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

[newbDM]

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]

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]

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]

How do you plan to keep magic low?

[Evil DM Mark3]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[Emperor Tippy]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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 for details. It's called Character Points, and it's in chapter 12.

TS

[Shpadoinkle]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Mechanically, the character's plus to hit will rise significantly faster than their armor class. That can get messy.

[amanamana]

If you really want to stay in D20, I suggest Iron Heroes.

[Eclipse]

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]

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]

Monk/Tattooed Monk with Vow of Poverty will be somewhat of a powerhouse in such a setting.

[Evil DM Mark3]

If you really want to stay in D20, I suggest Iron Heroes.

Just want to say that this is definitely one solution.

[newbDM]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Dont know if its been said but watch out for VoP.

[Knaight]

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).