Why the desire for low magic?

[Melcar]

That's over 90 named characters, most of whom are Epic level! Considering that's named characters only and doesn't count any of the 17-19th level casters who also have access to 9th level spells, yeah, the world's pretty full. If those casters functioned at a 3.X level of power (they don't because they were written for 1e or 2e) then their numbers are more than sufficient to tear the world apart if even a fraction of them got out of their armchairs and down to business.

The existence of FR depends on authorial fiat such that none of the epic casters ever actually do anything, and the 3e FRCS outright admits this via Ed Greenwood's authorial insert.

On what page does Ed mention this?

Another thing to remember, which you already allude to, is how they are build. I would in my campaign change quite a few, but not many of them actually cast 9th level spells... Also, I still fail to get how 90 is a lot out of 68.000.000...

But the way I see it they balance them selves out, spoiling each other's plans... Larloch and 60 liches mainly does research, for many years Srinshee was hanging around on a different plane and how supports the young elf coronal... Halastar wanders the halls, Szazz Tam is busy managing Thay etc... Not all of them has the time nor the inclination of world domination or world evolution.

You also have to remember that deep down, in the memories of most of the epic mages, they know what happens to mageocracies running amok. We've seen it happen at least two times... Imaskar and Netheril, both were dominated by high level mages and fantastic magic, but both fell. But Halruaa is pretty much as fantastic as they come... so too were Myth Drannor back in the day... Yet they are small local areas where the magic are of sufficiently high power to resample technology...

There is also a huge wealth-gap... Magic items are generally way too expensive to be broadly applicable... Even though there are probably mages using fabricate or other spells to produce unlimited wealth that really only creates inflation... It doesn't solve the problem of distribution magic items to the masses...

I personnaly enjoy both low- and high level, but definitely prefer high level. Specifically because I feel I play using a greater percentage of the game world. You can't go exploring too deep the underdark, or plannar travel or any of those things as low level... its still part of the game, you just don't use it... which is a shame to me!

[Crake]

Need to keep in mind also, that people can mean various things when they say "Low Magic".

Here are a few factors which need to be considered when talking about low magic:

• Availability: How accessible is magic to the players/populus
• Power: What is the upper limit of magic capable of
• Commonality: How common is magic?

Note that while commonality and availability may seem the same at first glance, they aren't. Availability describes how accessible magic is, so while it may be uncommon, in that there may only be a small handful of wizards in a town, it's still accessible, in that the players can simply go visit the wizard in his tower and request a magic item be crafted, or a spell be cast. On the other hand, magic may be common, in that there are an abundance of places of magical power, and many supernatural creatures and monsters, but magic itself isn't easily accessible to people, because it's not well understood, difficult to wield, or outlawed as witchcraft. Power also needs to be considered whether it's referring to the upper limit of the setting, or the upper limit of the average person. In an e6 campaign, 3rd level spells are the upper limit of what the characters are able to achieve, but that doesn't stop the setting from having Solars who can cast 9th level spells, or balors able to wreak havoc on an entire city in moments.

So, when someone says "low magic" you really need to specify what they really mean. Are they talking about a low magic ceiling, a setting with rare magic, a setting with low magic availability, or some combination therein?

[Silent Alarm]

You cease being the Magister… by being selected as the Magister?

I corrected myself. You can lose your office because Azuth and Mystra just find a better chump to have the job.

So, you can become a sentient slave, a sentient slave, an only questionably sentient armless fat man who can't even scratch their own itches, or… something that gets heralded as a fate worse than death? Just how bad is Chosen of Azuth to possibly be the worst option here?

The Chosen of Azuth is a rare position to have and is not properly defined what they exactly do, but generally it's duties and position can be simplified as "Magister Lite". The roles of the Chosen of Azuth is basically to work for/with the Magister, teach other Wizards, and you must do all of this without any of the protections or powers that the office of Magister grants you. Basically you become the employee of your predecessor and become largely expendable (as far as a Lawful Neutral aligned deity can view someone as expendable). You still keep the giant target on your back, you just don't have any of the inherent protections in place.

So, in 3e, one Vecna blooded later, and the FR is a completely different place?

I don't follow as the Oerthly Deity Vecna does not exist in the FR, so how one would solve his seven riddles and become a Vecna blooded is beyond me. If you mean in the Path of Light Campaign Setting, sure. However something to note is that in the FR, Wizards and power players generally know each other. Not on a personal level mind you, but tangentially. Elminster knows Larloch, who knows Szass Tam, who knows the Simbul, who knows Srinshee, who knows Halaster. It's a club where everyone knows enough about one another to know that picking a fight isn't going to end well for anyone else in the club.

I didn't think that Ed Greenwood was old enough for that to be possible.

You are correct. I am misremembering.

[H_H_F_F]

Need to keep in mind also, that people can mean various things when they say "Low Magic".

Here are a few factors which need to be considered when talking about low magic:

• Availability: How accessible is magic to the players/populus
• Power: What is the upper limit of magic capable of
• Commonality: How common is magic?

Note that while commonality and availability may seem the same at first glance, they aren't. Availability describes how accessible magic is, so while it may be uncommon, in that there may only be a small handful of wizards in a town, it's still accessible, in that the players can simply go visit the wizard in his tower and request a magic item be crafted, or a spell be cast. On the other hand, magic may be common, in that there are an abundance of places of magical power, and many supernatural creatures and monsters, but magic itself isn't easily accessible to people, because it's not well understood, difficult to wield, or outlawed as witchcraft. Power also needs to be considered whether it's referring to the upper limit of the setting, or the upper limit of the average person. In an e6 campaign, 3rd level spells are the upper limit of what the characters are able to achieve, but that doesn't stop the setting from having Solars who can cast 9th level spells, or balors able to wreak havoc on an entire city in moments.

So, when someone says "low magic" you really need to specify what they really mean. Are they talking about a low magic ceiling, a setting with rare magic, a setting with low magic availability, or some combination therein?

That's an excellent deconstruction of the topic. I've ran very "low magic" worlds which were actually, by your metric, just medium commonality and extremely low availability. I like this scheme a lot; it neatly describes the different forms low magic can take, and the advantages of each form and its aspects.

[Gnaeus]

Crake’s analysis is excellent.

For me, the problem with rare magic without low magic ceiling is that it causes way more problems than it fixes.

The low tier classes are universally both more dependent on WBL and the ability to spend it freely than high tier ones. If Fighter can’t buy the exact items he needs, he has to get them from a caster or do without (if crafting is limited). Yes, I too would rather have items be special and meaningful, and to be able to drop some unusual thing for players to figure how to make use of rather than sell it immediately for cash to raise their cloak of resistance by +1. But it really raises the power of item creation and spells that mimic items.

Similarly, while no one I know likes spell marts, if PCs are the only ones who can do magical effects, it is a huge + to the power of casters in general and casters v. Martials in particular. If you can’t buy a teleport, that means the wizard controls where you go. If you can’t buy cure blindness or dispel magic, the Blindness/deafness spell becomes a way to permanently cripple people. Spawn apocalypses have no counters. There is nothing stopping a teen level Druid from leveling countries with droughts or floods. Or a teen wizard from PAOing the heir into a toad until his ransom demands are met. There are dozens of powers that go from meh to campaign changing if the PCs are the only ones who can do them, and they start within the e6 range. It drops the levels at which casters go from “One of the city’s most important people “ to “a demigod who can perform miracles or smite us if he gets annoyed” by probably 5-6 levels, and into levels that commonly see play (I’ve only rarely seen campaigns hit 9th level spells and usually they are about to end at that point.)

[Crake]

The low tier classes are universally both more dependent on WBL and the ability to spend it freely than high tier ones. If Fighter can’t buy the exact items he needs, he has to get them from a caster or do without (if crafting is limited). Yes, I too would rather have items be special and meaningful, and to be able to drop some unusual thing for players to figure how to make use of rather than sell it immediately for cash to raise their cloak of resistance by +1. But it really raises the power of item creation and spells that mimic items.

I think Pathfinder actually provides a rather decent solution to this problem with their Automatic Bonus Progression system, eliminating +stat bonuses as magical item effects (even from weapons), and making them simply something in-built to the character, rather than the items they have. That way, players and DMs can focus on functional items that are interesting and provide utility rather than boring stat boosters, while simultaneously reducing the WBL needed by players and, by extension, the requirement of magical availability for martials to remain relevant (reducing, not eliminating).

The system normally reduces WBL by half in exchange for the stat boosts, for when you just want to eliminate boring magical items from your games, but also has an alternate rule for if you want to completely remove magic items from your game, and I would 100% recommend any DM interested in running a low magic availability game to use such a system, and then sprinkle in some interesting/plot related magic items along the way. Also makes rare armor/weapon materials and alchemical items much more interesting when they can become sometimes the only decent solution to a problem.

[Bohandas]

The problem with all this is you assume that:

A) Mages are willing to share power in favor of a better and equalitarian society.

Those ideals are relatively new, even in our society. The social model that worked for millenia up until these last few centuaries was, an elit having access to all the best technological wonders that made their life as easy and comfortable as possible, while the non-elite (the vast majority of the population) had to rely on almost primal technology to survive. So, for example, nobody says the idea of a pluming system didn't exist for millenia, just that only the Elit had access to it. Similarly, if some mage decided to create a base on the moon, why would he share it with the rest of the world.

Egalitarianism isn't necessary. Nationalism and/or jingoism wil, suffice. In the real world we didn't go to space for elalitarian reasons, we went there for the glory of getting there first.

As for plumbing, once you have the main piece in place in a D&D world the rest of it builds itself. If a city has the cash for a decanter of endless water they can just have it refill a big central water tower and run everything through regular pipes made of cheap materials, with no need for any expensive long distance aquaducts. And the reason for building this isn't necessarily humanitarian either. Combine it with some similar item for generating food and your city becomes immune to sieges.

[Crake]

Combine it with some similar item for generating food and your city becomes immune to sieges.

Your city also becomes reliant on this, and a few well-placed sunders suddenly cripple your city. It's no different than infiltrators poisoning the well, or contaminating food supplies for cities that are prepared for a siege.

[StSword]

I think Pathfinder actually provides a rather decent solution to this problem with their Automatic Bonus Progression system, eliminating +stat bonuses as magical item effects (even from weapons), and making them simply something in-built to the character, rather than the items they have. That way, players and DMs can focus on functional items that are interesting and provide utility rather than boring stat boosters, while simultaneously reducing the WBL needed by players and, by extension, the requirement of magical availability for martials to remain relevant (reducing, not eliminating).

Other publishers have produced other fixes for that.

Off the top of the my head-

Iron Heroes classes were built with the assumption that heroes' mundane abilities are just that good they don't need it, so for a low magic game.

Bad Axe Games Mythic Heroes provides archetypes, which allow one to spend action points for more impressive affects when appropriate for the archetype, also intended for a low magic game.

And three options that aren't in the least low magic feeling-

Complete Gear from Dreamscarred Press replaces magic items with the ability to invest power into items as a perk of leveling up. So a fighter at sufficient level can just meditate and bam, they have a sword with magic properties.

Little Red Goblin Games in Alt Paths Ascetic Characters has an aura system that reminds me of RWBY, where people just know how to make their weapons explode into flame or whatever.

And Distant Horizon Games in Practical Enchanter has the option for replacing magic items with innate magical talents

[Silent Alarm]

As for plumbing, once you have the main piece in place in a D&D world the rest of it builds itself. If a city has the cash for a decanter of endless water they can just have it refill a big central water tower and run everything through regular pipes made of cheap materials, with no need for any expensive long distance aquaducts. And the reason for building this isn't necessarily humanitarian either. Combine it with some similar item for generating food and your city becomes immune to sieges.

To add to this, making your sewage system a combination of slickstone in high altitude and sickstone at the base of these inclines, you have a very basic water purification system that can't be ruined by excessive rain for example or a sudden migration of rats, or what have you.

There was a thread on this very topic on min/max forums forever ago.

[Gnaeus]

I think Pathfinder actually provides a rather decent solution to this problem with their Automatic Bonus Progression system, eliminating +stat bonuses as magical item effects (even from weapons), and making them simply something in-built to the character, rather than the items they have. That way, players and DMs can focus on functional items that are interesting and provide utility rather than boring stat boosters, while simultaneously reducing the WBL needed by players and, by extension, the requirement of magical availability for martials to remain relevant (reducing, not eliminating).

The system normally reduces WBL by half in exchange for the stat boosts, for when you just want to eliminate boring magical items from your games, but also has an alternate rule for if you want to completely remove magic items from your game, and I would 100% recommend any DM interested in running a low magic availability game to use such a system, and then sprinkle in some interesting/plot related magic items along the way. Also makes rare armor/weapon materials and alchemical items much more interesting when they can become sometimes the only decent solution to a problem.

It does and it doesn’t. It’s nice if you want to be focused on specific weapons and not worry about whether you can find a +3 spiked chain. And it’s a little bit of a nerf to cloth casters in that it makes them spend half their WBL on stuff some of which they wouldn’t care about. It’s really punitive to some types of characters (congratulations, mr. monk. You get to make your armor +1. And the alchemist focusing on natural attacks and bombs is likewise screwed). It essentially removes a few offending spells (like Magic Vestment and GMW). But really I always assumed a martial could find a +1 weapon and a resist item. They are common. And most people don’t care much if it is a +2 greatsword or a +2 greataxe. When we are having tier discussions im not worried about the fighter breaking DR magic (although in some cases I would be more worried about DR under ABP. Like TWF gets nerfed from 4-8 where your off hand isn’t magic. You can’t TWF and own a magic ranged weapon. That kind of thing.)

There are certainly games where it would help. Like a gladiator or special forces campaign where normal gear acquisition is out. Or a game with a wide disparity of player skill where the newbs might not know that they need those Christmas tree ornaments.

But the real problem which it doesn’t touch is that martials need specific gear to work. A flight item. An invisibility counter. Etc. The GM can just give those to them, but they could do that before. As a replacement for Magic Mart it still leaves a fighter at the mercy of his cohorts or the random drop table for stuff he needs that isn’t a stat+. And honestly, I think it delays acquisition of lots of boosts compared to where they would normally be. I can’t see it being popular in my group and I wouldn’t be supporting it (other than in some real edge cases as noted above)

[Crake]

It does and it doesn’t. It’s nice if you want to be focused on specific weapons and not worry about whether you can find a +3 spiked chain. And it’s a little bit of a nerf to cloth casters in that it makes them spend half their WBL on stuff some of which they wouldn’t care about. It’s really punitive to some types of characters (congratulations, mr. monk. You get to make your armor +1. And the alchemist focusing on natural attacks and bombs is likewise screwed). It essentially removes a few offending spells (like Magic Vestment and GMW). But really I always assumed a martial could find a +1 weapon and a resist item. They are common. And most people don’t care much if it is a +2 greatsword or a +2 greataxe. When we are having tier discussions im not worried about the fighter breaking DR magic (although in some cases I would be more worried about DR under ABP. Like TWF gets nerfed from 4-8 where your off hand isn’t magic. You can’t TWF and own a magic ranged weapon. That kind of thing.)

There are certainly games where it would help. Like a gladiator or special forces campaign where normal gear acquisition is out. Or a game with a wide disparity of player skill where the newbs might not know that they need those Christmas tree ornaments.

But the real problem which it doesn’t touch is that martials need specific gear to work. A flight item. An invisibility counter. Etc. The GM can just give those to them, but they could do that before. As a replacement for Magic Mart it still leaves a fighter at the mercy of his cohorts or the random drop table for stuff he needs that isn’t a stat+. And honestly, I think it delays acquisition of lots of boosts compared to where they would normally be. I can’t see it being popular in my group and I wouldn’t be supporting it (other than in some real edge cases as noted above)

Right, but in a low magic availability game where you get far less than normal by default it shores up the boring stat boost items as built-in bonuses rather than being part of magical gear, so you at least get something.

[vasilidor]

the automatic progression that paizo came up with shows what the bare minimum of expected magic is at certain levels of play in a regular game. I now have the question, if you were to exclude magic items from the game what monsters would need to be tossed as well? maybe i should make a new thread for that.

[Gnaeus]

Right, but in a low magic availability game where you get far less than normal by default it shores up the boring stat boost items as built-in bonuses rather than being part of magical gear, so you at least get something.

Ok granted. If I knew the DM was going to have us way below WBL or give trash items that couldn’t be converted it would be a godsend. Even as a wizard I’d rather have ABP than 3 cloaks of resistance and some banded mail +1.

[Bohandas]

The problem with all this is you assume that:

A) Mages are willing to share power in favor of a better and equalitarian society.

Those ideals are relatively new, even in our society. The social model that worked for millenia up until these last few centuaries was, an elit having access to all the best technological wonders that made their life as easy and comfortable as possible, while the non-elite (the vast majority of the population) had to rely on almost primal technology to survive. So, for example, nobody says the idea of a pluming system didn't exist for millenia, just that only the Elit had access to it. Similarly, if some mage decided to create a base on the moon, why would he share it with the rest of the world.

B) There would not be any challenges for this to hold true.

In our previous example, who says an other Mage didn't do the same ages ago, and now considers the Moon his own domain; Or that there is an entire civilisation on the moon of very powerful creatures; Why risk it when you have the ability to create your own demiplane? Cell phones? Why make widelly accessible a technology that can be used for espionage, especially in a world were war happens every decade or so, when you can prevent that by using mages for telecomunications instead?

These arguments are problematic in the Greyhawk setting, as that setting explicitly contains powerful interests whose primary concern is spreading the use and study of magic. In particular, the deity Boccob, and his clerics, and his minion Zagyg, who is also the setting's most powerful wizard

[BlackOnyx]

But the real problem which it doesn’t touch is that martials need specific gear to work. A flight item. An invisibility counter. Etc. The GM can just give those to them, but they could do that before. As a replacement for Magic Mart it still leaves a fighter at the mercy of his cohorts or the random drop table for stuff he needs that isn’t a stat+.

Depending on the group you're looking to cater to, this might be more of a feature than a bug.


Personally, I like the idea of promoting a bit more caster/martial interplay into the party dynamic. From what I've seen, encouners tend to feel much more rewarding when tactical planning is a joint effort. When "support" becomes a more viable/necessary role, a party starts to feel more like a team than a collection of individuals just waiting for their turn to attack.


(That said, the fact that so many casters have access to both powerful buffs *and* powerful offensive magic does still lead to some balance issues on the martial/caster spectrum. This is why, even in E6, I like to throw creatures with SR into the mix fairly regularly.)

[Gnaeus]

Depending on the group you're looking to cater to, this might be more of a feature than a bug.


Personally, I like the idea of promoting a bit more caster/martial interplay into the party dynamic. From what I've seen, encouners tend to feel much more rewarding when tactical planning is a joint effort. When "support" becomes a more viable/necessary role, a party starts to feel more like a team than a collection of individuals just waiting for their turn to attack.


(That said, the fact that so many casters have access to both powerful buffs *and* powerful offensive magic does still lead to some balance issues on the martial/caster spectrum. This is why, even in E6, I like to throw creatures with SR into the mix fairly regularly.)

Don’t want to completely derail this thread for a conversation we have had a million times. But some of the problems with that include...
1. Some groups have a more competitive dynamic. Or a less tactical one.
2. Sometimes the fix isn’t a group buff for you. A Druid might be able to give himself echolocation but not have anything he can cast to make the fighter see invisibility
3. The party could be split, or the caster disabled, or busy saving himself from trouble
4. The caster player may not be dependable. I straight up murdered a wizard 2 weeks ago who spent 2 encounters Fing around and then dropped a stinking cloud on the middle of our own party in a key boss fight. If I was waiting for something I needed from his Chaotic Insane self I’d wait forever.
5. The caster gets to design his own character and may not have the buff you need. Things like fly and see invisibility are good spells but sometimes I pick other spells to know/prepare instead.
6. The caster may have picked sorcerer or Druid so he could throw lightning bolts or eat peoples faces and they have no obligation to play the fighters buffbot if they don’t want to.
7. The caster may have picked a really good spell for that encounter and using it could be better than bringing a muggle into the fight

In some groups, or even the same groups with different characters this may not be a problem. But every power imbalance between classes is made larger by a low magic availability or frequency (but not ceiling) game.

[Clistenes]

While I generally agree with your points I feel like people forget a few thing. One thing is that there are quite few high level characters, which is why magic is not omnipresent. Like, fearun has about 70 mil, 10% are level 1 adventures, 50% of that are level 2, 50% of that are level 3.... etc, basically leaving you with 13 level 20 characters... and not all of them are necessarily a spellcaster...

Secondly, its not only friendly characters who are these levels, they are total, ergo, there are possible just a handful of good aligned meaning that even though magic solves everything, its not readily available and evil will be there to spoil what ever the good guys are doing... So I don't thing everything inflated beyond LotR/witcher etc... at least not as a rule!

So remember, that there are only 13 level 20 characters in faerun, not all of them are spellcasters... and not all of them are good...

If there were so few high level characters the setting wouldn't be high magic: The characters wouldn't face high level spellcasters, they wouldn't have high level allies, they couldn't buy high level magic items and they couldn't acquire high level spells to copy them on their spellbooks.

So what you aren't negating high magic settings' drawbacks, you are merely saying that Faerun isn't in fact a high level setting.

[Shpadoinkle]

You know, I've been thinking about this a bit, and I'd like to point to one series of games in particular: The Dragon Quest series. (Early games were known in the west as Dragon Warrior.)

In the first game you're not some mighty hero, you're not some superhuman, you're not special at all, you're just some random guy, at least as far as anybody can tell. You CLAIM to be a descendant of the legendary hero Erdrick/Loto (depnding on the translation you're playing,) but you don't actually have anything to back this up, it's just the word of some random guy, so nobody has any real reason to believe you.

The plot isn't anything special, really: The Dragonlord has captured the princess and has her guarded by one of his pet dragons, and if he isn't stopped he'll take over the country. There are other warriors around, but the talk about how dangerous it is going outside of town and how monsters are everywhere now. The vast majority of your equipment is nonmagical - you can go from a club to a handaxe and that's actually a significant upgrade, and later to a longsword which is a similarly significant upgrade, then to a FLAMING longsword which is again, actually a really significant upgrade and the second most powerful weapon in the game! Armor follows a similar upgrade pattern - only the last two suits of armor are magical at all, and each upgrade is pretty significant. You're not just swapping out one magic item for another, you're investing in a POWERFUL MYSTIC SUIT OF ARMOR, FIT FOR A HERO, that makes you nigh-invulnerable and even heals you over time! (In D&D terms it would basically grant Fast Healing, but it only heals you every fifth step you take on the overworld, so I guess it would be more like Fast Healing 0.2. But I digress.) Erdrick's sword and armor are essentially minor artifacts in D&D terms.

The second game follows a similar pattern; explicitly magical weapons and armor are fairly rare and really powerful. They're something to strive for, something to work towards, and they're either really expensive or found in some dungeon or other or guarded by some nasty monster who's all too happy to stomp you into the dirt. The second game has a wider variety of spells, and more powerful ones too, but two of your party's most powerful and most used spells are basically, in D&D terms, Fireball and Cure Serious Wounds.

Your accomplishments in these games are a big freaking deal, as far as NPCs are concerned. "HOLY CRAP YOU ACTUALLY SLEW THE DRAGON AND RESCUED THE KIDNAPPED PRINCESS?! Everybody thought that would be impossible!" It's not just routine "Oh, I'm level 12 now, everybody else who's level 12 goes to kill these monsters." Your accomplishments make you a larger-than-life hero, a symbol that maybe things aren't quite as hopeless as they seemed, even if the constant need for escalation since the first couple games came out makes these things seem like they're not that impressive today.

So I know I've gone on a bit here, but my point is that the desire for relatively low-level and low magic settings is to capture this kind of feeling. "Oh, you killed a dozen ogres? So what? Here's your pay, get the hell out of here." No, not 'so what,' that's a HUGE accomplishment! It would be like ONE guy taking on an entire football team, singlehandedly, for the entire game, and winning! That would be talked about for bloody ages!!! It would be a MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENT! Even if were only three or four people playing an entire football team at once and winning, people would be ASTOUNDED by it!

So I guesss in short, preferring low-level play or relatively low-magic settings, is kinda getting back to the roots of the whole gaming thing. Yeah, slaying a million demons or whatever is cool, but at that scale it's hard to relate to. You're REGULARLY doing impossible things by the time you're high enough level to do stuff like that. But at lower levels, doing impossible things FEELS more impossible. It's a question of scale and perspective.

[Quertus]

You know, I've been thinking about this a bit, and I'd like to point to one series of games in particular: The Dragon Quest series. (Early games were known in the west as Dragon Warrior.)

In the first game you're not some mighty hero, you're not some superhuman, you're not special at all, you're just some random guy, at least as far as anybody can tell. You CLAIM to be a descendant of the legendary hero Erdrick/Loto (depnding on the translation you're playing,) but you don't actually have anything to back this up, it's just the word of some random guy, so nobody has any real reason to believe you.

The plot isn't anything special, really: The Dragonlord has captured the princess and has her guarded by one of his pet dragons, and if he isn't stopped he'll take over the country. There are other warriors around, but the talk about how dangerous it is going outside of town and how monsters are everywhere now. The vast majority of your equipment is nonmagical - you can go from a club to a handaxe and that's actually a significant upgrade, and later to a longsword which is a similarly significant upgrade, then to a FLAMING longsword which is again, actually a really significant upgrade and the second most powerful weapon in the game! Armor follows a similar upgrade pattern - only the last two suits of armor are magical at all, and each upgrade is pretty significant. You're not just swapping out one magic item for another, you're investing in a POWERFUL MYSTIC SUIT OF ARMOR, FIT FOR A HERO, that makes you nigh-invulnerable and even heals you over time! (In D&D terms it would basically grant Fast Healing, but it only heals you every fifth step you take on the overworld, so I guess it would be more like Fast Healing 0.2. But I digress.) Erdrick's sword and armor are essentially minor artifacts in D&D terms.

The second game follows a similar pattern; explicitly magical weapons and armor are fairly rare and really powerful. They're something to strive for, something to work towards, and they're either really expensive or found in some dungeon or other or guarded by some nasty monster who's all too happy to stomp you into the dirt. The second game has a wider variety of spells, and more powerful ones too, but two of your party's most powerful and most used spells are basically, in D&D terms, Fireball and Cure Serious Wounds.

Your accomplishments in these games are a big freaking deal, as far as NPCs are concerned. "HOLY CRAP YOU ACTUALLY SLEW THE DRAGON AND RESCUED THE KIDNAPPED PRINCESS?! Everybody thought that would be impossible!" It's not just routine "Oh, I'm level 12 now, everybody else who's level 12 goes to kill these monsters." Your accomplishments make you a larger-than-life hero, a symbol that maybe things aren't quite as hopeless as they seemed, even if the constant need for escalation since the first couple games came out makes these things seem like they're not that impressive today.

So I know I've gone on a bit here, but my point is that the desire for relatively low-level and low magic settings is to capture this kind of feeling. "Oh, you killed a dozen ogres? So what? Here's your pay, get the hell out of here." No, not 'so what,' that's a HUGE accomplishment! It would be like ONE guy taking on an entire football team, singlehandedly, for the entire game, and winning! That would be talked about for bloody ages!!! It would be a MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENT! Even if were only three or four people playing an entire football team at once and winning, people would be ASTOUNDED by it!

So I guesss in short, preferring low-level play or relatively low-magic settings, is kinda getting back to the roots of the whole gaming thing. Yeah, slaying a million demons or whatever is cool, but at that scale it's hard to relate to. You're REGULARLY doing impossible things by the time you're high enough level to do stuff like that. But at lower levels, doing impossible things FEELS more impossible. It's a question of scale and perspective.

I think that a lot of GM are just bad at role-playing the civilians. If they upped their skills, I suspect that many of these problems would go away.

[Mechalich]

If there were so few high level characters the setting wouldn't be high magic: The characters wouldn't face high level spellcasters, they wouldn't have high level allies, they couldn't buy high level magic items and they couldn't acquire high level spells to copy them on their spellbooks.

So what you aren't negating high magic settings' drawbacks, you are merely saying that Faerun isn't in fact a high level setting.

A setting can still have highly abundant magic even if there aren't high-level casters. E6 D&D is still high magic in that there's still a lot of magic, it's just that the magic is much weaker overall.

3.X D&D has magic that is high-powered, highly-available, and extremely common. It has honestly more magic and more powerful magic than you'll find in any dramatically serious fantasy works (yes, higher-powered works exist, including many anime, but these are usually not dramatically serious, and when they are, tend to have comically terrible verisimilitude).

[Trafalgar]

In old school D&D players were given a small amount of mundane and magic things each character could do, and then it was up to the player to think way outside the box....and rules...to try to accomplish goals. An example here would be a city covered by a force dome: a player would look for an entry point like an aqueduct or sewer or even the simple 'dig under the dome'...sneak in a citizens...let themselves be caught to be taken inside. The big thing here is the rules take a far backseat to the game play. A player see that rain goes right through the dome, so comes up with the clever idea of walking through the dome soaking wet or even polymorphed into a water elemental and the GM will allow this to work.

The modern D&D is only focused on the game rules and mechanics. Players look at their character sheet and wait to use the specific abilities listed on the character sheet to do the set specific things. So when confronted by the force dome city, the players will be at a loss to do anything unless they have the specific ability "bypass walls of force". And even if the players try to do something, like dig under the dome, the GM will just automatically say it does not work as the players are "not playing the game using the rules" and not "expending limited game resources" to accomplish a goal.

So true. About a year ago, I had a player blow up on me after I told him that guards were searching people for weapons at the gate of a city he wanted to go in. His main weapon was a halberd. He claimed that I created a unfair scenario because he didn't have any abilities to get his halberd past the guards. He said his character was going to have to wait outside the city while the other characters went inside without him. After a few minutes of him pouting I was like, I normally don't like to tell people how to play their characters but you could try bribing the guards or hiding the Halberd in a merchants cart or sneaking over the wall at night or sneaking in through the sewer or create a distraction and sneak in while the guards aren't looking. I mean they are guards, not dragons. Its a minor obstacle, think of a way!

[vasilidor]

when I create a game, level 12 is generally where I put the current champions of the realm/heroes of the age. at low levels they are something for characters to aspire to. then eventually they can surpass them. these guys generally do not go out adventuring, because they are needed to defend the town/city from attacking monsters. lets face it, a city without one of these guys at the very least is just a buffet to a monster. so the player characters become the sword that surpasses the shield. or that is the intent of my games most of the time when the game is DnD or some derivative thereof. a level 20 wizard would be a national icon or existential threat to said nation, possibly several nations.

[Segev]

So true. About a year ago, I had a player blow up on me after I told him that guards were searching people for weapons at the gate of a city he wanted to go in. His main weapon was a halberd. He claimed that I created a unfair scenario because he didn't have any abilities to get his halberd past the guards. He said his character was going to have to wait outside the city while the other characters went inside without him. After a few minutes of him pouting I was like, I normally don't like to tell people how to play their characters but you could try bribing the guards or hiding the Halberd in a merchants cart or sneaking over the wall at night or sneaking in through the sewer or create a distraction and sneak in while the guards aren't looking. I mean they are guards, not dragons. Its a minor obstacle, think of a way!

First thing I thought of was not the most likely to succeed, but was at least funny: throw it up over the wall and pick it up when you come inside. ;)

[anthon]

I'm watching this chinese drama show about gods and they have magic items, but they are so few and far between that any non-utility magic item (like military issue armor worn by 10,000 other people, or letter delivery services) is totally unique and immediately recognizable by large swaths of immortals, and even random Taoists (wizards) on the street.

Is a +1 magic sword worthy of being a magic item?

Yes and No.

If you are using creatures/effects which can only be damaged by magical weapons, then the difference between a +1 and a non magic item is a vast gulf that changes plot.

But if you are using it for its numerical DPS factor, then no.

Magical items in the plus range are actually inferior in gradation than the various qualities of weapons using different alloyed steels, smithing quality, damascus, fit and finish, edge geometry, etc.

For example, in Forged in Fire, the competition weapon show, I saw one large blade chop a pig in half with one hit... the identical class competitor did NOT succeed in cutting the pig in half. It's gashes were literally half as deep. In another episode, one blade lacerated deeply, while the other snapped in half on the first hit.

Again and again, in this series, you can see how 2 weapons of the same name, and same form, can be vastly different in performance and material strength. There really are weapons that can chop a man in half. But there's also common variations of those same weapons that would lose their tips on a few layers of leather or gambison padded armor.

This begs the question:

is a whole pig chopped in half vs. 1/3rd of a pig requiring 3 strokes --- is this the same as +1?

No. This is more like double or triple the damage dice.

Factoring in the whole d8, d10, and d6 as obvious dice for weapons,
you are looking at +3, +4, and +5 differences.

But are they magical?

Mythology is sometimes a story about a normal person with exceptional talent or crafting ability, and how that talent or item was demonstrably superior to the others on the battle field. Thus, instead of RAW strict "this is not magic"

it's more about how you want to see what makes something exceptional, vs. magical.

Items of quality in the old days only allowed either a +1 to hit, or a +1 to damage. I assure you, the performance Gap in competition weapons is much, much larger than that +1 half the time.

[H_H_F_F]

So true. About a year ago, I had a player blow up on me after I told him that guards were searching people for weapons at the gate of a city he wanted to go in. His main weapon was a halberd. He claimed that I created a unfair scenario because he didn't have any abilities to get his halberd past the guards. He said his character was going to have to wait outside the city while the other characters went inside without him. After a few minutes of him pouting I was like, I normally don't like to tell people how to play their characters but you could try bribing the guards or hiding the Halberd in a merchants cart or sneaking over the wall at night or sneaking in through the sewer or create a distraction and sneak in while the guards aren't looking. I mean they are guards, not dragons. Its a minor obstacle, think of a way!

This is why I'm glad I started playing D&D when I did - I was around 8 years old, and we didn't really know the rules too well. Most of the game was interaction and problem solving, and played away from the character sheet.

The clearest contrast I remember is a friend who joined our hobby in 7th grade, I believe. He already had a lot of experience video gaming, but never role played before. He decided to play a wizard. After a short conversaation with an NPC, he said "I'd like to run to - wait, can wizards run?"

We all looked at him like he was insane, but from his perspective, it was a reasonable question. Running is a very physical ability, and he chose the least physical-oriented class. To him, he wasn't a person - he was a wizard. Sounds a lot like what your halberd fighter was going through.

The "can wizards run" guy became an excellent role player later, though unfortunately he pretty much quit a couple of years ago.

[danielxcutter]

I think a problem with "low-magic" D&D is that you typically do need some magic to compete with the monsters. You don't even have to go as far as dragons; Allips are CR 3. Try fighting one without any magic whatsoever. Fun. And the higher CR the monsters have, the more they assume you have enough magic boosting you to do noticeable damage.

A low-magic setting in general(be that tabletop, computer, or novel) is entirely fine, and as others have mentioned earlier in the thread many "classical" fantasy works have relatively low magic. And high-magic settings that explore how such magic would influence the setting is also fun! I've read a webnovel once that was mostly a standard fantasy setting, but there was a mention of books being much more common there than Earth did in a similar era because the spell to copy text is pretty low on the ladder so novice mages use that to make money a lot, and that's just scratching the surface really - I don't know about Western works, but I think there are a pretty decent number of Eastern works that explore the ramifications of high-magic fantasy settings.

It's just that 3.x doesn't really work that well with little to no magic, especially after a certain point. Especially when "low-magic" only refers to the players.

[Xervous]

Within the context of 3(.5)E?

Square peg, round hole. The system isn't set up for it and it was a case of using what was popular at the time. Now, with 5e as the junk food of choice, previously established trends will hold for those that were on this course. It's a matter of framing and control, what tools the players can expect to get and how they'll be treated by the setting. The knee jerk response of no tools, no toys, low magic too frequently lines up with incompetent GMs that wield it as a bludgeon to keep their players powerless and on the rails. If you asked me in the previous decade about low magic 3.5e I'd nod my head and understand that it was a reasonable variation on a popular system for getting a specific feel that can be delivered to the common player for whom tabletop and D&D are synonymous. Now, the only people dealing with 3.5 are veterans or those being initiated by veterans. It seems much cleaner to just pick another system if you're going to gut a large portion of what 3.5e is built around.

[danielxcutter]

Within the context of 3(.5)E?

Square peg, round hole. The system isn't set up for it and it was a case of using what was popular at the time. Now, with 5e as the junk food of choice, previously established trends will hold for those that were on this course. It's a matter of framing and control, what tools the players can expect to get and how they'll be treated by the setting. The knee jerk response of no tools, no toys, low magic too frequently lines up with incompetent GMs that wield it as a bludgeon to keep their players powerless and on the rails. If you asked me in the previous decade about low magic 3.5e I'd nod my head and understand that it was a reasonable variation on a popular system for getting a specific feel that can be delivered to the common player for whom tabletop and D&D are synonymous. Now, the only people dealing with 3.5 are veterans or those being initiated by veterans. It seems much cleaner to just pick another system if you're going to gut a large portion of what 3.5e is built around.

I think 5e is lower magic than 3.5e, at least; magic items are at most 3 to a person and there's no such thing as WBL either so you might not even get a magic item in the entire campaign. There are pros and cons to that, though in general I think it's much more beginner friendly in exchange for being a lot more watered down to someone who cut his teeth on 3.5e on this forum.

[Segev]

I just think +x swords and armor should have utility uses that make them more interesting.

5e's take on Shatterspike is pretty good: it's a +1 sword that auto-crits when used against objects and can deal bludgeoning or slashing damage against objects (just slashing against non-objects). It's mostly a +1 sword, but it's really good at breaking things and cutting through objects/environment.