Looking for low-magic campaign tips [3.5]

[Wargamer]

I'm looking to get some notes on the table as a standby for if I wind up DMing again, and after feedback from my last campaign I feel that magic is going to need to be hemmed in a lot (non-caster characters felt they weren't able to claim the spotlight ever). So, we're going with low magic!

So, I'm looking for any thoughts people have on this - what works well, what doesn't, what to watch out for, what to plan for, etc.

A few guidelines I am going to throw out here...

Wish, Miracle, True Resurrection and other "instant fix" spells flat out do not exist in the setting.
Core books, maybe Complete Adventurer / Arcane / Divine / Warrior / PhB 2... but no others.
Players can be casters, but there will be limitations / consequences / DM hates you stipulations (ideas for these welcome).
Magic items present (because what's D&D without a +2 sword of facemelting?) but they aren't common - typically, players pry them off the hands of "boss" encounters!

[Diarmuid]

Rather than having to document all the various limitations for "casters", you're probably better off just limiting which caster classes are available to be played.

If you allow a wizard, cleric, druid, sorc, etc...then there's no way you can think of everything your players are going to try ahead of time and then it's a pain to come up with rulings off the top of your head all the time. Plus, if you simply make big hoops that must be jumped through for magic...those same classes will simply find ways to make those hoopse trivial and then you're back to square one.

[KorbeltheReader]

Rather than having to document all the various limitations for "casters", you're probably better off just limiting which caster classes are available to be played.

If you allow a wizard, cleric, druid, sorc, etc...then there's no way you can think of everything your players are going to try ahead of time and then it's a pain to come up with rulings off the top of your head all the time. Plus, if you simply make big hoops that must be jumped through for magic...those same classes will simply find ways to make those hoopse trivial and then you're back to square one.

This is what I was thinking, too. Going low magic means either combing through hundreds of spells, making players clear every spell selection with you beforehand, or banning classes. The first is way too much work, the second will be a time suck in the middle of your game, and the third will leave some archetypes missing from your game.

You would think sticking close to core would help with this issue, but it actually doesn't because, for the most part, the most OP classes and OP spells are in the Player's Handbook. Furthermore, limiting the books hurts your non-casters even more potentially because the best purely martial classes are in the Tome of Battle.

Personally, I'd go with door #3 (limiting class selection), but it's your call.

[Azoth]

Try limiting casting classes to those with set specialized lists (warmage, healer, dread necromancer, beguiler) and partial casters (ranger, bard, paladin). This greatly limits the field of what casters can do. It should also allow non-casters to shine a bit more.

Remove the spellcaster requirement from craft alchemy. This will allow mundanes to book dive and create alot of useful and helpful items that can save them in a pinch. For ideas on items consult with Shax and his havversack)

To limit the field of magic items but still allow players to get an awesome "sword of face melting" considering giving them the feat Ancestrial Relic for free. It will let them make their own awesome weapon or piece of armor without needing the relevant item creation feat.

[Diarmuid]

Another option is the Bonded Item option from DMG2.

[Zirconia]

Players can be casters, but there will be limitations / consequences / DM hates you stipulations (ideas for these welcome).
[/LIST]

You could eliminate metamagic reducing feats, metamagic magic items, and allow only one metamagic feat to be applied to any one spell. An Enervation spell isn't too fight-ending compared to what the fighter can do, a Twinned Maximized Empowered one is. I also suggest removing all of the polymorph line of spells, or possibly eliminate allowing the caster to use them on themself, though that leaves some risk of the two wizards each casting Polymorph on the other. . .

Another possibility is to allow everyone to gestalt with a partial caster/restricted caster. Everyone would have to enjoy more complex options, though.

Finally, an interesting "low magic" variant I've seen is that everyone has to make their own magic items, nothing except special DM gifts/loot is usable by anyone else. And the total GP value you can have happens to be WBL; "sale" cost, not crafting cost. No XP costs, so no need to play tricks there. One person might choose to do a lot of scrolls, and replace them as they go, another might prefer stat boosters, etc. That could tie in with the Ancestral Relic feat someone mentioned for non magical characters. The other thing the campaign I was in with this rule did was cap WBL at what you get at 10th level, 50,000 GP. That way everyone can customize their gear for what they like, but getting that Ring of Freedom of Movement isn't trivial, you sacrifice something else for it. To make up for lack of high end boost items with such a low cap, everyone also got +1 stat point/level in addition to the normal 1/4 levels. That put more of the emphasis on the character instead of their items.

[BowStreetRunner]

First of all, the classes that suffer the most from limited magic items are the non-casters. Magic items are often the only way they can accomplish some of the things casters can do through their spells. And the Challenge Ratings of many monsters are calculated with the assumption that PCs will have magic available to them which is appropriate to their level.

Leave magical items in the game, but you may want to keep their creation primarily in the hands of NPCs. Increasing the time to create items from days to weeks should make it far less practical for PCs to run around creating any item they desire.

Secondly, limiting the selection of books doesn't hamper the casters any more than it hampers the non-casters. The sole exception may be clerics, as their selection of 'known' spells is limited only by the number of books allowed. I would second the other opinions here that only specialized and partial casters be allowed. This cuts down on the options for casters without limiting the non-casters.

Lastly, have clear reasons why magic is not more common in your game world. While the PCs don't need to know the reasons at the outset, it will help down the road if you can be consistent with the rationale. Some ideas include:

There is an inquisitional mindset against the use of magic. Hated and/or feared, magic use is something that cannot be done openly without attracting the attention of the authorities or angry mobs.
Magic use can be sensed by certain supernatural beings present in your world, and they are drawn to the source of the magic. Whenever spells are cast, there is a chance that powerful creatures will appear shortly after. Outsiders, Elementals, even certain Undead might be drawn depending on the type of magic used, and the higher the spell level, the higher the CR of the monsters.
Magic use is limited to only the noble class, much like wearing a sword was restricted in medieval times. Even owning a magic item is a crime for a peasant or commoner.
Magical training is prohibitively expensive. In your world's economy, few people have sufficient wealth to pay for the cost of such training themselves. Most casters end up in extreme debt to a wealthy patron who provided for their education. As a result, casters are very jealous of their knowledge, as allowing more competition will reduce the income they can expect from their trade. So they will generally only part with such knowledge for a significant incentive.
There was some past cataclysm that resulted in much of the knowledge of magic to be lost from the world. Modern practitioners possess only a fraction of what was once known and are only beginning to rediscover some of the old magics.

[Azoth]

Another option for developing magical items for your mundane characters is through the use of special materials harvested from enemies. Combining these with the stock craft skills can give you the whole "questing for the legendary item" feel of some fantasy settings.

Say someone wants to make Shadowed Studded Leather armor. They could need to hunt down a Darkmantle and skin it. Then use the craft (armorsmith) to make his armor. Maybe a DC of 15 or 25 to get the +5 to hide.

To just make it +1 he would need to meet the craft DC of the armor's new Armor Class.

[lumberingmenace]

You dont have to rule out sorcerers and wizards to go low magic. A great way to limit Without nerfing them to much is letting them build their spell list from 2 schools of magic. If they get to a high enough level where they have all the spells from those schools in the core books, recommend to either multiclass, choose a new school of magic if this situation arrives, or they can access one non core book at that point.

[Lord_Gareth]

- Try E6 instead of normal 3.5

- Don't use 3.5

[ddude987]

I think a better option would be playing e6 or maybe e8. That will limit the brokenness of magic and spells, without actually having to neuter the poor innocent fullcasting progression classes.

edit: Darn, I got swordsaged

edit: edit: link (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?206323-E6-The-Game-Inside-D-amp-D) to e6, in case you want more information.

[Gavinfoxx]

http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=8740.0

See options for Tiers 5, 4, and 3? Only use classes from those.

[ddude987]

http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=8740.0

See options for Tiers 5, 4, and 3? Only use classes from those.

The problem with only using those tiers of classes is that it doesn't make martial characters any better. Also, if there aren't any casters, or high level casters, how are the treasure troves of wonderful magical items being created? After all, all magic items have some sort of spell, and caster level prerequisite.

As for quick balancing of the magic:
-No Resurrection of any sort
-Conjuration(Summoning) spells do not exist
-Alter Self, Polymorph, and company do not exist
-No free wishes
-Ranger gains Animal Companion as druid, druid animal companion is (druid level - 3)

And for making martials awesomer:
-Two-weapon fighting and friends are now 1 feat
-Manyshot and Greater Manyshot are now 1 feat
-Point blank shot and percise shot are now 1 feat, pbs removed as a prereq
-Allow tome of battle on your allowed books list

[Gemini476]

Lastly, have clear reasons why magic is not more common in your game world. While the PCs don't need to know the reasons at the outset, it will help down the road if you can be consistent with the rationale. Some ideas include:
-snip-

Y'know, a perfectly acceptable answer to "why is magic not common" is that magic is simply rare and unusual, with the people capable of utilizing it few and far between.

There's no need to even acknowledge more powerful magics as existing - why would you, when they don't? It's a bit like how you don't need to go into a detailed explanation of why Psionics/ToB/Elder Evils/Thri-Kreen don't exist in your world; they simply don't. Sure, they might exist in other worlds, but that's not this world. For a more extreme example, you cannot play a Space Marine in Greyhawk. Why not? Because Space Marines do not exist in Greyhawk.



For tips as to playing a low-magic campaign, remember to not put your players up against monsters that require magic to defeat. It's perfectly possible to run a campaign where the only magic items are simple +1 weapons and armor as long as you are not facing flying opponents who are immune to ranged weapons or opponents with DR/thing you can't get or Swarms or low-level incorporeal enemies.
Oh, and if you go really low magic then you need to change the healing rules. As is they just don't make sense for any interpretation of HP. Speaking of HP, you probably want to stick to lower levels so that HP doesn't get bloated to the point that you need magic to increase your damage.

Oh, and if you are running low-magic and yet still include PC spellcasters, disallow crafting feats and stick to low levels. Like, E6 low levels. It stops being low-magic really fast, even if you stick to specialists - a 6th level Warmage has 14 spells/day of levels higher than 0, and can use Gust of Wind to be immune to arrows. At level 8 he gets Black Tentacles and Phantasmal Killer and all kinds of things that don't really fit in with low-magic campaigns - and that's the Warmage. By level eight the Dread Necromancer has 8*(2+Cha) HD of undead, and by level ten can cast Lesser Planar Binding (Speak with Dead is breaking murder plots since level 6).
The Beguiler has all kinds of great spells on its spell list, like Freedom of Movement, the X Image line, Solid Fog, Mirror Image, and Invisibility Sphere.

Basically, you need to be sure that you know what you want when you say "low-magic". Do you mean Lord of the Rings, where the most magic Gandalf does is look spooky and light a fire? Or do you mean Conan, where the melee heroes can fight and best the scary wizard before he finishes his Ritual of Doom? Or do you just want to ban the high-tier classes and stick to Tier 3?

I haven't seen so many good 3.5 low-magic settings, but I will recommend Warriors and Wuxia (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=205213). It has a good collection of homebrew to help spice up the mundanes.
I really like Warheart Items (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=205213), for instance. It replaces the boring old +1 flaming greatswords with +X items that let you initiate certain maneuvers, like having a +1 Warhammer that lets you initiate Mountain Hammer, for instance. I feel like they fit very well with low-magic campaigns.

[Gavinfoxx]

The problem with only using those tiers of classes is that it doesn't make martial characters any better. Also, if there aren't any casters, or high level casters, how are the treasure troves of wonderful magical items being created? After all, all magic items have some sort of spell, and caster level prerequisite.


For the first thing: yes it does, see Warblade, Factotum, etc. -- just pick the right classes.
For everything else: By DM Fiat. You could say, "The classes for player characters are restricted to this. Other classes exist in the setting, but for DM use only, as they are too powerful."

[ddude987]

For the first thing: yes it does, see Warblade, Factotum, etc. -- just pick the right classes.
For everything else: By DM Fiat. You could say, "The classes for player characters are restricted to this. Other classes exist in the setting, but for DM use only, as they are too powerful."

But warblade and factotum perform well even with wizards in the game, at least until obscenely high levels. Also DM fiat feels like it hurts the verisimilitude of the game.

[Gavinfoxx]

Well, how about, 'wizards, clerics, and druids exist, but you can't play them'? That keeps the verisimilitude.

[Wargamer]

Hmm... E6 looks interesting. I think I kind of like it actually. I may have to try it. :)

[Fable Wright]

So, we're going with low magic!

So, I'm looking for any thoughts people have on this - what works well, what doesn't, what to watch out for, what to plan for, etc.
My first recommendation would be, don't do low magic. But if you insist...


Wish, Miracle, True Resurrection and other "instant fix" spells flat out do not exist in the setting.
This seems a bit drastic, especially considering that they make absurdly good quest rewards that aren't in the form of 'just another +X to Y item.' Make True Resurrection something you have to quest for, not something you take out of the setting altogether.


Core books, maybe Complete Adventurer / Arcane / Divine / Warrior / PhB 2... but no others.
Also a bad idea. Mostly because melee actually gets nice options in later books. Tome of Battle in particular really helps melee fighters feel awesome and perform well, even without magic items. Even if you aren't a fan of ToB, I would recommend keeping the other books open, as the later material was some of the best balanced. Also, because the 4th level cap casters (Assassin, Paladin, Ranger) get some kick-ass, flavorful spells that barely register as magic from said sources, and because things like Swift Hunter builds shine in limited magic environments.

Players can be casters, but there will be limitations / consequences / DM hates you stipulations (ideas for these welcome).You see those Wizard schools of Conjuration and Transmutation? You can't use them anymore. If you complain, you're losing Abjuration next.

You're a sorcerer? The DM picks your spells after listening to your input.

There are no Clerics and Druids. Only Wildshape Rangers and Favored Souls.

Magic items present (because what's D&D without a +2 sword of facemelting?) but they aren't common - typically, players pry them off the hands of "boss" encounters!

Rare, sure, but above everything, make sure they get back to WBL by the time they exit the dungeon. Preferably in chucks of extremely powerful items for their level. Also, I highly recommend giving players items like Feather Token: Tree, Decanter of Endless Water, Marvelous Pigments, Immovable Rods, and Robes of Useful Items. It puts less emphasis on the magic of the items, and more emphasis on the clever ways you use them. Because people are going to remember that time you pulled a rowboat out of your Robe of Useful Items right onto the BBEG's head, forcing him to take a turn to get it off and giving the party enough time to regroup rather than the 19th charge from your Wand of Glitterdust trivializing yet another encounter.

Also. Golem Manuals. Players love doing clever things with golems, and the manuals can take up a significant portion of loot.

Finally, make it so that you can't buy magic items, period. You can find people who have magic items, and try to barter your items for theirs, or perhaps do a quest for them, but you cannot let them go into town and abstract it away with "I pay 4k for Gauntlets of Ogre Strength in the downtime." That just really hurts the immersion of low-magic games.

[Yogibear41]

My thoughts:

1. #2 on your list is a horrible idea for reasons stated above.

2. E6 MAY be what you are looking for

3. If not prepare to nerf the CR of monsters the players fight (depending on how much they optimize)

4. If no e6 then maybe: Depending on the degree of magic is OP and the level you play at you might consider: spells and spell slots! higher than 6th level do not exist/function that means a wizard never gains spells or spell slots of 7th level or higher. You might also consider reducing this down to 5th or 4th level depending on just how low magic you want to go, this way you are not forced to play e6 but also don't get the insane amount of high level spells, and single classsed paladins and rangers will have similar spells per day as an arcane gish type character who multiclasses fighter/wizard/spellsword or AC. Granted depending just where you cut things off it could differ slightly and they will still probably never be as good as one of those optimized to the teeth they should be close enough to not feel useless (hopefully)


EDIT:

5. Don't worry about WBL, encourage smart and resourceful thinking and ideas, reward ingenuity with a higher than average WBL, if they are acting stupid give them friendly advice to point them in the right direction, but don't reward bad playing with oh well you are level 5 so you are suppose to have X amount of gold/treasure by now so that level 2 goblin drops a +3 longsword, they may not be happy in the short run but in the long run they will come to appreciate it and become a better player because of it
(at least I did :smallsmile:)

EDIT#2:

Sorry for continued wall of text but had some other thoughts hit me:

Not sure about your specific game or players but there might be a chanced that the high optimizers are playing the spell casting classes because well they know what they are capable of, and the newer players or non-optimizers are playing melee classes because thats what they want to play. If this happens to be your situation magic might not necessarily be the problem and more or less the same amount of game balance could happen when you have a few guys playing single classed monks or samurai, compared to the uber-charger barbarian, and wildshaping sword of the arcane ordering mystic ranger, or some sort of mountzilla courtesy of a paladin build.

Just a thought, although I am sure you would already know this if it was indeed the case :smallsmile:

[Sam K]

Before you decide what to do, you should look at the root cause. You say that the mundanes felt they never got the spotlight, so I guess the first question is "what kind of mundanes do you have?" There's a big difference between people playing warblades and intimidate barbarians, and people playing archery rogues and dual wield fighters.

If you have high OP mundanes, cutting down the power of magic users will probably work. If you have low OP mundanes, you may need to adjust the challenges as well.

For cutting back on magic users, dont try to nerf the T1 casters, it's huge amounts of work and excessive nerfs just seems like punishment for people who like those classes. Having your favorite class nerfed repeatedly just seems like punishment. It's better to just disallow them if they're wrecking your game. You can still use them as NPC classes, perhaps with the explanation that to reach this kind of magical/spiritual mastery, a character has to spend their life in study/prayer. It's not something you can do on the side after a long day of murder hoboing.

If your mundanes are decently optimized, specialist casters like bard and warmage should be no problem.

If you dont want to use ToB classes (or your player dont want to...), try giving mundan classes the martial training feat every few levels. Getting a couple of free manouvers every encounter isn't going to unbalance the game and doesn't require the same amount of book keeping that full ToB builds can, but it will add some flexibility (especially in those situations where your mundanes cant use their regular tactics, like fighters unable to make iterative attacks or rogues fighting sneak-attack immune enemies).

Like it has been said before, dont disallow books for the hell of it. That mostly hurts the weaker classes. Core only T1 chars are still T1.

[Wargamer]

I am not allowing people to use books I don't own. That's why there are book restrictions in place. Most of my books were stolen years ago unfortunately...

[Kelb_Panthera]

You dont have to rule out sorcerers and wizards to go low magic. A great way to limit Without nerfing them to much is letting them build their spell list from 2 schools of magic. If they get to a high enough level where they have all the spells from those schools in the core books, recommend to either multiclass, choose a new school of magic if this situation arrives, or they can access one non core book at that point.

Yeah, no. Transmutation and conjuration say, "Hi. We can each wreck a game all by ourselves and your players can still have both of us. Good luck."


On topic:

Low-magic is tricky and I don't much like your list.

There's nothing wrong with nerfing or banning a few choice spells if they bug you. So that one's cool.

If you want low-magic you can't leave the T1 casters in the game and you should probably nix the T2's as well; at least the ones that share their spell lists with the T1's. Their power and versatility is enormous and difficult to curtail without nerfing them so hard as to be barely recognizable.

You need to be careful with rarifying magic items. Leave the +X to y bonus items alone. Let the players find or otherwise acquire them trivially since those items are -necessary- to stand toe-to-toe with creatures of equal CR. If such simple numeric boosters break the low-magic "feel" of your game then you need to provide those bonuses in some other way. At bare minimum the players are going to need magic weapons to deal with foes that have certain types of DR or are incorporeal.

I understand you not wanting to allow books you have no access to but most, if not all, of the 3.X books are available online as PDF's. Greater book access is far more beneficial to non-casters than casters so you'll want to leave such access as wide as you reasonably can, especially since eliminating the T1's and greater T2's make this even more true than it normally is.

You can go -much- more extreme than this but it becomes increasingly difficult and that's a good place to start.