E6 Spell problems

[tortor]

I am setting up an E6 campaign, in which the characters will basically be playing the Lewis and Clarke party, exploring a newly discovered continent, dealing with locals whose language they don't speak and braving the forces of nature..

Which spells should I be hand waving out in such a situation?

[Composer99]

Comprehend languages, create water, and create food and water all completely obviate the major obstacles you have suggested the PCs have to deal with. So I would think those should go, for starters. Depending on how much you want disease to be a major threat at high levels, maybe remove disease as well.

[Syne]

Here are some more spells:

Alignment detection: If alignment is at all used in the game (which I'd try to avoid, considering the subject matter), Detect Evil and similar spells basically allow you to trivialize interactions between unknown groups of people. You just check if they're evil and conduct yourself accordingly.

Rope trick: It can obviate the need for braving the elements, since the adventurers can just nip into their extra-dimensional cubbyhole when there is trouble.

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

Comprehend languages, create water, and create food and water all completely obviate the major obstacles you have suggested the PCs have to deal with. So I would think those should go, for starters. Depending on how much you want disease to be a major threat at high levels, maybe remove disease as well.

You can also nerf them. Comprehend languages could impose a penalty to Charisma-based skill checks. Create food and water could cause morale penalties to saving throws if used for successive days because of its blandness.

[Extra Anchovies]

Endure Elements and Tongues, too. The 3.0 spell Sweet Water (Defenders of the Faith) lets you auto-dig wells, so it's probably best to remove that one as well. Consider blocking access to Weather Eye and requiring Survival checks instead. Know Motivation from OA can mostly remove language barriers for interpreting others' actions and words.

I also second the above suggested bans.

ETA: As an aside, consider making the natives' language(s) each a skill in their own right. In a game where language barriers are a major obstacle, overcoming them with a mere two skill points (or one for a Bard) shouldn't happen.

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

ETA: As an aside, consider making the natives' language(s) each a skill in their own right. In a game where language barriers are a major obstacle, overcoming them with a mere two skill points (or one for a Bard) shouldn't happen.

Better to just remove the skill cap on Speak Language.

[Vaynor]

At this point you're deciding which class features are able to solve which problems, basically. Can the druid use a know direction spell, or does someone need to make a skill check? Can someone cast create water, or does the ranger need to make a Survival check? Do you want your party to be able to travel down a cliff with liberal uses of feather fall or a similar spell, or do you want them to rely on Climb checks and equipment? With comprehend languages, it's more of a direct flaunting of the proposed challenges, as none of the PCs are going to be able to speak the languages spoken in the places they're traveling to (presumably).

If you want to limit spells, you need to ask yourself these questions:

Do you want this campaign to be low-magic in general (after considering the fact that it's E6)?
What challenges do you want to be present in the campaign?
How do you want those challenges to be able to be overcome?
Does the party have PCs that will be able to overcome those challenges without the use of magic?
How heavily do you want magic to be restrained in general?

Also, consider that if you limit the options of magic users enough, your players may just opt to play non-magic classes.

The Red Towel: Also, this isn't really homebrew. Moved to D&D 3e/3.5e/d20.

[Theobod]

Alternatively consder simply limiting the party to tier 4 classes and below. Thus if a party member wanted to obviate certain challenges it would in all likelihood take a more considerable slice of character resource to accomplish. As opposed to just a spell known to a wizard a spell knowledge of a warmage for instance.

[Boci]

So if you ban comprehend languages, how are your PCs going to communicate? Interpretive dancing with the natives is a fun change of pace for a single encounter, but anything more than that and I find it really starts to outstay its welcome. With no way of communication you severely limit the stories you can tell.

Considering that this is E6, it may be better to let them have comprehend languages. A sorceror will have to spend 25% of their 1st level spell known on it, and even a specialist wizards only get 6 1st level spells. It also only last an hour, so memorizing it twice costs 33% of their ration of 1st level spell for the day.

Edit: Create food and water is a 3rd level spell, a very valuable resource in an E6 game, so if the players will likely want to use rations and save that for haste/fly/fireball.

[Calimehter]

Instead of banning the resource-generating spells like Create Food, I would ban Tier 1 casters who have access to loads of spells. Keeping things restricted to Sorcerers/Favored Souls/etc. (or going Generic Classes) who have a restricted list of spells known. That way a spellcaster actually has to sacrifice some of his power (i.e. his precious list of spells known) to be able to do these things, instead of just making them trivial by casting them out of a large list of spells known. Odds are you will probably get someone who knows Create Water . . . but things like Rope Trick, Leomunds Tiny Hut, and Create Food and Water become really significant investments for higher level PCs who have so few slots for 3rd level spells (and so many other nice ones to choose from too).

[heavyfuel]

While banning Tier 1 casters as Calimehter suggested is a good place to start it doesn't solve OP's problem. Create Water, Create Food and Water, Remove Disease, Purify Food and Drink, Panacea, and Delay Poison are all spells that remain accessible if one guy plays a Healer, only now he's useless for anything that isn't healing, and that is just not fun.

I've found the secret to playing a low-magic game is to not have set rules on what you're banning. All spells are banned until you, the DM, says otherwise. If you don't your players to solve the problems you present to them with 8 hours of rest and a standard action, then you must warn them of this from the get go, and DM accordingly.

[Boci]

While banning Tier 1 casters as Calimehter suggested is a good place to start it doesn't solve OP's problem. Create Water, Create Food and Water, Remove Disease, Purify Food and Drink, Panacea, and Delay Poison are all spells that remain accessible if one guy plays a Healer, only now he's useless for anything that isn't healing, and that is just not fun.

Or you could just let them play it. If they want to and understand what that role will entail, why would that be a problem?


I've found the secret to playing a low-magic game is to not have set rules on what you're banning. All spells are banned until you, the DM, says otherwise.

This can work, but if your spell list is rejected fr the third time with "unknown banlist gotcha" then giving a 50+ list of spells to the DM and asking which are allowed starts seeming to be really reasonable.

[Coidzor]

You can also nerf them. Comprehend languages could impose a penalty to Charisma-based skill checks. Create food and water could cause morale penalties to saving throws if used for successive days because of its blandness.

Yeah, if you just axe Tongues or Comprehend Languages, then they basically have no way of interacting with others they encounter beyond pantomime and the end of a sword. Or that particular PITA of dealing with interpreter NPCs and hauling them around.

[Calimehter]

While banning Tier 1 casters as Calimehter suggested is a good place to start it doesn't solve OP's problem. Create Water, Create Food and Water, Remove Disease, Purify Food and Drink, Panacea, and Delay Poison are all spells that remain accessible if one guy plays a Healer, only now he's useless for anything that isn't healing, and that is just not fun.

Sure, but as you said yourself, the player has given up all his combat utility to get that . . . if that is a trade the player is willing to make and the kind of character the player wants to play, then why not? You lose a few plot hooks related to Survival checks if such a player is present (which admittedly can be fun and are classic part of many exploration stories) but you've still got lots of room to explore and have adventures in an unknown world.

-------------------

As a side note: Its been years since I ran an exploration campaign but one issue I remember coming up was PC death. Dead explorer PCs would be replaced with various native PCs in the tradition of Sacajawea (yay, Google says that I spelled it right on the first try!) since there was no realistic way to replace PCs with non-natives from the explorers (very remote) native country. Such native PCs, while fun to play, have a few problems. One is that they can/should have some local knowledge of their own area, meaning that any knowledge they have is knowledge the PCs don't have to explore to find out. Another is party dilution - my own long-running campaign ended when the final "original" PC died off, as the remaining group of PCs had no in-character motivation to keep 'exploring' their own land. It ended up being a satisfactory ending for us, as the surviving explorers had gotten pretty close to returning to their home country before expiring, so a lot of their journals and stories and even artifacts survived to make it home and thus cropped up in future campaigns (much to the delight of the players of the former PCs). If you end up with replacement PCs, keep an eye out for character skills and motivations that can derail things.

[Calimehter]

Yeah, if you just axe Tongues or Comprehend Languages, then they basically have no way of interacting with others they encounter beyond pantomime and the end of a sword. Or that particular PITA of dealing with interpreter NPCs and hauling them around.

Good point.

Comprehend Languages also has a couple of limitations that keep it from being a total cop-out for overcoming language barriers. One is that it only works on beings that you are actually touching . . . no long distance communication is possible. Another is that the comprehension is only one way. The PCs are almost sure to have someone who knows the spell if the DM is not banning it, but who is to say that any particular group of NPC natives that they encounter will *also* have access to it? If Tier 1 casters are not around, the odds of any given NPC spellcaster (assuming one is even present in every encounter) having the spell as part of their low number of spells known is not especially high. Communication problems don't (entirely) go away with Comprehend Languages.

Tongues gets around those limitations, but now we are talking a Level 3 spell. The opportunity cost is a lot higher, and if we assume the PCs are not starting right out at level 6 it comes into play a lot later . . . i.e. when the players have already had their fun playing out "first contact" communications difficulties and are now ready to move on. Coming online late also means that the PCs will have had the opportunity to level a few times and pick up some Speak Language skill points in newly-discovered languages, so it could prove to be an overrated (or possibly even unneeded) spell by the time the PCs can even decide if they want to take it.

[Fouredged Sword]

Yeah, the original Lewis and Clark had to haul a sting of interpreters by the end of their journey. Nobody could speak both English and the native language of the tribes in the west. They had to jump through a 4-5 person long chain of translators to get from the locals to English and back.

Now,one thing to consider, cost. That Tongues spell is a level 3 spell and lasts an hour. They get maybe 6 of those a day across the whole party. Yes, they can speak to the locals. On the other hand, it is really expensive to do so. Comprehend languages is an alternative, but that only goes one way. You can understand, but not talk back.

[Hecuba]

The feat Smatterings might work fairly well as an alternative route for your language problem. You may, however, find it desirable to speed up the process via a second homebrew feat or similar.

[Yogibear41]

IMO don't ban anything

Create Food and Water is a 3rd level spell, which means they will have to survive til at least level 5 to even have it.

If no one in the party has survival trained anyway they are going to spend the majority of the time completely lost. Knowing where "true north" is from a spell is basically saying if I drop you into the middle of a jungle you have never been too, but you have a compass you will be perfectly fine.

If the group comes across a civilization of non-good aligned people, and have absolutely no means of communication, the civilization they run into is just going to kill them. Go read almost any history book, it happens a lot.

Besides if the spell-casters are using all of their spells on things like water, and language, what are they going to do when a big monster comes up and tries to chew on their face?

[Extra Anchovies]

IMO don't ban anything

Create Food and Water is a 3rd level spell, which means they will have to survive til at least level 5 to even have it.

If no one in the party has survival trained anyway they are going to spend the majority of the time completely lost. Knowing where "true north" is from a spell is basically saying if I drop you into the middle of a jungle you have never been too, but you have a compass you will be perfectly fine.

If the group comes across a civilization of non-good aligned people, and have absolutely no means of communication, the civilization they run into is just going to kill them. Go read almost any history book, it happens a lot.

Besides if the spell-casters are using all of their spells on things like water, and language, what are they going to do when a big monster comes up and tries to chew on their face?

You know, I actually agree with this now. My mind is changed; the proper spells to ban would really be the higher-level divination spells, which are already out due to E6.

[Fouredged Sword]

Two things I would consider.

A - Mind your items you allow. Generally I have disallowed magical immunity to starvation (ring of sustenance, I made it a bonus to survival checks to find food) and made it so anything that provided immunity to dehydration simply decreased the water required to survive a day by half (using the sandstorm rules and 3.5 multiplication).

And

B - Don't be afraid to make areas have planer traits if you think it will make things harder in a fun way. A great desert can have a magical trait that all water spells are cast at CL-4, or all water spells not prepared in 2nd level spells (or higher) slots are prevented as per the Globe of Invulnerability spell (but bigger area and lower spell level minimum). You can provide enough justification to screw around with the things the party has access to without putting down blanket rules. Part of the fun is "Darn, how are we going to get across THAT". Take away some tools temporarily if it makes the challenge more fun.

[Extra Anchovies]

A - Mind your items you allow. Generally I have disallowed magical immunity to starvation (ring of sustenance, I made it a bonus to survival checks to find food) and made it so anything that provided immunity to dehydration simply decreased the water required to survive a day by half (using the sandstorm rules and 3.5 multiplication).

Seconded. In a survival/exploration game, there is even more reason to avoid Decanters of Endless Bulls**t than there normally is.

[tortor]

IMO don't ban anything

Create Food and Water is a 3rd level spell, which means they will have to survive til at least level 5 to even have it.

If no one in the party has survival trained anyway they are going to spend the majority of the time completely lost. Knowing where "true north" is from a spell is basically saying if I drop you into the middle of a jungle you have never been too, but you have a compass you will be perfectly fine.

If the group comes across a civilization of non-good aligned people, and have absolutely no means of communication, the civilization they run into is just going to kill them. Go read almost any history book, it happens a lot.

Besides if the spell-casters are using all of their spells on things like water, and language, what are they going to do when a big monster comes up and tries to chew on their face?

Touche... and a VERY good point.

[Person_Man]

My advice is to ban nothing. D&D isn't a Roguelike survival game. You as the DM can continue to respond to the player's choices and layer in additional environmental hazards, distrustful tribes, monsters, etc, as needed in order to keep the game interesting. If a player chooses to spend a valuable resource (such as a spell slot, or choosing to play a race that doesn't eat, or whatever) on overcoming a specific problem, let them. For example, the idea of starving to death sounds very un-fun to me, so I'd probably ask to play a Warforged or Elan. Making that choice means that I'm giving up a Bonus Feat and Skills from playing human, or great modifiers and Silence from playing a Whisper Gnome, or whatever. And that's ok. There are other many other exploration and roleplaying challenges beyond just food and shelter.

This was very explicitly the case in 1E/2E D&D, which was much more about resource management then 3.X/4E/5E. Clerics, in particular, had more limited spell slots (that only went up to 7th level) and a spell list that focused mostly on healing (ie, managing your limited hit point resources), food, water, divination, etc. You weren't cheating by playing a cleric that had cure wounds and create food and find traps, that was the whole point of playing a cleric.