Author Topic: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?  (Read 31441 times)

Offline Libertad

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Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« on: November 07, 2011, 02:31:23 PM »
I cannot speak for other editions, but 3rd edition D&D was designed in such a way that high-level parties pretty much require magic spells and items.  The wealth PCs gain encourages gamers to spend it on better magic items so that they can efficiently kill stronger foes at higher levels.

Although it may not be most appropriate system, there is demand for low-magic games (at least among some D&D message boards).  The thought of a veteran warrior taking on hordes of foes and giant dragons with nothing but the skin of his teeth and a well-used sword is appealing.  But the game system discourages this.

Do you know of any good house rules or homebrewed designs that can effectively utilize a low-magic game without wrecking inter-party balance and the encounter system? Is E6  an appropriate fix?

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« Reply #1 on: November 07, 2011, 02:39:17 PM »
Well, you can assign bonuses to the PCs that they'd normally get from magic items. I played around with this a bit in this old PbP game (which I think I'm going restart on here soon).

The basic idea was this:

Quote
Magic items that just provide a bonus are not being used. Instead, you all get the following bonuses as you level up:

    * All characters have an enhancement bonus to attack and damage rolls, enhancement bonus to armour or shield AC bonuses (if any), resistance bonus to saves and enhancement bonus to all ability scores equal to their character level divided by 3, rounding down.
    * All characters have a deflection bonus to AC equal to their character level divided by 4, rounding down.
    * All characters have a competence bonus to all skills equal to their character level.

Plus there was a limit of 5 "attuned" magic items at once. This basically nullifies DR/magic, but it sucked already, anyway. It also won't give the PCs things that they'll probably need to effectively compete at mid to higher levels like flight, etc, which many often get from magic items, but that can be worked around (a flying mount + Handle Animal/Ride ranks, etc).
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Offline X-Codes

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Re: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« Reply #2 on: November 07, 2011, 03:31:10 PM »
Phaedrus has the right idea for a full 20-level system.  E6 is also pretty magical, though, since Wizards or Artificiers can run up the Item Creation feats and create magic marts, so depending on how you want to cut back on magic items, you'll need to restrict Tier 1/2 classes, Item Creation feats, or both.

Offline Havok4

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Re: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« Reply #3 on: November 07, 2011, 03:49:32 PM »
I just do not think that 3.5 is a good system to do low magic with. Magic is integrally tied to the core of the game and removing it takes so much work to get a reasonably functional system without there being readily available magic. But restricting classes to the less magical ones at low levels can create a reasonable environment, so E6 might be the way to go.

Offline Libertad

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Re: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« Reply #4 on: November 07, 2011, 03:58:51 PM »
I just do not think that 3.5 is a good system to do low magic with. Magic is integrally tied to the core of the game and removing it takes so much work to get a reasonably functional system without there being readily available magic. But restricting classes to the less magical ones at low levels can create a reasonable environment, so E6 might be the way to go.

Even in E6, spellcasters can gain some cool stuff like Invisibility, Flight, and Wind Wall.  Hell, pixies can turn invisible at will and remain so while attacking!

An unfortunate aspect of low-magic games is that spellcasting PCs tend to dominate.  In order for low-magic to work, noncasters like Barbarians and Rogues need abilities that can hit incorporeal targets, heal from ability drain, and pin-point invisible creatures.  Area of effect attacks need to be an option as well in case the party is faced with a horde of mooks.

The Martial Adept abilities and classes of Tome of Battle may be a good fit.

Offline ksbsnowowl

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Re: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« Reply #5 on: November 07, 2011, 04:06:41 PM »
Phaedrus' list looks reasonable.  Another way to go about it would be to just state everyone gets the benefits of Vow of Poverty.  I'm not remembering the specifics of VoP, but just as a starting point, I think that would do pretty well.

And Tome of Battle was also one of the first things to come to mind.

In my game I go for "rare" magic as opposed to low magic.  All the item creation feats have their requisite caster level doubled before the feat can be taken.  So no one is getting Craft Magic Arms and Armor until they have 10 caster levels.  That significantly cuts down on the number of item crafters in the world, but items do exist.  The PC's will have level-appropriate gear, they just won't have magic marts to get anything they possibly desire; most of their stuff is what they took off of dead foes.  That takes some planning as a DM, so your bad guys use items your PC's will like, but it's not a bad thing.

Offline Lycanthromancer

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Re: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« Reply #6 on: November 07, 2011, 04:44:28 PM »
All the item creation feats have their requisite caster level doubled before the feat can be taken.
That does rather make artificers better, since they get them at the original levels anyway.

Offline ksbsnowowl

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Re: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« Reply #7 on: November 07, 2011, 04:59:25 PM »
All the item creation feats have their requisite caster level doubled before the feat can be taken.
That does rather make artificers better, since they get them at the original levels anyway.
Well, it should be stated that Artificers don't exist in my homebrew setting (the only place I apply this rule).  If they did, then they would indeed get them at their listed levels, just as Wizards and Archivists can have Scribe Scroll at level 1, and no one else can have it until level 2 (effectively level 3).

Midgard Dwarves still get their Master Craft ability, and they are the main sources of magic rings (which otherwise require a 24th level caster), as well as a major source of magical weapons and armor.

(my homebrew is a viking setting, by the way)

Offline Mixster

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Re: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« Reply #8 on: November 07, 2011, 05:10:51 PM »
IMO D&D really isn't worth using for low-magic settings, the fun stuff in D&D is all in the high-magic part of town. You'd be much better off using Runequest, or perhaps Gurps.
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Offline Bozwevial

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Re: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« Reply #9 on: November 07, 2011, 05:30:18 PM »
It depends greatly on whether you're trimming your monsters back as well. If you have magic, you can lock down a pit fiend's teleportation and negate most of its SLAs. If you don't, that fight is going to be a lot more one-sided.
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Offline Libertad

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Re: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« Reply #10 on: November 07, 2011, 05:30:41 PM »
IMO D&D really isn't worth using for low-magic settings, the fun stuff in D&D is all in the high-magic part of town. You'd be much better off using Runequest, or perhaps Gurps.

Reminds me of something I heard: "With enough money, time, and parts you can turn a pick-up truck into a fast racing car.  But it's easier to just buy a racing car."

I don't know much about these RPGs.  Can the Runequest and GURPS rule-sets simulate a high-action Sword & Sorcery feel, or one where the characters' main focus of power comes from their skills and abilities and not magic?

Offline ksbsnowowl

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Re: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« Reply #11 on: November 07, 2011, 06:13:47 PM »
It depends greatly on whether you're trimming your monsters back as well. If you have magic, you can lock down a pit fiend's teleportation and negate most of its SLAs. If you don't, that fight is going to be a lot more one-sided.
True.  Using the D&D chassis for a low magic campaign will take some serious reworking of the CR system (not that the CR system was perfect to begin with.)

Monsters like a troll are normally defeated through a combination of hitting it with fire effects, or beating it into unconsciousness, then burning the crap out of it.  Low magic takes most of the first option away, thus changing the tactics of the party.  It's probably still a CR 5, but one normal means of dealing with the creature is "taken away" so to speak.  Other monsters may become exponentially more difficult without access to magic.

Offline Prime32

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Re: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« Reply #12 on: November 07, 2011, 06:23:02 PM »
It depends greatly on whether you're trimming your monsters back as well. If you have magic, you can lock down a pit fiend's teleportation and negate most of its SLAs. If you don't, that fight is going to be a lot more one-sided.
True.  Using the D&D chassis for a low magic campaign will take some serious reworking of the CR system (not that the CR system was perfect to begin with.)

Monsters like a troll are normally defeated through a combination of hitting it with fire effects, or beating it into unconsciousness, then burning the crap out of it.  Low magic takes most of the first option away, thus changing the tactics of the party.  It's probably still a CR 5, but one normal means of dealing with the creature is "taken away" so to speak.  Other monsters may become exponentially more difficult without access to magic.
So it's best to use NPCs only, though obviously this increases the amount of work.

Offline ksbsnowowl

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Re: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« Reply #13 on: November 07, 2011, 06:48:51 PM »
So it's best to use NPCs only, though obviously this increases the amount of work.
Not necessarily.  Giants in general don't require magic to be taken down, and they can be pretty nasty.  Most Magical Beasts are similar - you can defeat them by beating them to a pulp.

Where it really has an effect is against a lot of Outsiders and other creatures with innate spellcasting or SLA's.  Also creatures with certain types of DR or other damage resistance/regen/fast healing.
« Last Edit: November 07, 2011, 06:50:34 PM by ksbsnowowl »

Offline ChupacabraJohn

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Re: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« Reply #14 on: November 07, 2011, 08:32:17 PM »
Something that's always worked pretty well for my games in a "low magic" feel is banning item creation feats & removing magic item marts. Full spellcasters still run the same (and are still gods), but players have to wait for, or better yet quest for their hyper specific +3 Speed Returning Hammer, and Staff a Twenty-Million Fireballs. Basic magic items are available for sale & the rest is loot or special order.
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Offline Lycanthromancer

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Re: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« Reply #15 on: November 07, 2011, 08:41:12 PM »
Something that's always worked pretty well for my games in a "low magic" feel is banning item creation feats & removing magic item marts. Full spellcasters still run the same (and are still gods), but players have to wait for, or better yet quest for their hyper specific +3 Speed Returning Hammer, and Staff a Twenty-Million Fireballs. Basic magic items are available for sale & the rest is loot or special order.
That punishes mundanes and makes casters even better by comparison.

Fisty Mcfighter NEEDS that cloak of flying, uber weapon, and armor of awesome to function. Mr. McWizard just needs to cast Polymorph. Or summon something to do it for him.

Also, if nobody can craft, where do magic items come from?

Offline Mnemnosyne

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Re: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« Reply #16 on: November 07, 2011, 09:50:24 PM »
2nd Edition was much lower-magic than 3.5, so taking some hints from there might be good.  For example:

2nd Edition mages were limited on how many spells of each level they could have in their spellbook, by their intelligence.  This limit could be applied to all casters in a low-magic setting.  Rather than hitting 'all' when you got to superhuman intelligence (raising ability scores was much harder; when you hit 19 int that limit would go away for a 2nd edition wizard and you can then scribe all spells) just have the limited number continue to grow slowly all the way up as int (or wis, for primary wis casters) increases.  Suddenly no caster can know all spells, they must pick and choose.  Add to that spells themselves being rarer and harder to come by, and caster power suddenly drops a whole lot as compared to the magic-mart worlds of 3.5 where the wizard is just going to buy scrolls of all the good spells next time he goes to town.  Additionally, specializing didn't allow you to choose your opposition schools.  Wizards would be somewhat weaker if specializing in Conjuration automatically banned Transmutation, and vice versa, for instance.

As for magical items...well, another 2nd Edition limitation might help there.  First, magical item creation was harder, you had to get specialized components (determined by the DM - making a magical item was basically a blank check for the DM to send the party on adventures to gather the toenail of a cloud giant and the eyeball of a medusa and whatnot) and then you had to cast Permanency - which permanently removed one point of constitution from the caster.  And since stats were also harder to raise...  Suddenly magic items become very rare because nobody wants to permanently lose stats.

Granted, neither of these methods is going to be effective or balanced on its own, but they might be an interesting place to start.  This allows things to be possible while making them more difficult.  An equally large difficulty is balancing the monsters, and I think it may simply not be worth trying to adapt D&D to this sort of thing.  As others have said, there are other games that are inherently lower-magic than 3.5 - including AD&D 2nd Edition itself.
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Offline Lycanthromancer

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Re: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« Reply #17 on: November 07, 2011, 10:03:47 PM »
It's not hard to make magic rarer; the problem is that the game is predicated on the idea that magic is widely available, and not having it screws so many classes over.

Casters, though, just shrug and continue being (not QUITE as) awesome.

Offline Optimator

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Re: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« Reply #18 on: November 07, 2011, 11:39:46 PM »
Low magic in D&D is pretty tricky.  The CR system goes out the window, for one.  As long as the DM has a good eye for balance it can work.  I wouldn't find it worth the effort though.  There are other systems out there that would do it better.

Offline SolEiji

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Re: Low-magic in D&D, can it be done well?
« Reply #19 on: November 08, 2011, 12:24:55 AM »
One low magic campaign (which I've yet to playtest) had no spellcasting classes (partical casters like Bard could still be played without casting or if someone has a magic-less Alt Class Feature, but wizards were SoL and basically commoners).  Magic came in the form of magic items, rituals which took time, or the rare supernatural ability bestowed on someone (think of it as a magic location benefit).  In effect, everyone has access to "magic", but it's not a class feature, it's a thing like an item or treasure.

Needless to say, suddenly low-level fiends get a lot more scary. 
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