Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Boshi 08-10-05, 12:29 AM	I've got a low magic setting idea that's been bouncing around the back of my head for a while now and I'm wondering how I'd effectively balance in spell casters in a way that'd make them fairly rare and not walking tanks (I definately want magic to be less combat oriented and more subtle) but still useful. Some considerations: -The number of magic items will be very very low (which hurts fighter types worse than mages). -People are very very awed/scared of magic and generally unprepared for it (which helps mages a lot). There'd be situations in which a cantrip would be able to serverely damage an enemie's morale. -Mages are killed on sight in most places (by those who dare) and Gods demand rather more from their clerics than in other campaigns (which makes both weaker at least in theory since they have to be more careful). -Spellcasters would get interesting setting specific abilities (which makes them more powerful) -No spell components (except maybe human sacrifices or XP loss) or the need to do anything but concentrate very deeply to cast a spell (which makes wizards more powerful) -I'm thinking of giving all of my casters easier access to metamagic feats (would like them to be flexible, which makes them more powerful) -It has to fit with my setting ideas which are as follows: The source of all reality is the human soul. This means that not only does the human soul power all magic but it also keeps all of the rules of physics functioning and maintains the world and all that it contains (including human bodies). Basically the only reason a mountain's there is because people think it is and if people stop thinking it is there won't be any more mountain. Kind of like C.S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy taken to the next logical step and with a heavy dose of Gnosticism added in. So most of the power of the human soul is tied up keeping the world worldlike, making up be up and down be down and making sure no mountains start disappearing but there's a bit of an overflow that can be used up in one of three ways: -Unconsciously modifying the world. If enough people believe something it starts being true, this is especailly the case if emotions are involved. This means that if people are scared of the dark you start getting nasty little creepy crawlies showing up and if you get enough people scared of wolves you might get worgs or even werewolves showing up. Of course having these things exist makes people get even more scared so you get a bit of a vicious cycle. There are other creatures based on other human emotions as well, but fear's the biggie. -Consciously used by humans. Humans could take the power that isn't needed to maintain the world and use it for whatever the hell they want. -Sucked up by the gods. In this world humans create the gods not vice versa and the gods are maintained only by the fact that humans believe in them (just like the mountain) except they soak up a hell of a lot more of the power of peoples' souls than mountains do. The upshot of this is that someone who cares about the gods at all can't be a wizard (not enough soul power left over to be a wizard after feeding the gods) and that in places where there's a lot of faith there won't be many monsters since gods feed on the power that would otherwise often create monsters. Because in the current time period the gods are sucking up most of the magic of the world and keeping if for their own purposes magic is very very rare (especially since the church has hunted down and killed almost all non-cleric magic-users). So I'm looking at the following classes: -Cleric/Druid: The gods suck up soul-power from mortals and then pump some back into certain favored mortals in order to further their own designs. However, the gods do not like parting with their power and so they are not very generous with it and so clerics wouldn't see as much of it and would be very severly restricted unless a certain spell is very clearly in the god's interests (and are sometimes still parsimonious even with it is). However each god has a bit of a different attitude about how their power should be doled out to its clerics/druids. However, since this is EXACTLY the same power that wizards use to power their spells, just channelled through a god I would like clerics and wizards to have basically the same pool of spells, just possibly have the clerics/druids forced to become more specialized and the wizards being a bit more skilled in its use. At higher levels clerics/druids would get specific god-based bonuses. Would possibly use Favored Soul instead of Cleric mechanics for them... -Something vaguely hexbladeish (probably stripped of most of their special abilities and knocked down to cleric BAB and hitdice). These guys use the power of their souls that's left over from maintaining the existance of the world and use it for their own ends. However only one person doesn't produce much power so they tend to try to drain it from other people in a variety of fairly nasty ways which if the conditions are right allow them to pack a very very strong punch. At higher levels they'd get very good at leeching off the souls of others. There'd be a few that are content with the spill-over power of their own souls but the vast majority are too greedy. This class would almost solely be evil NPCs, so I don't need to worry that much about balancing their soul-leeching exactly since I would assume that PCs wouldn't be doing that. -Monks would be very much in tune with their souls and they can use that connection to do a lot of interesting things, however I'm not sure that I much like the emphasis on unarmed combat, might have to change that. -Rangers/paladins could stay as is since the'd get their power just like clerics, they'd have to have their magic tweaked a bit in the same way as clerics and then non-magic using rangers/paladins could be created for less temple-oriented characters by taking away their spells and giving them some extra feats/abilities to compensate -Bards would get their (limited) magic power from the collective soul-power represented by the fascination/adulation of crowds. That means if they don't have a group of people watching their performance (whatever it may be) appreciatively then they wouldn't be able to do much of anything. However a very well-loved bard with a huge audience would be able to do some very impressive things. -The soulless. People who've had the soul burn out of them in order to make them into more effective wizard-hunter, probably rangerish with some wizard-hunting special abilities, invisibility to some divinations and bonuses to saves against magic. They would be completely unable to use any sort of magic whatsoever. -Wizards/sorceres (would almost definatley use sorcerer mechanics for the flexibility, I might even give them most spells known in addition) don't just skim off the top like everyone else. They realize (correctly) that the world is just an illusion created by humans and they (at least partially) withdraw their belief in everything except for human souls, which allows them to use the FULL power of their souls in an attempt to free themselves from the attachments of the world/achieve enlightenment/blow **** up. Obviously this is a very difficult thing to do so it would take a lot of time/levels to pull off full-blown denail of the reality of the world, but doing so is the only way to get at the full power of a human soul. The upshot of this would be that wizards of a decent level don't contribute anything to the maintenance of the world and if there's enough of them reality starts to fray at the edges or even dissolve this is especially the case with the physical bodies of wizards which could have some interesting results (if the wizard is denying the true existance of his own body, then if enough people know about him he starts to look like what others THINK he looks like on the other hand if he's not famous he could start getting translucent...) They would hate the hexbladish types with a passion for what they do to the souls of others (souls being the only thing that wizard types really care about) and be very contemptuous of clerics. So what would be a good way of expressing all of this in mechanics? I'm thinking off pooling all the spells (except for some that don't make sense in the setting) and then only give wizards access to all of them (clerics due to the whims of their gods, bards and hexbladeish guys due to their lack of knowledge) and then tweaking down the overall power of magic heavily to compensate for the setting-specific advantages magic uses would have (i.e. fighters having virtually no magic weopons and NPCs being scared ******** of magic) and I don't really know where to go: -Adopt the Conan d20 RPG magic system, the scholar class would fit my setting's cleric fairly well but the way I want my wizards to be is much more AD&Dy and flexible than the way the Conan RPG is set up, also the setting-specific stuff meshes very badly since Conan wizards get their power mostly through communing with extra-planar stuff while my wizards are the complete oposite (summoning demons etc. doesn't make much sense for them). -Adopt the Arcana Unearthed d20 magic system since the spells there are a bit less powerful/showy, however there the different classes really don't mesh all that well with the classes I want. -Keep the AD&D magic system but tweak it a bit (what I'd prefer to do since that'd be the most familiar for the players). I want the most setting flavor with the fewest rules changes basically some ideas: -Upping casting time of higher level spells. Makes wizards less the lords of combat but still keep them very useful, which is how I want them. -I don't want some kind of fatigue effect all that much since the power is coming from their souls not their bodies. -Making cut their casting level for the purposes of spells slots down significantly (half? two-thirds?) but keep their caster level the same for all other purposes. -Cutting down the power of the flashier and more combat-oriented spells (especially evocations) and leave the rest as-is. -Make it much more difficult for a wizard to concentrate while being attacked. Any ideas? What kind of low-magic house rules have worked for the rest of you?
Gilean 08-10-05, 09:13 AM	-The number of magic items will be very very low (which hurts fighter types worse than mages).Use alternate masterwork item rules, implement class defense bonus to AC, in one way or another. -People are very very awed/scared of magic and generally unprepared for it (which helps mages a lot). There'd be situations in which a cantrip would be able to serverely damage an enemie's morale. -Mages are killed on sight in most places (by those who dare) and Gods demand rather more from their clerics than in other campaigns (which makes both weaker at least in theory since they have to be more careful).Roleplaying boon balances roleplaying restriction.-Spellcasters would get interesting setting specific abilities (which makes them more powerful)For wizard, replace bonus feat(s). For sorcerers, just give them. Clerics have domains, which could be changed and druids have a host of abilities, such as wild shape, that do not fit each archetype. Clerics also have turning which mightn't be suitable for all of them. -No spell components (except maybe human sacrifices or XP loss) or the need to do anything but concentrate very deeply to cast a spell (which makes wizards more powerful)Pretty minor, but do convert costly components into XP costs.-I'm thinking of giving all of my casters easier access to metamagic feats (would like them to be flexible, which makes them more powerful)Allow options for individual characters: Metamagic, setting-specific abilities, perhaps others-It has to fit with my setting ideas which are as follows:It is extremely good that you have fleshed-out concept ready. This makes matters a lot easier. And this isn't too bad, either.The source of all reality is the human soul. This means that not only does the human soul power all magic but it also keeps all of the rules of physics functioning and maintains the world and all that it contains (including human bodies). Basically the only reason a mountain's there is because people think it is and if people stop thinking it is there won't be any more mountain. Kind of like C.S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy taken to the next logical step and with a heavy dose of Gnosticism added in.Human only? So rats, elves, dragons, gods, orcs, etc. Have no power to make things work. I don't like. But that's just me.-Unconsciously modifying the world. If enough people believe something it starts being true, this is especailly the case if emotions are involved. This means that if people are scared of the dark you start getting nasty little creepy crawlies showing up and if you get enough people scared of wolves you might get worgs or even werewolves showing up. Of course having these things exist makes people get even more scared so you get a bit of a vicious cycle. There are other creatures based on other human emotions as well, but fear's the biggie.Probably doesn't require specific mechanics.-Consciously used by humans. Humans could take the power that isn't needed to maintain the world and use it for whatever the hell they want.Again, humans only, which I don't really like. Oh well. Your setting.-Sucked up by the gods. In this world humans create the gods not vice versa and the gods are maintained only by the fact that humans believe in them (just like the mountain) except they soak up a hell of a lot more of the power of peoples' souls than mountains do. The upshot of this is that someone who cares about the gods at all can't be a wizard (not enough soul power left over to be a wizard after feeding the gods) and that in places where there's a lot of faith there won't be many monsters since gods feed on the power that would otherwise often create monsters.So, what happens to hero-deities/ascended humans, or does such even happen?-Cleric/Druid: The gods suck up soul-power from mortals and then pump some back into certain favored mortals in order to further their own designs. However, the gods do not like parting with their power and so they are not very generous with it and so clerics wouldn't see as much of it and would be very severly restricted unless a certain spell is very clearly in the god's interests (and are sometimes still parsimonious even with it is). However each god has a bit of a different attitude about how their power should be doled out to its clerics/druids. However, since this is EXACTLY the same power that wizards use to power their spells, just channelled through a god I would like clerics and wizards to have basically the same pool of spells, just possibly have the clerics/druids forced to become more specialized and the wizards being a bit more skilled in its use.Rework domains. Have healing domain include all spells that heal. Have divine casters only get spells from domains suitable for their patron deity. Possibly a small list of universal cleric spells. Also, rework domain powers to something interesting, even setting-specific. All of the benefits need not be gained immediately.-Something vaguely hexbladeish (probably stripped of most of their special abilities and knocked down to cleric BAB and hitdice). These guys use the power of their souls that's left over from maintaining the existance of the world and use it for their own ends. However only one person doesn't produce much power so they tend to try to drain it from other people in a variety of fairly nasty ways which if the conditions are right allow them to pack a very very strong punch. At higher levels they'd get very good at leeching off the souls of others. There'd be a few that are content with the spill-over power of their own souls but the vast majority are too greedy. This class would almost solely be evil NPCs, so I don't need to worry that much about balancing their soul-leeching exactly since I would assume that PCs wouldn't be doing that.Balance it regardless. It is somewhat annoying to read games in which the bad guys have unimaginable powers simply written off as NPC-only. I don't have hexblade, so no help on that forte. Sounds entirely like a new class, to me.-Monks would be very much in tune with their souls and they can use that connection to do a lot of interesting things, however I'm not sure that I much like the emphasis on unarmed combat, might have to change that.Another new class, I'd say.-Rangers/paladins could stay as is since the'd get their power just like clerics, they'd have to have their magic tweaked a bit in the same way as clerics and then non-magic using rangers/paladins could be created for less temple-oriented characters by taking away their spells and giving them some extra feats/abilities to compensateThey already have qutie thematic spell lists, also, so not much work to be done here.-Bards would get their (limited) magic power from the collective soul-power represented by the fascination/adulation of crowds. That means if they don't have a group of people watching their performance (whatever it may be) appreciatively then they wouldn't be able to do much of anything. However a very well-loved bard with a huge audience would be able to do some very impressive things.Just a rough idea: maximum caster level equal to square root of watchers. Excess might convert into temporary metamagic, such as enlarge or extend. Linear growth would be a bad idea.-The soulless. People who've had the soul burn out of them in order to make them into more effective wizard-hunter, probably rangerish with some wizard-hunting special abilities, invisibility to some divinations and bonuses to saves against magic. They would be completely unable to use any sort of magic whatsoever.Do creatures other than humans even have souls? If not, consider that they should have similar abilities against magic, to some degree.-Wizards/sorceres (would almost definatley use sorcerer mechanics for the flexibility, I might even give them most spells known in addition) don't just skim off the top like everyone else. They realize (correctly) that the world is just an illusion created by humans and they (at least partially) withdraw their belief in everything except for human souls, which allows them to use the FULL power of their souls in an attempt to free themselves from the attachments of the world/achieve enlightenment/blow **** up. Obviously this is a very difficult thing to do so it would take a lot of time/levels to pull off full-blown denail of the reality of the world, but doing so is the only way to get at the full power of a human soul. The upshot of this would be that wizards of a decent level don't contribute anything to the maintenance of the world and if there's enough of them reality starts to fray at the edges or even dissolve this is especially the case with the physical bodies of wizards which could have some interesting results (if the wizard is denying the true existance of his own body, then if enough people know about him he starts to look like what others THINK he looks like on the other hand if he's not famous he could start getting translucent...)I sugggest killing wizards entirely. Book magic doesn't fit all too well into the setting.So what would be a good way of expressing all of this in mechanics? I'm thinking off pooling all the spells (except for some that don't make sense in the setting) and then only give wizards access to all of them (clerics due to the whims of their gods, bards and hexbladeish guys due to their lack of knowledge) and then tweaking down the overall power of magic heavily to compensate for the setting-specific advantages magic uses would have (i.e. fighters having virtually no magic weopons and NPCs being scared ******** of magic) and I don't really know where to go:Pool all spells even remotely fitting, categorise all of them into domains (same spell in multiple ones is okay, spells in no domains are sorcerer-only). -Keep the AD&D magic system but tweak it a bit (what I'd prefer to do since that'd be the most familiar for the players). I want the most setting flavor with the fewest rules changes basically some ideas:AD&D? I'll comment to these as though they were to change 3rd edition rules, as AD&D lore of mine is not particularly developed.-Upping casting time of higher level spells. Makes wizards less the lords of combat but still keep them very useful, which is how I want them.Not a bad idea.-Making cut their casting level for the purposes of spells slots down significantly (half? two-thirds?) but keep their caster level the same for all other purposes.Or simply halve spells/day numbers of the table. Much cleaner.-Cutting down the power of the flashier and more combat-oriented spells (especially evocations) and leave the rest as-is.Require a feat to take them. Or a feat for low-level ones (up to 3rd level), medium-level ones (6th) and high-level ones. One for epic evocations, if used.-Make it much more difficult for a wizard to concentrate while being attacked.Very sensible, too.Any ideas? What kind of low-magic house rules have worked for the rest of you?You'll do just fine, you have the basics and good fluff. It'll work out. Hope this helped a tiny bit.
IceFractal 08-10-05, 07:42 PM	Also, you can give out the normal amount of stuff, but not in the form of magic items. For instance, Gauntlets of Strength +2 could be replaced by special training from a master warrior, that boosts your strength by 2. A +3 sword could be replaced by a legendary masterwork sword that is so perfectly made that it grants +3 to hit and damage. As for spellcasters, you've got a bit of spare capacity from halving their spells/day and making the higher level spells less combat usable. That could be used to give them the special abilities you're thinking of. For the monk, maybe take away some of the combat abilities and replace them with Warlock invocations (reflavored to fit the Monk). Like, for instance, you could cap unarmed damage at 1d8, remove flurry of blows, and remove some of the bonus combat feats, and replace that with a Warlock invocation at the levels where they'd normally get a combat boost.
MikeTheAmazingMuskrat 08-10-05, 09:03 PM	Boshi, I'm not exactly certain what you are asking for. You've provided a lot of story and background metaphysics; are you looking for rules to match? You said I'm wondering how I'd effectively balance spell casters in a way that'd make them fairly rare and not walking tanks (I definately want magic to be less combat oriented and more subtle) but still useful. What do you mean by "rare?" That they are rare in the world, or that players rarely pick them? The former I believe can be done simply through storytelling, but the latter is probably undesirable-- if spell casters aren't exciting enough to play, why have them? Regardless, the two don't have to connected. Adventurers aren't the norm. Anyway, the only low magic rules I've personally run were also used in a low hit point setting. Paladin, Ranger and Adept-with-a-domain were the only casters available. Everyone had a good time, even the Adept player. I imagine that if I can get away with shanking magic that badly, then your alternate rules and classes will certainly work out more than adequately. Again, there's a lot of information in your post, and I'm just not quite sure what you'd like from us. Do you have a specific class you'd like to target for revision right now (and maybe some more specific guidelines), so as to provide a firmer basis for discussion? -mike the amazing muskrat
Boshi 08-11-05, 12:40 AM	Sorry if my original post was a bit on the long time, I wan't to get these ideas down in order to hash them out better in my own brain. Gilean: thanks for all the feedback, I appreciate it immensely! Use alternate masterwork item rules, implement class defense bonus to AC, in one way or another. Right, was planning on going for that. I'm going to have the only way to create magic items be ripping someone's soul out and stuffing it into an item (or to get a really really good item as many as a thousand souls) so they're not going to be common. For wizard, replace bonus feat(s). For sorcerers, just give them. Sounds good, high level wizard would become somewhat incorporal and whatnot (or start looking really really scary if enough people know about and fear them). Clerics also have turning which mightn't be suitable for all of them. Yeah swapping out domains would work well, I'll go with that. Hmmmm, could turning could still be useful. In my campaign souls would be reincarnated but some people would stick around as undead with their soul powering the corpse. The church would not be a big fan of this since any soul-power that's powering undead isn't powering the gods. Pretty minor, but do convert costly components into XP costs. Ya, well just needing to concentrate does up the power a bit. It is extremely good that you have fleshed-out concept ready. This makes matters a lot easier. And this isn't too bad, either. Thanks Human only? So rats, elves, dragons, gods, orcs, etc. Have no power to make things work. I don't like. But that's just me. The human-only bit was in line with the Gnosticism, the non-human creatures would fall into the following categories: -Abominations: "natural" warped by human spell-power. For example if people are really scared of wolves you'd get worg abominations popping up. There could human-based abominations (orcs etc.) that'd have souls and be able to use magic, but they'd be rare. I'd probably make human abomination a seperate race and then give the player a lot of leeway about how exactly their character was twisted in return for a heavy chr penalty and possibly a LA. -Demons: Kind of like abominations but created out of thin air by the power of human souls, this is where you'd get your stranger critters from. However they'd need continued human soul-power to be able to sustain themselves so they'd have to have a paratistic relation with humans. The gods are basically demons writ large. -Undead: Humans (or human abominations) that really didn't want to die and are sustained by the power of their souls. -Imps: Creations of the gods (remember humans created the gods not vice versa) each of the god would have a race of imps as his servants, they'd be intelligent and have some interesting abilities but no souls or magic ability: Violence/war/nature god: Gaelic style fey with a very thick streak of bloodlust God of luck/travellers/thieves: dolphins God of love: something dryadish Smith-type god: Norse style dwarves (right down to the crow feet) God of law: giants/norse trolls God of wisdom/death: half-men (right half of their body is incorporal and invisible and if they turn so that their right side is facing you they disappear) I'd be reluctant to have PC imps or demons but they could work in the right situation, abominations fills in for orcs etc. Probably doesn't require specific mechanics. Right Again, humans only, which I don't really like. Oh well. Your setting. See above. So, what happens to hero-deities/ascended humans, or does such even happen? Could happen in theory since if people worship another person that'd give them more power the same way that gods get more power. Wasn't planning on any hanging around the countries that I've already thought up but it'd be cool to base a country off the edge of my current (fairly limited map) off of a class of god-nobles. Have divine casters only get spells from domains suitable for their patron deity. Possibly a small list of universal cleric spells. Also, rework domain powers to something interesting, even setting-specific. Right. Clerics would be much more limited as to what cleric spells they could cast but I'd give them plenty of deity-specific wizard spells. Balance it regardless. It is somewhat annoying to read games in which the bad guys have unimaginable powers simply written off as NPC-only. I don't have hexblade, so no help on that forte. Sounds entirely like a new class, to me. Basically crappy spell progression + cleric level fighting ability + nasty soul-sucking special abilities. I might have to make two versions, one of which would have the nastier soul-suckign abilities so that good/neutral PCs could play one. Another new class, I'd say. Not necessarily. The way I'm imagining my wisdom/death god is as very Taoist which kind of fits with the monks. Just a rough idea: maximum caster level equal to square root of watchers. Excess might convert into temporary metamagic, such as enlarge or extend. Linear growth would be a bad idea. Sounds good, also some variable as to how much the watchers care but I don't want it too complicated. Maybe some kind of DM call on wether a crowd counts as good/medium/bad depending on size and enthusiasm. Do creatures other than humans even have souls? If not, consider that they should have similar abilities against magic, to some degree. Hmmm good point. Hadn't thought of that. No souls: bonuses against magic Souls: neutral Sustained by magic (demons and probably imps and undead): penalties against magic. I sugggest killing wizards entirely. Book magic doesn't fit all too well into the setting. Right AD&D? I'll comment to these as though they were to change 3rd edition rules, as AD&D lore of mine is not particularly developed. I meant third edition, my brain is incapable of dropping that A :D Or simply halve spells/day numbers of the table. Much cleaner. Hmmmm excellent idea. That way they'd get high level spells but wouldn't be able to toss them around. That pluss lengthening casting time is about what I'm looking at. Require a feat to take them. Or a feat for low-level ones (up to 3rd level), medium-level ones (6th) and high-level ones. One for epic evocations, if used. Hmmmmmm or just make everything that involves creating something out of nothing harder to cast (knock a third off caster level)? Since in this setting you're not summoning a creature, you're CREATING it (hmmmm unless the caster is summoning pre-existing demons which could have some fun results since they are nasty and need to feed on human souls to sustain themselves). For instance, Gauntlets of Strength +2 could be replaced by special training from a master warrior, that boosts your strength by 2. A +3 sword could be replaced by a legendary masterwork sword that is so perfectly made that it grants +3 to hit and damage. Excellent idea. For the monk, maybe take away some of the combat abilities and replace them with Warlock invocations (reflavored to fit the Monk). Like, for instance, you could cap unarmed damage at 1d8, remove flurry of blows, and remove some of the bonus combat feats, and replace that with a Warlock invocation at the levels where they'd normally get a combat boost. Hmmmm, not sure if I want monks zapping people since that'd make them too wizard-like to fit in with a very anti-wizard church. Maybe flavor it so that invocations are precision damage rather than blasts of power. I want monks to gain benefits from being very much in tune with their soul, but not be directly zap people with it. [/quote]You've provided a lot of story and background metaphysics; are you looking for rules to match? You said [/quote] Exactly. What do you mean by "rare?" That they are rare in the world, or that players rarely pick them? The former I believe can be done simply through storytelling, but the latter is probably undesirable-- if spell casters aren't exciting enough to play, why have them? I wouldn't mind if an entire party were wizards, however in a low magic world vanilla wizards become much more powerful (fighters don't have any magical stuff and nobody is prepared for magic) and I want to balance out that as well as make magic less zappy and showy and more subtle.
Boshi 08-11-05, 12:47 AM	If I wasn't clear before, what I'm looking for are rules that match the low-magic and flavor of my setting Hmmmm other idea: Use the Spirit Shaman class from complete divine for demon-worshippers (since demons are basicaly micro-gods they're not necessarily evil). Will also probably also give druids the ax since nature isn't really a force but will recycle their spells for other characters...
Gilean 08-11-05, 03:07 AM	Is this setting posted in the worldbuilding forum? You might want to post or provide a link. -Abominations: "natural" warped by human spell-power. For example if people are really scared of wolves you'd get worg abominations popping up. There could human-based abominations (orcs etc.) that'd have souls and be able to use magic, but they'd be rare. I'd probably make human abomination a seperate race and then give the player a lot of leeway about how exactly their character was twisted in return for a heavy chr penalty and possibly a LA.What is the big difference between the wolf and the worg? Wolf is simply thought to exist, and thus it does, but those who fear wolves create greater (dire, legendary, worg, winter) versions of it. Where is the line between "animal" and abomination drawn, and how?
Eaglos 08-11-05, 05:26 AM	You want a low magik world were mages are hunted down? Well, add psionics and ileterate people and you have Dark Sun campaign setting :cool: Seriously, go to www.athas.org and download the setting. It has some pretty uniques feayures.
Boshi 08-11-05, 06:04 AM	Is this setting posted in the worldbuilding forum? You might want to post or provide a link. Nope, I wanted to hash things out better in my brain before posting it there (including getting some basic houserules thought up), I've already got the basic political/cultural situation outlined in my head but that's it... What is the big difference between the wolf and the worg? Wolf is simply thought to exist, and thus it does, but those who fear wolves create greater (dire, legendary, worg, winter) versions of it. Where is the line between "animal" and abomination drawn, and how? I didn't explain that well enough. Here's my view on the matter (it's a little complicated): First off, worgs was probably a bad example. Winter wolves/hell hounds would be much better. But to get into the metaphysics: Basically there's a number of different world-views (with that of the wizards being the closest to being right, although it's hard to define right since if enough people think something is true it becomes true) floating around. And each has different views on what is "natural." For the wizards and other people in the know all animals/abominations are equally unnatural since they're made out of physical matter and thus the only reason they exist is because people think they exist. However, 99% of the rest of the population think that the Gods created the world and don't have a clue about the underlying pseudo-Gnostic metaphysics. For them there's a set of animals who are defined as "natural" by the Church and anything outside of that (fairly arbitrary) definition is an abomination. So in that sense there isn't a difference since the dividing line is just Church fiat. But, what the majority of people think MATTERS (since they've got souls and what's were all the mojo comes from). And since people are scared of the things that the Church says aren't natural, things that the Church says aren't natural tend to be scary/powerful/nasty which reinforces itself. Basically I want this to be completely playable for people who don't give a crap about metaphysics, but I want it to be there and make sense for the people that do....
Gilean 08-12-05, 07:23 AM	Just make sure that spells not granted by gods don't recognise the difference between abomination and animal.
Boshi 08-12-05, 08:49 PM	Alternatively an abomination could have whatever makes it out of the ordinary be sustained by magic instead of just created by magic (like everything else) in which case there would be a difference.