Help with a low magic campaign world

[bloodshed343]

I'm building a campaign world that is both godless and low magic. No, it's not a desert. But it is the bronze age, men are new to the world, and wizardry is a new art.

I'm thinking of cutting a few spells of 6th level or higher due to the fact that they haven't been discovered yet. I've already cut the entire necromancy school, except in the case of spirit pact warlocks.

I also want to replace the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster with less magical archetypes.

I'm also thinking of turning the Ranger into a pure martial class and making the Bard, Warlock, and Sorcerer into half-casters.

So my question is, good gamers, have you any homebrew of this type that I could plagiarize and pass off as my own?

[Stan]

I think changing the casters to half casters is going to be a ton of work and could wind up with weaker classes that nobody wants. You could either have a rule that no more that half your levels are in caster classes as they are new and it takes time to learn them or cap them at a level 11 or whatever cutoff you want - that's all there is to know.

If eldritch knight and arcane trickster don't fit, then drop them altogether. But, they're not that magical. There is a spell-less ranger on the Wizards site - I don't remember much about it though.

[Georlik]

Whoa! My favorite Bronze Age. And my favorite low magic.
Firstly - necromancy is one of the oldest "schools" of "wizardry" known to man. It would be unwise to deprive your world of fear of undead. As it was one of the most prominent features of antiquity. You might want to call them Priests / Elders instead though. You may have no gods, but people will still search for spiritual guidance. And strive to find the answer to the meaning of life and reason beyond death.
In my opinion low magic does not necessary mean low development. It simply means that the power is in the hands of few chosen ones. Also as you recall, almost all cultures think that the magic was stronger in the ancient times. You may still deprive NPC's of powerful dweomers, but try not to prohibit your players from obtaining high level powers. In fact if there are no ancient high magic tablets for wizard to discover, gameplay for arcanists may become bland. It would be better to say that powerful magic is already lost IMHO. That will give a sense of mystery, whilst saving the low magic feel.

In my experience it is never a good choice to rob players of different options. You might want to refluff the archetypes to make them work. Actually i would be inclined to exclude pure arcane classes, leaving hybrids only. So you will have magicians with low level spells but with other options as a substitute. So yay to eldritch knight and trikster, nay to wizards and bards.

I've actually DM'd a homebrew game during the playtest, roughly based on Destruction of Temple of Artemis and birth of Alexander the great.
Aristotel was an elven wizard (with only fire spells prepared ;))
Herostratus was a human rogue and an apprentice of Sysuphus (who actually wanted to save his master from damnation)
Sparthans were halforcs
Romans were hobgoblins
And so on.
It was actually awesome. So my advice is to search for inspiration in actual history. But better choose the latest periods of Bronze Age, as most players have no clue about it except for Greek myths and 300 spartans movies ;)

Obviously YMMV.

P.S. No mounted combat except for chariots. Damn those wild small horses!

[bloodshed343]

-snip-

Well, I should clarify, Necromancy does exist, but it's controlled by the lich-lord Vecna (who hasn't yet ascended to godhood.) It's simply impossible for anyone who isn't a high ranking servant of Vecna to learn it.

I've made a spell-less sorcerer variant. They get spell-like abilities based on their bloodline, but not actual spells. They also get some weapon-based goodies.

I've made a spell-less elemental/primal replacement for the paladin. It still has auras and it has a magical equivalent to the barbarians rage called Eldritch Infusion which lets the player go jedi mode by infusing magic into their bodies and weapons.

I've made a replacement for the Eldritch Knight as well, called the Runepriest.

I think I'll leave in Arcane Trickster.

And then I think I'll just adjust the spell lists a little so there's not as much healing.

[KorvinStarmast]

You may have no gods, but people will still search for spiritual guidance. And strive to find the answer to the meaning of life and reason beyond death.

In my opinion low magic does not necessary mean low development. It simply means that the power is in the hands of few chosen ones.
If you want low magic, see the second point above, it's a core conceptual point.

Another way to approach it is to confine your magical classes to Druids and Cleric, with maybe a few Warlocks who tap into the spiritual world, and the very rare Sorcerer, that one in a million with power running through their veins because they are touched by the spiritual world ... or the fey.

Review the Paladin choices; it might not be a very good fit at all, or it might need to be restricted to the ancients. A warrior blessed by spirits or gods is a very old archetype, though, so maybe it's best to leave one open.

Barbarians: everywhere! :smallbiggrin:

Bronze Age: druids and dryads are a very good fit, mixing Celtic and Greek mythological settings. Priests and Priestesses are another good fit.

[JellyPooga]

I'm currently writing up a setting for a PbP game in which magic (including divine magic) was lost over a thousand years ago. Characters will be restricted to the Barbarian, Fighter and Rogue Classes. As the game goes on, part of the plot is that (surprise surprise) magic is once again returning to the world and I'll allow multiclassing into the spellcasting classes and access to any magical abilities of Bar/Fig/Rog Archetypes.

Not sure what flavour of game you're aiming at, but if you want to start off with mundanes and slowly introduce magic, or even just limit the upper echelons of magical prowess, then adopting a similar approach to mine would do that adequately without having to resort to houserules.

[bloodshed343]

If you want low magic, see the second point above, it's a core conceptual point.

Another way to approach it is to confine your magical classes to Druids and Cleric, with maybe a few Warlocks who tap into the spiritual world, and the very rare Sorcerer, that one in a million with power running through their veins because they are touched by the spiritual world ... or the fey.

Review the Paladin choices; it might not be a very good fit at all, or it might need to be restricted to the ancients. A warrior blessed by spirits or gods is a very old archetype, though, so maybe it's best to leave one open.

Barbarians: everywhere! :smallbiggrin:

Bronze Age: druids and dryads are a very good fit, mixing Celtic and Greek mythological settings. Priests and Priestesses are another good fit.


I've refluffed Vancian spellcasting in a way that makes sense to me. It involves going into a trance to store mana and then releasing it. All the mana in the world comes from the spirits or the primordials (4e cosmology, so the primordials made the world out of the elemental chaos and fought the gods for control). Druids are a great fit here: they draw their mana from the spirits, and the spirits teach them how to shape it. Wizards draw mana from the spirits/the elements, and they use fragments of the language the primordials used to create the world to shape it.

So the world is very young. There are spirits everywhere, so magic isn't exactly rare, but mortals are only just discovering how to use it, so a PC wizard who reached 10th level would probably be the first wizard of that caliber in the entire world. You might find one or two epic level druids in the world, somewhere, and there's an immortal dragon sorcerer king ruling the men of the northern plains, but wizards and bards would be rare.

I have a great idea for warlocks who make pacts with the spirits of their ancestors, but I'm not sure how to implement it.

For clerics and paladins, I could just limit it to Oath of the Ancients and Nature domain, but that's not as fun as making a new class.

[Strill]

I also want to replace the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster with less magical archetypes.

Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster are only 1/3 casters. Wouldn't they be the most appropriate classes to keep? I'd honestly expect a low-magic campaign to just straight-up ban full casters and only allow 1/2 or 1/3 casters.

[bloodshed343]

Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster are only 1/3 casters. Wouldn't they be the most appropriate classes to keep? I'd honestly expect a low-magic campaign to just straight-up ban full casters and only allow 1/2 or 1/3 casters.

This is a good point, but for some reason I came to the opposite conclusion: in a low magic campaign, magic is so rare and/or mysterious that one can't simply dabble in it. This would cut out the 1/3 and 1/2 casters, and leave full casters with a slightly reduced spell list.

[D.U.P.A.]

You can refluff some spells into mundane operations, possibly requiring components, like cure wounds it is like healer's kit healing wounds, feather fall is a parachute, damage spells are alchemical items or special weapons, command comes from your personality force and so on. Of course certain things like planar travelling cannot be possible to refluff.

[Strill]

This is a good point, but for some reason I came to the opposite conclusion: in a low magic campaign, magic is so rare and/or mysterious that one can't simply dabble in it. This would cut out the 1/3 and 1/2 casters, and leave full casters with a slightly reduced spell list.

That's a bad approach. If you do that, then players who pick full casters just end up with a gimped character. The classes are already relatively well balanced. It's better to ban the most magical classes than to try and make them less magical, and then come up with houserules to try and bring them back up to par.

Just say that Eldritch Knights/Arcane Tricksters aren't dabbling in magic, they ARE the experts on magic.

[JackPhoenix]

Yes, they don't have to be warriors or rogues who dabble in magic, but mages who took up arms to defend themselves where their magic can't. It may work the same with paladins and rangers, except their divine magic is easier to work with, as they get level 5 spells. That can potentionaly be all magic that's available. In a few decades or centuries of research, rangers will advance their magic to become druids, paladins will turn into clerics and arcane tricksters and eldritch knights will combine their disciplines, add some new types of magic and create the schools of wizardry. And if you'll keep the warlock, they are the absolute masters of magic, but they pay for it by dealing with not entirely trustworthy entities.

[Mechaviking]

Honestly I´d just cut the spells above 5th(or 6th), don´t fiddle with the classes, you can still use the 7-9th level slots to cast lower level spells, you can memorize more spells and can still achieve spell mastery(if the campaign lasts).

To offset the slight caster penalty you could give them a singular extra slot for memorization for each missing spell level when they would gain it(17th level wizard gaining 4 extra slots worth of prepared spells in the case of 5th level spells being the cap gaining them at 11, 13, 15 & 17).

Cutting EK and AT might be viable for certain types of campaigns, but why limit the options of the players?

That´s my 2 coppers hope it helped :D

[coredump]

I suggest allowing 1/3 and 1/2 casters, perhaps with some nerfs of spells...or not.

Then say that full casters can only take 1/2 their levels as caster.

If folks want to MC as two casters... they can't combine to have more than 1/2 caster.

[bloodshed343]

I suggest allowing 1/3 and 1/2 casters, perhaps with some nerfs of spells...or not.

Then say that full casters can only take 1/2 their levels as caster.

If folks want to MC as two casters... they can't combine to have more than 1/2 caster.

How I did it for wizards is:

Switched to spell point variant.

Slightly buffed Arcane Recovery. The wizard now recovers spell points on every short rest determined by a formula I have.

Cut out all spells after 5th.

Thus the wizard has less powerful casting but can cast more spells per day.

The druid I'm making into a half-caster. I'm buffing it's wild shape to give it some combat ability. And cutting it's spells down.

Warlock is unchanged.

Still working on bard.

Yes, I realize I'm doing this the hard way, but I like the hard way :P