Roman Empire (~250 CE)

[Lehteb]

I recently had the idea to make a new world for my next game. Our settings have always been rather generic worlds, and classes and races are straight from the 3.5 PhB. I was wondering how feasible (and fun) a historic setting could be. I ended up changing race to nationality, which has an impact on the classes that could be taken, as well as any bonuses recieved. I'm also trying to figure out a good way to tone down the spell casting, without removing it completely. It seems that it may work best by removing arcane magic entirely, making the sorcerer more of a medicine man (shaman) and removing the wizards. Does anyone have any ideas on how to balance the less powerful spells with standard combat?

My initial plans were to have the nationalities being Roman, Greek, Celt, Eastern/Parthian, Germanic, and maybe African/Carthaginian. Then several of the class options would include things like Soldier/Legionnaire, Auxiliary, Mercenary, Thief, Shaman/Medicine man, Druid/Animal Tamer, Pagan Priest (works like a cleric, choose a god to support from a large number of gods possible) and Judeo-Christian Priest (more like a monk or paladin, but there might still be different sects to choose from, like gnostic, etc).

The good vs evil and law vs chaos alignments haven't made any huge problems that I've found (although anything that works better may be added in later).

Mostly, I was just wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to reduce the "flashiness" of magic (so it doesn't take the players out of the historic frame of mind) but not remove it to the point that magic becomes any less fun than hitting people with a sword or spear.

[Carrion_Humanoid]

Make it so the magic is invisable, so magic missle kinda just hurts them. Sorcerer types would be have god blood in there veins, giving them there abilities.

[Pegasos989]

Well, simple answer would be removing arcane magic, as divine magic is less flashy, etc. and I don't really think that it would make gameplay impossible (as I play nearly always with group less than three, we have noticed that we need melee and we need healing but mostly do just fine even without wizard. Then again, most of our games are high-powered in stats, etc.).

Second answer is removing evocation. No problem in keeping all those enchantment spells etc. I think if you just remove more flashy-looking ones.

[Golthur]

Keep divination, enchantment, and abjuration. Keep necromancy, conjuration, and illusion, but make them rare. You may also want to turn necromancy and conjuration into "rituals" instead of just simple spells. Ditch evocation, and most transmutations.

That will keep arcane magic in the setting, but make it more subtle, less BOOM-FLASH.

[Fredderf]

My Suggestion: Look into d20 modern.

You can set the time perod back quite easily. Check out the d20 modern srd. It has spellcasters as a prestige class w/ lvl. 6 spells being the highest, enough to make Merlin strong, but stop the lil' guys.
Check it out:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/msrd