Why low magic?


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TriOmegaZero wrote:
That's a nonsensical comparison. People in fantasyland are actually doing magic, with common applications. Quantum mechanics are nowhere near as prevalent in the real world.

You seemed to make sense of it in your reply. ;p

From what I recall (never played but have read the CRBs) in 1E and 2E magical aptitude was something not covered on a CRS unless your PCs "Class" was Magic User or Cleric... or Bard (sorta).

Your PC could have an 18 INT or and 18 WIS and, while those are real handy for a Magic User and Cleric (respectively), that wouldn't be sufficient for said PC to show any spell-using aptitude.

In-game, magic was rare not because no one knew about it but because most people couldn't do it even if they wanted to. And by "most people" I'm thinking of a proportion less than 1%.


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Because "High Magic" doesn't truly represent most fantasy. It's not as much an issue of what magic is available, as much as how available and how easy is it to obtain. When magic is 1)frequently 2)easy to obtain with 3)little to no consequences, it is an easy and annoying cop out that can destroy the immersion of your world.

Take for example resurrection; If all you need for resurrection is enough gold, a cleric of appropriate level, and the willingness to come back, then why won't every king have this? In D&D and Pathfinder the only real bar to higher magic is gold (and technically level). Even if you can't cast it yourself, with enough gold you can get somebody of appropriate level to cast it.

Just the mere access of those spells changes the way the world runs and how it's perceived. Any permanent death of a ruler would require deliberate murder and access to high level magic. Any misdeed could be scryed upon, and would require appropriate. The separation between poor and rich would be that much greater. Clerics and Mages would be trained and respected more in their ability to protect against environmental dangers with low level spells.

Disregarding that as a GM can be pretty immersion breaking when you realize that there is this problem that can be solved easily by something that exists within the universe, but is also easy to obtain (as long as you have the coin, which all the rich people do).

And I ache every time I see the excuse "Well people fear magic, because it's different". If that's so true, then we wouldn't have people going to magic shows, or taking advice from "psychics".

No in fantasy, people fear magic because it's dangerous. There are risks. There's the chance of possession, working with dark unknown powers. There is the chance your spell could go horribly wrong, and wreak all sorts of dangers. Maybe these spells cause you to give up some of your life. What if for every cure spell you cast, you draw positive energy permanently away from the world creating imbalance between dark and light?

But in D&D / PF, spells have a set effect (unless it's "wild magic") that works just like science. You do x and you get y. Sure people might have misgivings at first because it's new. But if it gets a specific result each time they'll come to accept, love, and even improve upon it. Because seriously, there's no danger in using magic.

Not only that, but they only need to take a single rest and can do it all again the next day. No specific and rare resources (it's converted all to gold equivalent), no need to sacrifice blood, people, time (unless you're the specific target the spell is against), no need to gather up a group of peers to help channel your power and control, no need to wait longer than a single day. It's easy, and it's convenient. No wonder groups are willing to rest in the middle of the dungeon to let their casters get their spells back, it's more convenient and safe than non-magical means.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Quark Blast wrote:
TriOmegaZero wrote:
That's a nonsensical comparison. People in fantasyland are actually doing magic, with common applications. Quantum mechanics are nowhere near as prevalent in the real world.
You seemed to make sense of it in your reply. ;p

Being able to parse your meaning doesn't mean your comparison is valid.


Ragnarok Aeon wrote:
<snip>...<snip>

What you said.

And then 3.PF "balancing" classes + splat-books only magnified this problem many-fold.


Why low magic?

Lord of the Rings, the Conan series, Game of Thrones, etc.
Basically more fantasy novels then I could ever hope to list here.


TriOmegaZero wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
TriOmegaZero wrote:
That's a nonsensical comparison. People in fantasyland are actually doing magic, with common applications. Quantum mechanics are nowhere near as prevalent in the real world.
You seemed to make sense of it in your reply. ;p
Being able to parse your meaning doesn't mean your comparison is valid.

No but it can be taken as prima facie evidence that it is in fact valid.

What you haven't shown is that my meaning is invalid. You've only stated your opinion (twice now) that you don't like my choice of comparison.

Shadow Lodge

TriOmegaZero wrote:
That's a nonsensical comparison. People in fantasyland are actually doing magic, with common applications. Quantum mechanics are nowhere near as prevalent in the real world.

YMMV. As too might your fantasyland.


Arikiel wrote:

Why low magic?

Lord of the Rings, the Conan series, Game of Thrones, etc.
Basically more fantasy novels then I could ever hope to list here.

LotR and Conan were both high magic settings with actual magic users being extremely rare.

GoT seems... either more so or magic is simply the supernatural. Not familiar enough with GoT canon to say for certain.

Grand Lodge

Arikiel wrote:

Why low magic?

Lord of the Rings, the Conan series, Game of Thrones, etc.
Basically more fantasy novels then I could ever hope to list here.

Yeah, basically this - its the fantasy I am most familiar with.

Just that Pathfinder isn't best vehicle for it but hey, it does work after a fashion and I am relatively happy with what I am using house rules wise.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Quark Blast wrote:
What you haven't shown is that my meaning is invalid. You've only stated your opinion (twice now) that you don't like my choice of comparison.

No, I've stated that the amount of quantum mechanics use in the real world is not equal to the amount of magic use in the standard rules. Which means the comparison is pretty flawed.

That being said, I agree with Kthulu that some GMs run games where the comparison is much more in-line, but I don't find that to be the norm.


TriOmegaZero wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
What you haven't shown is that my meaning is invalid. You've only stated your opinion (twice now) that you don't like my choice of comparison.

No, I've stated that the amount of quantum mechanics use in the real world is not equal to the amount of magic use in the standard rules. Which means the comparison is pretty flawed.

That being said, I agree with Kthulu that some GMs run games where the comparison is much more in-line, but I don't find that to be the norm.

Now three times! :)

Dude, no Quantum Mechanics means no Internet. So, I'd say QM's "in use" descriptor is pretty common. Yep.

As I said prior (which you handily ignored):
In-game, magic was rare not because no one knew about it but because most people couldn't do it even if they wanted to. And by "most people" I'm thinking of a proportion less than 1%.

Just because magic infuses the milieu doesn't mean everyone in the milieu can use it/control it, even though they are aware of it's general presence.


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TriOmegaZero wrote:
That's a nonsensical comparison. People in fantasyland are actually doing magic, with common applications. Quantum mechanics are nowhere near as prevalent in the real world.

Says the person typing on a transistor-based computer, probably connected to a laser-based fiber-optic communications network. No, quantum mechanics are nowhere near as common in the real world. Sheesh.

Don't confuse using the technology with understanding the technology. There's a reason that the inventors of both the transistor and the laser received the Nobel Prize in physics; those are both extremely tricky pieces of work -- yes, in quantum physics. And even manufacturing a laser diode is a very complicated thing that you're not going to be able to do in your basement, unless your basement is a hell of a lot different than most people's. On the other hand, with industrial-scale engineering, something that doesn't exist in Golarion, it's possible to manufacture these QM-based gadgets for a price that the average person can afford to buy and use.

Goodness me, pencils are common in the real world, and almost no one knows how to make them. (Go ahead, I defy you to make a pencil.) Don't confuse use for understanding.


Quark Blast wrote:
Arikiel wrote:

Why low magic?

Lord of the Rings, the Conan series, Game of Thrones, etc.
Basically more fantasy novels then I could ever hope to list here.

LotR and Conan were both high magic settings with actual magic users being extremely rare.

GoT seems... either more so or magic is simply the supernatural. Not familiar enough with GoT canon to say for certain.

Compared to Golarion LotR was very low magic. The fellowship averaged a fraction over two magic items per person. The Erebor expedition had six spread across fifteen members if you count Gandalf's bonded object. Beren and Luthien had possibly just one magic item between them and Luthien was so epically powerful she could put an entire fortress to sleep. That's thousands of hit dice over a range of probably over a mile most of them through solid rock.

On the other hand by around sixth level the big six are in place for Pathfinder martials and 4-5 of them for pure casters (possibly substituting mithril or darkwood buckler for armor).

You're right that Middle Earth is a relatively high magic setting, but even it has at most a third the magic items expected for adventurers in default Pathfinder.

Even Harry Potter, which has magic common to the point of banality has almost no adventurer worthy magic items that aren't bags of holding, handy haversacks, or brooms of flying. Hundreds of wizards and there's a grand total of one headband of vast intellect in the British Isles -- implied to be the only one on Earth -- and it's lost. There are apparently a moderate number of cloaks of invisibility and beyond that pretty much nothing.

Robert Asprin's MYTH series is a bit closer, but even so most people aren't lugging large numbers of magic items around. Even people who -ing live at the Bazaar of Deva and are functionally professional adventurers.

Even the highest magic non-D&D settings don't have anything like Golarion.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Quark Blast wrote:
Dude, no Quantum Mechanics means no Internet. So, I'd say QM's "in use" descriptor is pretty common. Yep.

Interesting point. You and Orfamay have clarified where I was disagreeing with you.

People in fantasyland are actual spell casters and are actually using and understanding their version of quantum mechanics. When I'm typing this response, I'm not doing that. My use is much more akin to use-activated magic items.

And I realize our disagreement has very little to do with the thread any more, so I'll concede the point.


Atarlost wrote:
<snip>Beren and Luthien had possibly just one magic item between them and Luthien was so epically powerful she could put an entire fortress to sleep. That's thousands of hit dice over a range of probably over a mile most of them through solid rock.<snip>

Precisely my point!

In D&D terms Luthien could sing Morgoth <cough>Orcus<cough> to sleep in his own fortress and both Beren and Luthien could just set Balrogs <cough>Balors<cough> on ignore as they gallivant around the continent.

Very high magic indeed.


Quark Blast wrote:
Atarlost wrote:
<snip>Beren and Luthien had possibly just one magic item between them and Luthien was so epically powerful she could put an entire fortress to sleep. That's thousands of hit dice over a range of probably over a mile most of them through solid rock.<snip>

Precisely my point!

In D&D terms Luthien could sing Morgoth <cough>Orcus<cough> to sleep in his own fortress and both Beren and Luthien could just set Balrogs <cough>Balors<cough> on ignore as they gallivant around the continent.

Very high magic indeed.

And yet it's still low magic by PF standards. There are far fewer magic items; no other planes (and therefore no outsiders except the Ainur) except something that can, if you're extremely generous, call the shadow plane; an entire very large school of magic completely missing apart from the healing subschool; and no divine magic.


Atarlost wrote:


Quark Blast wrote:


Atarlost wrote:


<snip>Beren and Luthien had possibly just one magic item between them and Luthien was so epically powerful she could put an entire fortress to sleep. That's thousands of hit dice over a range of probably over a mile most of them through solid rock.<snip>

Precisely my point!

In D&D terms Luthien could sing Morgoth <cough>Orcus<cough> to sleep in his own fortress and both Beren and Luthien could just set Balrogs <cough>Balors<cough> on ignore as they gallivant around the continent.

Very high magic indeed.

And yet it's still low magic by PF standards. There are far fewer magic items; no other planes (and therefore no outsiders except the Ainur) except something that can, if you're extremely generous, call the shadow plane; an entire very large school of magic completely missing apart from the healing subschool; and no divine magic.

Magic in Middle Earth is rare but powerful. When people say "low" or "high" magic I think they often aren't using the same definition of the terms. I'd be more apt to look at the scarcity of magic and the effectiveness of it. And how "overt" or subtle it is.

In ME there are fewer magic items, especially in the Third Age. More in the First Age when the armor and weapons of ordinary Dwarves and Elves might be "magic" in the eyes of men. As for outsiders, the Valar have visited ME (and nearly destroyed it with their presence during the war against Morgoth), there are 5 Maiar (? spelling) hanging out pretending to be "wizards" in the Third Age, Balrogs, and Sauron and Morgoth are all outsiders. Even the Noldorin Elves are former residents of heaven and carry the Light of the West within them. Heaven and Middle Earth used to be on the same plane, but heaven (the Uttermost West) was removed from the rest of the world, arguably becoming another plane. And you mentioned the shadow realm in which wraiths exist. and as for divine magic, pretty much anything the "Wizards" do, they are after all essentially angels, as well as anyone revealing the Light of the West (heaven) to discomfort the enemy and his creations.

I'd say magic in Middle Earth was rare (extremely rare in the Third Age), subtle and powerful (more in a strategic sense than in the normal D&D / PF tactical sense). It's a very different take on magic.


Ragnarok Aeon wrote:


No in fantasy, people fear magic because it's dangerous. There are risks. There's the chance of possession, working with dark unknown powers. There is the chance your spell could go horribly wrong, and wreak all sorts of dangers. Maybe these spells cause you to give up some of your life. What if for every cure spell you cast, you draw positive energy permanently away from the world...

Something like Goodman Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics would better represent that sort of magic.


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I don't know, for a bunch of low level hobbits they were loaded down with magic items. Lembas is implied to be magical (can keep you going for a day), their rope could unknot on command, the cloaks are literally just Cloaks of Elvenkind, the phial, the box of earth and Mallorn seed, the swords. The mithril shirt probably counts too. The problem is that the elves (and Tolkien in general) don't really distinguish between "magic" and "really well made". And of course there's no stat block for the gear so it's not like you could tell the difference between "mithril shirt" and "+1 mithril shirt".


IMO 90 - 99% of the world population of most D&D/PF worlds are commoners, adepts, warriors and experts, with only 1 - 10% having any true character levels. The idea that most inhabitants have character levels, thus the prevalence of magic in the world is so great, is anamolous to most published settings. Most do not have true character levels, as that, like the PC adventurers is a very rare thing.


ShadowcatX wrote:
Beyond that, magic in 3.x and pf isn't all that magical, it is largely a matter of pluses and gold pieces. Even spell magic doesn't have much of an air of wonder to it. Honestly, I'd rather have pretty much any form of magic over dnd magic, mage the ascenscion, exalted, even paladium fantasy.

I had a player in a Mage game who used a Forces effect to mimic an rfid entry device so he didn't have to carry the actual device (which was a keychain fob) in order to get into his apartment building. He regularly used sphere magic for the most basic and boring tasks, like a tool of convenience. (All minor enough to be coincidental.)

The wonder or banality of magic is a state of mind, not a function of rules.


Scythia wrote:
The wonder or banality of magic is a state of mind, not a function of rules.

True, though the wonder and banality of anything is also partially a function of its ubiquity. No matter what tools your WoD mage used to scratch his ass, he was still, I'm sure, an extremely rare creature in his world.

Wonder, like terror, comes in large part from the unknown.


the secret fire wrote:
Scythia wrote:
The wonder or banality of magic is a state of mind, not a function of rules.
True, though the wonder and banality of anything is also partially a function of its ubiquity.

I'd say "largely" rather than "partially," but ... otherwise I agree with the secret fire.


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I think one reason folks go low magic is to limit magic items. I think one of the reasons for THAT is simply that magic items never break.

People in this thread have equated magic to technology in the real. Well, I'd disagree because my computer can get a virus, my car can break down from wear and even my push-point pen can get jammed.

When was the last time a wondrous item in PF wore out?

Now you can have charged items, sure. Consumables are fine. But when you have, say a Handy Haversack, unless someone targets you with a Sunder attempt or something the device NEVER breaks. Ever.

Consider that for a second. What if you could make a blender that would NEVER break unless you physically destroyed it on purpose. The motor would never weaken; the blades would remain sharp for literal centuries; the lid would fit as snugly on the millionth blend as on the first.

That's ridiculous, but yet that's magic items in Pathfinder. So for some folks this simple truth makes limiting magic items imperative. If you can always consistently count on your armor, bracers, belt, Ioun Stone or whatever to never falter unless specifically targeted by an enemy that means that your players will ALWAYS have that level of power at their disposal.

Frankly for my games I play the system as is. I don't really care too much about the magic level, demographics, realistic economies and such. I'm playing a game where a mortal male was drunk one night, in the right place at the right time, and blacked out; suddenly he is an immortal, eternal power of the universe with millions of worshippers and near-limitless magic. Yeah, there's no comparison to my reality there at all.


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... And there goes the "dragons exist therefor everything fantastical should exist also" bit.

The existence of Cayden has little to do with whether the setting in general should act realistically. In fact, the fantastic exceptions are all the more reason to ground other aspects of the game in solid reality. Which aspects? That varies from game to game.


To me it really seems to break down into two camps. Those who like "realistic" fantasy and those who like anything goes anime style fantasy. Neither is right or wrong. It's just a matter of preference. So just let people run things the way they want to. That's the beauty of RPGs. You can do what you want to make them your own. It's certainly not worth getting offended over.

Grand Lodge

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Arikiel wrote:
To me it really seems to break down into two camps.

I'd say it is more of a continuum than a binary choice.


I play table tops for the unfettered creative options and the flexible narrative.

The insanity that is mid to high level magic is part of the draw. If I wanted severe limits on skill use and magic use, I could play games like baldur's gate or shadowrun returns. Which I did and still do, but that doesn't mean I play PF for those reasons, even if I play a character that doesn't cast spells.


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The underlying problem y'all are hitting is the difference between a narrative and a game.

Actually a LOT of settings are higher magic/higher power than you give 'em credit for, but there's a question of what magic "counts" and what magic DOESN'T count. Power isn't always about power.

That One Ring did invisibility. That's all it did throughout the entire freakin' story. There were vague references to completely undefined powers and things it might do on someone ELSE'S finger, deity-level abstractions, but nothing solid. Was it just an invisibility toy (well below PF)? Or could it shake mountains, sink continents, and reshape the world and cause the earth to swallow up armies that cover several kilometers (Above PF artifacts)?

Another simple example would be Conan. Got a dude who can turn into a giant (and we mean GIANT) snake for indefinite periods, in PF you'll be looking at rounds per level unless (maybe) you're using Polymorph Any Object. No matter what it's level 15+ to be doing that with any staying power.

Healing: If magic healing exists, instant healing of the most grievous wounds and ability damage is artifact-level crazy, ability to (slowly) heal any size wound continuously, day-in and day-out, for hours without running out of juice is fairly standard. Regenerating lost eyes is usually impossible, so the stalwart hero who took a shot to the face wears an eyepatch for the rest of the saga; but magic that can cause a villain to keep coming back/being put back together after being cut to pieces is perfectly normal. A 'hero with an eyepatch and a grudge' are as iconic as the 'villain like a turd that won't flush' and while it is rare that they make appearances in the same narrative, you don't bat an eye if they do.

Earth Magic: The ability to point at a pile of rocks and have them move out of the way, harden/reshape into a statue (or armor), create a tunnel big enough for 2 people to walk down, or form big walls can be absolutely nothing (Avatar springs to mind, but I could swear I've seen it in older, western fantasy) or crazy hard to impossible depending on whether or not the protagonists are going to have a wall or stone doorway they aren't supposed to just magic their way through further down the line. In Pathfinder stone shaping a long tunnel will take days or weeks, (yet turning the entire party into burrowing creatures takes seconds).

'Nother Conan example (Don't know that much Conan to be honest, so I only got the ones I actually ran across) there was a story where mass-animating THOUSANDS of skeletons (or later, one skeletal colossus) took one (mostly accidental) blood sacrifice. And this did not involve the +5 vorpal scythe which was enchanted merely by being wielded by a powerful monster/demon king guy for a few weeks. I don't know, maybe those comics were off in left field making stuff up and it wasn't "proper" Conan.

And then there are JRPGs. By or before scene 2 of the first act you have a dude with a sword killing a monster the size of a house. By the middle of act 2 you're blasty-wizard/sorceror character can call forth the fires of hell itself in a conflagration the size of a forest-fire or a LITERAL volcano followed by asteroid impacts from space. They are ungodly powerful, yet not 2 weeks ago I had someone explain to me that Pathfinder is WAY more powerful than any JRPG because magical flight in your average JRPG is usually impossible, as is walking on water, teleportation, animating corpses, or bringing back the dead. And the poster had a point. Characters who are proper dead in a JRPG don't get raised ("fainted" is different...if you want it to be), summoning allies/animating the dead to play blocker is either a class ability or an "NPC only" spell, teleportation "just anywhere" is impossible but teleport/travel hubs are common, and the closest you get to magical flight is an airship/flying pet that takes you places on the overworld, flying up a mineshaft or to the top of a mountain peak is never an option. You have to quest your way past all major obstacles.

Enchanting items: Making magic stuff is nearly impossible for the Heros, they have to quest for ages to find the Magic Sword of Holiness. The aforementioned sword was crafted by 3 dudes in a cave with nothing but common tools, but "such arts have been lost to the ages" because fantasy history always suffers reverse power-creep. Said magic sword cannot cut through stone and will do nothing to a wall, but after a giant monster punches a giant hole in that same stone wall the sword will pierce the monster's flesh and cut through bone to remove it's limbs and/or head.

More Enchanting items: In Pathfinder, a sword has certain damage effects, a cap on how many you can stack, and is always just a sword. In generic fantasy narrative a sword can also have all your armor effects, spell resistance, and the ability to talk to the spirits of the trees all in one weapon. Magic items don't have slots or rules regarding what powers they offer except as the plot demands and usually just one item will carry ALL the effects the character needs.

Enchanting people: Mind-controlling an entire nation is well within the realm of a single (super-powerful) sorceress in your average fantasy. In Pathfinder your upper limit as a 20th level sorcerer is ~700 mind-slaves that you have to keep a spread-sheet on who gets re-enchanted each day. One missed "session" and you lose control/they instantly become your enemy. (it also means ALL your high-level magic is tied up in mind-control maintenance)

Stability: In a narrative, a fireball does a certain amount of damage, a mind-control spell works or fails for plot reasons, insta-kill magic works every time or is specifically blocked by blood or power or magic sword. In Pathfinder you can roll a 1, you can roll a LOT of 1s, you can roll so many 1s that the spell explodes your own face (if you're using critical fumble rules) or the enemy can roll a 20. Even your 9th-level, mythic-tier Ultra-killy-mega-doom spell will fail 5% of the time when tested on an unassuming mouse. Apparently Mrs. Frisby is hardcore.

There are more examples, but this is already TL;DR. The point is that power and magic are what get made of them. Any magic is stronger or weaker than any other magic based on how it fits into the story at that particular instant. The smallest magic in the hands of a smart player making his own plans and choices is bigger than epic, world-shaking spells that only show up during the narrative climax. The Hobbit is a narrative, and great magic seems weak because that is what the narrative decides. Final Fantasy is an interactive narrative, and the greatest of magic is useless during cut scenes or outside of combat, but Pathfinder is a role-playing game where every tool can be used, hacked, and stretched just as far as your imagination and understanding take it.

Actually one more example: Harry Potter and the methods of rationality is a fan-fiction where Harry is basically a gamer. When presented with the magic system of Rowling's series he immediately starts testing, analyzing, and "hacking" it to optimize his results because instead of obeying the whimsy of The Plot and Hidebound Tradition. Unsurprisingly he is absolutely SCARY powerful and constantly doing "impossible" things by being smart enough to take the "laws" of magic and treat them the same way an engineer or a scientist treats the laws of physics. If push doesn't work, try pull; if you can't break a door, break the wall; if your target is immune to magic spells, use magic spells to hit it with something else; if you cannot KILL the Tarrasque, contain it.


Arikiel wrote:
To me it really seems to break down into two camps. Those who like "realistic" fantasy and those who like anything goes anime style fantasy. Neither is right or wrong. It's just a matter of preference. So just let people run things the way they want to. That's the beauty of RPGs. You can do what you want to make them your own. It's certainly not worth getting offended over.

Huh, that's weird, because then who does 3.5/PF appeal to?

After 6th level, you start to lose the realism camp.

And well, fighters stop being fantastic, and evocation is a crap shoot. So, anime crowd, not so much.

In fact there are large threads for both of those desires in the homebrew section.


boring7 wrote:
The underlying problem y'all are hitting is the difference between a narrative and a game.

I think the underlying problem is actually the broad term of "magic". You're making a hasty generalization, by assuming that these outliers describe the general tone of the settings.


Ragnarok Aeon wrote:
Any permanent death of a ruler would require deliberate murder and access to high level magic.

...or a law against raising the dead or the ruler's successor wants his predecessor to stay dead so he can take over or the ruler is poor or there aren't any high level divine casters in the kingdom or the high level divine casters didn't like the ruler or the ruler's soul doesn't want to return or Pharasma doesn't want the ruler to return... I find it's best to assume that most souls are claimed by the gods and are unable to return, and that heroes (and sometimes villains) are the exception.

Ragnarok Aeon wrote:
Any misdeed could be scryed upon

Wouldn't you have to scry upon everyone all the time? Seems like it would be a lot harder to do that in Golarion than in our society with cheap video cameras.

Ragnarok Aeon wrote:
The separation between poor and rich would be that much greater.

I don't see how this harms immersion.

Ragnarok Aeon wrote:
And I ache every time I see the excuse "Well people fear magic, because it's different". If that's so true, then we wouldn't have people going to magic shows, or taking advice from "psychics".

That's a cultural value. It's not inherent to humanity. In other times, anyone suspected of witchcraft was burned at the stake.


Pathfinder LO Special Edition, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber

Harry Dresden. Powerful, rare magic (or everybody would be using it).

On Hârn, the Earl of Nurisel studied magic in his youth. I don't remember how far he got, possibly to Journeyman-apprentice, probably not that far, almost certainly no farther, but he doesn't go around tossing spells left and right. He's a noble, and nobles don't do that. Besides, no mage on Hârn flaunts his magic - it's against the Laws of the Shek-Pvar (the Mages' Guild) and if someone did flaunt his magic, the other mages would put a stop to it - and probably to him.

Hârnmaster has some interesting magic item creation rules. You can make a magic sword - well, some mages can - but it would take a while and wouldn't be that easy. Such a sword would be very expensive. It would probably cost more in gold pieces than the equivalent sword on Golarion. That doesn't sound so bad, until you realize that the basic unit of money on Golarion is the one ounce gold piece, and the basic unit of money on Hârn is the silver penny. So in terms of the basic unit, the Hârnic sword is hugely expensive.

Hârn is what I think of when people say "low magic".


Low-magic is an ill-define term.

No one seem to agree whether it stands lower to D&D/Pathfinder (usually taken as reference benchmark) in terms of magnitude, frequency, reach or ease/availability. Besides, high-magic is often put together with high-fantasy and therefore low-magic must be low-fantasy in many people's mind.

Regardless of how low-fantasy is defined and what solution is proposed, I can understand why many people look at D&D/Pathfinder saying "whoa, that's too much".


Ragnarok Aeon wrote:
boring7 wrote:
The underlying problem y'all are hitting is the difference between a narrative and a game.
I think the underlying problem is actually the broad term of "magic". You're making a hasty generalization, by assuming that these outliers describe the general tone of the settings.

I'm really not, most of the stuff I listed is as common as high-level adventurers. Moreover the outliers ARE the setting, alternatively Pathfinder's "setting" is its adventuring party of "outliers". That was kind of my point; power isn't always power.

There are plenty of fantasy settings where earth-shaking magic exists, but it's always only accessible as the plot demands. You've got roman aqueductsa magical fountain that produces clean water, hadrian's walla giant wall of ice that no one knows how to repair/replace, a magic life tree that changes the weather patterns, a healer who can cure ANY malady but can't leave her magic cave or fix her own eyes, or a magic herb that fixes most maladies. But replanting the tree somewhere safer, studying and copying the magic fountain, understanding how the magic healing works (or even WHY it's stuck in that cave), or teaching other people to use the magic herb that grows like a weed everywhere just doesn't happen because the plot demands it.

It's part of the same paradigm as the saying, "if you give it stats, players will figure out a way to kill it." If you establish rules and give the characters the narrative freedom to do whatever they want within them, power becomes a far more complicated equation.

To look at it from another direction consider range: A city-swallowing earthquake, a necromantic ritual that kills an entire country, a hellfire missile, or a boom spell that can travel less than half a kilometer and burns almost everything in a 12 meter radius. The last one is top-end, earth-shaking magic for Pathfinder, all the other ones are way outside of PF but pretty normal "big stuff" for endgame of normal fantasy narrative. And there is time to consider. In pathfinder a spell that takes longer than 6 seconds is kinda weird, in standard fantasy most rituals and magic take a few hours to complete, and the bigger stuff can take lifetimes.

And in case I didn't hammer it enough, a Pathfinder caster or magic-spewing macguffin runs out of magic "juice" in 10 minutes of dedicated casting. A standard fantasy has the witch or warlock throwing low-level magic all day and all night without running out.

Grand Lodge

I would love to play Harn or some of the awesome systems out there but its hard to get my group to learn a new system. Pathfinder just works as a common foundation - some house ruling and its ready to roll. Not the best fit but it still works after a fashion.


Malwing wrote:
I'd like to ask. When people say "low magic" do they mean Low caster power or low magic items? Do full casters make magic mundane or the abundance of magic items?

Depends on who you ask. I've heard some describe it as being low-level spells, 3rd/4th level and lower. I've heard others include limited magic items.

For me, low magic is a combination of low level spells, limited magic items. By low level spells, I refer to 3rd level spells as being the highest level available. 1st level spells all that's available up to 6th level, 2nd levels spells become available at 7th level, and 3rd level spells become available at 14th level. Magic items are restricted to potions, rings, wands, armor, and weapons, with no enhancement greater than +2. Only casting classes were Wizard, Cleric, and Druid. Haven't run it like this with anything outside the core classes.

I once handled low-magic as described above with the following physical drain house rule where there was no limit to the number of spells a caster could cast in a day. Each time a spell was cast, the caster had to succeed at a DC10 + 1 (per spell cast that day) Fortitude save. First failure results in caster becoming fatigued for the remainder of the day, second failure causes exhaustion, third failure causes unconsciousness for a number of hours equal to the level of spell cast, after which you a re exhausted for the rest of the day an unable to cast further magic; condition persists until you have a full nights rest.


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People who like 'low-magic' don't have to be egomaniacs as someone above suggested...

They might just pine for the days of AD&D - where a +1 sword was awesome and valuable for a long time. The idea that a caster had to use experience to make a magic item - made them really rare to make. You can easily do the same thing by requiring rare ingredients to make stuff (want a ring of fire protection? Get a scale of a red dragon willingly to make it).

This can also bring back the old rules of no automatic spells for wizards and a hard cap to # of spells known per level. The latter did make scrolls more interesting and deciding to put a spell in your spellbook was something to really ponder.


Malwing wrote:

I see this a lot; Someone wants advice on or is describing their house rules for a low magic campaign. In Pathfinder this is a daunting task and there is a ton of different advice on how to go about this, from not leveling past 6th level to banning all full casters. But my question is "Why?"

Basically if you are a person that desires low magic campaign, why do you want this? Especially in a magic-heavy system like Pathfinder?

To clarify I'm not saying "If you like low magic so much get your butt in a different system." I'm trying to understand why there are a lot of attempts at low magic. Is it an innate storytelling desire? Is magic just complicated and overpowered? Are you trying to mimic a book or movie's setting and heavy magic disrupts it? Are you tired of all caster parties?

I haven't read the entire thread, but for me its about 1) making the magical... magical... rather than simply mechanical, 2) balancing the power levels in the mid to high range and 3) because my fantasy concepts are born from things like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones where most obstacles are overcome through grit, perseverance, ingenuity or skill rather than the simple wiggling of your fingers.

Basically low magic campaigns tend to be more story-driven, which is what many role-players are looking for, while higher magic campaigns tend to be more power-driven, which is what many roll-players are looking for.

Grand Lodge

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Wiggz wrote:
Basically low magic campaigns tend to be more story-driven, which is what many role-players are looking for...

Well duh. There's so little to your character mechanically that you HAVE to buff the story to have enough to talk about.


Optional question: Has anyone tried sticking with the Beginner Box rules (and not going past level 5) and applying core stuff when it becomes relevant?

Additionally, how would you feel if there was a full on E6 or low magic product?

I ask these because I just got done doing Blackfang's dungeon and I made note that if the majority of the players felt uncomfortable with the full rules that there were downloadable expanded Beginner Box rules where all the classes up to Ultimate Combat were translated to Beginner Box rules and we can just run The Dragon's Demand using those rules.(Turning the villain into Blackfang who took off in Blackfang's Dungeon. Would probably translate the Goblins into Kobolds if I get a chance to do this. )They didn't go for it, wanting to do Rise of the Runelords but I think it made me think of using the Beginner Box and it's expanded rules as a basis for low magic/low numbers campaigns.

Grand Lodge

What about using the slow XP advancement table? You have to limit the magic items because your going to create overly powerful characters to fast. Also that +1 item goes a long way further, and do away with magical item crafting other than wands, scrolls and potions.


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TriOmegaZero wrote:
Wiggz wrote:
Basically low magic campaigns tend to be more story-driven, which is what many role-players are looking for...
Well duh. There's so little to your character mechanically that you HAVE to buff the story to have enough to talk about.

I fully understand that that is the mentality that video-gamers bring into RPG's with them, and there's no such thing as 'badwrongfun'... but for many, the story is the entire point of playing, not the thing they have to begrudgingly fall back on by default when their character isn't 'teh uber' enough.

Shadow Lodge

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Wiggz wrote:
...but for many, the story is the entire point of playing, not the thing they have to begrudgingly fall back on by default when their character isn't 'teh uber' enough.

Preaching to the choir, mate.


Most of the classic fantasy literature worlds are low magic compared with D&D. Middle Earth and Game of Thrones come to mind.

David Eddings has a handful of spell casters, even Magician by Feist spell casters are rare and cannot easily do what D&D wizards pull off. Wheel of Time magic is rare.


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Malwing wrote:
Additionally, how would you feel if there was a full on E6 or low magic product?

I would love such a thing as a Player's guide to Low-Magic Setting or something, ideally something official from Paizo (for support) or a quality non-campaign-specific third party product. Almost made it myself, a few years ago.

Basically a product that proposes 2 or 3 different approaches to Low-Magic, with a few alternate rules a la Unearthed Arcana but otherwise assuming core rules.

I have a feeling much of it could be achieved by achieved by giving casters alternate sets of spell lists, pruning spells to match a vision of "how magic works in fictive setting A, B and C" and attributing the RAW core spells accordingly.

Much can also be changed through re-fluffing existent material, but this reskin must be guided with a certain vision of things.

I wished that had been created.


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Zardnaar wrote:


David Eddings has a handful of spell casters, even Magician by Feist spell casters are rare and cannot easily do what D&D wizards pull off. Wheel of Time magic is rare.

Frequency of spellcasters in the general population is not a good indicator of "high" or "low" magic, and in fact, is one of the traps that a lot of people trying to run a low magic game run into. It doesn't matter if only seven people in the entire world are spellcasters if one of those seven people are part of the adventuring party -- and, in fact, I think I just described the Fellowship of the Ring.

What you end up with instead is a party that has spellcasters (because that's what people want to play) in a world that doesn't (because that's what the GM wants to run), and the result is that the spellcasters are even more dominant than they would otherwise be,... or the GM has to nerf the spellcasters into the ground to prevent them from taking over the universe with simple low-level spells like charm person, invisibility, and levitate.


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Laurefindel wrote:
Malwing wrote:
Additionally, how would you feel if there was a full on E6 or low magic product?

I would love such a thing as a Player's guide to Low-Magic Setting or something, ideally something official from Paizo (for support) or a quality non-campaign-specific third party product. Almost made it myself, a few years ago.

Basically a product that proposes 2 or 3 different approaches to Low-Magic, with a few alternate rules a la Unearthed Arcana but otherwise assuming core rules.

I have a feeling much of it could be achieved by achieved by giving casters alternate sets of spell lists, pruning spells to match a vision of "how magic works in fictive setting A, B and C" and attributing the RAW core spells accordingly.

Much can also be changed through re-fluffing existent material, but this reskin must be guided with a certain vision of things.

I wished that had been created.

Just throwing this out there - we ran a campaign where all full caster classes along with the Summoner were banned for PC's (they still existed as villains). That by itself completely changed the group dynamic and their approach to things.

Then we scaled all magic items back to custom-made stuff and used 'wbl' to allow PC's to buy enhancement bonuses to their characters rather than accumulate it through a dozen plus magic items a piece. Mechanically it was much the same but it made the campaign feel like it was more about what the PC's could do rather than what they could buy.


Wiggz wrote:
TriOmegaZero wrote:
Wiggz wrote:
Basically low magic campaigns tend to be more story-driven, which is what many role-players are looking for...
Well duh. There's so little to your character mechanically that you HAVE to buff the story to have enough to talk about.
I fully understand that that is the mentality that video-gamers bring into RPG's with them, and there's no such thing as 'badwrongfun'... but for many, the story is the entire point of playing, not the thing they have to begrudgingly fall back on by default when their character isn't 'teh uber' enough.

I find having "teh uber" abilities *enhances* my story development. Instead of constantly closing doors to character interactions or failing to find any clues to the mystery. I can use some creative magic to repair widow Secretwisdom's roof, use my unparalleled skill in combat to assist the sheriff in ending a large tavern brawl, or use my skills as a sneak-thief to spy on the suspected serial killer and discover he is running an underground railroad that needs assistance. Moreover, when I'm out delving the dungeon I can do more than, "walk through 2 or 3 rooms, see one half of a plot hook, then turn back because I'm out of spells/hit points."

Which is another point I find myself revisiting. Even the sorceror, who is supposed to lack any versatility but have endless reserves of energy runs out of magic fast. A wizard apprentice on an adventurer can do his 1 or 2 tricks (usually telekinesis of some brand) all day, and while he suffers fatigue it's the same as the fatigue a swordsman feels from fighting all day. A pathfinder "phenomenally skilled apprentice" runs outta juice around the 6 minute mark.

4th edition managed that effect, with wizards who could throw their little flame bolt forever, yet somehow the whole thing felt even more like playing Gauntlet.

Warrior needs food, badly.


Wiggz wrote:

Just throwing this out there - we ran a campaign where all full caster classes along with the Summoner were banned for PC's (they still existed as villains). That by itself completely changed the group dynamic and their approach to things.

Then we scaled all magic items back to custom-made stuff and used 'wbl' to allow PC's to buy enhancement bonuses to their characters rather than accumulate it through a dozen plus magic items a piece. Mechanically it was much the same but it made the campaign feel like it was more about what the PC's could do rather than what they could buy.

I've done a setting that was cut off from the divine realms and there were no divine casters at all. Which basically just made witches the primary healers. It really changed the feel of things though.

Anyways! Along the same lines I've toyed with the idea of doing a setting where there are no casters at all available to the PCs. Just Barbarians, Cavaliers, Monks, Fighters, Skirmisher Rangers, Rogues, Brawlers, Slayers, Swashbucklers, and maybe Gunslingers. Not really sure how that would work though. As there'd be no magic healing and pretty much all magic items would be like artifices.

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