Sword-and-sorcery style campaign

[Kishigane]

I was thinking about what kind of campaign I should DM for when the lockdowns are all over, and decided it'd be interesting to try one sorta like a sword-and-sorcery story (i.e. Conan, Elric, Grey Mouser). But I need a bit of direction as to how to have it; all I know is that it's a fairly low-magic setting and supposed to be real gritty. :P

[Rule-Of-Three]

I'm always down to support a low magic campaign, but I'm not clear on what you're asking us.

What do you mean by how to do a sword-and-sorcery/sandals campaign? Are you asking what changes when you cut back on the amount of magic?

[heavyfuel]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that most Sword & Sorcery stories had a good amount of magic in them. Maybe not the breadth of magic usually available in D&D, but magic nonetheless.

[Kane0]

Comes down to how you present it as DM.

You can have 'low magic' with PCs that are all casters, the trick is having the world respond appropriately. Regular people will treat just the topic of magic with awe and fear, and those exposed to it on a regular basis with a healthy dose of respect. Witch hunts are a real and present danger, magical creatures pose an actual threat rivalling the best imaginations of folk and will be treated as such.

[loki_ragnarock]

I wouldn't worry too much about making it low magic, so to speak.

There isn't much about Nehwon that's particularly low magic. It's just the main characters weren't themselves magical, but they witnessed it on a near constant basis.

Likewise for Conan. He wasn't magic, but he dealt with some eldritch stuff on the regular. Was nearly mauled to death by an extra-dimensional horror and drank a magic potion so as not to die from his wounds.

Elric was... wasn't he actually a magic user? Wielding a magic sword, no less?

Sword and sorcery is pretty okay with magic.

[Sparky McDibben]

1) I recommend checking out the Dungeon Master's Guide, particularly pg 38.

2) Sword-and-sorcery differs from normal fantasy in that sorcery is normally a tool used by the wicked (Elric is not an exception, as Elric can hardly be counted a good guy). That puts the heroes in the position of responding to sorcerous villains (often coded as cowardly or "unmanly" because they can't face the heroes in pitched combat and have to rely on sorcerous tricks to win). I differ from the consensus in that I think you can have a sword-and-sorcery campaign without restricting much beyond the full casters. I would just fluff the effects of magic as being non-magical.

Consider the Totem barbarian's ability to cast beast sense. Really, all that's doing is its giving the party an avenue for information-gathering. You don't have to let the barbarian actually talk to animals or see through their eyes to give them that information. For example, the party is moving through a forest and you know there are a dozen bandits waiting 60 feet ahead, hidden in the woods. The barbarian tells you they would like to use their beast sense to see what's ahead. You relate the following:

"Over the next ten minutes, you become stock-still, part of the environment rather than an actor within. You fade into the background, and your honed senses begin to pick up subtle cues. You see a flock of ravens, flying upwards in spirals as though away from a predator. There's danger ahead, about 60 feet from you. You climb a nearby tree and take a deep breath. You smell horses ahead, sweating like they'd just been ridden hard. You close your eyes and listen, focusing on the ragged breathing in the underbrush. The sound of swords clearing scabbards and men struggling to hold their bladders makes it to your ears. An involuntary grin curls your lips. Maybe a dozen poor bastards are ahead, and they think you don't know about them."

Key points:
1) Enforce the time requirement. A ritual still takes ten minutes. Hex still takes a bonus action.
2) Enforce concentration.
3) Enforce consequences. You try to stand stock-still in a fancy ball and it probably won't work.
4) It has to fit into the paradigm you're in. You could probably still use beast sense in a city, but you'd have to flavor it slightly differently. Alternatively, make the player describe how they're using this ability.
5) Countermagic still works, but works by counteracting the heroes' effects. For example, if there was a sorcerer with those bandits with dispel magic, his dispel magic might be flavored as a blast of strong wind that momentarily blinds the barbarian and disrupts their concentration, effectively making them spend another 10 minutes using the ability, while the bandits start moving toward the heroes.

[Trask]

My advice - don't bother with the low magic approach. D&D 5e characters ooze magic from every pore, its impossible to extricate and its not worth the headache trying to work around that fact.

Instead I recommend aiming for a sword and sorcery feel in the adventure and setting style. Try a campaign of only humans, or reskin the other races (Elves can become mystical easterners, goliaths can become brutish northern barbarians), make the world a place where more often than not, evil reigns or the rulership is corrupt, weak, or ignorant, and a rude barbarian with charisma and sheer might can overthrow a fat quivering lord with the might of his axe. Use exotic locations like deserts, jungles, and archipelagos instead of the typical more typical pseudo-european fantasyland. The heroes are globetrotters, and frequently have even years long intermission between adventures as they trek, hack, and booze their way across the lands. Lots of human enemies rather than humanoids, and monsters with a more sci-fi feel than pure fantasy (S&S has a more scientific worldview than regular fantasy, typically). Most bad guys are either corrupt nobles or evil casters, often both working together while one tries to play the other. Heroes are more motivated by the next big hit of gold, or debts owed, or a beautiful girl, for adventure, not so much by the idea of a noble quest. Gods are distant and unmoved by human suffering, but randomly lavish attention (good or bad) on heroes. But are they really even gods? Or a clever sorcerer using an illusion?

If you're really interested, I'd check out the "Primeval Thule" third party supplement for D&D 5e. The setting is a decent pastiche of classic S&S tropes that you can use or steal from. My only advice is to not try and force fit D&D 5e to be low magic. It just doesn't work. Some have suggested that you let magic be rare and let this principle guide how the world reacts to the insanely magical PC's, but this defeats the whole purpose of a setting like this, one where heroes are larger than life but not superheroes or demigods. Let the world have magic too, just treat it more like mysticism and not be well explained, nobody REALLY knows how this stuff works.

EDIT: Just so I'm not accused of not answering OP's question, the advice I'll give if you MUST try and make 5e approach low or even medium magic is to use the "gritty realism" resting variant in the DMG. It is the only way I can think of that could possibly make magic feel more rare or less easy and "free" than it does in the normal game (without making it tedious or unfun to use). But naturally, this comes with it's own host of baggage in terms of game style that isn't really the subject of this thread.

[Chronic]

I would take another direction and not use 5e at all. Sure it can emulate low magic setting with a lot of work, but it's clearly not made for it. Unless you take fun in tweaking the system heavily, I suggest you use another rpg such as the 2d20 system (either Conan or John carter), or something along the line of blades in the dark.
To me sword and sorcery pretty much means swords against sorcery, and I would discourage the use of most sorts of magic by pc. A blessing there, a magic sword capable of killing what cannot be killed, this sort of things.

[Trask]

I would take another direction and not use 5e at all. Sure it can emulate low magic setting with a lot of work, but it's clearly not made for it. Unless you take fun in tweaking the system heavily, I suggest you use another rpg such as the 2d20 system (either Conan or John carter), or something along the line of blades in the dark.
To me sword and sorcery pretty much means swords against sorcery, and I would discourage the use of most sorts of magic by pc. A blessing there, a magic sword capable of killing what cannot be killed, this sort of things.

This would also be my top advice, but it is a D&D board after all :smallbiggrin:

Barbarians of Lemuria is also good. And if you are dead set on D&D, maybe try the d20 Conan supplement from 3e.

[Azuresun]

I was thinking about what kind of campaign I should DM for when the lockdowns are all over, and decided it'd be interesting to try one sorta like a sword-and-sorcery story (i.e. Conan, Elric, Grey Mouser). But I need a bit of direction as to how to have it; all I know is that it's a fairly low-magic setting and supposed to be real gritty. :P

One change I made for my game in the Primeval Thule setting was to say that low-key magic items like healing potions or +1 weapons / armour weren't actually magical--healing potions could be made by any herbalist with the rare ingredients, while +1 items were simply made of superior metals like iron or steel.

[stoutstien]

I was thinking about what kind of campaign I should DM for when the lockdowns are all over, and decided it'd be interesting to try one sorta like a sword-and-sorcery story (i.e. Conan, Elric, Grey Mouser). But I need a bit of direction as to how to have it; all I know is that it's a fairly low-magic setting and supposed to be real gritty. :P

Low magic is hard to pull off in 5e without basically rewriting the system but wide/shallow magic is pretty similar and fits SnS games.

All you need to do is remove the full casters from the game and make sure your adventuring days are long enough to feel gritty or you can use some form of alternative resting rules like what is presented in the DMG.

From there shift focus from damage as a primary tension mechanic and use long duration conditions to make the world feel more harsh.

The big difference between sword ad sorcery and a typical fantasy game is the more about tone and overall focus of the campaign arch. SnS games tend to have more simple but very personal goals where H fantasy is about save the world for the greater good and all that jazz.

[Kurt Kurageous]

I'm running one now based on pre-St. Patrick Ireland.

Only one full caster allowed in the party, and its a druid. Making magic inside the town might get you labeled as a "witch." Using magic outside of the town is fine.

I wrote a lot of mundane encounter stuff vs beasts and fantastic creatures (hippogriff, griffon, ahkheg), a lot of undead stuff, and so forth. It's been about eight sessions in, and the party still seems to enjoy it.

[Xervous]

Biggest detail with running such things in D&D is a low level cap. E6 generally had the right of it for 3.5e.

[JoeJ]

Low magic can be easy or hard to do, depending on exactly what you mean by "low."

One example, that's easy, in that it requires only a single house rule:

Casting times of most spells are increased by 1 increment. That is, casting times of 1 Action or 1 Bonus Action become 1 minute, casting times of 1 minute become 10 minutes, casting times of 10 minutes become 1 hour, and casting times of 1 hour become 8 hours. Spells with casting times of 8 hours or more, or those that are cast as reactions remain unaffected. Casting time increases apply only to the actual casting of spells, not the use of spell slots for other purposes (a paladin’s Divine Smite, for example). Spell duration is also increased in the same way, although Instantaneous duration spells are not affected, nor (obviously) are spells that last until dispelled.

This rule doesn't reduce the theoretical power of spells, but it does make them much less useful in combat. Players will therefore, presumably, not choose characters that rely on spell casting for combat purposes. You should expect PCs to mostly be barbarians, fighters, rogues, and monks, possibly with some minor, mostly utility, spells. Villainous spellcasters will mostly rely on summoned minions and preset magical traps to do their fighting for them while they try to complete their evil ritual of supreme power. Together, this makes for a very different feel than standard D&D, and one that I think better captures a lot of S&S.

[Lupine]

One change I made for my game in the Primeval Thule setting was to say that low-key magic items like healing potions or +1 weapons / armour weren't actually magical--healing potions could be made by any herbalist with the rare ingredients, while +1 items were simply made of superior metals like iron or steel.

I do this in my games. I actually have all +X weapons be nonmagical. I also use the armorer’s handbook to allow weapon repairs and upgrades.

[Rule-Of-Three]

I do this in my games. I actually have all +X weapons be nonmagical. I also use the armorer’s handbook to allow weapon repairs and upgrades.

This is very common for many campaigns. In 2nd, we used a similar concept to masterwork weapons filled the role of +1, and we used adamantium weapons as generic +2. All magical arms/armor were +3 or more, and were items of true power. This was easily adapted in subsequent editions.