low magic vs high magic

[blelliot]

Allright, I've been working on this world for months now and I'm beating my head against a wall on magic and magic items. I wanted to magic to bew low, but the idea is really starting to become more trouble than its worth. Now I'm thinking of going in the opposite directio n and go high magic.
I would like some pros and cons for each idea. Thanks everyone!

[mjlush]

Allright, I've been working on this world for months now and I'm beating my head against a wall on magic and magic items. I wanted to magic to bew low, but the idea is really starting to become more trouble than its worth. Now I'm thinking of going in the opposite direction and go high magic.
I would like some pros and cons for each idea. Thanks everyone!

Low Magic
Pro: You can steal from history books, say do a riff on Renaissance Italy... but with Ninjas!! The effect of low magic on society is relatively easy to predict as it not too far from you own experience. I'd guess that low magic would tend to do things like boost crop yield (Nitrogen fertilizers), improve communication (internet), public health (modern medicine) and weapons (steal da Vinci's weapon designs)
Con: its kind of dull IMHO its more work to make the setting live

High Magic
Pro: Its not dull, you can let your imagination go wild!!
Con: Your on your own, every bit of magic you add is a hole where a player can jam in a crowbar and say "Hey if X is possible and Y is possible I can combine them to make infinite Z" this isn't actually a bad thing, but you need to be prepared to think on you feet.

[JusticeZero]

Then there is the thing that throws people all the time for some reason. If magic is uncommon, the PC with spells becomes very very powerful. In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king effect.

[ikosaeder]

In a very low magic setting, where spellcaster are rare, you have to modify the rules.
I am planing a low magic campaign with a Dwarfs only group. To make it playable I ruled that only one third of the character levels can be from a spellcasting class.
That means you have to take 2 levels in a non spellcasting class (in my campaign only fighter, rogue, Babarian and cleric are allowed as player classes) before advancing in a spellcasting class. There are about 4-5 NPC's in the campaign world that are able to cast arcane spells.
Also, no Metamagic and no magic item crafting feats are aloud. In the whole campaign only a number of less than 50 magic items exist, so all are considered major artifacts.
Furthermore, I consider to increase the casting time of all spell by a factor of 10 or maybe even 100.
(Setting will be based on "The dwarfs" by Markus Heitz, if anyone knows that)

[Yora]

The advantage I see in low magic games is that there will be more situations in which the players have to think what they would do, or what people in history did in situations as these.
In a high magic world, you are dealing increasingly with situations that could never actually happen and you have to beat these fictional problems with purely fictional solutions. Personally, I highly like the aspect of dealing in a game with situations similar to those that people could actually face or indeed did face. It seems a lot more meaningful to me.

[Mutazoia]

Allright, I've been working on this world for months now and I'm beating my head against a wall on magic and magic items. I wanted to magic to bew low, but the idea is really starting to become more trouble than its worth. Now I'm thinking of going in the opposite directio n and go high magic.
I would like some pros and cons for each idea. Thanks everyone!

As I stated in another thread...low magic worlds also run into the money problem. Core rules D&D assumes a magic rich environment, as the price tag on magic items will show. If you dial down the magic, be sure to dial down the monitary rewards for encounters to scale, otherwise you'll have extremely rich characters in no time flat. In one campaign my group wound up with that problem. Between our natural tendancy to take everything not nailed down...and then going back and prying up nails, and the GM using the standard treasure tables for a magic rich world, we each had something to the order of 4-6 million gold each (the GM had to introduce banks into the game to accomodate), but very little to do with it. By campaign's end we each owned our own city, collecting rent and taxes and generally bing rich A-holes. (our characters tend to be semi-evil A-holes anyway...now we had cash to back it up).

EDIT: I usually suggest looking up "Iron Heros (http://fierydragon.com/dragonsbreath/?cat=12)" as a good D20 low (or no) magic system.

[Grimsage Matt]

For low magic, why not use a ritual spell varient? (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Rituals_(3.5e_Variant_Rule))

Tone down the money rewards, and you get a form of magic that is a form of uttillity/support, but takes to long for the battlefield. Heck, just change the Cha checks to Int checks and magic is the domain of the rich, who are the only ones who can afford it.

A simple way might be to change the adventurers currency to Silver instead of gold, while keeping ritual costs the same.

[Mutazoia]

For low magic, why not use a ritual spell varient? (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Rituals_(3.5e_Variant_Rule))

Tone down the money rewards, and you get a form of magic that is a form of uttillity/support, but takes to long for the battlefield. Heck, just change the Cha checks to Int checks and magic is the domain of the rich, who are the only ones who can afford it.

A simple way might be to change the adventurers currency to Silver instead of gold, while keeping ritual costs the same.

I kind of like the mana system from Iron Hero's as well. You can still cast in combat but at low levels you can't really do much. Depending on your stats your limited to around 1 or two spells per level then your tapped out. Combine that with the ritual spell varient and you've put a pretty nice collar and leash on magic...you could only do simple spells and they would take for ever to cast.

[Deepbluediver]

It depends on what exactly you mean by low and high-magic.

Low-magic generally means a world where magic is rare, and casters are weak, with high magic being it's exact opposite in both respects. But the two do not necessarily require that corelation.

In literary terms, wizards, mages, magic users, etc, can be powerful because they are also very rare. Sometimes it's just something special about them (Gandalf, Merlin) or other times its because learning magic is inherently dangerous (i.e. demons eat your soul or you get transmuted into a pile of woodchips).
Those balancing factors tend to be difficult to replicate in games (not that I haven't tried), leading to something I like to call the "magical ninja-syndrome".

I tend to favor a situtation where magic is widespread and well known, but the kind of world-changing game-breaking spells that most people site as the problem-causing variety are very rare. Evey village and town can have a magic doctor, smith, tinker, and/or priests and druids to bless the fields, the wells, keep away wild animals, make magical light, etc.

In other words, it replicates a world reasonably similar to our own, where the majority of the population benefits from and has quick access to technology (the magic equivalent) even if most of us couldn't build an electric generator from scratch. But not everyone has access to tanks, fighter jets, radar, or nuclear weapons.

That drawback is usually that this scenario tends to require significant amounts of homebrewing and/or houseruling, and taking a few significant liberties with the system anyhow.
And I'm still not exactly sure how to classify a setting where 0th-3rd level spells are common and cheap, but there's still only a handful of merlins and gandalfs.

[Grimsage Matt]

For a weak magic is common/Gandalf level magic is rare, just make Adepts with a maximium of thrid spell level, and the rare true wizard.

[Deepbluediver]

For a weak magic is common/Gandalf level magic is rare, just make Adepts with a maximium of thrid spell level, and the rare true wizard.

I do use that, but I've always found adepts to be an odd blend of wizard and cleric. I actually split it up into Acolytes (using the clerics spell list) and Adepts (using the Wiz list instead), and most of their magic is taken up by things the players would scoff at anyway (example, Cure Potato-Blight).


There are also people (I've met them) who seem to think that 95% of the entire humanoid population needs to be level 1 from the time they are born until they day they die, and the player-party is the only characters who ever level because they are the most-est special (they tend to fumble a bit when I ask where all those magic-mart items come from).
I generally prefer a world where most adult humanoids have 3-8 HD, even if its in NPC classes, which is part of what makes it easier to do the widespread low level magic thing.

[Grimsage Matt]

Eh, Generic Dwarf Master smith should be at least level 50. 20 levels in UA Generic Expert and 30 in various mundane crafting PrCs.

That and give the NPCs who work a skill based encounter of their level every 1d3 weeks. And make it so PCs can't do it, its a purely NPC thing.

Combined goal of giving the NPCs EXP and pissin the PCs off a bit.

[Deepbluediver]

Well, see, I'm also of the opinion that "killing stuff" is not the only way to gain experience. In a D&D style world, life seems pretty dangerous (with all the monsters and disasters and PCs running around) so I take the approach that just surviving allows you to level up over time. Again, most of the NPCs have levels in NPC classes, but the blacksmith or carpenter doesn't need to go giant-hunting to learn how to fix wagon wheels.

Now, I admit the entire crafting system is a little borked, but that's another issue, I think. I'd like to see a crafting class that just improved your skills, without relation to HD, saves, or other special abilities.

[EdroGrimshell]

Okay, I have one story for a low magic setting that had magical materials. In this setting, weapons and armor were made competitive with use of skilled craftsmanship, al la Narmy's Mundane Masterwork Enhancements (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134874) and an Item Template list my old GM used, Alchemy replaced a lot of magic and used overhauled rules (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=212170) (slightly modified) to make it effective, Combat Techniques by Realms of Chaos (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=217700) and Amechra (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=226550) to replace ToB stuff since it wasn't allowed, and a "Mythic System" that was used to make magic items. It allowed use of magical materials, deeds leaving a legacy, and alchemical treatments to make pseudo-enchantments on items, like some of the stuff in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

Magic items were priceless artifacts, mysterious in nature and always had a history to them, it made them integral story items, and only the most skilled of craftsmen could ever hope to create a weapon worthy of a true legacy. It made the setting interesting, gave it a mystical sense, and allowed the setting to actually be low magic, but not no magic, which, depending on how the GM handles it, can be more fun than high magic.

EDIT: It also used the Color Wheel (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=174163) in place of Alignment, and items could be aligned with a color and imbued with "Mana" (blatantly taking ideas from Magic: The Gathering)