Ragnarok Aeon's page

Okay so I know that this path is old and is a bit rough in some, but it also looks like it has a lot of good stuff in it. It's been quite a read through piecing together, but there is something that is really bothering that's brought up in #5 and this one; If tieflings are looked down so much by both aristocrats and the poor, why on Golarion did Sidonai think that having a tiefling son would be respected? Was he just dumb or super misinformed? Did I miss something mentioned elsewhere?

I think the problems is that Pathfinder has been around long enough that it's gotten its gotten too much "splat" (extended options). I mean your list of available classes is 70 (as opposed to the original 11), though you do have thaumaturge on there twice...

And that works against you in multiple ways:
1) Just listing what is or isn't available
2) Any minor changes that you want to make to new things you want to include
3) There are so many options already available, people just want to make stuff off of what they already know and don't want to have to cipher through another document just to fact check.

Most players will just build what they want to play and toss it against the GM to see if it will work. They'll try to fit it into the setting later.

That's why it's best to come up with 1 or 2 sentences to describe the setting (anymore than that will actually drive off most players from bothering to read it)

Also seriously consider subdocuments; especially for the exceptions (like modifications to spell lists of fullbab partial casters).

I guess it depends on your taste. I personally hate the whole rest and have a whole new set of abilities / skills for the day. I tolerate it with Wizard spells, but it really irks me with feats (seen in many fighter remakes) and done with talents it bothers me just as much. To me it just feels like another wizard based on different stats.

Making Craft Work
There's that one book for a dollar. Quick and easy fix I guess.

You could also just search crafting rules in the Suggestions/Houserules/Homebrew search box. The base rules are notoriously bad, and everyone and their mom has had a hand in trying to make it work. I personally had given up on craft as is.

Myself, I hand wave a lot of it, none of this bajillion craft checks nonsense; just 1. Though I do require the player have a reasonable way to get resources to craft the object, none of the handwaving gold into materials nonsense.

You can only jack up (and thus roll for) an item (that you actually have craft ranks in) if it's actually complicated. Magical items need specific rare and unique items that the player may have to go on a quest for or make a deal with a really shady character. Nat 1 on a magical item means it's cursed, but the player/character may still want to use it because of all the work they had to go through.

Just make a new condition, Hostage: while held as a hostage, an attack made against you is considered an automatic hit and a crit; you may attempt to escape (such an action allows the hostage taker to take their attack) with a reflex save to half the damage.

Obviously this works best with those Lv 0-1 NPCs with small amounts of hp that should be littered everywhere.

Also there should probably be some rules about demoralizing them (Intimidate) and a full round combat maneuver to put them into hostage condition.

It would have to be limited to non-sapient creatures. Diplomacy is what you use on intelligent entities; handle animal only really works as written because its target type is universally of lower intelligence and lacks sapience, free will, self-awareness, or whatever term best floats your boat.

So for example, you might be able to use Handle Magical Beast on... say... a Remorhaz with its 5 Intelligence, but you wouldn't be able to use it on a highly-intelligent and clearly sapient Aranea, despite both being Magical Beasts.

Say that to the dragons who take Skill Focus (Handle Human). Although, according to them the "sapience" of humans is found lacking.

wait, so you think that dex and strength are only relative to combat? You don't track weight carried, or consider strength saves for any reason?

Not quite, but I feel that Strength is most relevant during combat, or at least it was in previous editions.

In actual play, there are a number of situations where one can just use dexterity instead of strength; Dodge around the thing, Escape out of the Grapple, Acrobatics instead of Athletics, dexterity to hit (via finesse), and now Dex damage over Str damage.

I don't think strength is useless outside of battle though, it's great to use for breaking or bending tough stuff (Doors, Metal, Etc) and lifting heavy objects (statues, boulders, gates). I was just sad to see it's combat role significantly reduced when it already had a limited role outside of it.

It was that strength provided no benefit during most combats, which was extremely jarring. The class wasn't bad and the abilities are what she was looking for; it's just that a scrawny monk was more effective at killing things than one who worked out (like actual Shaolin Monks which is where most of the inspiration for the class comes from) Not Beefy, but toned. Which really is more of a criticism of the class, but then again the monk had been a weird sort of balancing problem for all editions, so at least the class is balanced as far as I could tell in this edition.

Maybe I'm the only one who's really experienced this, but I had a player who was playing a monk and she had her character's str and dex equally high (16), however because she could replace attack and damage with dex, her strength was effectively useless. The realization that the most effective monk is one who dumped strength actually bothered the both of us.

Then there's advantage/disadvantage, while it's cool and I like it, I just wish it weren't used for everything. As cool as a mechanic as it was it made things swingy at times. Sometimes flat bonuses are just more favorable to use.

Well you know how the d20 systems has ability scores; that's essentially what you're talking about...

Dexterity (Coordination) and Wisdom (Perception)

My biggest problem with dual identity is actually conceptual. These kinds of characters are either lone wolves or are part of a group of dual-identity people. It's rather antithetical to adventuring party idea.

Within a party, when does it make sense for single person to have a dual-identity? "Oh look, there's that pesky group and some civilian who keeps hanging out with them when the masked guy is around..." It might be funny the first time, but it'll quickly get annoying.

Which is why I don't think a single class should be devoted to it. You might as well just have a book that modifies all classes to have a dual-identity with new archetypes and feats and new uses of skills and add on rules to run such a campaign around the party of secret identities.

The reason it keeps getting compared to supers is because the only well-known groups of vigilantes (or just people with secret identities) are Justice League and Avengers.

I had tried 5th earlier and loved and then hated it. My feelings are kind of neutral at this point, but I do like bounded accuracy and thus the lack of characters coated in magical items. It seems to be the d20 system (that I've tried) that kind of keeps that down to earth feel to it.

The problem with linear vs quadratic is as necessarily about the raw power or numbers, it's about the options. Wizards, Clerics, and Druids can do EVERYTHING in the end. Damage, Summon, Transport, Crafting, and overcome just about any obstacle.

While the frail wizard who was once protected by the fighter ends up with amazing power to protect his guardian can be an interesting story, it's been done to death and most people coming to TTRPGs aren't looking for that anymore. The fact the casters are no longer frail and limited at 1st level is proof, and yet they still begin to overshadow the rest of the cast with their spells.

It is possible to balance different classes while making different classes separate beasts, 13th Age does a good job. As Kirth says cutting spells can do a world of wonders, as most of the unbalancing comes from specific spells.

I'm kind of in agreement with the feeling that this class is entirely unneeded. We didn't really need a batman class. I clicked on the playtest out of curiosity. If anything, there should have been alternate rules for a different kind of playstyle that could incorporate different classes, not a new class.

You basically want to add everything into a tight area, into one magical city. The best way, I think, to handle such a concept is instead of treating everything as its own individual species each with a nation's history and space, treat each race as a separate bloodline. A bloodline can have its own history, just smaller in scope making more room for races to be worked in. Half-Elves and Half-Orcs could just be distilled bloodlines. In a similar vein, elementals could all be separate divisions of a greater bloodline. Etc.

This also makes it easier to add new "races" in; they could be a new bloodline that's just moved in.

Everyone who doesn't have a bloodline? They're just human, or elf, or halfling (or whatever you want your muggles to be).

I'm with the other posters with "half-race" as a "race", specially in a setting where all of these races are intermingling; do you really want to figure out all the halfs of one race with another?

It's much easier to just let players choose a base race and be allowed to trade one or two racial abilities with racial abilities of another race to simulate a mix; GM discretion of course.

One thing I've wanted to try doing is actually modelling perception after AC. It would essentially be the character's Base Perception, 10+ Wis Mod+ Racial Bonus+ Etc.

One could use feats to increase their perception, but their base perception would always be the same. As the GM you could use this to determine what they would notice without either having to roll dice thus avoiding suspicion from your players. Players can still have the search skill to actively look for something.

The problem is that it doesn't play or scale too nicely with stealth. Unfortunately skills scale in such a different way than saves, AC, or even BAB.

Really it's just backwards compatibility with 3.5

There are d20 games that use 10 levels (13th Age) and games that use 30 levels (4th Ed.) but if you look at them you can see that they scale differently.

For example in 13th age with only 10 levels, you get a feat at every level and the caster's spell level is their character level (7th level spells at 7th level).

The obsession with levels is actually a flaw in the game. The problem is level 20 capstones. People want to reach them, but once they reach them they want to make those capstones relevant. So they think, let's add on more levels so we can get more capstones, but we should give a lil' something something to those who want to focus on one build and they add on more capstones. Repeat ad nauseaum.

I'm actually surprised nobody has brought up the Mana Sorcerer yet.

Ah, the good old adage "If it aint broke, don't fix it"...

I know most people get past it and that's fine, but why not improve on something that is at times awkward? I can't seriously be the only person on this board that's found it fiddly at times.

What does this fix?

* No one has to track initiative. Which is better than relying on another person or buying product to announce turn order. Instead it's Players go then enemies go, nothing to remember there.

* Players can collaborate as a group and move as a group, something players usually like to do anyway. The players are more engaged with each other and you're less likely to have someone zone out as they wait for their turn (YMMV).

* When a player rolls a bad roll, they don't feel like crap sitting at the bottom of initiative for the rest of the battle.

Overall, it's more of a personal taste that lightens the tracking, brings more collaboration, and thus improves the general mood at my table. I was only asking if there might be something that I overlooked that might turn this rule into a game breaker in a later date.

I too have recently found out about Spheres of Power. Right now it's on sale for the pre-order. If you do purchase the preorder, they give you access to their site to see what they have going on so far. It looks pretty good to me, making me more excited for the book.

So in an attempt to put players on group initiative but keep individual initiative rolls important, I've come up with this:

All players roll initiative like normal. Each group goes with the highest roll for their group. Modify the rolls based on the situation (as you would with a skill check) such as a penalty for not being ready, a bonus for planning an ambush ahead of time, etc.

Your total determines how prepared you are for the first round (all subsequent rounds are normal)

DC 20 - If your total is higher than 20, you get an extra move action in the first round.
DC 10 - If your total is higher than 10, you act normally, if your total is 10 or lower however you only have your one standard action (which you could use to move) and you are considered flat-footed until the next round.

It's a quick and dirty rule so it could really use some polishing. It works in most cases, but I have this nagging feeling that this rule might be abused with certain builds or might leave some characters underwhelmed. Suggestions?

So are people learning the games later because its seen as more of an "old folks" game now? It seems to me more people here are picking it up as young adults rather than kids or teens. Maybe I'm mistaken though.

I don't want to blame video games (because honestly, I love video games), but as a child if you were to ask me which I would prefer, a video game that you can play by yourself or with a single friend or a book with rules that you have to get all your friends together at the same time and have someone who judges the rules, I would most definitely have chosen videogames.

I also believe that DnD was recovering from all the bad rep it garnered in the 80's. I remember faintly that DnD was associated with sitting in a dark, dank basement with a bunch of guys AKA obsessive, isolated, cultists. It may have not been true, but that was the impression that was given from the media and society while I was young and impressionable. Many of the games I had while I was growing up might have been based on or inspired DnD, but it never had quite the same stigma that was still lingering.

It was actually in a game design class where we were discussing the history of games where we learned a good number of us were actually interested in DnD, but none of us really knew where to start. Most people don't have the initiative to go out and purchase a book to be used with a group of people if they don't know anybody else is interested. Yet, it's really hard to bring that kind of thing up when there was such a huge stigma about it growing up (probably not going to be as hard for kids of the newer generations though).

This game is seriously awesome. Even if you don't want a whole new RPG, it gives enough ideas that are easily portable to still make it worth the purchases.

Icons, your unique thing, the surprisingly elegant handling of skills through backgrounds, the escalation die...

What I love most about this system is that it encourages flexibility and is actually robust enough to support that flexibility. It really encourages collaboration between the GM and players.

Seriously, why haven't I heard of 13th more often? Is it because of being overshadowed by 5th edition, or was it just not publicized?

As far as the Pathfinder feats go, well they're kind of underpowered. Some limited use cantrips seems like a waste of feats. It in general feels kind of underwhelming.
As far as the d20 settings that were suggested, they look interesting, but it's kind of hard to bring myself to spend cash on a book I'm only mildly interested in just to peruse the feats. But thanks for the suggestion.
While searching I did find Spheres of Power, which sounds exactly what I was looking for even though it's not actually out yet.

I learned with some of my friends from college, all of us were new to the game except our DM who had been playing for some years.

Aside from the Purity / Corruption mechanical effect, doesn't "What Alignment are you?" feel an awful like the personality quizzes that exploded in the late 2000's and still straddle along inside social media?

You know the ones ranging from "What television character are you?" to "What element / color are you?"

I mean it has about the same effect (Again aside from Purity / Corruption schema in magic). Actually having spells called Protection from Lizardfolk, and Detect Musk would actually much more flavorful than the C/E/G/L spells we have now.

STR:13
INT:17
WIS:9
DEX:11
CON:14
CHR:13

I guess I could be a Magus. I think this test is overcompensating my Intelligence though. I might be clever, but I feel it's indulging me a bit.

I actually could see an aid another help with the initial save (+2), but I don't see it granting a second save.

I really don't think you should coddle them that much though. I mean if you let them know that there is a succubi with the ability to suggest and already knew the dangers and they still decided to go on ahead without preparing, they either misunderstood something, know you won't let real harm come to their characters, or are trying to see how much they can get away with before you let something terrible happen.

I'm just curious if anyone knows of any books or systems that use feats to distribute magic instead of spells. I'm hopefully looking for something that gives a bit more of an effect than a single spell...

I'm looking for something that makes them feel more like powers than just spells.

That's some nice art, but all I can think of when I see that Paladin is Jazz Fenton.

You know when I read the comment about Rogues and Monks pitying the Sorcerer, I laughed, but it seems Sorcerers cant even have their own thread without Wizards invading. A sad fate indeed...

Okay it looks like a few problems are popping up because people don't remember what this thread was actually about...

This thread was asking why people use Pathfinder for low-magic games. It is a legitimate question that has every right to be here (Most games have at least one house rule, even PFS has its own houserules).

For the discussion about what is or isn't Pathfinder see What Does I am Running a Pathfinder Game Mean?

For Low Magic Houserules or E6/E8 or really any modification to the original rules, please make a new thread in the Houserules / Homebrew

And if you know better RPGs for our low magic need, make a thread in Other RPGs and maybe toss us a link and let us know.

I thought this was a thread about sorcerers, not wizards...

Ragnarok Aeon wrote:

Low Magic just helps makes the game feel immersive, something a lot of GMs and players want to go for.

I'd say Low-magic allows for a certain type of immersion. DMs and players are able to feel immersed in their standard high magic fantasy Pathfinder games. Some themes are more difficult to convey in high-magic; therefore low-magic has its place.

Yeah, I should correct that, low-magic helps makes the game feel more immersive in the types of setting that many GMs run.

Now if you're running a setting where cities are floating on in the sky on rocks, lords get resurrected every time an assassin tries to make an attempt on their lives, and wizards run taxi services, then low-magic makes no sense (or you're playing in a sci-fi setting ;p).

When people use the term "realism" they are actually referring to verisimilitude, which is essentially the ability to keep the players immersed in the universe of the game. Players care less about realism, and more about consistency.

Too many rules that need to be applied during play will also shatter that illusion and break verisimilitude as well. How can you be immersed in the world if you have to stop every 5 minutes to make sure the rules are right?

Obviously, for different people it's different points. Which is why it's extremely important to find a group that you have at somewhat a similar mindset with. If I ask a player what he says to the guard to bluff his way in, that's because my group is the kind that wants some sort of verisimilitude. The player doesn't have to act, be charismatic, know tons of lore, or make complex formulae to succeed; they just need to have some image in their head of what they are doing. In the same vein, I make magic scarce where people wouldn't have it, but available where there is lots.

Low Magic just helps makes the game feel immersive, something a lot of GMs and players want to go for. Figuring out how to limit without adding in obtrusive or game breaking houserules is difficult but possible. The game actually works pretty well for low magic at low levels, it's only at higher levels that it starts bleeding through.

Ragnarok Aeon wrote:

If we're using commoners as the base, a gold piece is worth about $100.00. Also a thorp according to the rules would have 1d4 minor magical items. Minor magical items being low level scrolls or simple potions, someone seems to be confusing some rules somewhere... There are definitely more than 4 1st level spells. Of the 1d4 items, you only have about a 15% chance of each of those items being a 1st level scroll, much less the one you want or need.

Quote:

The number and types of magic items available in a community depend upon its size. Each community has a base value associated with it (see Table: Available Magic Items). There is a 75% chance that any item of that value or lower can be found for sale with little effort in that community. In addition, the community has a number of other items for sale. These items are randomly determined and are broken down by category (minor, medium, or major). After determining the number of items available in each category, refer to Table: Random Magic Item Generation to determine the type of each item (potion, scroll, ring, weapon, etc.) before moving on to the individual charts to determine the exact item. Reroll any items that fall below the community's base value.

There is a 75% chance of any magic item costing less than 50gp to be readily available for purchase in a thorp. There is then an additional 1d4 minor magic items randomly determined also available.

This boils down to there being almost 500 scrolls and potions being available for a small thorp of 20 people.

Wow, how did I miss that? Yeah, with that many scrolls sitting around it's a wonder that every thorp doesn't have a wizard school. The mental acrobatics required to ignore the economic and social ramifications... It's been quite a while since I've perused through the rules like that. I mean if you consider the purchase limit, it's kind of crazy that they don't just trade magic items for magic items. They're practically flooded in it, and it's not like they're using it for the poor twerps in their thorp, otherwise they wouldn't be so poor and pathetic. Also the amount of banditry that would occur with a well off magic shop in the middle of nowhere, why doesn't the thorp overtake the magic shop and make their settlement better off?

It's pretty clear that it's for the player's convenience, but it just doesn't jive very well with the settings that we're actually presented. Though I've never seen a group abuse that rule, though I've never played in or ran a game where we rolled to see what magic items were available. The group in general just kind of assumes that the settlement that is screwed when goblins attack probably don't have a massive arsenal of low level magic locked away in a shack.

I can just see it now, 3 families of farmers (6 adults and their 6 kids), the mayor, a handful of hunters (3 or 4), a blacksmith (with wife and kid), and Gandalf the merchant.

Seriously, anyone able to protect their magical merchandise would be able to protect their thorp.

New campaign; play as villains who release goblin armies on villages; loot the magic shops that go down with the town.

If we're using commoners as the base, a gold piece is worth about $100.00. Also a thorp according to the rules would have 1d4 minor magical items. Minor magical items being low level scrolls or simple potions, someone seems to be confusing some rules somewhere... There are definitely more than 4 1st level spells. Of the 1d4 items, you only have about a 15% chance of each of those items being a 1st level scroll, much less the one you want or need.

Not really houserules. When you fall on someone, they also take the damage right? Our rogues have enjoyed jumping out of trees onto monsters and doing both sneak attack and falling damage. I put the group in a supposably unwinnable situation. They were supposed to run. The rogue dropped out of a tree onto the big baddie and did a ridiculous amount of damage. One shotted the boss.

Quite a liberal use of sneak attack, most GMs wouldn't allow it as the premise of striking a vital spot while literally falling on an enemy. That's ignoring any ruckus that would be caused by falling out of a tree. Also wouldn't any fall damage be dealt to both parties?

Another situation involved a rogue soloing a tower full of baddies using a wand of grease, and various methods of pushing the monsters off of the side of the building (aided by the greased floor). He was knocking out the supports for the tower he was fighting on and leveled the place. As the building fell he jumped from the top with a ring of feather fall. This encounter should of required the entire party.

With the wealth and foresight to buy the right items, any character from any class could do the same. That is player skill.

Anyway, seems like fun, but it doesn't in anyway imply the rogue being on par with the wizard. Oh and sorry for the thread derail. Continue with the woes of le sorc.

If you break it in half, do you get 2 trolls? I don't know. Probably not. I'd assume the part with the majority of the brain regrows, and the rest die.

The answer is actually in the rules section you quoted

Regenerating creatures can regrow lost portions of their bodies and can reattach severed limbs or body parts if they are brought together within 1 hour of severing. Severed parts that are not reattached wither and die normally.

I have no idea what you are talking about with rogues. Rogues are awesome, and if played right, on par with a Wizard. So far in my games I have seen Rogues f%$* the DM far more consistently then Wizards. Of course that requires quite a bit of creativity and guile.

Emphasis Mine.

We need a separate thread for this, because I would like to hear these campaigns where a rogue was on par with a wizard. All I can imagine is a huge surplus of wealth and a conniving player (but with such a combination class wouldn't matter).

Some of those spells needed scaling back, but some nerfs did seem a little excessive. I'm generally fine with combat spells, it's the ones outside of it that can overthrow a game. I prefer to use rare components for powerful spells and don't allow gold equivalents. "You want to cast that? Do you have the heart of a dragon to sacrifice?" It keeps the most powerful and plot rending spells in check. Other times I use rituals, for example: Resurrect. The generals spells such as Polymorph and Summon are more specific to the creature you are turning into or the entity you are summoning. I also use standard barrier mechanics where enough stone, wood, or a thin sheet of lead can block certain spells such as scrying or teleportation.

The alignment system is a I think a helpful tool. I would not want to see it go. It is a loose reference though and will change table to table.

Real world moralities and ethics consume people and they are still debating it. Do you really expect a rpg character aide to solve the problem.

Not going to debate that the alignment system is a helpful tool to some, but you can't pigeonhole real world moralities and ethics. Even fictional settings outside of D&D don't fit in them very well ie) Batman.

Some people have seen game wreckers used it as an excuse for disruptive behavior.

Alignment in real life has more to do with who you're loyal to. Which is really a much better starting point. Then to decide your moralities. How cruel is to far even for an enemy? How do you show respect and compassion to the people you are aligned with? Ethics? Who do you respect as legitimate authority? It doesn't have to be a government, even anarchists can look up to someone and follow their orders.

That's why "alignment traps" AKA moral dilemmas in anything outside of D&D are so insane with alignment. Is it evil to slay the baby monsters that can't fight for themselves? Is it good to allow those same monsters to grow, attack and kill the people who raised them, and continue on a vicious rampage because that is their predestined nature?

--

On a side note, using Purity / Corruption works great as a replacement. It doesn't attempt to answer moral dilemmas, but it does give players and the GM a physical manifestation between "good" (Angels/Paladins) and "evil" (Demons/Devils/Undead) and allows all the spells to work (except Law/Chaos, but that stuff's negligible).

High magic starts at the cantrip level to be perfectly honest.

Need Water? The most important thing for civilization? Any society can now get started for the low low price of Create Water.

True, true, but the setting doesn't represent that very well... As I said upstream with my comment of create water in a dessert setting.

Tarantula wrote:

Anzyr wrote:

Tarantula wrote:

Anzyr wrote:

Kthulhu wrote:

Why high magic?

is just as valid a question.

No it's not.

Pathfinder is written with the expectation of a high magic game. Asking "Why play high magic in a high magic game system?" is not as valid a question as "Why play low magic in a high magic game system?". You play high magic in a high magic game system, because it was written to fit a high magic world. It's that simple.

I disagree. Pathfinder is written with moderate magic. High magic would be magic is the solution for everything. Need food? Get some out of your pantry of infinite food. Tired? Take a nap in your chair of restful naps. And so on.

Pathfinder magic can kind of do that. So your disagreement seems to lack merit in a world where Create Food and Water/Heroes Feast/Ring of Sustenance/Nap Stack are things.

It can but it is not commonplace. Even create food and water is vastly outpaced by regular farming as far as cost per meal is concerned. I consider high magic to be when most things are done via magic. Spells per day severely hampers that.

Magic Item Creation is a thing and it can be easily taken. And while mundane is cheaper in the short run, in the long run magic items will beat out regular farming. 3.5 D&D and by extension Pathfinder is inherently a world of high magic. Ever look at the NPCs in Sandpoint? You can't walk down the street without bumping into someone with caster levels. Hell there's a Mystic Theurge.

Technically, high magic is locked behind level and/or wealth. Even in the adventure paths, you don't usually experience high level magic until the later levels.

I don't actually play 4E, but I can still appreciate elements of it.

My point was that I prefer low magic games, and in fact most of the games that have burned me have been high magic games where the magic just got silly and killed my immersion; this is as a player.

The problems with all 3 of those situations above was not "low magic" it was the GM who put in a houserule that skewed who had magic; in fact you can see where it was the magic in the "low magic" game that ruined the fun. Sometimes you have to sit back and look at what you've done and say, "Wow, that was a dumb idea". Or if you're too dense, hopefully your players will let you know.

I am a GM who gives in to his players. When I decide what kind of game I am running, I consider the players' fun. With my players, immersion is important. They want do want challenges, but it doesn't make sense for their characters to walk if they've got a free ride going where they're going. They want to have something powerful to fall back on, but it pulls them out of the game when they realize that every other person can use cheap tricks to live forever, but for some odd reason doesn't. If there is an auto-win button with no consequence, they don't want to insult their own intelligence to have fun.

I can't say I have a great sense of balance, and even my sense of "low magic" can be considered "high magic" based on some of the posts up here. I do know that I like to add 1)Rituals, 2)Rare Important Magical Components, and 3)Side Effects for Powerful Spells. All of these things are tropes in fantasy but strangely missing in D&D.

1) The GM set up was there was almost no creatures with any Su or SLA abilites (which leads to almost no magic items). But there were NO limits or modifications placed on the PC's. One of the players made a focused enchantment caster. Almost nothing had a decent will save or any any kind of resistance to enchantment spells. The campaign was just everyone else guarding the enchanter while he enspelled everyone. Army of bandits - charm the leader. They won't give you any info - charm them. Etc... Very easy, very boring, very quickly.

2) Another time the GM set-up didn't allow the PC's to have any casters. If a hybrid class, they had to take other stuff to trade away spell casting. But then the GM was running high magic modules as written. It actually played out fine. The party just made sure their gear defended them from magic and provided the needed utility/recovery effects. But the storyline suffered.
"Wait so any kind of casting is so rare that we can't be, hire, have known, or probably even have heard of real magic users. Ok got that. But there are still all these magic items readily available and every other being we have to fight is a caster?!?"
It just didn't make sense and we couldn't get into the story (or really even figure out what it was supposed to be).

3) The last wasn't really a rules problem as it was a clever player vs. slow to react GM.
Had been some war/cataclysm caused by and between casters. No casters are fanatically hunted and lynched before they can become a danger. Every kingdom has special dedicated teams of 'caster hunters' that go after and put down any casters that the locals have a problem with.
Our arcane trickster realized the best way to deal with any opposition was to set the mob after them. Magic aura, bestow spell casting abilities, planting a scroll/potion/spellbook, etc ... And practically anyone is either dead or at least so distracted that they can't oppose you.

1 & 2 are quite literally the opposite situations. If you ban it on one side, you might as well ban it on the other, otherwise you get that silly inconsistency and power flux. I'm not a fan of no magic, but if you were gonna have the house rules of #1, you might have the house rules of #2.

3 actually had me chuckle. Seems like your GM had problems deciphering his own world. One thing that always gets me is how a non caster can so easily discern the difference between scroll and scripture, potion and beverage, spell book and novel. Maybe it's a world that's just paranoid, so any sort of writing, brewery, or overt gestures have them running forward with pitch forks and fire.

Seems like the GMs in those games just have a bad sense of balance. I wouldn't want to play games like that, and I'm sure most GMs would prefer to avoid situations like that.

Further, I don't constitute that as role-play because if people were concerned with role-play they wouldn't care about giving up a few points of DPR and instead focus on how cool their character is for wielding a weapon with a really interesting history that plays to the character's backstory. I mean, don't people EVER take non-mechanically powerful options when presented with something that fits more thematically these days?

As 4E is my major system of interest I do this a lot. I often take sub-optimal choices because sometimes those choices help reflect my character better. For example, an Eladrin Bladesinger is often considered a terrible combination (Dex / Int) but I don't really care because I find the archtype fun and interesting.

Considering that most games of D&D revolve around the combat, when you have a character that is really falling behind on it simply for "backstory" it brings aches and actually ruins the mood and immersion of the game.

In most fantasy stories, the weapons with backstory, the ones inherited, were often legacies for a reason and were generally good. Outside of D&D, you rarely see old weapons get discarded consistently with the exception of rusty and broken standard weapons that were overused.

For a game that is part roleplay, part tactical miniatures, most people don't want to have to shoot themselves in the foot just get a little bit of personal immersion only to be roflstomped by the rest of the in-game world that doesn't care about their meta-sacrifice.

Through Darwin's understanding of Natural Selection, we'll see that most players that continue will prefer to roleplay competent characters instead of cripples; while those who'd rather not focus on combat tend to drift to more rules light systems.

I generally just ignore alignment. Most uses of it seem silly and arbitrary to me. I only use it for outsiders.

If I really were to use an alignment system, I'd actually use the one from 4th ed. The things that Alignment is supposed to cover is so broad and subjective that it could never fit nicely into those 9 categories trying to adjust the two sliders, but if we're going to do it, might as well make it easy on ourselves and use 1 slider. With fourth edition I can at least describe the alignments with a single word about what is usually most important to them. It also makes it easy to draw factions fairly easily.

Lawful Good (LG) - Justice
Good (NG,CG) - Community
Neutral (LN,TN,CN,UA) - Survival
Evil (LE,NE) - Control
Chaotic Evil (CE) - Destruction

But that's just my opinion.