A World Premise

[Amechra]

Alright, here's an idea I saw on an OSR blog, and which I decided to expand on for a 3.x game. Now, I have nothing concrete in my head about the setting in question, except that it is an E6 world and that magic is a more-or-less lost art. To this end:

A) Scribe Scroll is gone as a feat; you either have it as a class feature (read that as "bonus feat"), or you can't take it at all. You also can't scribe the scrolls of a Spontaneous spellcasting class; no getting 2nd level spells through Sorcerer levels and making bank.

B) Each time an Archivist or a Wizard gains a level, they can only add 1st level spells to their spell books.

C) While you can find scrolls of levels higher than 1st while in a dungeon, you can't buy them. If you do sell them, they are going to be pretty much immediately put on auction for the different wizarding academies to fight over - so why not just do that directly?

D Clerics and Druids use the Spontaneous spellcasting variant, as given in UA. I'm getting a feeling that Psionics and the like are going to be rare or heavily limited.

E) Extra components; I was thinking along the lines of some higher level spells requiring certain environments (You found a copy of Ardent Darts of Flame (Scorching Ray), but it only functions within a volcano), lifestyles (Fortitude of the Corpse (False Life) requires that you wear nothing but funeral garb while you have it prepared, with failure meaning you lose it entirely), or dead languages (Open The Stubborn Gate (Knock) requires that you can read (and speak!) a long-dead form of Dwarven.)

Spell Research can change these into more... usual components. What about being Emperor of Lower Slakovenia allows you to cast The Emperor's Inarguable Command (Suggestion)? If you can figure that out, and distil it into something any other Wizard can use...

F) Societies of Arcane (or Divine) Fellows. Basically, instead of getting the full list of 1st level spells to pick from, you get a list of teachers to pick from, each possessing a smaller list of spells that they, personally, know.

I would go with maybe 10 or 11 spells each - drawn primarily from the PHB and the SpC. Maybe have some sort of ability to trade off spells on the list for "advanced" spells - think 1st level spells with a specific +1 Metamagic applied to it permanently, or a Cantrip with a permanent +2 Metamagic. Advanced spells would receive the benefits of Spell Thematics with regards to the guy who taught them to you - they are a masterpiece of arcane artistry.

In other words, if you study under the Collejum Arcanit, they have a wide choice of spells - you'll find most of the 1st level staples there. On the other hand, studying under the Archlich Uturius the Mad† gives you a much smaller selection, but you do get access to his signature spells, the dreaded Soul-Breaking Whisper (Sonic Snap with Fell Drain permanently applied to it) and the much-sought-after Black Sun Aegis (Mage Armor with Fell Energy Spell permanently applied to it).

Raiding a different group to get access to some of their spells is not only expected, but encouraged.

† OK, so he's just a Necropolitan Wizard, but he says he's an Archlich, and that's what really counts.

G) Expanded currency. So, let's do the following conversion:


A copper coin is worth one copper piece.
A bronze coin is worth one silver piece.
A silver coin is worth one gold piece.
An electrum coin is worth one platinum piece.
A gold coin is worth a hundred gold pieces.

...

Now, anyone who wants to should feel free to extend this list - remember, we're talking about a setting where magic an almost lost art, where Wizards hire adventuring parties to scour old, dangerous libraries for the one surviving 2nd level scroll that is kept there, and will pay them handsomely to do so.

[jqavins]

† OK, so he's just a Necropolitan Wizard, but he says he's an Archlich, and that's what really counts.
Is that also why he's "the Mad?"


G) Expanded currency. So, let's do the following conversion:
A copper coin is worth one copper piece.
A bronze coin is worth one silver piece.
A silver coin is worth one gold piece.
An electrum coin is worth one platinum piece.
A gold coin is worth a hundred gold pieces.
Bronze, being an alloy of copper and tin, probably ought to worth less than pure copper. But on the other hand, pure copper, silver, and gold are all too soft for good coins, so perhaps make the cheapest one a tin coin, equal to a copper piece, then a copper coin, equal to a silver piece. Then, if you want to go to this level of detail, make each coin actually of an alloy; all but copper would have 5 to 10 percent copper in them (by which I mean you pick, not that the coins are variable) and the copper coin is 5 to 10 percent tin. Electrum is an alloy to begin with (silver and gold, and you should name a specific proportion if you're going with these details at all) but it too would benefit from a few percent copper.

Update: I've been thinking more on coinage alloys, and what I wrote first is really too sipmplistic. I won't go into detail unless folks want to hear it. but Electrum ought to be somewhere in the ballpark of 51% copper, 40% silver, and 9% gold in order to make both the value and color come out right.


Now, anyone who wants to should feel free to extend this list - remember, we're talking about a setting where magic an almost lost art, where Wizards hire adventuring parties to scour old, dangerous libraries for the one surviving 2nd level scroll that is kept there, and will pay them handsomely to do so.
So, arcane spell casters are not viable PCs. Is it common for a character to have a level or three in an arcane class, or do they all concentrate on physical classes exclusively?

What about the gods? If they're not granting their priests the powerful magic that we are accustomed to, why not? Arcane casting is an art that can be lost, but divine casting is a gift from the gods, so what gives?

[dragonfuit88]

Why the massive jump in the value of a gold piece? What makes gold particularly rare?

[jqavins]

Why the massive jump in the value of a gold piece? What makes gold particularly rare?
That's a very good point. Revaluing all the coins so that silver does what gold used to - that is, the basic monitary unit is a silver coin rather than a gold one - is fine. But a gold:silver ratio of 100:1 is really excessive. I went with it in my earlier post since it's what Amechra wanted, and I was only commenting on the metalurgy. But, in thinking about this since (see the update to my first post) I've only found one source indicating a medieval gold:silver ratio, and since Dragon Fruit (your name is yummy) brought it up, I'll report that it referred to the ratio increasing at one time somewhere in Italy from 10:1 to 14:1.