they move the penalty to attack to a penalty to defense.

Isn't that sort of build going to lose hard against a Combat Expertise build? Because they're taking a big hit to defense, the other guy can afford to dump his BAB into AC instead of attack, meaning that their high-damage attacks still won't hit, while the enemy will hit often.

Morty
2012-11-28, 06:48 PM
Yeah, it... does... not really sound like D&D is the kind of system that you want. I mean, you're probably going to wind up houseruleling so much that you wind up with a barely recognizable d20 system. Which isn't bad, as such, but is... something to be aware of when pitching things to your players.

You probably want to try for a different system, in all honestly. I'm not the most knowledgeable about these things, but I'm sure there are better games for low-power, diplomacy-heavy games.

Agreed. It really looks like you're forcing a square peg into a round hole that is also too small.

jiriku
2012-11-28, 10:30 PM
When modding a system to your preferences, less is more. You want simple changes that are easy to remember and have predictable consequences. Where possible, you want your changes to be invisible to the players.

Suggestions in no particular order:

Gnorman has an E6 homebrew class compendium thread in this forum that is so much hot sexy awesome in one place that it defies description. If you haven't seen it, run, do not walk but run over to it and give it a look. Right. Now.

Creating an elegant check-based spellcasting system into D&D is hard. Really hard. I'd recommend you try my Philosopher's Stone low-magic variant instead. It's just one page long, easy to learn, remember, and reference, and it's very effective as a quick-and-dirty brake on the power of spellcasting.

I wouldn't ban wizard, sorcerer and cleric. That simply shifts the problem onto druid, favored soul, and warmage (or shaman, warmage, and shugenja, or dread necromancer, adept, and wu jen, etc, etc, etc). The problem with casters is spells, not class mechanics. Fix the spells.

I think you're on to a great plan by restricting specific subschools and descriptors of spells. That's easy to get a handle on, enforces a strict style and flavor, and there are so many spells in the game that players can always find different (and more appropriate) spells to choose instead.

Rather than mucking about with hit points, consider just optimizing your NPCs for damage output. This gets you where you want to be, but is mechanically transparent to the players, whereas changing the fundamental mechanic is very visible and may have unintended consequences.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-11-28, 11:03 PM
Rather than mucking about with hit points, consider just optimizing your NPCs for damage output. This gets you where you want to be, but is mechanically transparent to the players, whereas changing the fundamental mechanic is very visible and may have unintended consequences.

Also, soldiers-- particularly the more elite palace guard types-- might reasonably expected to be level 2-3 and/or use PC classes. A little optimization for team support, some flanking, some Aid Another, and you should be good. You can also try the mob rules from the DMG or this military unit template (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2hjp8?Military-Unit-by-template)(I've used it a few times without too much issue) to model large groups of low-level soldiers as a credible thread. (That may even work better, since it involves many fewer enemies to keep track of).

Benjamin Vazque
2012-11-29, 11:43 AM
I'm distinctly worried about adding too many mechanics. The odd extra die roll here and there is fine, but my gaming group is notorious for rule zeroing and die fudging anyway. And, to be fair, I'm a firm believer in not letting the mechanics or the die roll interfere with the story. I'm planning to use more mechanics than we've used to date, but doubling the number of die rolled in a combat round is unlikely to go over well with my players. Removing things, on the other hand, may fly quite nicely. And adding a couple of extra HP to the NPCs would be invisible to them, so that's probably workable too. I'll take a look tonight at the Cleric, Wizard, and Sorcerer on a school-by-school basis and see if any of them strike me as passable. Magic has slowly bled out of this world as I've been developing it. Original concepts, for instance, had dragons playing a substantial role in the world's development. I've since eliminated them, but I kind of miss them, so they may come back...

I'm fine with divination. It has a kind of myths and legends feel to it, and it'd let me throw some "prophecies" at my players that are infuriatingly vague. I'm fine with simple protective spells, again so long as they aren't game changing. Undead are another thing that my world lost when it de-magicked itself, and unlike the dragons I can't say I miss zombies and their kin. Though if they ever come back I'd be perfectly amiable to obviously magical creatures being unusually subject to magical effects.

I'll fool around with various spell failure rolls, starting with the ones suggested here. I'll also need something to prevent players from simply retrying spells over and over out-of-combat, which a lot of people have pointed out. Probably something along the lines of failure to cast a spell precluding a second attempt for a fixed period. Although given the nature of my group the realistic answer is that I'd probably just end up rule-zeroing abuse. Still, a "technical" answer would be nice as back-up if someone objects.

I've glanced over the Military Unit Template, and I'll take a more detailed look once I have a spare half-hour (probably this evening). I definitely want a massed combat mechanisim of some kind. The characters may wind up being part of battles before the campaign ends, although the characters themselves probably won't be in the front lines.

I have indeed encountered Gnorman's compendium before, and am completely and utterly impressed. I've been hesitant to use it for this campaign because I don't want to throw too many rule changes at my players at once, although that could be a mistake. This is going to sound overconfident, but I already have a subsequent campaign in mind that takes place four centuries after this one. I was going to introduce Gnorman's classes there.

As for a different system, I'm worried about the learning curve both for myself and for my players, but I've reached out to a friend of mine who plays a good dozen systems. I just got a response, and I haven't had a chance to seriously mull over it yet. If I can get some serious advantages out of the switch I'll do it, but I'd rather keep the system eveyone's familiar with if I can make it work. Is there anything in particulaur you'd recommend?

Benjamin A. Vazquez, U.E.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-11-29, 01:20 PM
Is there anything in particulaur you'd recommend?

I mean, I'd point you to my homebrew rules-light system, STaRS (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=14272521)-- the basic rules of which can fit onto one page (and most of those being related to character creation, at that). I've playtested it plenty, both in and out of the GM's chair, and-- apart from minor things that have been patched up over time-- have really only heard positive things. But then, I would plug my own stuff. :smallredface: I'd like to point you to something "real" but most of the stuff I've actually played is either the wrong scale (Mutants and Masterminds), too complicated (D&D), or both (Exalted).

Telok
2012-11-29, 01:41 PM
What I'd do for a low magic E6 set is simply restrict magic and supernatural abilities to the Adept (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/npcClasses/adept.htm) class, modified of course.

Strip out the familiar and make up six or seven spell lists that you like, then come up with some limiters and benefits. Package a spell list, a limit or two, a benefit, switch up the casting stat and call them a style. Each adept has to pick a style.

Examples
Wizard style: Casting stat is Intelligence, has a spellbook and a familiar, preparing spells takes 15 minutes per spell, heavy focus on Enchantments and Illusions. Bonus: Can possibly scribe many different spells. Limit: Unable to cast spells if the familiar is dead or too far away.

Cleric Style: Casting stat is Wisdom, gets two domains, the spell list is heavy on Divinations, Abjurations, and healing/curing. Bonus: Converts spells to healing. Limit: Must observe holy days and rituals or can't prepare spells.

Druid style: Casting stat is Wisdom, gets the Nature and Weather domains, spell list is heavy on Enchantments and Transmutations. Bonus: Animal companion and wild empathy. Limit: Vow to not use/have metal equipment.

Warlock style: Casting stat is Charisma, spontaneous casting ability, spell list is almost all Necromancy. Bonus: Double spells per day. Limit: One spell and one cantrip known per level.

jiriku
2012-11-29, 10:00 PM
If you like dragons, but not magic, the xorvintaal template in MM5 is an effective way to run non-spellcasting dragons. You can also make use of any number of the dragonspawn from MM4 or the various dragonlike critters in the Draconimicon. Even MM1 creatures like the dragon turtled, remhorhaz, behir, and such can let you get your dragon on, especially if you re-skin them to look more draconic than they traditionally do. There's lots of big scaly reptilian beasts to be had without introducting spellcasting. Although, seems you've already put a lot of thought into this. You may already have considered and discarded this idea.

Rizban
2012-11-30, 06:31 AM
This may not be the answer you're looking for, but have you ever looked at Gnorman's E6 Compendium (http://alt.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=215986)? It's a pretty massive E6 homebrew.

If you want low magic on casters, the easiest way would be to either outright ban the caster classes or to delay casting progressing. Give 1st level spells at level 2 and 2nd level spells at level 4 or 5 and just not allow 3rd level spells while still allowing players to take the class levels and increase number of spells per day.

Hanuman
2012-12-01, 08:42 AM
Make all your players play gramarists.
WHELP, CASE CLOSED