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View Full Version : Any precautions a DM should take when running a low-magic and/or low-wealth campaign?



newbDM
2008-12-05, 11:02 AM
The current thread about which classes are more item dependent got me thinking. Any advice, tips, or warnings the pros on here would like to share about running such games in 3.5?

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-12-05, 11:06 AM
First, the 2 are not the same. Low-wealth means few items, low magic means you really need another system. The problem with low-wealth is that the CR system(such as it is) is based around the PCs having access to certain things at certain levels. DR/Magic doesn't even come up past level 5 for most games, but in yours those enemies will gain a significant boost. That's the sort of thing you need to worry about(well that and casters being even better, but whatever).

Vagnarok
2008-12-05, 11:08 AM
When running a low wealth campaign, I try to give my players mediocre starting equipment so that even a nice starting weapon is an upgrade. By limiting the amount of superior items that they run across, your players come to appreciate even the tiniest improvements over their equipment.
Make your enemies powerful by giving them more levels, hp and better stats. Not by giving them better items to use on the PCs. And if you want to give a magic item to the PCs to entice them, just make sure it only has a couple of charges left.
That is the best way to manage the power creep imo.

valadil
2008-12-05, 11:08 AM
How do you plan to keep magic low?

Evil DM Mark3
2008-12-05, 11:09 AM
Such changes widen the gap between magic and matrial classes. Unless you are intending to cripple the spellcasting power of wizards and clerics then the lack of magical weapons et all will harm the martail classes a lot more than the spellcasters. Also the CR of most, if not all, monsters with supernatural or spell like abilites, as well as those with flight, will need to go up.

newbDM
2008-12-05, 11:12 AM
First, the 2 are not the same. Low-wealth means few items, low magic means you really need another system. The problem with low-wealth is that the CR system(such as it is) is based around the PCs having access to certain things at certain levels. DR/Magic doesn't even come up past level 5 for most games, but in yours those enemies will gain a significant boost. That's the sort of thing you need to worry about(well that and casters being even better, but whatever).

Well, my current campaign (currently on Hiatus) is both. So I wanted to add both categories separately, so those who need only one or the other for their games can get some help too.

Eclipse
2008-12-05, 11:14 AM
If you do low wealth, also do low magic, otherwise, as Sstoopidtallkid said, casters are even better. If you do low wealth, I'd recommend banning all full casters from the game. Bards are questionable, but can probably stay as long as they don't have access to prestige classes like sublime chord.

Just be prepared for the party to not be able to recover quickly unless you compensate for lack of healing magic in some way.

I wouldn't personally recommend a low wealth or low magic game for D&D either way though. There are likely other systems that could do it better, though I know having access to more systems assumes you have money to spend on them, which lots of people (myself included) don't have.

Paramour Pink
2008-12-05, 11:39 AM
In a game I'm in now, our wizard doesn't have her spellbook and so is chosing to use her spells very, very wisely. So that might be an option. :smallsmile:

Emperor Tippy
2008-12-05, 12:29 PM
The problem is that the monsters in D&D are at least nominally balanced with the expectation that the PC's have access to certain spells and effects, either through full casters or through items. If you lower the magic level significantly then you have to go and rebalance the monsters. It can be done but it's time consuming and difficult if you don't have an eye for it (some people can just look at the monster and tell whether or not it's a good challenge for their players, some can't).

TengYt
2008-12-05, 12:37 PM
If you do a low-wealth campaign, mages become even more Godly.
And how low-magic are you talking? Limited spells a day? No full casters?

Eclipse
2008-12-05, 12:42 PM
The problem is that the monsters in D&D are at least nominally balanced with the expectation that the PC's have access to certain spells and effects, either through full casters or through items. If you lower the magic level significantly then you have to go and rebalance the monsters. It can be done but it's time consuming and difficult if you don't have an eye for it (some people can just look at the monster and tell whether or not it's a good challenge for their players, some can't).

I wouldn't say they need be rebalanced, except in rare cases such as the Tarrasque. Even then, you could turn defeating it into an epic quest in which you first need to find the legendary scroll of wish before you have a hope of defeating the monster.

For most monsters though, just keep in mind that any monster with access to magic is more of a challenge for a party without casters, and a few simply aren't appropriate encounters at all. As you said, this does require an eye for whether a given encounter is appropriate and CR becomes unreliable. This also happens when you reduce wealth as well though.

Tacoma
2008-12-05, 01:11 PM
Having monsters with DR 5/Magic when they have no magic is probably okay. They just need to be very creative, or whittle the monster down, employing Power Attack and similar things that normally might not be the best choices, etc.
But you cannot throw the full number of such creatures at the party. If you fool with the wealth or the magic you need to reconsider all the CR values of your monsters. And it's not just an issue of dividing CR by some number. Often a monster will have abilities that make it a killer in low-magic, while a monster of similar CR doesn't have those abilities but it's tougher in other ways. Overall though the first would kill everyone while the second would just be a solid challenge.
3E is a house of cards. If you want a low magic feel run a different system. I've heard Iron Heroes is a good low magic alternative but it seems like they just replace "magic" with "special ability" so everyone still does fun and astounding things but it's "not magic". Might make sense to you.

In 2E Lankhmar had an interesting way of dealing with it. Wizards were called Black Wizards and they became more Evil and twisted as they gained levels. Level 6 was about your limit. But Clerics were called White Wizards and they had no such penalty. This was back in the day when Clerics were support characters and were just inching tentatively into the holy fire combat tanks they have come to be. So letting people play Clerics meant there wasn't much in the way of big blasting going on. And people typically just didn't play Wizards.

It's a strange choice, but you could use Shadowrun. Minus the guns, cyberware, and setting - just use the basic rule system. And then make all the magic skills and spells cost twice to three times as much Karma to learn, including in character generation (the maximum rating for magic stuff would be 2 at chargen instead of 6 for everything else).
Using Shadowrun like this results in a kind of stripped-down game. You can replace the lowest values of cyber and tech with low-tech equivalents if you felt the need.
But it would do a better job of representing your idea than 3E (or even 2E) and it wouldn't require a whole lot of balancing to fix everything.

Actually now that I think about it, many systems where your character is the sum of his skills rather than a level system would be a better choice, because in a class/level game each character is a package. In a peicemeal system people can choose to take the expensive magic skills or just take nonmagic skills, and they generally end up as still-viable characters. Of course you can always screw yourself over. But you have to actually do a bunch of work to ruin your character, not just pick a class.

Telonius
2008-12-05, 01:27 PM
The current thread about which classes are more item dependent got me thinking. Any advice, tips, or warnings the pros on here would like to share about running such games in 3.5?

This one's probably obvious, but make sure your players know that it's going to be a low-wealth or low-magic campaign before they start building their characters.

Tequila Sunrise
2008-12-05, 02:34 PM
Low wealth games can work well in one of two ways:

1. You (the DM) are good at gauging PC ability, tweaking CRs and throwing only monsters that your PCs can handle without magical bling. The only problem is that PCs become much better at offense than defense (ever notice how 90% of PC AC comes from magical bling?), so combats become more dangerous and more and more like Russian roulette the higher level the game gets.
2. You give the PCs access to all the basic bonuses that the CR system assumes that they will have, by other means. (Stat boosts, AC boosts, weapon boosts, etc...) Check out my Tome of House Rules (http://lukebuchanan.com/TS_Tome_of_House_Rules_3e.pdf) for details. It's called Character Points, and it's in chapter 12.

TS

Shpadoinkle
2008-12-05, 07:20 PM
There's a Lord of the Rings RPG out there, and considering that magic and magic items are viirtually nonexistant, it should be pretty much perfect for you.

ericgrau
2008-12-05, 10:14 PM
Unfortunately I still haven't completed my chart of +X bonuses to give players to replace gear. But the basic idea is you figure out what kind of gear they would have, figure out the cost of that, and subtract it from their WBL. You give them the bonuses for free as they level, and the remaining WBL becomes treasure. The idea here is to keep the same balance as a normal-wealth campaign.

Like I said, I haven't had a chance to finish it, but I can PM you my incomplete notes if you're interested.

Tequila Sunrise
2008-12-05, 10:31 PM
Like I said, I haven't had a chance to finish it, but I can PM you my incomplete notes if you're interested.
My Tome of House Rules might help you too.

TS

Hal
2008-12-05, 11:35 PM
I'm going to toss my hat in for keeping the CRs low.

I played in a game that was low wealth, and it was miserable. Our characters had to take up part-time jobs just to pay for food and lodging. When half the world is stronger than you and you have to work like a freaking commoner, you lose the heroic feel that gets people playing D&D in the first place.

I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying be careful about how you do it.

quillbreaker
2008-12-06, 01:17 AM
Mechanically, the character's plus to hit will rise significantly faster than their armor class. That can get messy.

amanamana
2008-12-06, 01:25 AM
If you really want to stay in D20, I suggest Iron Heroes.

Eclipse
2008-12-06, 02:51 AM
Mechanically, the character's plus to hit will rise significantly faster than their armor class. That can get messy.

Makes Dwarven Defenders, Barbarians, and other classes or items that provide DR more appealing.

Also, if casters are still around, a wizard or sorcerer with a dex of 10 can cast mage armor + shield + cat's grace + alter self to end up with an AC of 26. Which will keep casters quite happy before even getting into spells like mirror image and greater invisibility.

I imagine this setting, if casters are still available, will see most melee types doing abjurant champions for the AC. Besides which, in a low wealth/low magic setting, adding a little magic to the fighter never hurt anyone.

Hida Reju
2008-12-06, 04:54 AM
If you are serious about doing this then I recomend you look at options for giving Armor inate DR#/-. Unearthed arcana had this option and it might work if you doubled the amount listed(Full plate is then worth about 8 DR) and then allowed magic or elemental damage not to auto bypass it.

High damage monsters, cats(lions, tigers, ect) Dragons, giants, any monster with multiattack and 3 or more natural attacks will be an issue without such measures. Also monsters should never use power attack against PCs

Also for healing I recomend you provide "Alchemical" healing in the form of lots of low lvl potions(Think Diablo). Make them cheep and available.

Seffbasilisk
2008-12-06, 05:03 AM
Monk/Tattooed Monk with Vow of Poverty will be somewhat of a powerhouse in such a setting.

Evil DM Mark3
2008-12-06, 05:14 AM
If you really want to stay in D20, I suggest Iron Heroes.Just want to say that this is definitely one solution.

newbDM
2008-12-06, 06:06 AM
Well, I do not want to take away magic and magic items(actually, make them more "epic" and legendary things, but still), along with potions and other healing options I find too convenient just to add in another substitute mechanic that does the exact same thing. It seems to defeat the purpose for me.

I agree with adjusting CRs and not including certain monsters, though. I tried my best at that, and since I basically took away all casters except for adepts I tried to focus encounters on a more troops vs. troops way. I also tried my best to involve the players in more thinking, diplomatic, and political situations instead of mere combat, but that was for the players to decide where they wanted to go with things (I am trying to run a sandbox game world).

I would prefer to leave the game as is, especially since I have so many 3.5 books and products, and because I have spent so much time learning the system and mechanics, but give it the feel I am going for. Again, give it a more "epic" and legendary feel. I like the idea of running a campaign world where you can't get a +1 sword of whatever at every village's local store, but instead such things are quest items akin to King Author tracking down his swords, or Link finding the Master Sword.

I guess I just prefer the idea of scaling things down, than redoing everything (including the mechanics) from the ground up. Plus, I guess I am just into this sort of play. I loved Ragnarok online (those who have played it might get the connection), and I liked it so much that I detested the idea of playing in servers with upped stats/speeds. Again a hard comparison to explain, but I think those who have played it might understand.

Plus, the whole potion thing especially got to me. I would just play video games RPGs for that, and always keep 99 in stock.

Hida Reju
2008-12-06, 07:29 AM
Then look at speeding up the rate of natural healing then.

I recomend 3 point per lvl per Day of rest and 6 points with total bed rest and a heal check.

That should get most back on their feet in a day or two.

Gerion
2008-12-06, 08:00 AM
Perhaps you should look if you can get your hands on a copy of "the dark eye".
the best RPG i know.
Its number one here in Germany.
They don't publish it in english anymore cause it didn't sold so good, but perhaps you can get a cheap copy of it. (or learn German)
Magic is more limited (the emperor of the largest Realm owns a +2 sword in DnD terms)
But mages are also a vaild class, they only don't show up as Npc because there are not that many Mages Guilds.

newbDM
2008-12-06, 10:57 AM
Then look at speeding up the rate of natural healing then.

I recomend 3 point per lvl per Day of rest and 6 points with total bed rest and a heal check.

That should get most back on their feet in a day or two.

That.....is absolutely brilliant!

Demons_eye
2008-12-06, 11:04 AM
Dont know if its been said but watch out for VoP.

Knaight
2008-12-06, 11:07 AM
I also strongly suggest getting BAB one level lower than yours to AC as well, just to represent blocking and such so that AC doesn't fall way to far behind. Meaning that armor needs to be represented differently(maybe DR).

Satyr
2008-12-06, 11:10 AM
It is not impossile to run a low magic game in D&D. I do this for quite some time, and I think it is much more interssting than the default amount of magic - obviuosly, this is a very subjective position.

The easiest way to do this:
Create mundane characters as Gestalt characters, while spellcasters remain single class characters. Mundane characters should include wtertiary spellcasters like Rangers and Paladins and may include secondary spellcasters like Bards. The additional class gfeatures from the Gestalt game can partially compensate the lower amount of magical items.

Give the characters a chance to increase their AC without items. You could link a "Base Defense Bonus" to the BAB, so that it increase on a 2:1 ratio (that's what I did and it works fine). A 20th level fighter would have a +10 unnamed bonus to his AC, which is not spectacular, but much better than nothing. Remember, within a Gestalt game, every character will either be a spellcaster, have a full BAB or can blame himself.

It may be useful to give the characters more skills and feats so that they are more self-sufficinet. You can give every character the Able Learner feat for free. You can increase the skills per leve for every class. You can give out more feats (on every odd level, for example).

Low Magic does not mean no magic. What you probably want is that every magic item that you give out is significant and becomes a trademark of the character. It is better when every character has one minor artifact and no other magical item (with the exception of consumables) than when they have a weak item on every slot. I would recommend you items of legacy, so you can give every character a cool and distinctive item that has a major significance for the character and can sale with them.

Two thirds are presentation and statistics. If you want to create the feeling of a low-magic game, the PC party is by far not the only lever you have - the PC's will always be extraordinary individuals and be different from the rest of the world.
Much more important for the feeling is how you as a GM represent the gaming world. If you make spellcasters rare (up to the point where wizards are nigh mystical figures and clerics would be revered as saints within their specific cults), the average magic within the gaming world will feel much lower, without changing the commoness of spelcasters within the party - as a ggroup of extremely extraordinary individuals, they are absolutely not representative for the rest of the world.
When there is only one wizard among 1000 mundanes, the supernatural will feel exotic again and not as banalized as before.

The rarity of magic include that you describe it as something rare, strange and exotic. Make it weird, make it even scary, describe that the majority of the population is seriously scarred of anything magic and even a cantrip can give a character a circumstance bonus to intimidate checks. Never use the name of spells or magical items or beats, describe them.

Never let anybody else tell you what you can do or can't do - test it for yourself and make your own experiences. It might not be the most intuitive game to adjust, for example, D&D to a low magic campaign, but it is far from impossible and the only determing factor if something works or not works is you and your group.

newbDM
2008-12-06, 11:12 AM
Dont know if its been said but watch out for VoP.

VoP? The Vow of Poverty?

I highly doubt that I will let that fly. Hence why I require everything to be past me, and if I did allow it I would force them to role-play it properly or "fall" like a paladin or adept/cleric (yes, I make them fall).

Flickerdart
2008-12-06, 11:24 AM
Except that making Wizards rare but not limiting the party's ability to make them makes the PC Wizard nigh-unstoppable. Who can dispel his buffs? Who can counter his spells? Who can scry on him and counter his scrying? Nobody, pretty much.

Eclipse
2008-12-06, 12:41 PM
It is not impossile to run a low magic game in D&D. I do this for quite some time, and I think it is much more interssting than the default amount of magic - obviuosly, this is a very subjective position.

The easiest way to do this:
Create mundane characters as Gestalt characters, while spellcasters remain single class characters. Mundane characters should include wtertiary spellcasters like Rangers and Paladins and may include secondary spellcasters like Bards. The additional class gfeatures from the Gestalt game can partially compensate the lower amount of magical items.

Give the characters a chance to increase their AC without items. You could link a "Base Defense Bonus" to the BAB, so that it increase on a 2:1 ratio (that's what I did and it works fine). A 20th level fighter would have a +10 unnamed bonus to his AC, which is not spectacular, but much better than nothing. Remember, within a Gestalt game, every character will either be a spellcaster, have a full BAB or can blame himself.
-snip-


This entire post has lots of good advice. Take what is appropriate for your game and roll with that. I especially recommend the BAB to AC bonus thing, which can be tweaked based on just how much magic armor you intend to make available.

Setting the tone with description of magic (and lack of it) is also a very good idea, and will help give the players that feeling of magic being special, even with the party wizard in the group.


Except that making Wizards rare but not limiting the party's ability to make them makes the PC Wizard nigh-unstoppable. Who can dispel his buffs? Who can counter his spells? Who can scry on him and counter his scrying? Nobody, pretty much.

GMs have lots of tools to challenge the party... even wizards. Yes, I know, "wizards are batman and can handle everything." Except when players don't properly optimize them, which is almost every game I've ever played in, whether I was playing a wizard or someone else was.

Either way, the PCs are extraordinary, so they'll come up against extraordinary foes, including spellcasting villains. Not only that, but since magic is a bigger deal, any battle between magic users of any kind will seem, to the population, to be some sort of Armageddon, and that can be worked into the story as well. Let's also not forget the demons and devils, which have ways of bypassing many wizard defenses via dispelling and true seeing. This list could go on, but the point is, while in theory wizards are unstoppable, in practice it rarely works that way.

Satyr
2008-12-06, 02:32 PM
If you seriously pllay within the low-magic premise, the wizard probably becomes the least powerful of the four core primary spellcasters - the wizard needs a lot more infrastructure to use his most important ressource -spells- than sorcerers who just know theri spells. In a low magic campaign, the wizard is mostly dependent on the spells he can scrounge from other - extrem rare - wizards. Which means: spells are rare and the wizard player has no pick wich spell he learns and must take what is offered. So, the traditional game breaker spells like the Polymorph line are just no issue, bercause they are not available. (As it should be.)

Sorcerers may effectively be stronger than wizards in this situation, as they have a much freer choice of spells, but they are still more limited in general. The 'zillas may become ungodly good, but with a bit handling this can be managed (I would strongly recommend to make the PHB II druid version obligatory and exterminating the cleric's access to medium and heavy armor, for example).

This is not the perfect solution (which probaly does not exist). I am still writing on what i think is a pretty good solution, but this giant homebrew conversion of D&D into a truly great game (for me) is the rock of Sisiphos...

lord_khaine
2008-12-06, 02:43 PM
If you seriously pllay within the low-magic premise, the wizard probably becomes the least powerful of the four core primary spellcasters - the wizard needs a lot more infrastructure to use his most important ressource -spells- than sorcerers who just know theri spells. In a low magic campaign, the wizard is mostly dependent on the spells he can scrounge from other - extrem rare - wizards. Which means: spells are rare and the wizard player has no pick wich spell he learns and must take what is offered. So, the traditional game breaker spells like the Polymorph line are just no issue, bercause they are not available. (As it should be.)


i think there are something you are missing about the standard d&d rules, wizard gets 2 free spells each time they level up, and thats more than enough to let them blast their way though all level apropriate encounters.

im playing a lv 11 wizard in a campaign where we dont have any magic items at all, and the result has been that the druid and me are so absurd overpowered that we actively have to hold back on our use of magic, to avoid overshadowing the rest of the party to much.

Satyr
2008-12-06, 03:10 PM
i think there are something you are missing about the standard d&d rules, wizard gets 2 free spells each time they level up, and thats more than enough to let them blast their way though all level apropriate encounters.

I know this, but it still negates the great advantange the wizard has to the sorcerer - the nigh unlimited amount of spells. Without this, the spontaniety and more fuel of the sorcerer become more relevant.


im playing a lv 11 wizard in a campaign where we dont have any magic items at all, and the result has been that the druid and me are so absurd overpowered that we actively have to hold back on our use of magic, to avoid overshadowing the rest of the party to much.

Which is exactly why I recommended against it and to offer more character traits on the one hand and a more exclusive choice of magical items.
A Warblade//Scout whose only magical item is a minor artifact greatsword may not be as versatile as a mostly optimized wizard, but it is much harder to marginalize in a campaign than you describe (and it is really fun to play).

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-12-06, 07:15 PM
I know this, but it still negates the great advantange the wizard has to the sorcerer - the nigh unlimited amount of spells. Without this, the spontaniety and more fuel of the sorcerer become more relevant.Collegiate Wizard. 4 spells/level should be enough for anyone.

herrhauptmann
2008-12-07, 02:34 AM
I know it's been said, but if you're doing low magic/low wealth, then monsters are going to be tougher fights than they once were.

A few solutions I recommend, make most of the fights the characters encounter be against low level races with class levels of some sort. If a level 10 orc fighter only has the same access to equipment that level 7 pc's have, he'll be a more even fight than a creature which has innate spellcasting of some sort, or just needs to be beaten with spells.

If PC's want to be casters, perhaps erase the wizard, sorceror etc classes, and let them only take NPC casting classes. I have heard of game systems that severely penalize casters in certain ways. Like a -2 per caster level at initiative, reflex and dex checks for casters, because they're so absorbed in something else. (Forget exactly how it worked, but I think it pretty much made it impossible to make it to level 10 as a caster)

WickerNipple
2008-12-07, 02:52 AM
I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but low wealth works just fine in 4th edition so long as you keep in mind that you have to adjust the CR of the encounters a fair bit. You don't get much disparity between casters/martial.

Low wealth is mostly a 3.0/3.5 problem imo.

I realize you're playing 3.5, but I'd look to an edition change over a game change if you find the problem insurmountable in 3.5.

Satyr
2008-12-07, 05:30 AM
It's a field modification. It works well enough, but you should have an eye on cheese. Besides, prestige classes that allow a character to enchant their own weapon are also surprisingly powerful compared to the standard game.

When dealing with monsters, increase the CR pf the encounter by +1 for creature with Damage reduction, Flying, many spell-like abilties, or regeneration; reduce it for creatures that mainly rely on energy resistance or spell resistance.

newbDM
2008-12-08, 05:34 AM
I just remembered the Incantations (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/incantations.htm) option rules from Unearthed Arcana.

Would this be a fitting addition to low-magic games?

I am thinking as rare quest items. However, I am not sure what kind of rituals would be useful for this.

Satyr
2008-12-08, 05:47 AM
I just remembered the Incantations option rules from Unearthed Arcana.

Would this be a fitting addition to low-magic games?

I would think not, because giving a broader access to magic in general is contradictory to the effort to make magic exotic and fascinating again. This is most easily achieved through exclusivity and rarity. You want your player to drop on their knees in aw whenever they become the witnesses of magical events, and that wil not happen as easily when magic becomes banalised into an everyday coincindence.

Kami2awa
2008-12-08, 06:04 AM
The Witch class variant is a nice one to use for low-magic campaigns (its in the DMG). WoTC forums had an improvement on this class, with witches having special vulnerabilities (silver, cold iron etc.) If you ban Wizard, Druid and Sorcerer and replace them with Witch, If you are going for realism, Cthulhu Dark Ages is a nice one (magic in Call of Cthulhu is inherently dangerous, though powerful, so always a last resort).

I've run a low magic campaign with the PCs as a Robin Hood-like band of outlaws in a world where an unjust king has banned magic (mainly because he's a demon in disguise and only magic can reveal or hurt him). Magic using classes were the Witch and the Cleric; Clerics were legendary, Messiah-figures whose sudden appearance had everyone extremely worried. It worked really well :) Also keeping the level low (1-5) makes things inherently low magic.

Healing is a major problem in such a campaign; I recommend making Heal checks more useful, running roleplay-heavy scenarios (e.g. investigating a murder) or adding something like magic Healing Roots that are specific to the game world.

Asbestos
2008-12-08, 07:18 AM
I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but low wealth works just fine in 4th edition so long as you keep in mind that you have to adjust the CR of the encounters a fair bit. You don't get much disparity between casters/martial.

Low wealth is mostly a 3.0/3.5 problem imo.

I realize you're playing 3.5, but I'd look to an edition change over a game change if you find the problem insurmountable in 3.5.

Low magic in 4th... depends on how you interpret 'magic'. I suppose you could go all martial?

Curmudgeon
2008-12-08, 08:26 AM
You're not going to be able to keep the game low magic unless you forbid full spellcasting classes to the PCs. That's key. Some often-overlooked skills, like Heal, will become much more important. You can make full quests out of normally trivial events, like stocking up on healing potions.

Low wealth ties into low magic. Make sure you boost the prices of magical gear more than you reduce the treasure so you don't make non-magical arms and armor too expensive. Without easy access to healing, having decent equipment is going to be extremely important to the PCs.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-12-08, 08:47 AM
I would think not, because giving a broader access to magic in general is contradictory to the effort to make magic exotic and fascinating again. This is most easily achieved through exclusivity and rarity. You want your player to drop on their knees in aw whenever they become the witnesses of magical events, and that wil not happen as easily when magic becomes banalised into an everyday coincindence.

I'd disagree here. The Incantations rules keep magic "low" by attaching a substantial price for using any of these spells. If the PCs need to collect Salamander Eggs for each Fireball, they're not going to use a lot of 'em. In a Low Magic world, you can even make many (or even all) major spells available only by Incantation.

Yes, this requires you to do some completely guideless homebrewing ('cause the Incantation guidelines are... suspect) but it's a good way to make magic a Big Deal.

Ditto with Item Creation rules. If you have access to a 2nd Edition DMG, read the suggestions on how PCs could make magic items for more ideas. Trust me, your Sword +1 is going to be a lot more important to you if you needed to quench it in the Sacred Waterfall deep within the monster-filled Misty Mountains :smallbiggrin:

Of course, if by Low Magic you mean "very little magic exists" rather than "magic is difficult and dangerous, so it isn't used much" then of course you're not going to want to use Incantations. Or probably spellcasters with access to spells above the 3rd level. And most of the PrCs and non-core classes.

EDIT:

Low magic in 4th... depends on how you interpret 'magic'. I suppose you could go all martial?

The reason why 4E works well as a Low Magic setting is that it already incorporates many of the suggestions in this thread:
- Faster non-magical healing
- Costly magic
- Natural advancement of ability scores and defenses
- Limited spellcasters

The easiest way to do this is to run a strictly Heroic game and give people the projected magic adjustments as listed in the DMG instead of magic items. You can cut back the wealth too by following the "low wealth" suggestions in the DMG.