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Pippa the Pixie
2018-07-24, 05:24 PM
So what is a Low Magic game? Is there a set standard that everyone agrees on? Or is this just one of those things that can mean anything?

The Story: Over the weekend I ran a game for some players...and it did not go so well. This was a group of players I did not know so well. There DM was talking a break, and they wanted to game, and they asked me to run a game. They all had their 10th level characters ( all specasters: wizard, cleric, bard, and warlock with plenty of magic items. )from their normal game and wanted a fairly classic adventure: slaying a dragon.

They did have one firm requirement: that the game had to be a low magic game. I did ask what they wanted by saying that, but they only vaguely said low magic.

So the game starts, and they use magic like crazy...but any time there is any other magic in the world, even like a gnome using a cantrip light, I got a frown. They find and kill the dragon...then complain.

The main points were:

1.Low magic does not apply at all in any way to the players
2.Low magic means the DM can use no magic
3.There must be tons of magic loot, but NPC/monsters can't use it

To me that seemed a bit extreme, so what is everyone else Low Magic Rules?

Reversefigure4
2018-07-24, 05:36 PM
That's pretty much up for debate between the players and the GM, and should be settled before the game starts in Session Zero.

There's a low magic whether spellcasters of any kind are exceptionally rare. Even within that framework, you have the debate of whether the PCs can be spellcasters, but few if any people they encounter should be, or the more Conan-esqe setup where there are a handful of powerful evil Sorceror-Kings, but no other magic users. In this sort of setup, gnomes using cantrip lights just shouldn't happen.

There's low magic where nobody is a spellcaster, and magic items are treasures from a bygone era. A magic sword is priceless, because if you sell it you might never see another one.

There's low magic where spellcasters are commonplace, but nobody can cast higher than 3rd level spells. Magic is wide-spread, but it's effects are limited.

There's low magic where world-shattering spells can be cast, but all magic comes with a heavy price (like years of the caster's life). All kinds of magic are available, but very limited in it's usage.

Unsurprisingly, there's a massive difference in the style of game you get from each of these 'settings'.

2D8HP
2018-07-24, 05:38 PM
1.Low magic does not apply at all in any way to the players
2.Low magic means the DM can use no magic
3.There must be tons of magic loot, but NPC/monsters can't use it

To me that seemed a bit extreme, so what is everyone else Low Magic Rules?


Well that sounds exceedingly lame.

My favorite "Magic System" is for Pendragon, which (except for it's 4th edition) has no player character spellcasters.

It has two "classes": Knights and Ladies.

Some Lady characters may brew a magic potion, otherwise all Magic is a list of "tropes" for NPC's.

The 4th edition did have rules for playing magicians, but in the words of the author "they weren't fun" and "I wanted the emphasis on Knights", so those rules were dropped from the 5th edition.

One of my favorite games.


Anyway, it sounds like those players want to play superpowered beings in a cakewalk world, so not my cup of tea at all.

Anonymouswizard
2018-07-24, 05:42 PM
Magic is minor. Throwing fire is highly rare, and combat magic should generally be not worth it, placing magicians into the utility category.

Players have limited access to magic. Ideally exactly the same access as the GM, but they shouldn't expect to go around throwing fireballs because they're PCs.

Monsters and spellcasters are rare. Most groups will have one, maybe two casters at most.

There's some other points for me, but the end result is that D&D essentially fails at low magic because PCs having magic is too embedded in the system.

Now low magic isn't unfantastical. You can still have fantastic stuff, but it's rare.

Low magic is different to low fantasy. The Dark Eye is relatively low fantasy, but while spellcasters are fairly rare magical things are everywhere. Generally creatures, many of them harmless.

There's also no magic, where nobody gets magic. At all.


In comparison to science fiction, no magic is near future stuff at in our system, low magic breaks a few things (say Revelation Size or, at the edge between low and medium, Night's Dawn), medium magic breaks whence but is consistent in it (I'd put the Foundation novels here), and Star Trek is high magic where the laws of physics change based on the day of the week and the ship's human/alien ratio.

CantigThimble
2018-07-24, 05:46 PM
Well, IDK what your players want (I'm not even sure they know what they want) but if I were to run a low magic game I would do a few things. First off, I'd add some seriously limiting mechanics on spellcasting. Something like: for every 10 spell levels worth of spells you cast in a day (counting cantrips as 1/2) then you gain a level of exhaustion, or apply the gritty realism variant to spellcasting only. If you want a setting to be low magic then players should hesitate every time they consider using a spell. This has the added benefit of reducing the amount of spellcasters in the party dramatically.

Secondly, the number of spellcasters among NPCs should be reduced to almost nothing. The average town may have heard of a spellcaster somewhere a while ago, but their local priest has no divine powers and the they're not sure that magic ever amounts to more than card tricks and smoke powder.

As for magic items... They're almost non existant. Ones that you do find are more than just powerful tools, they exist for dark subversive purposes and are not to be wielded lightly or without cost.

RazorChain
2018-07-24, 05:52 PM
So what is a Low Magic game? Is there a set standard that everyone agrees on? Or is this just one of those things that can mean anything?

The Story: Over the weekend I ran a game for some players...and it did not go so well. This was a group of players I did not know so well. There DM was talking a break, and they wanted to game, and they asked me to run a game. They all had their 10th level characters ( all specasters: wizard, cleric, bard, and warlock with plenty of magic items. )from their normal game and wanted a fairly classic adventure: slaying a dragon.

They did have one firm requirement: that the game had to be a low magic game. I did ask what they wanted by saying that, but they only vaguely said low magic.

So the game starts, and they use magic like crazy...but any time there is any other magic in the world, even like a gnome using a cantrip light, I got a frown. They find and kill the dragon...then complain.

The main points were:

1.Low magic does not apply at all in any way to the players
2.Low magic means the DM can use no magic
3.There must be tons of magic loot, but NPC/monsters can't use it

To me that seemed a bit extreme, so what is everyone else Low Magic Rules?


Hahaha....this is hilarious. In a game of D&D where the PC's are decked out like a christmas tree in a group of all casters demanding a low magic game. Next time around they'll want a low combat game, meaning that nobody can wield a weapon against them or a low powered game where their opponents can't be over level 3 while they are still level 10.

What your players where asking for was a game where they can Roflstomp the opposition.


When I run a low magic game it applies to everyone and I would not use D&D because it doesn't lend itself well to a low magic game IMO.

Stan
2018-07-24, 06:00 PM
The main points were:

1.Low magic does not apply at all in any way to the players
2.Low magic means the DM can use no magic
3.There must be tons of magic loot, but NPC/monsters can't use it

To me that seemed a bit extreme, so what is everyone else Low Magic Rules?

Yea, that's not low magic. That's a weird zeitgeist in that group.

Low magic could mean anything getting reported for casting a cantrip to magic everywhere but no world altering magic.

Within D&D, there are some ways to alter the magic level without re-configuring any classes or anything.

1. Make casting classes prestige classes so everyone needs ~5 noncaster levels before they can start. (Up to you whether that means all casters or full casters) Then, most villages wouldn't have casters at all but there might be a handful of casters in the world who can cast 7th level spells. Quite a bit of fiction is like this with 1-2 super casters while everyone else eats dirt.

2. Characters can't have more than half their levels in casting classes (Up to you whether that means all casters or full casters). Low level casters are more common that #1 but spells top out at 5th level.

3. Remove all full casters but allow 1/3 casters and, maybe, 1/2 casters. This is like a more extreme version of #2.

Also reduce magic items accordingly. Also watch encounters as average power level will be a bit lower and monsters with immunities/resistance can be really hard.

Often, when people want low magic, they also want a lower power curve, so D&D just won't work well.
Also, limiting classes can make characters more samey.

A really low magic world would be only ritual magic and created scrolls.

JoshuaZ
2018-07-24, 06:01 PM
That's pretty much up for debate between the players and the GM, and should be settled before the game starts in Session Zero.

There's a low magic whether spellcasters of any kind are exceptionally rare. Even within that framework, you have the debate of whether the PCs can be spellcasters, but few if any people they encounter should be, or the more Conan-esqe setup where there are a handful of powerful evil Sorceror-Kings, but no other magic users. In this sort of setup, gnomes using cantrip lights just shouldn't happen.

There's low magic where nobody is a spellcaster, and magic items are treasures from a bygone era. A magic sword is priceless, because if you sell it you might never see another one.

There's low magic where spellcasters are commonplace, but nobody can cast higher than 3rd level spells. Magic is wide-spread, but it's effects are limited.

There's low magic where world-shattering spells can be cast, but all magic comes with a heavy price (like years of the caster's life). All kinds of magic are available, but very limited in it's usage.

Unsurprisingly, there's a massive difference in the style of game you get from each of these 'settings'.

Yes, and worth also pointing out that there are combinations of these. So one can have also few spellcasters and most magic is limited for example. Also, in some systems you can make the world feel less magical by only some very small tweaks. In my own homebrew 3.5/PF setting, mages are rare, most mages are not over 5th level, and the most common (and even that) rare form of mage is a "magician" which is essentially the 3.5 Adept except they cast off the wizard list with a spellbook, and they only recover spell slots equal to their magician level daily. This helps keeps the world generally at a low level and helps explain why it stays as a functionally early Renaissance late medieval society. The other thing is to declare that some +1 weapons and weapons with easily fluffed as non-magic modifiers (e.g. keen) can be made by non-magical means as just very good weapons. I don't know how much of a feel this does.

In any event, I agree with the earlier sentiment that it sounds like the PCs want to be superheroes in a world which cannot oppose them much. This doesn't actually have much to do with how high magic the setting is.

2D8HP
2018-07-24, 06:16 PM
Just wanted to chime in that the OP's players definition of "low magic" is almost the opposite of what I've usually seen, in that usually "low magic" caps the PC's as much (and usually more) than the NPC's.

I'd have to be pretty hard up to want to play a "Magician PC's curbstomp an un-magical world".

Hand the DM screen over to the loudest player making the request and say "Why don't you show me how it's done?"

See if they do.

Then run your game your way.

Mr Beer
2018-07-24, 07:36 PM
As described, obviously no that's not low magic, that's a bunch of players being snowflakes.

If I was asked to run a low magic game, I would not use D&D anyway. But if I did have to use D&D, I'd nerf spellcasters in one or more of the following ways:

- Spell casting is fiddly i.e. you need all the material components every time and you need to be able to cast the ritual.

- Spell casting take longer, so no combat casting.

- Spell casting is dangerous, say hello to critical failure tables.

- Spell casters are illegal, so now everyone hates you if you look like a spell caster.

- Spell casters are hunted by demons or angels or whatever.

- Spell casting is draining, you have some kind of mana reserve or fatigue mechanic that gets eroded.

- Spell casters are capped , i.e. you either can't progress past a certain level or it costs more XP or extremely expensive/rare/illegal components are required for spells over a certain level.

Then I'd also nerf magic items so that they are very rare.

Basically it would be set up to explain why spell casters are rare and magic items also rare. If PCs want to play spell casters, they can, but they suck to a certain extent. However they would also get the benefit that enemy spell casters are rare and magic somewhat unexpected, so it would balance to an extent.

tensai_oni
2018-07-24, 09:57 PM
For a low magic game, don't play DnD. Play a dedicated game with a low magic setting.

Dungeons and Dragons is built and balanced (or to be more specific, attempts were made at balancing it - how successful it is, we all know) with assumption that magic is available in a more or less unrestricted, if level-appropriate fashion for player characters. No magic items? Player spellcasters become even more OP compared to martial ones. Spellcasters are banned or limited? Doesn't solve the problem: on lower levels you might be fine, but higher than 5-6 your martial characters will be severely gimped without access to magic items, weapons and armor.

GunDragon
2018-07-24, 10:38 PM
So your players want to have all the magic and their opposition doesn't get to have any magic at all? Hmmmm…..

Perhaps send a huge non-magical ogre or troll after them and smash them to bits. Hehe

Kaptin Keen
2018-07-24, 11:44 PM
It's easier to say what it isn't. For instance, Eberron isn't a low magic world. Think of lightning trains, air ships, magical chariots and cities populated by faeries and dragons and so on - then flip it on it's head.

Knaight
2018-07-25, 12:10 AM
"Low magic" is a broad category that can encompass a lot of different things. None of them particularly resemble the combination described in the OP. The PCs being the sum total of magic can work - mages in a low magic world - but the giant pile of magic items doesn't fit well there at all. Similarly I guess you could call a world where there's a fair few minor magic items around and nobody has casting ability a low magic world, though that's a really weird definition.

Inasmuch as there is something specific though, I'd assume the following traits.
1) People who use magic at all are incredibly rare.
2) Even people who use magic mostly don't - it's not their go to tool, them bringing it out at all is a big deal, and generally they've also got something else going for them (maybe it's someone who has prophetic visions every so often, but also have the rest of their life going on; maybe it's a mage who's really mostly a scholar; so on and so forth).
3) Magic items probably don't exist, and if they do they're all significant artifacts.
4) There will probably be no creatures that aren't real world animals (including humans). If there are, they're probably depicted more as plausible animals* that just don't happen to actually exist. If something more overtly magical shows up they are again a really big deal.

There's some flexibility on all of these, but the more flexibility that shows up for any the less there is for the rest.

*This is also a bit of a vague term, but it's basically there to cover worlds more alien than magical. An ecosystem based on insect megafauna is weird, and scientifically there's all sorts of scaling issues with insects, but it's not really magical the way a world that contains something like a fairy court is. Similarly if your world has dragons, big alpha predator flying reptiles that are fairly clever by animal standards with a fire breath powered by a chemical reaction it's not magical the way it is if said world has dragons, ancient mages of human or superhuman intelligence with a host of magical abilities, including their fire breath.

Psikerlord
2018-07-25, 02:05 AM
Hahaha....this is hilarious. In a game of D&D where the PC's are decked out like a christmas tree in a group of all casters demanding a low magic game. Next time around they'll want a low combat game, meaning that nobody can wield a weapon against them or a low powered game where their opponents can't be over level 3 while they are still level 10.

What your players where asking for was a game where they can Roflstomp the opposition.


When I run a low magic game it applies to everyone and I would not use D&D because it doesn't lend itself well to a low magic game IMO.

This sums it up for me. What your players seemed to want was being the only magic guys in a low magic world, which is gonna be a cakewalk for them. I assume you were using 5e, which has magic hard baked into nearly every subclass.

For me a low magic campaign generally means - spell casting is genuinely rare, but powerful, and ideally unpredictable. There will be magic items from the past floating about, because they're hard to destroy, but each is a unique piece. There are also magical monsters, but these too are rare, or unique individuals or isolated tribes. Eg there arent red dragons and blue dragons and green dragons, there is The Dragon. PC parties might have one spell caster - maaaybe, at most. Rest of the party are various martials.

As is probably obvious from this thread, there is no consensus about what low magic or low fantasy means.

Psyren
2018-07-25, 02:12 AM
The main points were:

1.Low magic does not apply at all in any way to the players
2.Low magic means the DM can use no magic
3.There must be tons of magic loot, but NPC/monsters can't use it

To me that seemed a bit extreme, so what is everyone else Low Magic Rules?

The polar opposite of that, basically.

Kardwill
2018-07-25, 02:53 AM
So what is a Low Magic game?

Not 10th level D&D? :smallbiggrin:

More seriously, I have trouble to picture a "low magic" game with "wizard, bard, cleric and warlock with plenty of magical items"

Maybe their usual DM uses plenty of magic to complicate the life of their PCs, and they said "low magic" because they wanted a nice cakewalk they could trample through? I wouldn't call that game "low magic" by any measure of the term, anyway. For that, magic has to be either weak, very uncommon, or preferably both. And usually, that means magic is difficult to wield for the players, which is not really the way D&D works. Especially at high level.

Luccan
2018-07-25, 04:00 AM
Regardless of the game, I'd make it clear to the players: we're using the same tools here. If you can cast spells, some enemies (though fewer than normal) will also cast spells. If you want magic items, expect them to be rare enough they can't normally be bought, but if an enemy has one they'll still use it (we're talking big bads and lieutenants here, of course. A mook won't normally have access to magic items). This sword cuts both ways, essentially: you might be able to wipe out a tribe of goblins without so much as a peep from a real shaman, but you also can't expect to find even a low-level Adept at a temple or a place to buy/research spells for your spellbook. Such things might exist, but even most cities might not possess them.

I also tend to think of Low Magic games as having weaker magic. You could potentially have a low magic game where magic is very common, but it's not as powerful. I like E6 or even E4 for such a game, in 3.5. The most powerful conceivable spell might just be the ability to fly for 10 minutes or incinerate an area no bigger than a hut. In 5e, I'd cut down spell casters, either by level requirements (no more than X levels in a spellcasting class or no spells of higher than x level) or by banning some classes.

Anonymouswizard
2018-07-25, 05:49 AM
This sums it up for me. What your players seemed to want was being the only magic guys in a low magic world, which is gonna be a cakewalk for them. I assume you were using 5e, which has magic hard baked into nearly every subclass.

Now this can work without being a cakewalk, I believe I remember reading a post by Knaight where he explains he did exactly that with FUDGE. But yeah, it doesn't work in D&D.

I own a couple of games designed to be low magic. In Keltia magic requires both the right bloodline and training, so casters are rare, and also isn't easy, so most PC casters will start with three or four spells. On the plus side the resource used for spellcasting regenerates fairly quickly, so you'll be casting a few spells a day. In the various Cthulhu Mythos games you can have magic or sanity, and anybody who isn't already insane will tend to choose sanity. Unknown Armies is interesting because while the world is fairly low magic (magic is rare), any given game is likely to have one or more PC magicians and the PCs are assumed to be part of the group where magic is the most common. The key thing you'll note in this is that magic tends to be some combination of rare, weak, awkward to use, and costly.

You can have a low magic setting where magic could potentially be everywhere, but is just too awkward and costly to use. In such a setting you would more likely see magic items than magicians (maybe as many as ten items to a city!), because magic items are easier to use and less costly than rituals. Actual spellcasting becomes the tool of the desperate, insane, or immoral (who have discovered some way to shunt the cost off onto somebody else).

You can also have a low magic setttng where magic is easy to use, but weak and hard to get ahold of. Magicians become recluses jealously guarding their secrets and the measly power they have.

You could even have all four, in which case nobody sane even tries to use magic, and the one time somebody successfully pulls it off is a campaign altering event.

Knaight
2018-07-25, 08:36 AM
Now this can work without being a cakewalk, I believe I remember reading a post by Knaight where he explains he did exactly that with FUDGE. But yeah, it doesn't work in D&D.

That would be my Nomad's Gift campaign, yeah - which I actually wouldn't consider low magic. That said, there were a few wrinkles. Most notably:

1) The PCs discovered spellcasting and later item enchantment, but magic was around, just considered part of the natural world and not really understood as a separate thing. An strange curse moving across the continent turning people to glass would be considered magic (it was), but so would a strange curse moving across the continent causing people to sprout boils and fevers and eventually waste away (which is just a disease) - and interspersed with these strange curses were rarer and much more beneficial magic effects.

2) The people affected by those rarer and much more beneficial magic effects could be far, far more dangerous than mages that hadn't amassed a significant amount of magical power. Think street level supers against low level D&D mages, who aren't operating in the protective structure of turns.

3) A lot of the difficulty in the campaign was based on access to that magic - because it was intrinsically locational. You want magic, you go find a source of magic, every last one of which is seeped in strong ambient magic having an effect on the world. It was a noun-verb system too, three words (at least one of each) per site, and if a site happened to have something like "grow" and "meat", well, enjoy your overgrown wilderness with thirty foot long carp and a heron that eats them. Also enjoy getting across the lake of said carp, the algaebergs on top of it, and the aforementioned heron.

4) A lot of the rest of the difficulty came directly from a really questionable decision made early - the PCs had low resources, most of them literally only had the capability to sense magic, nobody had really figured out much of anything about the system - to reveal the first magic site they found (which had sense and magic as words, and thus revealed the rest) to other people to try and get the resources needed to travel to the other sites. Poorly vetted other people, showing visible signs of ambition and greed. The PC's magic monopoly didn't last long, and while mages were incredibly rare they found themselves directly opposed to the one other meaningful group of them.

JoshuaZ
2018-07-25, 09:01 AM
Awesomeness.

Is there a campaign journal/log of this game?

Aneurin
2018-07-25, 09:09 AM
There's different approaches, really.

You can have quite a lot of very weak magic. This... doesn't really work in D&D and its clones, since they don't do weak magic. Think The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, where magic items and old spells are relatively common... but wizards are not - also, people can't just casually fireball armies out of existence. Or Sheridan Smith's Inda series, where magic is absolutely mundane but, again, there are very few wizards and they can't rewrite reality at a whim. Mostly. (By the way, your magic gnome would fit right in there - but using that light spell is probably all it can do).

You can have almost no magic whatsoever. Maybe it was lost, or whatever. So the occasional magical items are amazingly rare and of great value. I believe Game of Thrones, and most anything by Joe Abercrombie does this style of low fantasy. D&D also does not do this well, due to an almost complete lack of support of strictly mundane classes - and virtually non-existent non-magical healing.

You can have magic be unspeakably powerful, but incredibly rare like in Glen Cook's Black Company series, where wizards are not something you bump into in the street, but tend to end up being God-Kings and unstoppable conquerors. D&D does this... better than the previous two options, but that isn't necessarily saying much.

Magic is dangerous and unpredictable. This is the Warhammer Fantasy approach. Magic's still rare, and even those who wield it are disinclined to really push themselves given the odds of winding up dead/having their soul devoured without safety measures, or a daemonic patron shielding them. It's also pretty limited, and magical items are still rare and often dangerous to the wielder (and a real pain to make). D&D once again handles this style of low magic poorly, as it assumes that all magic is safe and wonderful and there should be no limits whatsoever.

You can have magic simply be restricted somehow; by licensing or whatever. Maybe only a certain class of people are allowed to wield it, and they're so detached from the rest of the world they have little direct effect on it for the most part. Johnathan Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy kind of does this, with magicians ruling the country but, for most of the commoners, the actions of individual magicians is of little consequence. D&D sort of does this, maybe, provided you allow the commoner PCs to actually get magical items.


In conclusion, I'd suggest that if you want a Low Magic game, don't try running it using D&D which has magic so heavily baked in it's very difficult to ignore. I'm inclined to agree with the others in the thread, though, that those players didn't so much want a low magic game, as one in which they could just curbstomp every challenge and feel awesome (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does feel a little dishonest).

Corsair14
2018-07-25, 09:18 AM
To me, low magic means something like Ravenloft or Dark Sun. In both using magic visibly will likely have the guard after you for either being a witch or for helping destroy the planet(even if you are preserving). Characters would be restricted either by social convention or because they simply cant find trainers or masters to learn from preventing multiclassing from occcurring. By social convention I mean the previously mentioned magic is looked either down on or looked at in fear by the common person. I dont care what level the charactersare unless its the high teens, most parties arent going to survive an entire city guard descending on them with a mob of level ones, their higher level sergeants and officers, especially if they use tactics and then there is the alignment issues of fighting the guard who are just doing their job defending the city. Magic items would be rare and wondrous. There are no magic shops and the most you might find is an Apothecary shop selling potions run by an obscure hedge wizard who might have something minor under the counter for people who convince him they arent the normal rabble or police.

awa
2018-07-25, 09:18 AM
your comments ( Aneurin) manly apply to third edition (and maybe 4th never really played that one) other edition handle low magic much more easily

2D8HP
2018-07-25, 09:23 AM
There's a few posts citing The Lord of the Rings as lower magic and "something that D&D doesn't do.

For converting 5e D&D to a Middle Earth setting there's

Adventures in Middle-Earth (http://cubicle7.co.uk/our-games/adventures-in-middle-earth/)

Anonymouswizard
2018-07-25, 09:30 AM
That would be my Nomad's Gift campaign, yeah - which I actually wouldn't consider low magic. That said, there were a few wrinkles. Most notably:

1) The PCs discovered spellcasting and later item enchantment, but magic was around, just considered part of the natural world and not really understood as a separate thing. An strange curse moving across the continent turning people to glass would be considered magic (it was), but so would a strange curse moving across the continent causing people to sprout boils and fevers and eventually waste away (which is just a disease) - and interspersed with these strange curses were rarer and much more beneficial magic effects.

2) The people affected by those rarer and much more beneficial magic effects could be far, far more dangerous than mages that hadn't amassed a significant amount of magical power. Think street level supers against low level D&D mages, who aren't operating in the protective structure of turns.

3) A lot of the difficulty in the campaign was based on access to that magic - because it was intrinsically locational. You want magic, you go find a source of magic, every last one of which is seeped in strong ambient magic having an effect on the world. It was a noun-verb system too, three words (at least one of each) per site, and if a site happened to have something like "grow" and "meat", well, enjoy your overgrown wilderness with thirty foot long carp and a heron that eats them. Also enjoy getting across the lake of said carp, the algaebergs on top of it, and the aforementioned heron.

4) A lot of the rest of the difficulty came directly from a really questionable decision made early - the PCs had low resources, most of them literally only had the capability to sense magic, nobody had really figured out much of anything about the system - to reveal the first magic site they found (which had sense and magic as words, and thus revealed the rest) to other people to try and get the resources needed to travel to the other sites. Poorly vetted other people, showing visible signs of ambition and greed. The PC's magic monopoly didn't last long, and while mages were incredibly rare they found themselves directly opposed to the one other meaningful group of them.

Yeah, that's awesome, and that sort of model can easily be moved to low magic. You do end up without the street level supers, but it can work.

Actually it likely takes just as much effort to do that sort of 'high magic' version and a low magic version.

EDIT: Lord of the Rings isn't so much 'low magic' as 'low spellcasting'. The world is full of magic, but almost nobody casts spells (most magic seems to be in people/items).

Stan
2018-07-25, 09:39 AM
There's a few posts citing The Lord of the Rings as lower magic and "something that D&D doesn't do.

For converting 5e D&D to a Middle Earth setting there's

Adventures in Middle-Earth (http://cubicle7.co.uk/our-games/adventures-in-middle-earth/)

And it does a decent job of it.
There are feats and class abilities that are magical but there's not much zap zap magic.

Jarawara
2018-07-25, 10:01 AM
So what is a Low Magic game? Is there a set standard that everyone agrees on?

Of course not.

Saying "Low Magic" is the beginning of the discussion, not the end of it. Everyone has their own ideas in mind, and those ideas are all low magic in their own way.

It's like... dessert time. You say to your players, let's have dessert. Do you want ice cream, cake, or popsicals? They all agree on ice cream.

Does that mean you're all thinking the same thing? Nope. There's ice cream parlors, 31 flavors to choose from. Or ice cream sandwich bars. Or pull out a quart of vanilla and ooze on some toppings. Whipped Cream? Nuts? That self-hardening chocolate stuff? All are options. And be aware, when you said you wanted ice cream, you didn't really have all these options available to you. I don't ask for ice cream anymore, because the only real ice cream for me is soft-serve. They pull out a quart of hard ice cream and offer pineapple topping because they are all out of caramel... eh, not really ice cream to me.

So yeah, if you say you want your game to be "low magic", that's just the starting point of the conversation. You have to define for yourself (and to your DM) what you mean by low magic. Everyone's low magic is different, and you have to accept that you might not have the full set of choices available to you. You want *your* interpretation of low magic, but the DM only has to offer what his interpretation of low magic is. You then have to decide whether or not it's "real" low magic or not... and whether or not you want to play, or go hungry.

And then of course, in every group, there's always Dave. Regardless of how everyone else agreed to a semblance of low magic, Dave wants to stick to his guns. Dave insists there's only one thing he wants, and Dave's gonna hold up the game till he gets it.

Dave wants popsicles. Grape.

Jarawara
2018-07-25, 10:20 AM
As an addition to my earlier point - stating you want your game to be "like playing in Middle Earth" (or whatever common fantasy theme) is still only the starting point of the conversation.

A few posts above discussed how playing in Middle Earth would be relatively low magic (and others would also imply low level as well), yet I remember a quote from these boards a few years back that said "Everyone would agree that Middle Earth could not be run without Epic Level characters", and others have claimed that Gandalf would have to be defined as a "100th level Wizard" at least.

So simply saying "Lord of the Rings", or "Adventuring in Middle Earth" is not a complete description. It's only saying that you want to play in *your* interpretation of Middle Earth. The other players may very well interpret it differently.

You have to say you want to play in Middle Earth... and then define what you mean by that. And agree to a consensus of what others are looking for in their Middle Earth games. And be prepared for the occasional Grape Popsicle.

Stan
2018-07-25, 10:24 AM
A few posts above discussed how playing in Middle Earth would be relatively low magic (and others would also imply low level as well), yet I remember a quote from these boards a few years back that said "Everyone would agree that Middle Earth could not be run without Epic Level characters", and others have claimed that Gandalf would have to be defined as a "100th level Wizard" at least.


Others have said that Gandalf was a 5th level mage (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?7338-Gandalf-was-only-a-Fifth-Level-Magic-User!).

However, it's pretty clear that Gandalf as a DMPC. No one got that level of power except for a few NPCs used to rub the PCs nose in it that they were nearly magic-less.

JoshuaZ
2018-07-25, 10:29 AM
A few posts above discussed how playing in Middle Earth would be relatively low magic (and others would also imply low level as well), yet I remember a quote from these boards a few years back that said "Everyone would agree that Middle Earth could not be run without Epic Level characters", and others have claimed that Gandalf would have to be defined as a "100th level Wizard" at least.


Honestly, anyone who says that hasn't been paying attention to either D&D or Lord of the Rings. Gandalf can't teleport, plane shift, resurrect dead, throw lightning, shapechange, or many other things that a 17th level wizard can do. This may be made worse by people who tried to model characters based on specific abilities, e.g. if Aragorn does something that normally takes a 10th level fighter feat, they conclude that he has to have at least 10 levels of fighter. And then if he does something that sounds like something a ranger would do, they conclude he has ranger levels. And then he's apparently knowledgeable so they conclude he has to have at least one level in a class that has a lot of knowledge skills as class skills. Part of the issue then is people realizing that D&D just isn't a perfect simulation system for any generic fantasy character.

Anonymouswizard
2018-07-25, 10:54 AM
Others have said that Gandalf was a 5th level mage (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?7338-Gandalf-was-only-a-Fifth-Level-Magic-User!).

However, it's pretty clear that Gandalf as a DMPC. No one got that level of power except for a few NPCs used to rub the PCs nose in it that they were nearly magic-less.

Yeah Middle Earth is interesting.

You can stat out Aragorn, Borimir, Legolas, and Gimli pretty well at about 5th level (with some potentially being 6th level, Aragorn and Legolas probably have LA+1 races). Most of the hobbits can be statted pretty well at 2nd level, Samwise might be 4th level by the end of the story or might be 2nd-3rd. Gandalf isn't so much a PC as a CR10+ celestial, put in the party to help them out as they gain their feat with the intent to remove him from the party fairly quickly.

On the other hand you can stat out most of the fellowship at 10th level. You're using a different set of assumptions, but you can do it.

I'll note that as far as 'official' means anything LotR doesn't have spellcasters in the D&D sense. The D&D conversion doesn't have any spellcasting classes, and the handful of PC-available spells are more of an 'at-will cantrip' level. I haven't seen the monsters yet, but I believe it's roughly the same case for them. But it also doesn't give stats for the fellowship (as it's based on 5e I work under the assumption everybody but Gandalf never passes level 10).

Aneurin
2018-07-25, 11:09 AM
your comments ( Aneurin) manly apply to third edition (and maybe 4th never really played that one) other edition handle low magic much more easily

Are you sure? Because at a quick glance 5e has 12 classes, of which 8 are casting classes (or at least classes that gain spell casting). Four of those are full casting, plus there's the Warlock which sounds like it's the equivalent of a full casting class. It also appears to suffer the same Christmas tree effect that is inherent in 3e, following a quick glance at the magic item list, and I can't find any rules to cover non-magical healing. Which is really important for low-magic games, since there probably isn't a handy cleric around to patch you up.

Nothing I've heard about the earlier editions makes me inclined to believe that they lend themselves to low magic particularly well, either. Though I'm certain they handle it much better than 3e onward.

D&D is structured around kicking ass and taking names and going on to being epic heroes who do impossible things, but low magic often goes hand in hand with low fantasy and lower power levels in general and D&D just isn't good at simulating that.

Stan
2018-07-25, 11:15 AM
I can't find any rules to cover non-magical healing. Which is really important for low-magic games, since there probably isn't a handy cleric around to patch you up.


In 5e healing self healing is almost ridiculously easy. Over the course of the day, you can heal nearly your full hp from short rests. Then you can heal all your hp with an overnight rest.

The thing with D&D is you can dial the power level easily just by controlling how fast levelling occurs. This was demonstrated well in CoC D20 - if you stick to low level, it's more lethal than BRP CoC. At levels in the upper single digits, it was a pulpy monster hunt. At high levels, it was similar to D&D but modern and with more tentacles.

Luccan
2018-07-25, 11:35 AM
For the record, while I think they're two great tastes that taste great together, I believe there is a difference between Low Magic and Rare Magic. Low Magic would mean (accessible?) magic is weaker and/or stronger magic is inherently difficult to access. Rare Magic might have magic as world changing as 9th level spells that could theoretically be accessed at level 1... but good luck finding it. I think these are usually desired together and like I said, work well together. But I think since the terms can have fairly wide connotations, it's important to nail down exactly what a group wants. If all they're saying is "Low Magic" and they're displeased with how you present it, you have every right to tell them your understanding of "Low Magic" and ask them to clarify what they want. If they can't give at least a slightly less vague description, you have to let them know it's unlikely you'll be able to deliver the game they want without specifics.

awa
2018-07-25, 12:34 PM
Are you sure? Because at a quick glance 5e has 12 classes, of which 8 are casting classes (or at least classes that gain spell casting). Four of those are full casting, plus there's the Warlock which sounds like it's the equivalent of a full casting class. It also appears to suffer the same Christmas tree effect that is inherent in 3e, following a quick glance at the magic item list, and I can't find any rules to cover non-magical healing. Which is really important for low-magic games, since there probably isn't a handy cleric around to patch you up.

Nothing I've heard about the earlier editions makes me inclined to believe that they lend themselves to low magic particularly well, either. Though I'm certain they handle it much better than 3e onward.

D&D is structured around kicking ass and taking names and going on to being epic heroes who do impossible things, but low magic often goes hand in hand with low fantasy and lower power levels in general and D&D just isn't good at simulating that.

Their may be a lot of magic items but the game is designed to function with out them, another important aspect is that low level enemies are a much larger threat at higher levels in second and fifth edition than third edition where the number simply leave them behind

5th has non-magical healing built right into the rules

5th and second might not be low magic from the get go but they are not very hard to modify into low magic

Psikerlord
2018-07-25, 05:45 PM
Are you sure? Because at a quick glance 5e has 12 classes, of which 8 are casting classes (or at least classes that gain spell casting). Four of those are full casting, plus there's the Warlock which sounds like it's the equivalent of a full casting class. It also appears to suffer the same Christmas tree effect that is inherent in 3e, following a quick glance at the magic item list, and I can't find any rules to cover non-magical healing. Which is really important for low-magic games, since there probably isn't a handy cleric around to patch you up.

Nothing I've heard about the earlier editions makes me inclined to believe that they lend themselves to low magic particularly well, either. Though I'm certain they handle it much better than 3e onward.

D&D is structured around kicking ass and taking names and going on to being epic heroes who do impossible things, but low magic often goes hand in hand with low fantasy and lower power levels in general and D&D just isn't good at simulating that.
Yes I think 5e is one of the worst version of dnd for low magic - magic baked into nearly every subclass, and common at-will cantrips (for me low magic is inconsistent with at will magic).

Anonymouswizard
2018-07-25, 06:13 PM
Yes I think 5e is one of the worst version of dnd for low magic - magic baked into nearly every subclass, and common at-will cantrips (for me low magic is inconsistent with at will magic).

Considering that the Lord of the Rings version had to throw out all bar three of the classes, and even then changed their subclasses, I'm agreeing here.

Weirdly, 4e may be the best for low magic, if you're fine with it's quirks. Healing Surges are a really good replacement for magical healing, in my opinion even better than Hit Dice, and I've nicked then for my homebrew system (although recovering at a much slower rate of 1/day). In fact all magical healing in my have requires the character to siege a healing surge, and no natural healing can happen without one.

Although at will magic can work with low magic. Although it's just easier to start charging 1MP for a minor trick.

I will point out that by the standards of fantasy systems D&D is in the upper end magic wise. Most systems tend to have weaker magic, and many also have MP regenerating slower (although not all).

awa
2018-07-25, 08:40 PM
yes 5th edition is not innately low magic, but you can remove the extra magic without breaking the game

JoeJ
2018-07-25, 09:04 PM
If I were using D&D in a low magic game I'd increase the casting time of all spells that aren't cast as reactions to make spellcasting during combat completely impractical, but also increase durations as a partial compensation. Any spells that strike me as overly flashy for the setting would be removed completely (most of them would have been rendered useless already by the increased casting time), and call it done. As DM, I control the number of magic items given out regardless, so I don't need to make a rule about that.

Knaight
2018-07-26, 05:24 AM
Their may be a lot of magic items but the game is designed to function with out them, another important aspect is that low level enemies are a much larger threat at higher levels in second and fifth edition than third edition where the number simply leave them behind.

Meanwhile compared to most games not named D&D the characters are still fantasy superheroes - sure, there's Exalted and Mythender, but there's a lot more with normal people to low end pulp heroes. Said other games also usually don't have massive lists of monsters (where the whole idea of "monsters" is often a sign of higher fantasy), and tend to focus on human opposition.

Just about every edition of D&D is pretty bad for low magic. Some are just worse.

Anonymouswizard
2018-07-26, 06:03 AM
Meanwhile compared to most games not named D&D the characters are still fantasy superheroes - sure, there's Exalted and Mythender, but there's a lot more with normal people to low end pulp heroes. Said other games also usually don't have massive lists of monsters (where the whole idea of "monsters" is often a sign of higher fantasy), and tend to focus on human opposition.

Just about every edition of D&D is pretty bad for low magic. Some are just worse.

I'm currently trying to think of other games I own that focus on monstrous opposition. There's Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but that's a retroclone, and Fantasy AGE, but that's incredibly D&D influenced. After that I can't think of any.

But yes, D&D, in practice from as early as BD&D, has been high magic and climbing higher. 3e is where it started to get to the somewhat silly levels, with keeping your spells becoming incredibly easy and the value of making a single attack roll vastly overestimated, and even though the height of magic has been reduced in 5e it's now more common than ever (with the old half caster being a full caster and the quarter casters becoming half casters).

What annoys me is that I've looked at early D&D and it's essentially billed as 'if you can survive the dangerous lower levels you can become a fantasy superhero'. 9th level is called out as where you're important enough to lead armies. The rules came to continually focus on the latter aspect at the exact same time it started being pushed as 'generic fantasy' (which it can be until about 5th level).

D&D really needs to split into two games, the low powered dungeon crawler and the high powered fantasy superheroes. That way characters can be designed for their genre, rather than meandering slowly from the former to the latter while the GM insists it's still the former.

Psikerlord
2018-07-26, 11:18 PM
I'm currently trying to think of other games I own that focus on monstrous opposition. There's Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but that's a retroclone, and Fantasy AGE, but that's incredibly D&D influenced. After that I can't think of any.

But yes, D&D, in practice from as early as BD&D, has been high magic and climbing higher. 3e is where it started to get to the somewhat silly levels, with keeping your spells becoming incredibly easy and the value of making a single attack roll vastly overestimated, and even though the height of magic has been reduced in 5e it's now more common than ever (with the old half caster being a full caster and the quarter casters becoming half casters).

What annoys me is that I've looked at early D&D and it's essentially billed as 'if you can survive the dangerous lower levels you can become a fantasy superhero'. 9th level is called out as where you're important enough to lead armies. The rules came to continually focus on the latter aspect at the exact same time it started being pushed as 'generic fantasy' (which it can be until about 5th level).

D&D really needs to split into two games, the low powered dungeon crawler and the high powered fantasy superheroes. That way characters can be designed for their genre, rather than meandering slowly from the former to the latter while the GM insists it's still the former.

yes in a way the old basic, then expert, then other boxed sets, split up the game well. For my money, keep levels 1-10, throw the rest.

Psyren
2018-07-27, 01:02 AM
You could technically play Starfinder with no magic at all (save the Drift stuff of course) - no spellcasting, no magic items, you could even remove the more supernatural monsters like Outsiders and Undead. Whether filling in all those blanks with technology goes against the spirit of the OP's request is left as an exercise for the reader, but you could technically (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hou0lU8WMgo) check off all the stipulations in the opening post that way.

JoshuaZ
2018-07-27, 08:06 AM
Low Magic Age is a fantasy RPG that focused on turn-based party-based tactical combat. Field of View, Fog of War, Cover, Zone of Control, Charging and Flanking, various and abundant tactical elements are implemented in the game rules that evolved from Wizards of the Coast's Open Game License (OGL).

The term Low Magic predates that game and that doesn't have much to do with the conversation here.

SirGraystone
2018-07-27, 02:53 PM
A long long time ago when I was in high school, each time we had a replacement teacher we will try to get away with stuff we never could with the regular one. When you have a level 10 group, usually with high AC most melee fight doesn't cause any problem so DM balance that with the use of magic.

The group didn't want low magic, they wanted easy loots with little work from the temp DM. Next time, simply tell them a firm no when they ask for a low magic adventure. Or make them roll level 1 characters. New characters with no magical items can run a low magic adventure.

Knaight
2018-07-27, 10:37 PM
I'm currently trying to think of other games I own that focus on monstrous opposition. There's Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but that's a retroclone, and Fantasy AGE, but that's incredibly D&D influenced. After that I can't think of any.
There's a decent chunk of Cthulhu and Cthulhu-adjacent stuff on top of D&D. I guess there's also Inspectres, but that's a stretch for a game so character and mystery focused. If the bar is lowered from "focus on" to "have" there's some real expansion - Ryuutama, Qin: The Warring States, Mythender and potentially some sci-fi stuff, though there's some real blurring between the concepts of monsters and aliens there. There's also other heavily D&D influenced works, such as Warrior Rogue and Mage.

Still, the specific dynamic of a fantasy world full of monsters is very much a signature of high fantasy, and D&D in particular has been firmly wedged in that particular niche for a long while. It's a large part of its charm.


The term Low Magic predates that game and that doesn't have much to do with the conversation here.
Keyword spambots generally aren't too good at staying on topic.

Calthropstu
2018-07-28, 05:12 PM
Completely off topic but there was a guy who ran a campaign that had no magic, but everyone THOUGHT there was magic. The thing was, wizards had a particular "spell component" that was a hallucinogenic. It spread in a wide area and made everyone believe magic had taken effect. And if you believed you had died, then you died. "Magic resistance" meant you had immunity or tolerance to the drug.
Most of the wizards themselves were unaware of this. So when the party got trapped in a cave and the wizard used "magic" to get them out... We literally went on one trippy adventure.
That is my favorite example of no magic done right.

Calthropstu
2018-07-28, 05:24 PM
A long long time ago when I was in high school, each time we had a replacement teacher we will try to get away with stuff we never could with the regular one. When you have a level 10 group, usually with high AC most melee fight doesn't cause any problem so DM balance that with the use of magic.

The group didn't want low magic, they wanted easy loots with little work from the temp DM. Next time, simply tell them a firm no when they ask for a low magic adventure. Or make them roll level 1 characters. New characters with no magical items can run a low magic adventure.

Or be a jerk and say "Sure. Low magic." Then, when they encounter a party of psions using the psionics as different variant...

Anonymouswizard
2018-07-28, 06:09 PM
There's a decent chunk of Cthulhu and Cthulhu-adjacent stuff on top of D&D. I guess there's also Inspectres, but that's a stretch for a game so character and mystery focused. If the bar is lowered from "focus on" to "have" there's some real expansion - Ryuutama, Qin: The Warring States, Mythender and potentially some sci-fi stuff, though there's some real blurring between the concepts of monsters and aliens there. There's also other heavily D&D influenced works, such as Warrior Rogue and Mage.

Call of Cthulhu and it's variants and descendants are an interesting variation, as there's very few monsters there that you want to be actually fighting, and that's intentional. While there's plenty that can be beaten (some pretty easily if you know how) even those can normally take out an investigator before they can say 'dodge roll'. We're getting to the level of ghouls and deep ones if we want a Dungeons & Cthulhu game, and even then they're dangerous. Although I don't own CoC anymore, so that's why it was left out, I do own derivatives but they have a more human-focused approach.

Also, I'll admit that have makes the selection much larger, I'm trying to think of a fantasy game that doesn't have a monstrous opponent somewhere in it's library of pregenerated monster statistics and honestly can't. That's why I used 'focus on', as otherwise we end up with essentially just modern and near-future games (and not even all of those, with urban fantasy and all those experiments running around). A monstrous alien is still monstrous.


Still, the specific dynamic of a fantasy world full of monsters is very much a signature of high fantasy, and D&D in particular has been firmly wedged in that particular niche for a long while. It's a large part of its charm.

I should mention that none of my post was meant to imply it's a bad thing. I actually like monstrous opposition a lot, although I prefer to use humanoids myself, and D&D gets a lot of charm out of some of the weird monsters it possesses. I love the 2e Monstrous Manual for how it has a mixture of more basic creatures and some out there stuff.

I mean D&D is the origin of the Beholder. Eye Tyrants are a good example of a monster that I'd love to use if I can ever have a group willing to play at a reasonable level.

My post was more supporting you, pointing out how many fantasy games focus on human scale antagonists. Even ones with fantastical elements, because having monsters doesn't mean PCs have to be at a monster slaying power scale. D&D is actually more weird in that it puts a lot of potentially world-altering abilities in the hands of PCs, especially casters, and doesn't even ask nicely for players to not use them (almost every edition I've read just assumes that they don't). That's the actual reason I prefer to cap magic at thje D&D equivalent of 3rd level, it makes world building so much easier.


Completely off topic but there was a guy who ran a campaign that had no magic, but everyone THOUGHT there was magic. The thing was, wizards had a particular "spell component" that was a hallucinogenic. It spread in a wide area and made everyone believe magic had taken effect. And if you believed you had died, then you died. "Magic resistance" meant you had immunity or tolerance to the drug.
Most of the wizards themselves were unaware of this. So when the party got trapped in a cave and the wizard used "magic" to get them out... We literally went on one trippy adventure.
That is my favorite example of no magic done right.

I've honestly seen no magic done a lot better. Every player went into the game knowing that functional magic wasn't a thing, and the entire game stayed clear of the supernatural or SF-tech. I've also seen high fantasy and soft SF done really well, each style of game is just taking different tools to be applied.

Jay R
2018-07-29, 08:54 AM
So what is a Low Magic game? Is there a set standard that everyone agrees on? Or is this just one of those things that can mean anything?

Neither, of course, these are two equal and opposite extremes. Most situations in the world don't represent either 100% agreement or 0% agreement.

Theoretically, "low magic" could mean anything from "the only magic is a prestidigitation spell" to "casters are one level behind D&D casters".

Using general terms will almost never communicate specifics. So in situations like this, be specific.

"Do you mean that there are items but no casters?"
"Do you mean that there are casters but no items?"
"Do you mean that there are no swords over +2?"
"Do you mean that there are no spells above 3rd level?
"Do you mean that it takes twice as many levels to reach spells?"
"Do you mean the same level of PC magic but no NPC magic?"



The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

-- George Bernard Shaw