How would YOU make a magic school to force a setting away from 'low-magic-variety'?

[Gavinfoxx]

So. I would like to crowdsource an idea I have for a bit of a campaign I'm setting up. So... I've noticed a few things, and I've made some interesting extrapolations. NOTE: I AM ATTEMPTING TO FOCUS ON DOING THIS WITHIN AN EXISTING, PRE-ESTABLISHED, CANON-COMPLIANT SETTING.

Greyhawk, despite being the 'default' 3.5e setting, isn't reaaallllyyy the best fit, if one goes by the established Greyhawk lore. This would be for a 'mostly canonical Greyhawk' campaign, FYI.

It's, well... it has a low level of cosmopolitanism, a relatively low population, the settlements are relatively poor, it's quite post-apocalyptic, the styles of magic are very conservative (you pretty much JUST find Wizards and JUST Clerics of established gods; the Druids are all 'good and evil must stay in balance!' types, etc. etc.), and the like.

In fact, it's a 1e/2e gritty (though not as gritty as Athas) points of light in darkness setting.

And to this, one is supposed to add the massive amount of gonzo variety that is... pretty much all of 3.5e spellcasting?? Psionics? Incarnum? Shadow Magic? Soul Binding? Auras? Blade Magic? Infusions? Invocations? All the magical crafting techniques? The various types of shamanic magic and nature paths that aren't Druids? Any of the Pathfinder stuff that fits in a roughly 3.5e world? The idea of various sorts of divine classes which does NOT involve or require a god's intervention? Or even the variety of 4e or 5e options, like psionic monks and rogues? Where would it all fit? How would it even develop? How could you even have a school of <insert odd style of supernatural puissance here>?

As near as I can tell... the only people who are actually on the forefront of magical technology and science and engineering in the setting.... is the massive variety and quantity of hideously evil wizards, clerics, and sorcerers that are making and inhabiting dungeons as adventurer fodder.

So, here's my setup:

A young Bard (Bardic Sage ACF; one that's reasonably plausible to show up on Greyhawk; the idea is that this sort of character has sufficient variety of skill, intelligence, leadership, knowledge, lore, and magical ability [especially of the enchantment and defending against enchantment] to pull this off) has found the ONE floating island with a castle on it in the setting, the one with an absentee landlord, and has managed to get the stupid thing mobile and refurbished it as a floating magical school. His goal: to make a magic school for all paths of nontraditional magic, with the express purpose of advancing and disseminating the knowledge and practice of these across the continent of Oerik, which allows all types of sapient entities to attend as faculty or students, provided they keep the peace within the school's grounds and airspace and adjacent planar presence.

So... the question is... in order to make this work and get started with all the different types of magic that may be just starting to be (re?)developed in the setting, who and what do you pick up? What powerful magical creatures do you bribe, what with your ability to make a killing with the only reliable heavy air freight on the entire continent, to become faculty and staff? What do you pick up, based on legends of possibly existing somewhere? What about some of those few existing practitioners of magic which might be less antisocial uncollaborative jerks than their peers?

[Telonius]

Are you familiar with Girl Genius? Because it sounds like you've got the same idea as Baron Wulfenbach - get all the madboys in one place and working for you, so the trouble they cause is more manageable and localized, and you also get the best of the researchers. I'd reach out to the local political leaders. If they have any malcontents (who think the current magical setup is just holding them back), offer to take them off their hands. (Less trouble for them, gain for you).

[tiercel]

And to this, one is supposed to add the massive amount of gonzo variety that is... pretty much all of 3.5e spellcasting?? Psionics? Incarnum? Shadow Magic? Soul Binding? Auras? Blade Magic? Infusions? Invocations? All the magical crafting techniques? The various types of shamanic magic and nature paths that aren't Druids? Any of the Pathfinder stuff that fits in a roughly 3.5e world? The idea of various sorts of divine classes which does NOT involve or require a god's intervention? Or even the variety of 4e or 5e options, like psionic monks and rogues? Where would it all fit? How would it even develop? How could you even have a school of <insert odd style of supernatural puissance here>?



I can’t help but think that that this list of questions is exactly the kind of thing either known, investigated by, or possibly even held in confidence by the church of Boccob ….depending on how widespread magic is or has been, and whether you interpret Boccobite tradition in your campaign world as potentially open to helping more interested people learn, understand, and add to magic, or whether it takes more a “only the select few may know/understand/be entrusted withe the power and mysteries of magic.”

Which might imply that a “let’s change the default level of magic” sorta campaign would have, as a major element, working with/for, and/or possibly against, Boccob’s followers.

—Also cf. entities like the Circle of Eight, either as evidence that reasonably high-powered magic types do or even should exert significant world influence (Illuminati-style or even more overtly like Thay), or as a warning as to the corruptive influence of potent magical power.

[Maat Mons]

If you’re trying to push a setting away from low magic, one question you have to answer is “Who is capable of learning magic?” Obviously, you need a minimum of 10 + spell level in the corresponding ability score to can spells. To what extent are ability scores nature, and to what extent are they nurture? If you create a good public education system in the setting, will you tend to get higher Int scores among the populace? Or are you always stuck with everyone having completely random scores? How hard is it to muster strong enough faith to be a cleric? How rare is the innate gift for magic required to be a Sorcerer?

In a low-magic setting, I’d be less concerned with making sure every flavor of magic is represented, and more concerned with getting the total number of magic users up. The easiest way to get more magic users out there is to find the minimum set of magical traditions that can be made accessible to the maximum number of students. Assuming you can’t do much to change the starting ability scores of the population, you’ll have to just make the best use of what you can get. So three training programs, one requiring Int, one requiring Wis, and one requiring Cha would let you take in anyone who had any potential to become a caster.

Finding a suitable Int-based casting tradition is easy. Archivist, Wizard, and Wu Jen spring to mind.

It’s harder to find Wis-based casters that don’t lock you into specific philosophical outlooks. You don’t want to have to turn away potential students because they don’t have strong feelings about anything. Shaman and Spirit Shaman are possibilities, I guess. Maybe a strong desire to learn magic is sufficient to be a Cleric of a magic deity or a Cleric of the abstract concept of magic?

Finding Cha-based classes whose lore states that their abilities are the result of training is also hard. I can find Dread Necromancer, Sha’ir, Shugenja, and Sublime Chord. I guess Archivist with the Dynamic Priest feat could work too.

[Gavinfoxx]

If you’re trying to push a setting away from low magic, one question you have to answer is “Who is capable of learning magic?” Obviously, you need a minimum of 10 + spell level in the corresponding ability score to can spells. To what extent are ability scores nature, and to what extent are they nurture? If you create a good public education system in the setting, will you tend to get higher Int scores among the populace? Or are you always stuck with everyone having completely random scores? How hard is it to muster strong enough faith to be a cleric? How rare is the innate gift for magic required to be a Sorcerer?

In a low-magic setting, I’d be less concerned with making sure every flavor of magic is represented, and more concerned with getting the total number of magic users up. The easiest way to get more magic users out there is to find the minimum set of magical traditions that can be made accessible to the maximum number of students. Assuming you can’t do much to change the starting ability scores of the population, you’ll have to just make the best use of what you can get. So three training programs, one requiring Int, one requiring Wis, and one requiring Cha would let you take in anyone who had any potential to become a caster.

Finding a suitable Int-based casting tradition is easy. Archivist, Wizard, and Wu Jen spring to mind.

It’s harder to find Wis-based casters that don’t lock you into specific philosophical outlooks. You don’t want to have to turn away potential students because they don’t have strong feelings about anything. Shaman and Spirit Shaman are possibilities, I guess. Maybe a strong desire to learn magic is sufficient to be a Cleric of a magic deity or a Cleric of the abstract concept of magic?

Finding Cha-based classes whose lore states that their abilities are the result of training is also hard. I can find Dread Necromancer, Sha’ir, Shugenja, and Sublime Chord. I guess Archivist with the Dynamic Priest feat could work too.

It's more, 'given the setup of Greyhawk, based mostly on 1e/2e lore, with a few of the implications from various 3.5e books mixed in, how does a dedicated, wealthy, knowledgeable individual go about helping the setting make the transition from the way it exists in mostly the 2e lore, to one where 'having all the 3.5e things that it supposedly has' is even remotely plausible? Like, in which cities does one look for what type of caster? Which mountain ranges or forests does one look for what type of dragon or giant or coatl or whatever? And so on.

For crying out loud, per the older setting lore, divine casters that do NOT have a patron deity do not exist in Greyhawk. Someone would need to invent the techniques to access the appropriate planar energies without the intervention of a deity!

[daremetoidareyo]

Why a bard?

[Gavinfoxx]

Why a bard?

Cause the setting has, canonically, mostly a bunch of jerk druids, a bunch of jerk clerics, a bunch of jerk wizards... and bards. A Bard of the right sort seems to be the person most situated to be a free thinker and a leader and a trader and magic enough to not get mind zonked the first time they try to peacefully interact with some mentally powerful monster, AND they would have enough access to weird lore to, yaknow, look for odd creatures and legends to help their search. Wizards in Greyhawk, while powerful... follow certain antisocial archetypes closely.

Like, if you want to negotiate with a bunch of young Wizards who chafe at the local guilds stifling their research, headstrong sorcerers, clerics of minor magic gods who feel extremely envious of the resources and following that larger faiths have, dragons of a few varieties, sphinxes, naga, fey of various sort, etc. etc., wouldn't YOU want to have both magic and mundane means at your disposal?

[pabelfly]

I'd just steal the Pathfinder 2e adventure path "Strength of Thousands" and change the stat blocks to 3.5 stats but keep the lore and encounters

[Kazyan]

Delete the Sor/Wiz list and CoDzilla, and also probably Wu Jen, and other species of magic will be able to thrive in a world where "an equivalent Wizard can do that better" isn't a universally true statement.

[Gavinfoxx]

I'd just steal the Pathfinder 2e adventure path "Strength of Thousands" and change the stat blocks to 3.5 stats but keep the lore and encounters


Delete the Sor/Wiz list and CoDzilla, and also probably Wu Jen, and other species of magic will be able to thrive in a world where "an equivalent Wizard can do that better" isn't a universally true statement.

Can't, pre-existing setting and canon. Hence the descriptions about working within existing setting canon and naming the existing setting canon.

[Dimers]

Finding and recruiting hidden talent takes three steps. First, you need to know the opportunity exists. Second, you need to locate it, probably in person. Third, you have to convince it to work with you.

Step three is relatively easy for bards. They know how to talk to people and can use potentially use spells and class features to boost their chances.

For step two, I'd recommend researching a custom spell. It'd be like a cross between circle dance and find the path with a touch of legend lore thrown in -- all of which are bard spells. Bard spells are also good for analyzing or scrutinizing targets, and a few also deal with fortune or fate, so it's not unreasonable to design a spell with the effect of showing the way to a fateful/"lucky"/important creature. If you can't make a custom spell, you're stuck relying on local guides or a probably unsustainable amount of legwork per target.

The hardest part is the first step. What you really need is an effect like divination or commune, a "tell me what path to explore next" effect, who to try to find or where to start looking. There's nothing like that in bard spells. Bardic knowledge and Gather Information skill help a bit, maybe Knowledge (local) in a game where "local" isn't specific to one location. Focusing on one region at a time, you learn where the weirdos and hermit mystics might be found, through mundane knowledge. It's weak but it's better than nothing. Once you get a decently powerful diviner (e.g. favored soul or psion) on your team, they might be able to help out with determining good regions to investigate.

[Gavinfoxx]

Finding and recruiting hidden talent takes three steps. First, you need to know the opportunity exists. Second, you need to locate it, probably in person. Third, you have to convince it to work with you.

Step three is relatively easy for bards. They know how to talk to people and can use potentially use spells and class features to boost their chances.

For step two, I'd recommend researching a custom spell. It'd be like a cross between circle dance and find the path with a touch of legend lore thrown in -- all of which are bard spells. Bard spells are also good for analyzing or scrutinizing targets, and a few also deal with fortune or fate, so it's not unreasonable to design a spell with the effect of showing the way to a fateful/"lucky"/important creature. If you can't make a custom spell, you're stuck relying on local guides or a probably unsustainable amount of legwork per target.

The hardest part is the first step. What you really need is an effect like divination or commune, a "tell me what path to explore next" effect, who to try to find or where to start looking. There's nothing like that in bard spells. Bardic knowledge and Gather Information skill help a bit, maybe Knowledge (local) in a game where "local" isn't specific to one location. Focusing on one region at a time, you learn where the weirdos and hermit mystics might be found, through mundane knowledge. It's weak but it's better than nothing. Once you get a decently powerful diviner (e.g. favored soul or psion) on your team, they might be able to help out with determining good regions to investigate.

Bardic Sage includes Contact Other Plane, would that be helpful?

[Dimers]

I don't touch that spell. As a player, I'd rather fall back on nonmagical means than use magic with a minimum 10% chance of actively misleading answers. And there's a fair likelihood you get no answer at all and instead become broken for a few weeks. The risk to reward ratio is too high for me.

[Gnaeus]

I would start with the assumption that more people are inherently capable of learning in a reasonably short time the NPC classes. Adept, Gleaner and Magewright. All 3 have inherent societal benefits for a first or second level caster, or several low level casters. I would train a ton of those and spread them in your target area, build up a magic using base. Find a church to work with you so the adepts get a domain.

[Gavinfoxx]

Are there any canonical Greyhawk institutions or individuals which might be especially on board with providing support on the ground, as it were? Also isn't there a psionic npc class somewhere?

Which deities or churches would most support this sort of thing? I can't imagine the church of Boccob would be too happy, they often tend towards 'magic only for the worthy' sort of views, don't they?

Is there any specific member if the Circle of Eight that would be best to approach?

A specific Greyhawk Dragon?

[Southern Cross]

I have an idea.
Suppose the owner of the floating castle died while planar travelling? His companions decide to travel to Geyhawk, find the bard in possession of the castle, and agree to found a school of magic named after their fallen friend.

[Gavinfoxx]

Here's what I've been able to find about the keep...

https://greyhawk-26.obsidianportal.com/wikis/spinning-cloud
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_sites.html

Apparently, it's a floating mage tower (containing many traps and Air Elementals and Invisible Stalkers) called Spinning Cloud, built by an air elemental-focused wizard named Jummenen (who may have died during a visit to the Elemental Plane of Air), of the house of Garasteth, and it's located just south of the Nordan Villages, near Rinloru.

[Jay R]

So... the question is... in order to make this work and get started with all the different types of magic that may be just starting to be (re?)developed in the setting, who and what do you pick up? What powerful magical creatures do you bribe, what with your ability to make a killing with the only reliable heavy air freight on the entire continent, to become faculty and staff? What do you pick up, based on legends of possibly existing somewhere? What about some of those few existing practitioners of magic which might be less antisocial uncollaborative jerks than their peers?

The first, necessary observation is that this will take decades, maybe generations, to have a major effect on the society at large.

Therefore you don't need to find the "right' abilities or classes. To start, you need the people who are willing to try. Any non-traditional magic of any sort will eventually be part of your school, so it doesn't matter which you start with. Just find the people who want to teach (and research) the magic they know.

And don't forget that universities are research institutes first, and teaching institutes second.

I had a math teacher once who taught a lot of proofs in an applied math course. When asked about it, he said, "One cannot apply that math that one does not know." Similarly, one cannot teach that magic that has not yet been developed.

[tiercel]

Are there any canonical Greyhawk institutions or individuals which might be especially on board with providing support on the ground, as it were? Also isn't there a psionic npc class somewhere?

Which deities or churches would most support this sort of thing? I can't imagine the church of Boccob would be too happy, they often tend towards 'magic only for the worthy' sort of views, don't they?

Is there any specific member if the Circle of Eight that would be best to approach?

A specific Greyhawk Dragon?

By default, if you follow, say, the description of Boccob’s followers (“The Eternal Library”) in Complete Champion

The church never takes sides in political conflicts, and its members care only about who stands between them and another magical discovery. The Eternal Library often employs adventurers to acquire new or rare magic items and spells, or to retrieve the long-lost magical knowledge of some ancient culture. If the desired item or information is already in someone else’s possession, the church does not hesitate to lie or cheat to acquire it, or even steal it outright.

Plus a character looking to improve his affiliation score with the Eternal Library can gain points for
* “Recovers an ancient, previously lost piece of knowledge (such as a new spell)”
* “Discovers a new source of magical power”
* “Creates a new spell or magic item”
* “Founds a school of magic”

So… this kind of project sounds right up Boccob’s church’s alley.

Having said that…

If the bard in question is working with, or directly for, the church of Boccob then he will probably get strong support (with the possibility that some old guard within the church might look askance if he looks to teach magic to just *anyone*, perhaps).

But if this bard is freelancing without involving Boccob, then Boccobites might infiltrate the new school to learn/spy/steal what they see as rightfully theirs.

In terms of Circle of Eight folk, quite possibly Otto

Ultimately, Otto's studies have remained close to the roots he followed before the Greyhawk Wars. He is obsessed with the structure of magic on Oerth, but, unlike Mordenkainen, he takes the unorthodox opinion that the form of magic and the form of music have some telling similarities…. One of the younger members at age 53, Otto is also one of the most colorful. Otto often poses as a rich, cheerful merchant, but he is easily picked out in a crowd because of his huge girth and his ruffled and beribboned clothing. He is a gourmet constantly in search of new, exotic dishes to sample, and is a patron of the arts. He has a natural talent for music and adds musical elements to his spells, which include singing fjreballs and yodeling ice storms.


https://davidleonard-greyhawkmusings.blogspot.com/2020/07/on-otto.html

[Gavinfoxx]

In terms of Circle of Eight folk, quite possibly Otto


I actually heard, from one of the authors of Greyhawk lore, that it was Tenser who is one of the most reasonable of the Circle of Eight.

[sreservoir]

I don't touch that spell. As a player, I'd rather fall back on nonmagical means than use magic with a minimum 10% chance of actively misleading answers. And there's a fair likelihood you get no answer at all and instead become broken for a few weeks. The risk to reward ratio is too high for me.

I mean, that's an excuse to be the crazy headmaster, I guess.

[tiercel]

I actually heard, from one of the authors of Greyhawk lore, that it was Tenser who is one of the most reasonable of the Circle of Eight.

Probably in a “ Greetings, Starfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-dan Armada.” save-the-world kinda way; he is arguably the most active Good-aligned member/ex-member (depending on the placement in canon timeline), even shows up in Age of Worms AP as Manzorian.

I just thought that the “change/expand magic” quest is not necessarily heroic *per se*, but a more free-wheeling, edging on Chaotic bon vivant who’s into “alternative magic” with music in, and also a Boccobite to boot, might match up well.

[Jack_Simth]

You'll want something like a sorting hat, that reads stats, to ID where to place students.

Int high? Train as a Wizard or Archivist. High expense classes, but solid rewards. Beguiler for those without gobs of cash for books.
Wis high? Train as a Cleric (with Druid options). You'll also want alignment checking here.
Cha high? Train as a Sorcerer.
Con high? Train as Incarnate, Totemist, or Dragonfire Adept.
No good score? Warlock. Artificer can also get away with it.

Can also do it via placement testing, of course. Logic tests for Int, perception tests for Wis, breath holding tests for Con... not sure how one would test Cha. Lots of repeating tests would be required for placement, as the d20 will absolutely overwhelm the modifier for the kids. But on a straight 3d6, the odds that they don't have at least one OK score in those four are quite low.

[Bohandas]

As near as I can tell... the only people who are actually on the forefront of magical technology and science and engineering in the setting.... is the massive variety and quantity of hideously evil wizards, clerics, and sorcerers that are making and inhabiting dungeons as adventurer fodder.

There's also the Circle of Eight and the Company of Seven. And magical technology is a main area of interest for the followers of the demigod Murlynd


I would start with the assumption that more people are inherently capable of learning in a reasonably short time the NPC classes. Adept, Gleaner and Magewright.

Gleaner? I'm not familiar with that one. Where's it from?

[Quertus]

This is an interesting question, but it's kinda like asking, "How would one start with the Forgotten Realms, and end up with modern Japan?". And, IMO, it's easier and more believable if you have an agent from the outside, familiar with the intended end state, intentionally attempting to create that state. Happily, Greyhawk at least used to be pretty canonically well connected (after all, almost every world has Melf's Acid Arrow, Evard's Black Tentacles, Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer, Mordenkainen's Disjunction, etc.

1e had maybe Fighter, Mage, Cleric, and Thief. (OK, it had more). 2e added Psion(icist), Paladin, Ranger, Druid, Specialist Wizards, and Bard (no "Bardic Sage ACF"). But it also had Spelldancer and many more... through kits. And "build your own" through the Skills and Powers line.

Greyhawk? That's home to the Council of 8, right? Some of whom are presumably mortal humans, right? They existed in 1e/2e, and if you're having them be alive in this 3e Greyhawk, then you've got decades at most to work with. So no "ancient traditions", no "I am an Arcane Archer like my father before me".

So... what happened? Reality suddenly changed, for reasons? Now the "Ninja" and "Sorcerer" and "Ur-Priest" and "Illithid Savant" and "Eunich Monk" classes magically became available (while certain other kits suddenly... were hit by Balefire, or gobbled up by their deity, like Assassins during the Time of Troubles?)? And this Bard, discovering the "Bardic Sage ACF", is collecting people to help research these changes and discover and proliferate new classes?

Or was Greyhawk hit by the power of mighty Retcon, and all these things have always been here, nobody needs to research anything? And this Bard is just working on the "Proliferation" that Mighty Retcon *didn't* enforce?

Or... what? Where are we in the world, and how did we get there?

How you set up the transition plays a very large part in answering how one might realistically (versamilitudinally?) go about, well, roleplaying even thinking about such a school.

Also, the one and only source of a monopoly on nearly-free money? You'll probably need a good answer why someone doesn't murder this young bard, or at least give him an offer he can't refuse, before he can get this school off the ground (heh).

-----

As to how *I* would mage a magic school to force a setting away from low magic? Hmmm... fast time plane, lots of breeding, Exterminatus of previous low-magic planet, build a replacement planet, populate it with descendants of original students, profit? That seems like one of the most efficient ways, IMO. :smallwink:

[Kazyan]

Can't, pre-existing setting and canon. Hence the descriptions about working within existing setting canon and naming the existing setting canon.

Fair! To be more helpful instead of an anti-Wizard curmudgeon, the splatbooks kinda tend to assume Greyhawk or a Greyhawk-like setting, and thus you can take advantage of the special locations that they contain. Bring together the locations and organizations that contain these diverse types of magic, so that you make it easier to learn diverse magic than to learn traditional magic. Bolded because that's the key principle. If you do that, people will take care of the rest for you and develop into an ecosystem of diverse magic naturally.

Magic of Incarnum has a whole cache of this kind of thing, since they seemed to think that a book's worth of content for a whole incarnum campaign would help sell people on it. The Bastion of Souls, the Sapphire Eidolon, the whole deal with the Rilkans and Skarns...

Even if you can't import locations and organizations, though, the principle applies. Warlocks get their powers from dark patrons, so organize something with an entity to hand out deals all over the place in one location of your choice. In another, pass out books on Binding and normalize the summoning of vestiges; the knowledge of vestige seals and aversion to getting witch-hunted is the main obstacle to becoming a Binder. Have Truespeech as an elective in local schools and have Amulets of the Silver Tongue out on loan to anyone who expresses any degree of interest in it. Corral some friendly spirits that will guide the attention-deficient bookish types towards becoming a Wu Jen instead of difficult wizardry.

[Gavinfoxx]

Or... what? Where are we in the world, and how did we get there?

How you set up the transition plays a very large part in answering how one might realistically (versamilitudinally?) go about, well, roleplaying even thinking about such a school.

Also, the one and only source of a monopoly on nearly-free money? You'll probably need a good answer why someone doesn't murder this young bard, or at least give him an offer he can't refuse, before he can get this school off the ground (heh).


My interpretation is that the rules NEVER fully describe the setting or the capabilities of the people in the setting -- at best, the rules of a given edition approximate how things work. Since most greyhawk lore is 2e, and describes a setting with relatively few varieties of magic and that is relatively gritty, my premise here is, '3.5e magic paths have been possible for a while, but mostly, no one is discovering them since there's only a few established traditions that would encourage transition into the more diverse 3.5e styles of learning.' IE, showing the transition from a more limited 2e style setting to a more diverse, possibly even zany and over the top, 3.5e style setting, even if both versions would function under 3.5e rules. The Bardic Sage acf was one of the things that's plausible to be discovered 'early', due to existing institutions focusing on Bardic magic and lore and varieties of Arcane magic. Make sense?

[noob]

So. I would like to crowdsource an idea I have for a bit of a campaign I'm setting up. So... I've noticed a few things, and I've made some interesting extrapolations. NOTE: I AM ATTEMPTING TO FOCUS ON DOING THIS WITHIN AN EXISTING, PRE-ESTABLISHED, CANON-COMPLIANT SETTING.

Greyhawk, despite being the 'default' 3.5e setting, isn't reaaallllyyy the best fit, if one goes by the established Greyhawk lore. This would be for a 'mostly canonical Greyhawk' campaign, FYI.

It's, well... it has a low level of cosmopolitanism, a relatively low population, the settlements are relatively poor, it's quite post-apocalyptic, the styles of magic are very conservative (you pretty much JUST find Wizards and JUST Clerics of established gods; the Druids are all 'good and evil must stay in balance!' types, etc. etc.), and the like.

In fact, it's a 1e/2e gritty (though not as gritty as Athas) points of light in darkness setting.

And to this, one is supposed to add the massive amount of gonzo variety that is... pretty much all of 3.5e spellcasting?? Psionics? Incarnum? Shadow Magic? Soul Binding? Auras? Blade Magic? Infusions? Invocations? All the magical crafting techniques? The various types of shamanic magic and nature paths that aren't Druids? Any of the Pathfinder stuff that fits in a roughly 3.5e world? The idea of various sorts of divine classes which does NOT involve or require a god's intervention? Or even the variety of 4e or 5e options, like psionic monks and rogues? Where would it all fit? How would it even develop? How could you even have a school of <insert odd style of supernatural puissance here>?

As near as I can tell... the only people who are actually on the forefront of magical technology and science and engineering in the setting.... is the massive variety and quantity of hideously evil wizards, clerics, and sorcerers that are making and inhabiting dungeons as adventurer fodder.

So, here's my setup:

A young Bard (Bardic Sage ACF; one that's reasonably plausible to show up on Greyhawk; the idea is that this sort of character has sufficient variety of skill, intelligence, leadership, knowledge, lore, and magical ability [especially of the enchantment and defending against enchantment] to pull this off) has found the ONE floating island with a castle on it in the setting, the one with an absentee landlord, and has managed to get the stupid thing mobile and refurbished it as a floating magical school. His goal: to make a magic school for all paths of nontraditional magic, with the express purpose of advancing and disseminating the knowledge and practice of these across the continent of Oerik, which allows all types of sapient entities to attend as faculty or students, provided they keep the peace within the school's grounds and airspace and adjacent planar presence.

So... the question is... in order to make this work and get started with all the different types of magic that may be just starting to be (re?)developed in the setting, who and what do you pick up? What powerful magical creatures do you bribe, what with your ability to make a killing with the only reliable heavy air freight on the entire continent, to become faculty and staff? What do you pick up, based on legends of possibly existing somewhere? What about some of those few existing practitioners of magic which might be less antisocial uncollaborative jerks than their peers?
Recruit some teachers that aligns with your goals and get them to indoctrinate people toward the same goals as you (ideally in an isolated school so that you can control the opinions of the people within, which you already got).
Also insist on magic item creation: magic items goes a long way toward making riches that serves people for multiple generations, eventually over thousands of years there will be a lot of magical item because there is very few people who actually wants to destroy precious loot.
That or just get that item that spams hypnosis at will and use the island as a "redeemery" but oriented toward making people in servitors of your cause. (and pick up only evil people that you convert in good guys so that you have to fight only half of the people in the setting)

[Gavinfoxx]

That or just get that item that spams hypnosis at will and use the island as a "redeemery" but oriented toward making people in servitors of your cause. (and pick up only evil people that you convert in good guys so that you have to fight only half of the people in the setting)

Isn't that a bit extreme? Also, I don't know that item.

[Southern Cross]

Yes it is extreme. And is a terrible idea besides. You want willing staff, not brainwashed slaves. And if anybody found out, that could lead to a massive assault on the school. To say nothing of what would happen if somebody broke free of the hypnotism.
But more to the point, if you don't know what item the person is talking about, then your characters won't know about it either.

[noob]

Yes it is extreme. And is a terrible idea besides. You want willing staff, not brainwashed slaves. And if anybody found out, that could lead to a massive assault on the school. To say nothing of what would happen if somebody broke free of the hypnotism.
But more to the point, if you don't know what item the person is talking about, then your characters won't know about it either.
By raw you literally can not break free of hypnotism since you change the mind at the end of the spell duration making the target like more whatever thing you want it to like, by that point the spell is over, the effect can not be dispelled because there is no spell on the target any-more, the guy is doing the suggested action on its own will because his mind itself have instantly been altered.



While the subject is fascinated by this spell, it reacts as though it were two steps more friendly in attitude (see Influencing NPC Attitudes, page 72). This allows you to make a single request of the affected creature (provided you can communicate with it). The request must be brief and reasonable. Even after the spell ends, the creature retains its new attitude toward you, but only with respect to that particular request. A creature that fails its saving throw does not remember that you enspelled it.

As for massive assaults, if you are an adventurer, you would get assaulted massively anyway so if you did not learn how to flee efficiently or defend a location you were going to die anyway.
For most people there is not much difference between "this guy is raising armies of the undead" and "this guy is hypnotising evil people to make them benevolent" and "this guy is making a simulacrum army" and "this guy spends his time on stealth assassination missions against rich people to get their magical items"(and the last one is what an adventurer generally does) because in all the cases, they are people accumulating massive amounts of power through unethical means and in the specific case of the individual hypnotising evil people specifically, most non evil people would not feel concerned until they see one of their evil companions get kidnapped and released forever different.
It is a bit like the guy that kills only evil people to get their wealth. Nobody will bother except evil people(they feel targeted) or people who knows one evil guy that have been killed by the adventurers. By harming a specific population and not everybody, you reduce the amount of people that wants to fight you. As an adventurer it is better to kill people in a specific category in order to reduce the amount of opponents you have to fight and we observe adventurers generally picks hated people("quest targets") or rich evil people("nobody is going to stop me except that guy and his army").

Essentially, by opening a redeemery you will not have to fight good people because a good guy should be fighting the lich king rampaging indiscriminately the world to make an undead army at a rapid pace instead of fighting you because you are not accumulating army as fast as a necromancer and you are not killing good people to make that army.
That is until good people runs out of big bad evil guys to kill(which is more and more likely because you are producing more good guys from evil guys therefore diminishing the population of "big bad evil guys to kill") at which point they could consider allocating their time killing you (but then they might be considered evil by dnd morality meaning you can just grab them again and turn them good a second time).


Or we could look at all of it on a planar point of view.
Bad people who dies turns into evil outsiders and those are extremely dangerous, when you get too many of them they do stuff like converting more of the planes into layers of their evil afterlives so we can conclude that killing evil people is incredibly bad on a long term aspect at which point you do not have much choice: you have to either make them immortal(ex: turn them into liches or trap them in stasis forever) or to make them good.
So either you imprison all evil guys instead of killing them or you build a redeemery, if we factor in the planar aspect, most people will quickly acknowledge that even if a redeemery is unethical that it is a mandatory awful thing in existence needed to keep the evil planes from growing stronger due to the fact the alternative is just to shove all the evil guys in jars which presents long term problems due to the fact one day people could possibly find a way to free them all at once.
By the way, the lower planes are a good source of targets to convert for a redeemery if you can be good enough at hiding from their leaders or just have the kind of extreme defences needed to defeat billions of balors.
How many adventurers do you know that puts in stasis the bbeg instead of killing him?

[Tiktakkat]

Having run games set in Greyhawk since the folio was first published, it sounds more like you are willingly painting yourself into a corner in order to have to work your way out of it.

There is plenty of room in Greyhawk for virtually anything and everything.
Xan Yae and Zuoken provide an entry to both psionics and monk variations which can include ninjas.
Specialty clerics appeared with the write-ups of Greyhawk deities back when Dragon was numbered in the 60s and opens up variations on divine casters.
Kelanen is the hero-deity of swords and opens up Tome of Battle.
Murlynd is the hero-deity of magical technology and opens up whatever you want on that account.
Spelljammer has a canon presence in Greyhawk as does Planescape, opening up pretty much everything else.
And then there is WG7 Castle Greyhawk which, as absurd and derided as it is, opens up whatever degree of magic al excess one wants.
Even without it, despite numerous comments about restrictions, the content of adventures more than supports minor trade in magic items, as does a good deal of the Gord books, including the earliest ones which were canon.

Just because most canon Greyhawk materials were written before the swarm of 3E and later class variants in no way excludes their being incorporated into the setting with a few taps of the keyboard into a campaign notes file.
If you want variant material just include it. There are justifications everywhere for anything you want if you dig for it enough and if you cannot or do not want to bother digging it then Rule 0 is always there to customize the setting as you see fit. As for finding that:

"However, that is all past. The World of Greyhawk is yours, now - yours to do with it as you wish. You can mold new states out of old or inflame ancient rivalries into open warfare as you tailor the world to suit the needs of your players. The time has come for new legends to be created, new battles to be fought, new songs to be sung. It is your world - and welcome to it!"
- The World of Greyhawk Gazetteer, page 3, 1980

[Ashiel]

So... the question is... in order to make this work and get started with all the different types of magic that may be just starting to be (re?)developed in the setting, who and what do you pick up? What powerful magical creatures do you bribe, what with your ability to make a killing with the only reliable heavy air freight on the entire continent, to become faculty and staff? What do you pick up, based on legends of possibly existing somewhere? What about some of those few existing practitioners of magic which might be less antisocial uncollaborative jerks than their peers?

Change the world. Easier done than said in some aspects. You said that Grayhawk is "a low level of cosmopolitanism, a relatively low population, the settlements are relatively poor, it's quite post-apocalyptic", so you've actually answered your own question without realizing it. It's a low populated world with the majority of the population being fairly poor. Magic is a thing that (at least as written) can put an end to that quick, fast, and in a damn hurry.

Offer apprenticeship programs where students can be taken and as part of their training they also participate in the creation of useful magic items that increase the wealth of communities. Even if you do not have students that are magic item artisans, anyone who has magical powers of any sort inevitably becomes at least somewhat in demand when it comes to meeting spellcasting prerequisites for crafting magic items or providing services to the populace. Even the most routine and simple of magical contraptions (such as resetting create water and burning hands traps to create infinite steam engines) could allow for major life improvements for people in the world. Set up some stone monuments through a harsh desert, where each uses create water for anyone who needs it, creating both a system of markers through the desert as well as a route for trade and travel to be easier.

Attract magical beings by appealing earnestly to their desires and natures. Befriend a dragon by tithing a small % of your magical creations to their hoard in exchange for their wisdom and protection (simply ravaging your school and taking what you have would be a bad deal, since the dragon would get more by your school flourishing). Make agriculture more sustainable with less land to protect the homes and environments of dryads. Make life easier on the citizens of the kingdom to make more opportunity to study magic rather than trying to toil the fields to make sure the potatoes don't rot in the earth. You don't even need an industrial revolution to achieve much the same benefits of one.

You're also a bard. Put out some solid propaganda and maybe write some plays or something about how noble and in fashion it is to learn magic. Convince people that their sons and daughters becoming a mystical and magical is something to be proud of. If your association is routinely doing things like making survival less difficult and things like food less scarce, it'll be true. Write up a code of conduct, goals, and ethics and stick to them (no experimenting on sapient beings for example, only using donated or purchased remains for things like necromantic reanimation studies, or simply using animal corpses instead).

Grab up all the downtrodden sort first. In a setting like Grayhawk, how many kids, young adults, or even adults are going to hop at the chance to live in a castle and be provided room and board in exchange for learning and bettering the world rather than begging for coppers on the street corners? Make it clear in your public code of conduct that everyone within your project is equal (from the stable boy to the noble son) but more than that they are now brothers and sisters upon a journey.

In short, make the world better and you'll achieve your goals. Give and you shall receive.

[Paragon]

It's funny this is kind of the main schtick to the homemade campaign I'm currently running for friends.

Long story short, they started up in a very low level magic world that was in fact a demi-plane made to keep low tier classes from "polluting" the real people. It cracks me up to reenact the Class Conflict with actual classes sorted by JaronK's Tier system.

Anyho, I took some inspiration out of Wuxia novels and simply had a portal connect the 2 worlds (which could only be accessed by those worthy enough, ie : tournament). It seems to be working for them so far and since one of said players has been known to roam these forums, I'm not spoiling the rest :smallbiggrin:

[aglondier]

Years ago, just after the release of 3.0, I played in a Birthright campaign. I was playing Ilien, a tiny nation ruled by a dynasty of wizards, and drawing power from the leylines stretching into their neighbouring lands. I had decided to establish a wizarding university in my capital. My DM ruled that while building the infrastructure was easy enough, there simply weren't enough active mages to support it.

My solution was to establish free universal education for the people of my nation, including basic instruction in magic.

As it was 3rd ed, we created a feat to cover this, that would be the 1st level feat for all citizens of my land. Can't quite remember it, but it was something along the lines of a +1 bonus to Knowledge (arcana) and gain a single Cantrip (level 0) spell slot, along with a spellbook containing 3 cantrips.

As long as their Intelligence wasn't below 10, they would be able to cast a cantrip once a day, and the clever ones would continue their studies in magic, giving me a population to send to magic university in a few years.

If your goal is to upgrade your setting from low magic to high, then you need to look at even the common folk being able to work a little magic on the side.

More recently I've been playing Pathfinder 1st, and some of the 3rd party material has featured cut back magic item crafting feats that allow lower level casters to make second rate, low level, or shoddy magic items. Like the Ring Apprentice feat that allows a 3rd level caster to craft rings with a gp value up to about 1000gp...

[Gavinfoxx]

More recently I've been playing Pathfinder 1st, and some of the 3rd party material has featured cut back magic item crafting feats that allow lower level casters to make second rate, low level, or shoddy magic items. Like the Ring Apprentice feat that allows a 3rd level caster to craft rings with a gp value up to about 1000gp...

Eh, there's a ton of great crafting feats that you can get at third level. Craft Wondrous Item and Craft Universal Item, for example. Also stuff like: Inscribe Rune, Attune Gem, Imprint Stone, Scribe Scroll, Sanctify Relic, and Scribe Tattoo.

[Gavinfoxx]

It's my own thread, so I can add more content.

So, this campaign got put on hold for a while, but now it's more of a thing!

So, here's what I'm thinking....

Much of the concept of the game will be with a few things:

1.) Preventing that one crashed starship in Greyhawk from exploding, and reverse-engineering it or using it for parts
2.) Building out that one stolen floating castle to be an actual huge airship/school/campus thing
3.) Commissioning that one necessary spell from an appropriate member of the Circle of Eight
4.) Using the spell to find, mostly, enclaves of nonhuman species that aren't part of the main 'normal' political milieu of Greyhawk, and solving their problems and convincing at least some groups of them to join.

Here's some of my main ideas for plotlines:

For psionics outside of 'monastic traditions' that are associated with a single god:

Convincing a Crystal Dragon to join, maybe some Quanak Lizardfolk as well, and maybe some Kobolds -- my interpretation of Kobolds having... sooooo many statlines in 3.5e is that there are lesser kobolds, and then there are kobolds that, like goblinoids, have had some 'messing with'. I typically see this as done under the auspices of dragons, and I don't think that Kobolds would... mind too much. They have the right mindset, I think, to allow for a few eggs to get broken in making an omelet. Maybe unlocking that homebrew 'Dragonshard Adept' I found on these forums for them! This sort of class makes sense for one of the types that should be 'creatable' by the School

An interesting sidequest with a Crystal Dragon would be finding an Ectoplasmic Dragon, which I see would be a gem dragon of some kind that has had something horrible done to it, driving it mad. Is this fixable? If so, what abilities would the resulting creature have?

The third 'dragon' focused sidequest would be in finding a Tome Dragon. This would be absolutely vital to the proceedings; the at-will Arcane Sight is incredibly useful. A young, not set in their ways one would be ideal, though that's likely a creature that one of the many, many horrible evil arcanists in the setting would kidnap, that could be a plotline!

Anyway, I was thinking of a few species that make sense of being findable for specific 'weird magic' types:

Aaracokra/Garuda, or flying bird archer people. These guys would make sense for Artificers as a sort of people with a tradition of 'mystic archery', and getting their help would be very useful!

Rakasta/Tabaxi: Probably where the Blade Magic/Tome of Battle options would come from. Flashy mystic warriors types where the moves seem performative but do weird things makes sense, and horrible, horrible things seem to happen to these peoples all around Greyhawk lore; perhaps some of that might be preventable.

Abeil: The bee people would probably have a sort of natural Druidic magic that, notably, is arguably separate from the hidebound Druidic circles in canon Greyhawk. Maybe find a Princess who wants to set up her own Duchy somewhere. Aside from that, maybe Fauns with natural agricultural, but technically Druidic, magic might be a thing somewhere.

Also notable, is that there probably are SOME SORT of people who do 'divine magic without involving a God or Goddess' on Oerth, they are just going to be suuuuuper rare as basically every canon instance of a named divine caster follows a god of some sort. Possibly some Sacred Fists who venerate but do not worship Zuoken, and take a lot of feats with the word 'Ki' in them. These sorts would be the types who might be able to go through that quest line in Magic of Incarnum and break that Incarnum seal thing, allowing for a wider variety of 'soul' magic to fill the setting, and for soul magic to do more things.

Anyways, I just wanted your thoughts about some of these ideas, or other ways to generate plots and adventures for this sort of thing!

[thethird]

If I was setting a magic school. I would go with dragons, Sardior, and archivists. Sardior is a draconic god, so him and dragons match well, and as a god him and archivists also mix.

Things you want:
-archivist base levels, this is the best to learn spells.
-hexer prc 2 levels, this gets you any sorc/wizard spell (turning it into divine)
-ruby disciple prc 1 level, this gets you all telepathy powers as divine spells you want like psychic reformation (you really want that)
-wyrm wizard prc 2 levels, this gets you any spell.
-magic mantle ardent combined with wyrm wizard, should let you get you powers from wyrm wizard.

Write down all divine spells, keep using psychic reformation to get all arcane spells, and all psionic "spells" written down eventually. Use cheesy lists to get lower level spells.

From there establish a school for archivists. What spell do you want? Praise Sardior

[Gavinfoxx]

Oh!! I forgot.

Sardior doesn't exist in Greyhawk yet according to most Canon sources.

I was thinking of a plotline with maybe, uh, making him? As being A Thing.

[thethird]

Oh!! I forgot.

Sardior doesn't exist in Greyhawk yet according to most Canon sources.

I was thinking of a plotline with maybe, uh, making him? As being A Thing.

To be fair I take that most of 3.5 not setting specific (forgotten realms / eberron / dragon lance) is going into greyhawk. But if Sardior doesn't exist then ruby disciples are out.

You can still use hexer or wyrm wizard to get spells into the archivist chassis but then it's going to be more complicated to do it on your own.

Build a library, like bring a new spell copy a spell.

[Quertus]

It's my own thread, so I can add more content.

Well, I've never even understood why "thread necromancy" was a bad thing, but... I think, in the future, the safest course of action would be creating a new thread, and linking back to the old one, but what do I know?

[Jack_Simth]

Well, I've never even understood why "thread necromancy" was a bad thing, but... I think, in the future, the safest course of action would be creating a new thread, and linking back to the old one, but what do I know?
My (probably flawed) understanding is that it's a database thing. The way the database is set up is great for recent stuff, but is horribly inefficient when the first post it's grabbing the title from is buried three years in the past or some such. And when you necro a thread, it's on the first page, which means that horribly inefficient query runs for every visitor to the forums.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Well, you must start them young, and a magic school is not a proper magic school without a magic school bus.

And what's a magic school bus without Miss Frizzle (https://www.mugglenet.com/2019/08/ms-frizzle-a-witch-gone-rogue/)?

[Crake]

Where would it all fit?

You know not every 3.5 supplement needs to be included in every 3.5 campaign, right? A campaign doesn't need to have psionics, incarnum, shadow magic, truespeaking, tome of battle, and everything in between.

[Gavinfoxx]

You know not every 3.5 supplement needs to be included in every 3.5 campaign, right? A campaign doesn't need to have psionics, incarnum, shadow magic, truespeaking, tome of battle, and everything in between.

Not all of them, necessarily. But I want to tell the story of a world transitioning from AD&D lack of, uh, 'power source variety', to a 3e/4e/5e 'greater power source variety' sort of world, I think that's an interesting story to tell. A time of chaos and upsetting power structures.

[Seward]

Hmmmm.....

I've played a campaign like that in Ars Magica. It was set after the "Magic Wars" (the Albegasenian crusade caused magi to intervene against the church and they burned out most of the usual sources of magical power failing in this effort). Our covenant was founded by a bunch of erratic geniuses who wanted to come up with low-resource ways to grow and share magical knowledge, starting with acually preserving libraries and writing new books instead of hoarding it away from apprentices and such. The campaign ended about when the Renaissance began, and that covenant had quietly reinvented teleport gates (a technique lost early in Ars Magica lore), gained political power sharing transport, learned how to "recycle" demonic vis to some useful purposes that didn't end with permanently evil magic items or corrupted wizards, set up telport-assisted colonies in Greenland, North America, Scandanavia and other low population relatively high magic areas...and had their covenant end up with a permanent Divine aura ruining it as a research base but keeping it pretty safe from demonic forces kind of annoyed with them by now....

The trick was to work within existing power structures, pretending to be normal while undermining everything with change. Say, a rogue Church of Boccob aligning with a Wizardry faction who wasn't a fan of the circle of 8 in Greyhawk and working over generations to entrench power all over Greyhawk and seeding the world with all kinds of youthful magical practitioners who are neither clerics nor wizards nor druids before anybody really wakes up to the changes.

======

Actually in the Greyhawk setting using 1st edition rules we had in one game something we called the Ahlissan Legions, where the SW portion (Ahlissa) of the Great Empire was put under so many external and interanal threats (based on Gygax lore of the time) that they decided to simply draft everybody who could learn to be a cleric or wizard (based on minimum stat of 9, a 3d6 die roll per stat and not having any existing class level, with percentages based on the notes in DMG saying only X% of the population could actually gain levels).

Turns out an entire military unit that can cast "sleep" (no save in 1st edition) can win some battles, sell all the gear the defeated unit is carrying, convert gold into xp (as was the way in 1st edition) and level up. soon they're tossing acid arrows at long range and stinking cloud at close range. Then fireballs. Then crafting wands/scrolls/etc. Eventually they transformed the entire society, exterminated all the demi-humans causing trouble in forests and hollow hills and such, reconquered all of the Great Empire, cleared out pesky things like the Tomb of Horrors on their borders and had a society where a lot of grunt work was done via chain-gangs of skeletons, any border incursion triggered magic mouth alarms that got brute squads teleported in, etc. The big problem was that when challenges ended you had a few thousand 15th level clerics and wizards organized as soldiers standing around bored, plus leveling up the next generation was challenging with most threats stomped. At least the clerics were almost entirely Hextor, a war god, so they were behind all of this until the challenges ran out....

We figured a succession war raged where most of the legions killed each other off, and a few 18th level survivors founded their own warlord states within the former empire. But it was all pretty conceptual...we did do some army-scale battles to see if the early legions would be wiped out, how much xp they'd gain with various achievements, how fast they'd level and such, but it was more a thought exercise than a real campaign. Still, that area was a high magic setting in a low magic campaign world for about a century before it all fell apart....the problem was longevity potions on the folks who became soldiers as mature adults started wearing out and the folks who never had a life before being a Legionaire started coming into positions of responsibilities....

When 3.0 came out we tested the concept, and repeated the exercise for 3.5. It still basically worked (sorcerers helped with the folks who rolled low int/wis but decent cha) but without a mechanic for "who can level" like 1st edition had, we resorted to "they draffed all the teenagers of a generation before they got their first commoner level" kinds of logic. Which meant we had 15th level people barely in their 20s standing around bored..and things fell apart a lot sooner...

[Brackenlord]

-snip-
For crying out loud, per the older setting lore, divine casters that do NOT have a patron deity do not exist in Greyhawk. Someone would need to invent the techniques to access the appropriate planar energies without the intervention of a deity!

I'm not versed in Greyhawk lore beyond the backdrop of the non-FR, non-Eberron 3.5 sourcebooks, but this exact question can be answered with Elder Evils.

According to that book Sertrous is the origin of herectic divine magic. He revealed to mortals that they do not need to worship gods to harness that power.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Is there a patron god of atheists or antitheists?

Sertrous almost counts, and probably should for this purpose.

[Rynjin]

Probably in a “ Greetings, Starfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-dan Armada.” save-the-world kinda way; he is arguably the most active Good-aligned member/ex-member (depending on the placement in canon timeline), even shows up in Age of Worms AP as Manzorian.

Yeah, this was the exact appearance I was thinking of when I went "Really? He's supposed to be the reasonable one, huh?"

[Prime32]

That or just get that item that spams hypnosis at will and use the island as a "redeemery" but oriented toward making people in servitors of your cause. (and pick up only evil people that you convert in good guys so that you have to fight only half of the people in the setting)
Your best bet is to recruit a natural werebear to bite people, then imprison them until they've entered bear form 50 times. Though this won't work on Small races (or some exotic ones like planetouched), the added HD might interfere with learning ability, and whether it counts as good-aligned behaviour is questionable.

Ideally you'd be able to find a Medium animal with 1 HD that produces good-aligned lycanthropes. Maybe a weredog?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Your best bet is to recruit a natural werebear to bite people, then imprison them until they've entered bear form 50 times. Though this won't work on Small races (or some exotic ones like planetouched), the added HD might interfere with learning ability, and whether it counts as good-aligned behaviour is questionable.

Ideally you'd be able to find a Medium animal with 1 HD that produces good-aligned lycanthropes. Maybe a weredog?CD's curse of lycanthropy would let you inflict lycanthropy for animals that aren't pre-defined in the books, so you should be able to insist that various were-animals are whatever alignment you want, so long as you can somewhat justify it. Dogs are known for being highly-trainable, loyal, and loving, so Lawful-Good isn't even a stretch, while housecats are known for being self-centered, sadistic, and cruel, so Chaotic-Evil seems fairly fitting -- although cats can also be loving as well, but mainly to those close to them.

[Gavinfoxx]

Uhhhh... guys?

Remind me again why committing mass personality rewriting, mind control, forced body alteration, etc. etc. is both supposed to be a good thing, and also supposed to support the goals of making a school, again?

[noob]

Uhhhh... guys?

Remind me again why committing mass personality rewriting, mind control, forced body alteration, etc. etc. is both supposed to be a good thing, and also supposed to support the goals of making a school, again?

Would you rather kill evil people than rewrite their mind?
If you kill an evil person, they go in an evil plane where 1: they will suffer and 2: their mind will be rewritten anyway but in order to make a more evil guy and 3: their body will be turned in pure evil.
Since in dnd killing evil people is not evil then rewriting the minds of evil people to make them good is not evil either because it is strictly better for everybody involved(you, the evil guy who avoids suffering and also will get rewarded and get support from everybody around, even the other denizens of the material planes are better off because now that former evil guy will help them too).
It is even better to turn evil people immortal and trap them in a safe place in order to make sure they never can go to evil planes(because then you are preventing their deaths and not doing bad stuff to them like mind controlling them) however I have seen no adventuring group doing that as a systematic method to get rid of people.
Basically afterlives are at fault and by extension in settings where the gods handles afterlives, the gods are at fault.
Also getting more good guys that knows you is helpful if you have a task that will improve the world such as spreading knowledge that will makes everybody's lives easier.

[ShurikVch]

@OP - question: unlike the "Low Fantasy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_fantasy)", "Low Magic" have no handy definition.
So, what is "Low Magic" for you?


For crying out loud, per the older setting lore, divine casters that do NOT have a patron deity do not exist in Greyhawk.
Moreover - even in 3E Clerics without a patron deity weren't allowed:

A cleric must serve a specific non-evil deity from the LIVING GREYHAWK Deities document (found on the campaign website). PC clerics may not serve Wastri. For your convenience, we have included a short list of deities (Table 3-4: Allowed Deities in Living Greyhawk - this is only a partial list) allowed in the campaign that appear in the PHB; the complete list of all allowable deities appears on the Living Greyhawk website. The list contains only the deity’s name, alignment, domains, and favored weapon. If two weapons are listed, either may be used as the favored weapon. If two alignments are listed the first is that of the god. The second one is the most common variant of her worshipers. For more information, see one of the sources listed previously or go to the Living Greyhawk website at www.wizards.com/lg. A paladin need not (but may) serve a patron deity. Non-clerical or paladin characters are not required to worship a deity, but if they do, they must pick from the same chart as clerics.



Someone would need to invent the techniques to access the appropriate planar energies without the intervention of a deity!
Divine magic should be something other than mere "planar energies": Kir-lanan - a race without souls - are completely incapable to wield divine magic of any kind...

[Rynjin]

Would you rather kill evil people than rewrite their mind?
If you kill an evil person, they go in an evil plane where 1: they will suffer and 2: their mind will be rewritten anyway but in order to make a more evil guy and 3: their body will be turned in pure evil.


That's the choice they made when they decided to be evil. They decided to suffer, and their afterlife/thos ethey worship will be the ones violating their autonomy.

It would be evil to do that myself.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

That's the choice they made when they decided to be evil. They decided to suffer, and their afterlife/thos ethey worship will be the ones violating their autonomy.

It would be evil to do that myself.And yet doing that prior to death to all evil creatures would mean a significant reduction in the level of evil in the multiverse, since the lower planes would not have any fuel, both spiritually (no evil creatures whose beliefs and actions perpetuate the ideals of evil) and literally (no evil creatures whose souls go on to become fiends after death).

Heck, you might even wipe the lower planes out altogether, if you can manage to hit all the evil creatures out there with a you-are-no-longer-evil effect.

[Rynjin]

And yet doing that prior to death to all evil creatures would mean a significant reduction in the level of evil in the multiverse, since the lower planes would not have any fuel, both spiritually (no evil creatures whose beliefs and actions perpetuate the ideals of evil) and literally (no evil creatures whose souls go on to become fiends after death).

Heck, you might even wipe the lower planes out altogether, if you can manage to hit all the evil creatures out there with a you-are-no-longer-evil effect.

As we all know, monstrous things have never been done in service of "the greater good".

Thinking like this is exactly how Lawful Good people become Lawful Evil, all with the best of intentions. You gonna set up a factory to round up all the evil people in the world, strap them down, and opposite-alignment them? You just doing this to the people that ping as Evil (i.e. level 5+ characters) or are you gonna go for the big win by doing it to people you suspect are evil but can't prove it? After all, what's the harm in turning someone Neutral into someone Good against their will?

How are you bringing about this state? People aren't going to go willingly, especially if you go for the latter plan. You gonna take over a country and aggressively expand your territory, converting anyone who stands against you?

Ideally this would end with the whole world Good save for one man: you. But that would never actually be the reality. Along the way other sacrifices would need to be made "for the greater good", and your own organization isn't going to be above reproach. Either they turn evil due to carrying out your demands, or rail against you because they are Good and you are doing a great Evil in service of something you believe righteous.

The latter, regrettably, will have to be put down too, I suppose. They just don't see it, the necessity in what you're doing. And they'll go to Heaven, or Nirvana, or someplace similar anyway. All a net Good, in the end...right?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

A repeating, self-replicating wish trap that affects all the air and water molecules around it within a radius to also affect those around them, and so on, not changing their basic natures, but instead after replicating casting wish to alter evil alignments of creatures nearby to neutral, before having 1/100,000,000 of them teleport or plane shift to a random place within 10,000 miles next to an evil creature. And with every molecule doing this repeatedly every round, creatures will fail their saves eventually, and if the save DC is high enough, it doesn't matter what their Will saves might be.

And if defeating and redeeming evil creatures is somehow an act of evil itself (protip: it isn't), and I turn evil? Welp, looks like I suddenly become neutral, at worst, because I'm not immune to the trap, either. Win/win.

[Rynjin]

I genuinely cannot roll my eyes hard enough to express how tiresome I find that response.

[noob]

That's the choice they made when they decided to be evil. They decided to suffer, and their afterlife/thos ethey worship will be the ones violating their autonomy.

It would be evil to do that myself.

No, it would not because most evil people are not evil aligned because they chose to want to go to evil planes, they are generally evil for much more mundane reasons related to the material plane (ex: stuff like seeking their own interest in their current life in a selfish way), killing those people would be incredibly cruel toward them as it would cause them undue suffering (and the whole mind conversion thing they did not sign up for).
Clerics of evil deities in some settings have good afterlives (as in: afterlives where they are not converted against their will and where they are rewarded), converting those through force would be wrong.


As we all know, monstrous things have never been done in service of "the greater good".

Thinking like this is exactly how Lawful Good people become Lawful Evil, all with the best of intentions. You gonna set up a factory to round up all the evil people in the world, strap them down, and opposite-alignment them? You just doing this to the people that ping as Evil (i.e. level 5+ characters) or are you gonna go for the big win by doing it to people you suspect are evil but can't prove it? After all, what's the harm in turning someone Neutral into someone Good against their will?

How are you bringing about this state? People aren't going to go willingly, especially if you go for the latter plan. You gonna take over a country and aggressively expand your territory, converting anyone who stands against you?

Ideally this would end with the whole world Good save for one man: you. But that would never actually be the reality. Along the way other sacrifices would need to be made "for the greater good", and your own organization isn't going to be above reproach. Either they turn evil due to carrying out your demands, or rail against you because they are Good and you are doing a great Evil in service of something you believe righteous.

The latter, regrettably, will have to be put down too, I suppose. They just don't see it, the necessity in what you're doing. And they'll go to Heaven, or Nirvana, or someplace similar anyway. All a net Good, in the end...right?
The average good aligned dnd organization considers killing off evil people to be a good thing, your point is moot in dnd universes where dangerous evil guy are so much rampant people considers killing evil people is a solution.
Heck some good aligned organizations filled with good clerics considers undead genocide to be a good thing while it is objectively terrible since undead 1: lives forever and so never risks to go to evil planes to suffer if you let them live 2: can have any alignment and 3: can live without harming thinking living creatures if you set up the right farms (so basically undead genocide is even worse than regular genocide which is an incredible feat which participated to the theory that Pelor was an evil god misleading its clerics).
Dnd gives a ton of leeway to good aligned people in general.
Heck there is an exalted prestige class (Emissary of Barachiel) that makes you able to forcefully convert indiscriminately all people around you including converting neutral people into good people (also converts evil people in neutral people) meaning that in dnd land even forceful conversion of neutral people is considered not evil even when done through indiscriminate means.
Would the guy you described be a terrible person? Yes. Would they be anything else than good by dnd standards? No.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I genuinely cannot roll my eyes hard enough to express how tiresome I find that response.Hey, if you ask a question with an obvious answer and are tired of hearing the obvious answer, then maybe consider not asking that question.

[ShurikVch]

Uhhhh... guys?

Remind me again why committing mass personality rewriting, mind control, forced body alteration, etc. etc. is both supposed to be a good thing, and also supposed to support the goals of making a school, again?

Would you rather kill evil people than rewrite their mind?
The "rewriting" part was the plot hook in the Villains by Necessity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villains_by_Necessity).
Long story short - it almost destroyed the world, but "heroes restored the balance" :smallamused:

[Rynjin]

Hey, if you ask a question with an obvious answer and are tired of hearing the obvious answer, then maybe consider not asking that question.

Apologies, I'll play by your rules. I do everything you do but convert the universe into ice cream. Infinty x2 etc. etc.

This adds about exactly as much value and insight as your previous response, would you like to take it to infinity x3 or are we done with the "nuh uh my guy is immune to black hole bullets" portion?

[noob]

The "rewriting" part was the plot hook in the Villains by Necessity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villains_by_Necessity).
Long story short - it almost destroyed the world, but "heroes restored the balance" :smallamused:

In dnd it actually "destroys the world" in a way: once a place is filled with too many good people, it merges with an upper plane and once a plane is filled with too many evil people it merges with a lower plane.
Once a place fills with too many good people, it is time for whoever was doing the mass rewriting to go somewhere else to not mess up that place.

[Jack_Simth]

In dnd it actually "destroys the world" in a way: once a place is filled with too many good people, it merges with an upper plane and once a plane is filled with too many evil people it merges with a lower plane.
Once a place fills with too many good people, it is time for whoever was doing the mass rewriting to go somewhere else to not mess up that place.

Which means the game-breaking infinite wish engine technique needs an inter-planar component. If, say, 1% of the wish trap molecules randomly teleport to another plane instead of another location within the same plane, you're good to go.

However, infinite wish techniques seldom fly at actual gaming tables. Meanwhile, a magic school - even if it has some form of mind-control component that's ultimately quite dark by modern standards - is something that might fly at a lot of them, as long as everyone's on board with the unusual campaign type.

[noob]

Which means the game-breaking infinite wish engine technique needs an inter-planar component. If, say, 1% of the wish trap molecules randomly teleport to another plane instead of another location within the same plane, you're good to go.

However, infinite wish techniques seldom fly at actual gaming tables. Meanwhile, a magic school - even if it has some form of mind-control component that's ultimately quite dark by modern standards - is something that might fly at a lot of them, as long as everyone's on board with the unusual campaign type.

I never defended the infinite wish engine TO trick, it is absurd because if it was possible, someone else would have done it before and became the master of the universe.

[ShurikVch]

I'm sorry to reiterate, but - what is, exactly, "Low Magic"?

Low Magic vs. High; what is the difference, and are we confusing them with Low vs. High Fantasy? (https://www.enworld.org/threads/low-magic-vs-high-what-is-the-difference-and-are-we-confusing-them-with-low-vs-high-fantasy.674705/)

Therefore, a Low Magic setting is one that is possible to play in D&D, and I'd argue even fun. But to truly fit in the framework of Low Fantasy or Low Magic, you would need to look elsewhere from one of the published D&D settings, and instead forge your own world or set it in a historical time period. It definitely is doable, and many have done this. But Greyhawk and Birthright are at best Mid-Magic settings, not truly low ones.

[Gavinfoxx]

I'm sorry to reiterate, but - what is, exactly, "Low Magic"?

Low Magic vs. High; what is the difference, and are we confusing them with Low vs. High Fantasy? (https://www.enworld.org/threads/low-magic-vs-high-what-is-the-difference-and-are-we-confusing-them-with-low-vs-high-fantasy.674705/)

I never said Greyhawk was low magic. It's ludicrously high magic. It's 'low magic variety'. As in, the varieties and types and power sources of magic were low.

[ShurikVch]

It's 'low magic variety'. As in, the varieties and types and power sources of magic were low.
Maybe, I'm kinda sleepy right now - but I can't see the difference there: "potato-potahto"
Can you elaborate it? (If you already did it earlier - then link would be OK too)

[Gavinfoxx]

Right, in AD&D 2nd and before, there were the following mystical power sources, generally:

-Psionics
-Divine Magic
-Arcane Magic

Contrast that with the extra power sources in addition to those in 3e and 4e and 5e, like:

-Pact Magic
-Shadow Magic
-Ki/Soul Magic
-Incarnum/Meldshaping
-Nature/Spirit/Primal Magic
-Blade Magic

etc. etc.

[ShurikVch]

Ah, I see...

There is a huge problem with the setting's background: if there was no such thing in the setting before - then why should it suddenly exist?
The only method I can suggest is to introduce an immigrant(s) from some other setting, which would bring the knowledge into the world

[Gavinfoxx]

Ah, I see...

There is a huge problem with the setting's background: if there was no such thing in the setting before - then why should it suddenly exist?
The only method I can suggest is to introduce an immigrant(s) from some other setting, which would bring the knowledge into the world

So, uh, that's not what I was going for. THE ENTIRE PREMISE of the campaign was to figure out a magical school that did things dramatically differently than this medieval stasis of a setting and ways to figure out how some of these concepts might exist somewhere in the setting, but in an undeveloped and incomplete form.

And I'm asking for advice on some ways to do that, some potential plot points, interesting things with the school, etc. etc.


You know... why I wrote this thread.

[ShurikVch]

So, uh, that's not what I was going for. THE ENTIRE PREMISE of the campaign was to figure out a magical school that did things dramatically differently than this medieval stasis of a setting and ways to figure out how some of these concepts might exist somewhere in the setting, but in an undeveloped and incomplete form.
On the contrary, I was charitable there: I suggested they merely don't existing in the Greyhawk - rather than couldn't exist.
And why they don't exist, you may ask?
Because many of them (Tome of Magic stuff, Incarnum, "Blade magic") are accompanied by multitude of particular creatures - creature, which (as far as it's known) were never seen or heard of in Greyhawk

Also, you was incorrect in listing "Ki/Soul Magic": Monks are already existed pre-3E, and possessed "ki powers". While mostly an Oriental Adventures thing - Monks still existed in Greyhawk: Keoghtom the hero-god was Bard 12/Cleric 14/Illusionist 16/Magic-user 18/Monk 10, and Scourge of the Slave Lords included Brother Milerjoi - LE Human Monk 9. Or did you meant some other kind of Ki?

Say, Eberron's Artificers are, apparently, an unique Eberron thing: the class don't even have the "Adaptation" section, Forgotten Realms used "Artificer" in two different instances (Lord Artificer of ancient Imaskar, and Gnome/Lantanese Artificer) - neither of which is like Eberron's Artificer; and "Infusion" before the Eberron was completely different thing from Artificer's Infusion (it was analogue of scrolls for Druids in Wild Shape - back then when Natural Spell wasn't in the Core)

And what the heck is "Nature/Spirit/Primal Magic"?

[Prime32]

The backstory of the Temple of Nine Swords in Tome of Battle could make a good template.
There were always people out there with the Martial Study feat, and maybe one or two levels in an initiator class, but their abillities were similar enough to stuff like the Cleave feat that they didn't really stand out. Then a guy named Reshar went around consulting veteran warriors from many races and cultures, finding the common elements of their fighting styles, and codifying them into the nine disciplines so that they could be taught more effectively. While his own school collapsed, its ideas were influential, and modern combat training still sometimes uses Reshar's nine disciplines as a categorisation system for techniques.

While not spelled out, it's generally accepted that the division between disciplines is semi-arbitrary, and that there are seeds of other fighting styles out there which Reshar never drew upon (e.g. he never really studied archery techniques), allowing for the existence of other fighting styles that developed independently of Reshar.

[D+1]

And to this, one is supposed to add the massive amount of gonzo variety that is...This is your problem. You are supposed to add what YOU want to add as DM - the ultimate arbiter of what IS and IS NOT the setting that you want to run, whether you pulled the basic setting out of a box or made every bit of it up yourself. The idea that you are SUPPOSED to add EVERYTHING just because someone else wrote a book for it is an absolutely mistaken assumption.

If you WANT the kitchen sink of dirty dishes - game on and be happy. If you DON'T want an utterly unfocused pile of crap stop assuming you're SUPPOSED to add everything that happens to drift across your path. And it doesn't matter if players buy a new book and want to SHOVEL it into YOUR existing game world. "Having is sometimes not so pleasing a thing as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true." SELECTIVITY will always be more interesting and appealing than UNFETTERED INDULGENCE. JMO