Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Armence 04-05-05, 07:14 PM	Hello, I really like the campain worlds provided for D&D but I wanted to try and run a game with much less magic though it should not be eliminated. The idea is something similar to mythical Egypt. Which means magic would be much more ritualistic and much less present: A magical sword might be reward of a whole quest and not just to be bought at the local wizard shop. Though this is easy to do I am also wondering how to tone down the magic classes. The way I wish to do it, a wizard cannot launch a fireball, but initiating a plague that would ravage a country is feasable after a long ritual. In addition, gods have better things to do than answer every little whimsy favor asked by their clerics such as a minor healing spell, but if there is genuine need, the cleric might implore the favor of his god to shall we say bring prosperity to a village. I am not saying that magic should be useless in combat but even in fantasy movies, the wizard does not toss a dozen fireballs every battle, but one fired at exactly the right time will decimate all ennemies present. Is there a mod similar to this around? Armence
weasel fierce 04-05-05, 09:03 PM	By far the simplest idea is to just limit the number of spells per day. Take away the int / wis bonus spells, and you're set, I think. You may wish to compensate with some skills or maybe a higher HD or whatnot.
Thanatos02 04-05-05, 09:07 PM	You may wish to consider using the Adept class as the only magic user and look up rituals in Unearthed Arcana. Are you familiar with these? It may help.
IceFractal 04-05-05, 09:26 PM	Indeed, the hardest part of low-magic campaigns is often balancing the spellcasters. Basically, there's three main things you need to consider: 1) How to balance the spellcasters. 2) Can the players still face the same foes without as much magic equipment? 3) What weaknesses exist without magic equipment? For the second one, I recommend more humanoid and animal foes, less outsiders and abberations. Creatures that have DR/magic (or can only be hurt by magic weapons), lots of spell-like abilities, regeneration, or abilities that take curative magic to deal with (petrification, for instance), should have their CR bumped up a bit. For the third one, that depends on what classes you're using and what foes the PCs are facing, but you should note some common ones; Monks often rely on bracers of armor or similar, Fighters with no access to magic weapons can end up being useless in some fights, any melee character will suffer a bit from less available healing, and there's probably more, but I don't know them all. Now for the first one, I've got some suggestions: 1) Low-Magic Campaign: Spellcasters don't have "spells per day". Instead they gain the ability to learn and use rituals. Rituals generally have a CL requirement, so higher level spellcasters can use more powerful ones. Wizard types have a spellbook of rituals, Cleric types pray for knowledge of them, and Sorcerer types just instinctively know how to do a certain number. Rituals usually take to long to do in combat, but some have delayed effects, so a fireball ritual might take an hour to perform, but then you'd be able to cast a fireball as a standard action X times in the next 24 hours. Depending on how powerful rituals are, and how difficult to do, spellcasters will be weakened to a greater or less extent. To compensate for this, give them more skill points, possibly give the d4 HD ones a better HD, and give them some supernatural abilities, the amount depending on how weakened they are by the new system. For instance, a Sorcerer might gain DR/cold iron, a Cleric with the Knowledge domain might gain a version of Bardic Knowledge, a Wizard might gain Eldritch Sight, allowing them to see magic without effort, and so forth. 2) Really Low-Magic Campaign There are no spellcasting classes. Rituals can be learned by those with the proper feats and skills. For instance, a "fireball" ritual might require Knowledge(planes), Craft(alchemy), Knowledge(arcana) at a certain rank, as well as some ritual specific feats (I'm thinking these'd be in a tree, starting with Perform Ritual which lets you perform the least powerful rituals, and working up through more specific and more powerful ones: Perform Ritual -> Elemental Ritual -> Ritual of Fire, for instance). The closest thing to a spellcasting class would be an Expert type class that gets a lot of skill points, all the skills used in rituals as class skills, bonus ritual feats, and maybe some bonuses when performing rituals (faster, less people required, component substitution). This would stand in for all spellcasters, and even then most people who took it would multiclass it with something else. Hope that helps.
Grigori 04-06-05, 08:39 AM	For a fairly simple and relatively balanced low-magic world: Use the D20 Modern, Urban Arcana, and D20 Past books (there are even a few things from the D20 future which could be adapted very easily). It's the easiest and most workable low-magic system without scrapping D&D altogether. If you want to bypass alot of the awkward phases of it (1st-3rd level), start them off at about 3-4th when they would gain their 1st level in an advanced class. That way everyone has a few HP, and a decent amount of skills to make use of.
Lina_Inverse 04-06-05, 09:31 AM	charecters in D&D who are not pure spellcasters.are for all intents and purposes.the magic equipment they posses. a level 12 fighter without equipment could barely qualify as CR7,and even then he couldnt take down half the monsters he should be fighting. to be blunt,D&D does not work in any way shape or form in low magic.
scwolf 04-06-05, 10:12 AM	a level 12 fighter without equipment could barely qualify as CR7,and even then he couldnt take down half the monsters he should be fighting. to be blunt,D&D does not work in any way shape or form in low magic. Only if you're a DM incapable of running a D&D game without pre-calculated CRs to help you design your encounters. There are plenty of DMs who can judge the challenge of an encounter even when the guidelines used to assign the standard CRs no longer apply. For those DMs D&D can work just fine low magic.
Lillandra 04-06-05, 10:25 AM	Another simple way is to limit primary casters to only take a spell casting level every other level, so a 10th level character, and one of the best spellcasters in the region, might be Ftr5/Wiz5.
Lina_Inverse 04-06-05, 11:58 AM	Only if you're a DM incapable of running a D&D game without pre-calculated CRs to help you design your encounters. There are plenty of DMs who can judge the challenge of an encounter even when the guidelines used to assign the standard CRs no longer apply. For those DMs D&D can work just fine low magic. ok prove it. design an encounter for the following party.remember they have NO magic items. level 20 druid. level 20 fighter level 20 sorcerer level 20 rogue
HailSpork 04-06-05, 04:12 PM	Actually, this is easier than if they do have magical items. The part that makes it difficult is making an encounter for a level 20 group. If you run the group from level 1, you get an idea of how powerful the group is, both in terms of their abilities (including skillsets and feats as well as attributes) and how effective they are as a team. With gradual levelling, it is much easier to balance the encounters; however, even with that advantage (as compared to going straight to level 20), it is still quite possible if not inevitable to make encounters that are either ridiculously easy or nigh-impossible. Even if an encounter is "balanced", it may become entirely unbalanced dependent on the pc's approach. Anyway, to answer your challenge, it depends on how dangerous I want the encounter to be. I would say this would be an adequate encounter for them: 1 level 19 druid, 1 level 19 fighter, 1 level 19 sorcerer, and 1 level 19 rogue. Actually, that would probably tear them to shreds, depending on how complimentary I make their feats/spells/etc, so I'm going to make them with no reguard for each other. If the sorcerer polymorphs the rogue into a hydra and the fighter flanks, the amount of damage that can be dealt from 19 sneak attacks, each with +10d6 is just ridiculous.
Lina_Inverse 04-06-05, 11:40 PM	Actually, this is easier than if they do have magical items. The part that makes it difficult is making an encounter for a level 20 group. If you run the group from level 1, you get an idea of how powerful the group is, both in terms of their abilities (including skillsets and feats as well as attributes) and how effective they are as a team. With gradual levelling, it is much easier to balance the encounters; however, even with that advantage (as compared to going straight to level 20), it is still quite possible if not inevitable to make encounters that are either ridiculously easy or nigh-impossible. Even if an encounter is "balanced", it may become entirely unbalanced dependent on the pc's approach. Anyway, to answer your challenge, it depends on how dangerous I want the encounter to be. I would say this would be an adequate encounter for them: 1 level 19 druid, 1 level 19 fighter, 1 level 19 sorcerer, and 1 level 19 rogue. Actually, that would probably tear them to shreds, depending on how complimentary I make their feats/spells/etc, so I'm going to make them with no reguard for each other. If the sorcerer polymorphs the rogue into a hydra and the fighter flanks, the amount of damage that can be dealt from 19 sneak attacks, each with +10d6 is just ridiculous. no pc classes.you have to use monsters.im asking for a standard encounter,that means monsters from the MM that will drain 20-25% of there resourses.
weasel fierce 04-06-05, 11:44 PM	There's really no such thing as a "standard encounter" It depends on the larger context. If its the only encounter in the session, its fine if its a life or death struggle. if its just one of a longer series, power it down to something more manageable, and more easily overcome. NPC motivations can also play a part. 20 orcs that will flee quickly is significantly less of a threat, than 15 orcs that will fight to the death.
HailSpork 04-07-05, 12:18 AM	no pc classes.you have to use monsters.im asking for a standard encounter,that means monsters from the MM that will drain 20-25% of there resourses. Why? If I were doing a low-magic campaign, I would focus more on fighting humanoids with levels than monsters. Yes, when you alter rules, you do lose the convenience of pre-generated CR's. That's why it would be just plain stupid to start at a high level.
Sternenschwinge 04-07-05, 05:50 AM	Hi folks ! My group is running on a low magic world quite a while and yes, dying of the pc's happens very often, if they go into a fight unprepared. Were are still trying and balancing the whole thing out. Because two of our players now have pc's with the VoP, we raised availibility of magic items for the others a bit to keep balance. In the end, it all depends on the DM how low you keep magic in your campaign, which is quite hard for a world based on magic and if the pc's played on normal level before that. Anyway, without or only a glimpse of magic, it would not make a lot of sense to confront the group with magic creatures again & again. If you want more of a cuthullu - feeling, let them only appear in visions and dreams and at the end of a campaign :cool:
the_one_true_shea 04-07-05, 12:31 PM	ok prove it. design an encounter for the following party.remember they have NO magic items. level 20 druid. level 20 fighter level 20 sorcerer level 20 rogue How about 100 5th level orc warriors. 50 10th level orc warriors, and 5 20th level Ogre Warriors. 1 15th level orc Aristocrate with a magic Weapon (Im thinking.... flaming halbred). + 100 odd leveled orc experts, aristocrates, and a handful of goblin adepts. 4 20s should be able to handle that with teamwork, and without magic items... should. And since encounter means more than numbers - Open forest (no move penalties from undergrowth), there is a stream in the south quadrent, and the majority of the 5th levels are guarding either traps (hidden and watching) or camps (of experts and aristocrates). The 50 are broken into rough teams of ten, and are patrolling. The Ogres and the goblins are the "strike force" that sits and chills near the center of the camp. The horde is equiped with appropriate tangle bags, shock rocks, arrows, and melee weapons (masterworks for the 10th and above). Your party starts at the north quadrent, their challenge (if they choose to accept it): rescue the elven princess (and attendants) being held ransom by the 15th level Orc King. Bonus points for coming back with the halbred. Does that sound reasonable Lina? And remember, CR is about living, not killing. Personal Choice - dump pregenerated CRs. Unless you are using a campaign book. What constitutes a challenge is different depending on the party construction. Some individual monsters are a breaze to survive if you happen to have that thing or ability that negates the creature's primary attack. Should a party that is immune to fire get as much XP for killing fire elementals as it does for killing ice elementals? Even if the pregenerated CR is the same.