Anyone out there running "lower magic" games? How do you do it with D&D?
Experiences?
jh
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The only ones allowed to use magic items are wizards. No such thing as magic items for any other class. Why the heck would mages ever make items for the unworthy(non-mages). Also, minimize the amount of items existing so as to keep the mages reliant on their abilities rather than their magic items.
Game on!
Thoth-Amon
I spent a lot of times thinking of how to use 3.5 rules to run something like Fritz Leiber's Lahnkmar, and thinking about what 2nd edition did, and 1st. What finally occured to me is a fairly simple game mechanic that changes the whole world around and more or less changes a world like Faerun into one more like Newhon.
Take away the ability of wizards to prepare spells. This means that any spell they cast will take them 15 minutes, as they cast it directly out of their spellbook. If you do this, you can't allow spontaneous casters, at least as PCs, or else you throw the whole thing out of whack. Magic items still work the same way, so a wand will be really valuable for a wizard that is going to get into combat, but without their magic items, they are in deep trouble.
This will also make Improved Sunder an attractive feat, as it effectively takes out combat casting from the wizards you run into.
Just a thought I've been bouncing around for a while.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Heh. The two extremes encapsulated in the first two posts: Thoth-Amon's method will result in spellcasters being too powerful; KnightErrantJr's will result in spellcasters being too weak.
I'd begin by defining what you mean by "low magic." Sometimes people mean "low magic" in the sense that the campaign world itself has few magic users or magic items. Sometimes people mean "low magic" in the sense that the PC's actually have fewer magic items or their spells are weaker.
If you are talking about the former, it's really just a matter of coming up with some flavor text justifying why magic is so rare outside the context of the player characters.
If you are talking about the later, things get much more complicated. I suppose the easiest thing to do with regards to magic items is to replace them with something like action points and increase the versatility of those points such that they do what magic items normally can do (e.g., penetrate DR, increase saves/BAB/AC with an appropriate magnitude for character level).
With regards to casters, things are a lot more complicated because almost any change you make will effect game balance and (more importantly) play experience. I always play casters, so low magic worlds that restrict my character's ability to do their shtick always irritate me to no end. I'd focus more on the NPC's of the world and differentiate the PC's abilities so that it is okay that they are more powerful. Barring that, I'd probably switch to an inherently low magic set of rules (e.g., Iron Heroes, Conan).
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Take away the ability of wizards to prepare spells. This means that any spell they cast will take them 15 minutes, as they cast it directly out of their spellbook.
I had an idea like this a while back. Maybe not quite as extreme, wizards could still memorize spells a few levels lower than the levelof the spells they could actually use. Or maybe each memorized spell requires a feat? If you're running a low-magic game you're probably going to allow more feats anyway so that might not be as bad as it sounds.
Another way to limit magic would be to require more research to figure out what a magic item is and how it works, then give it a high Use Magic Item DC every time PCs try to use it. That might capture the unpredictable nature of magic.
Or you could have using magic items cause non-lethal damage to the PC, representing the toll magic takes on users. Spell casted would also take damage for casting spells. In books, wizards always seem to get tired after casting big spells.
Just some ideas.
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While it isn't "really" D&D, the magic book for D20 Modern (Urban Arcana, I think) has a internally consistent magic system that is far less overwhelming that D&D. In short, "spellcaster" is a 10-level PrC, spell levels cap at level 5, and summoned monsters and such are rather weak. Of course, PCs have guns, so that is something you might want to change...
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It only makes casters powerful at high levels-as it should be. At low levels, they will still need the tanks to protect them-that hasnt changed. Let us not forget that at high levels, the casters are targeted first w/o the tanks having much say in the circumstances. This is where the balance is. Sure, the casters are way powerful at high levels, but they also have the shortest lifespan. BALANCE.
Thoth-Amon
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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It only makes casters powerful at high levels-as it should be. At low levels, they will still need the tanks to protect them-that hasnt changed. Let us not forget that at high levels, the casters are targeted first w/o the tanks having much say in the circumstances. This is where the balance is. Sure, the casters are way powerful at high levels, but they also have the shortest lifespan. BALANCE.
In 2e, yeah. In 3e, the classes are fairly well balanced across levels, so no, I don't agree that wizards are weak at low levels and powerful at high levels vis a vis the other classes. There is a certain element of rock-paper-scissors to the classes (a monk will be much more effective at taking out a wizard than will a fighter; similarly, a wizard will get creamed by most golems), but that doesn't mean the classes are not fairly well balanced against each other.
Taking away magic items from the non-casters completely destroys this balance. Without magic items, a fighter/barbarian/monk/etc can't even see an invisible wizard, can't reach a flying wizard, etc. These problems occur in the low to mid-levels, not high levels.
And as for the assertion that casters should be powerful at high levels, I don't agree with that either. The classes should be balanced against each other at every level.
Clearly we have different understandings of BALANCE. I would submit that the definition you are operating under is circa 1999, and the definition I am operating under is the current ideal.
Anyone out there running "lower magic" games? How do you do it with D&D?
I posted in the "rant thread" about running a game like this several months ago and most of my feedback made it seem like blasphemy...
Anywho...
I've been planning a low-magic game for quite a while now. As far as advise, it depends on how you're going to limit magic.
In my game, there is only one spell caster, a PC. I've also limiting her spell selection.
I've filtered out specific monsters for my game that don't use magic or have any abilities that are too extreme. But I've also created my own monsters as well.
One major difference with this is healing. Since there won't be clerics or anything, I'm planning on making alchemy more widespread.
Don't know if this helps any...
-Kurocyn
As Sebastian pointed out, there are many flavors of "low magic". Magic in general? High-level magic? Both?
Back in AD&D 2nd edition I once decided to cut down the magic by eliminating wizard and cleric classes. There were still specialist mages, with high stat requirements so they were rare, and limited spell lists...there were still specialty priests with higher requirements than clerics and considerably smaller selection of available spells...not to mention bards, rangers and paladins with their limited spellcasting abilities and high requirements. So high level magic was still around but casters in total would be fewer and finding the caster who could cast some specific spell would be more difficult.
In a similar sense, what would happen in D&D if there were no wizards (concentrating my ponderings to core classes from PHB here)? How about no wizards, sorcerers or clerics? What if the only spellcasting class was, say, adept? Or adept and artificer? Of course this would seriously limit or change use of some of the monsters...any monster with spell-like abilities would become much tougher...
Also, on several other threads I and others have been throwing around ideas of modifications for clerics, many of them limiting...
Anyone out there running "lower magic" games? How do you do it with D&D?
Experiences?
jh
I wonder if cutting the wealth by level chart in half might get you much of the way to this without completely blowing game balance? You'd probably have to eliminate the magic creation feats as well.
That should make magic items more rare and valuable.
This is a pretty basic approach to the issue but might be enough to placate a DM who is sick of the Wal-Mart feel for magic items.
I once ran a 1e campaign in which the maximum wizard level attainable was 12th (not a future party problem, with all the PCs being rogue/XX multiclass). In 1e, that meant they could cast "enchant an item" to make 1-shot or charged items, but "permanency" (an 8th level spell in 1e) wasn't available to anyone, and no permanent magic items could be constructed. The expenditure of potions and wands became a matter of strategic importance, and the PCs carefully cultivated black market contacts in attempts to obtain poisons. It was a fun campaign as a break from the standard, but I don't see how it would work for 3e.
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I've been personally designing a long campaign in which access to magic is hindered in two ways: One, the cost of all magic items is doubled (this affects NPC gear array to a large degree) and thus consumables become more prevelant over the very expensive re-usables. Two, a "caster" class may only compromise up to 1/2 (rounded up) of an NPC or PC's total CR/levels, though multiple caster classes may be taken (eg. A 4th level PC may have only up to 2 levels in cleric, wizard/sorceror, psion, etc, while the other classes are open game). Three, use the "non-magic" substitutions, given in Complete Warrior, for ranger and paladin.
In my case, the reasons behind this hindrance of magic will be unveiled (and even removed) of the course of the campaign. Plus, in combination with the double item cost, I'm also working off a 1/2 exp scale, giving me a lot more time to develop the pliot and adequately balance the hampered rise in item acquisition.
It's a fairly extreme form of "low magic," I suppose, but I'm truly curious how the game runs when "slay living" is the highest rank of spell power and planar travel is nigh impossible.
My 2c
I don't think there's a quick fix for a low magic D&D. You need to rebalance a lot of the class abilities, feats and skills if you want it to work properly. Because, lets face it... if it were easy, products like D20 modern or Iorn Heroes wouldn't exist.
Well, the main problem comes from rethinking CRs for monsters and traps and what items, monsters and traps are actually available or should be used (any noncorporeal monsters for example would simply be overkill).
I think for example adept as the only option for a spellcasting class could be converted to be PC class, since at that point having any magic is still an advantage. Maybe throw in some flavor for them, some advantages or special powers...
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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My favorite way of doing "low magic" is to eliminate all the classes with a full casting progression. There are no wizards, no sorcerers, no clerics, etc. You want someone to weave an enchantment on someone? Talk to a bard. Want healing? Seek out an experienced paladin or ranger (or, again, bard).
Naturally, this involves tweaking the encounters as well. You can't be putting them up against monsters that require powerful magic unless you can PROVIDE them with powerful magic. Using this system, things like a wand of lightning bolts become rare artifacts of exceptional power and a scroll of meteor swarm could be an ancient remnant of a long-forgotten society who learned to master magics that the world had never imagined possible. You may want to include variants from UA like the Divine Bard to increase the availability of divine magic in the world. Also, consider tweaking the bard class as a whole according to the UA guidelines and create variants that DON'T include bardic music. Otherwise, it'll be a bit strange that nearly ALL of the magic-users in the world are also gifted performers....
...unless that idea appeals to you? Then, by all means, bard yourself silly.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I've been personally designing a long campaign in which access to magic is hindered in two ways: One, the cost of all magic items is doubled (this affects NPC gear array to a large degree) and thus consumables become more prevelant over the very expensive re-usables. Two, a "caster" class may only compromise up to 1/2 (rounded up) of an NPC or PC's total CR/levels, though multiple caster classes may be taken (eg. A 4th level PC may have only up to 2 levels in cleric, wizard/sorceror, psion, etc, while the other classes are open game). Three, use the "non-magic" substitutions, given in Complete Warrior, for ranger and paladin.
Do you give any additional offsets to the spellcasting classes (e.g., extra feats or having non-spellcaster levels count for purposes of determining caster level)? The issue with a system like this is that a substantial portion of a spellcaster's power comes from its highest level spells. That's why giving up a caster level is normally part of a prestige class. It seems like the casters in your campaign are going to be much weaker than the non-casters (they won't be good in combat due to the watering down of their BAB and they won't be good in magic due to the lack of high level spells). I think this is a good way to go about capping the higher level effects, but I think you still need to give casters something extra to make them viable.
The core arcane casters are already on the weak side, so to the extent you limit their power to achieve low-magic, you should seriously consider giving them something to compensate. Maybe a rogue BAB and HD or some extra skill points. Letting them stack non-caster levels is also useful because it increases the power of their low level spells but doesn't give them additional spells or the high level spells with lots of fancy effects. For classes with significant non-spellcasting abilities (e.g., the druid's shapechang and the cleric's turning), you might also consider letting non-caster levels stack for those abilities as well.
To me, magic power level is one of the elements of D&D that is ripe for revision. It's the most complicated subsystem, in part because of its open endedness, and in part because spellcasting power progresses in a very non-linear manner. Giving DM's the tools to easily customize the magic power level of their game is probably number 1 on my 4e wishlist, and is to me, a sufficient justification for a new edition in and of itself.
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If the world is set up as low magic, I don't think you need to add anything to caster classes to make them useful and fun to play. Comprehend languages can be incredibly powerful in a campaign where magic users are very thin on the ground.
Caveat: In this sort of world, you cannot necessarily expect such characters to be useful in combat. This is a very different paradigm from standard D&D, where every character is expected to directly contribute to the extermination of monsters. If you expect your wizard to win by blowing things up, you will be unhappy. If you want to play a character that wins by blowing things up, this is likely not for you. (Note that this is a fairly common style in fantasy fiction, so players can often adapt pretty easily.)
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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If the world is set up as low magic, I don't think you need to add anything to caster classes to make them useful and fun to play. Comprehend languages can be incredibly powerful in a campaign where magic users are very thin on the ground.
Caveat: In this sort of world, you cannot necessarily expect such characters to be useful in combat. This is a very different paradigm from standard D&D, where every character is expected to directly contribute to the extermination of monsters. If you expect your wizard to win by blowing things up, you will be unhappy. If you want to play a character that wins by blowing things up, this is likely not for you. (Note that this is a fairly common style in fantasy fiction, so players can often adapt pretty easily.)
Then why not play a bard, ranger, or rogue, who would be good in combat and out of combat, rather than a wizard, who is only good out of combat? It's fine if you want to change the role of the wizard from artillery to utility, but as written, the class lacks all the tools for that role. Extra skill points or, oddly enough, even extra spells per day can make that role possible, but just saying "well, you suck in combat, go find some non-combat stuff to do" ignores the fact that there are other classes that have significant combat and non-combat functions.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I would do this as an edit, but I don't trust the edit function. I'm not entirely convinced that the arcane spellcasters still shouldn't get some sort of boost, but I suppose if there were a cap on caster levels they could just take non-caster levels to give them additional flexibility.
Still, having played a mystic theurge, the class who's selling point is non-combat effectiveness, I still think losing those high level spells is significant. Then again, I was comparing the character to the other single classed casters in the game, so if those didn't exist, it's possible the loss wouldn't be so profound.
It might work after all. I'd probably still advocate letting the non-caster levels stack so that utility spells last long enough to be useful, and you definitely want to give something to the character if you take away the item creation/metamagic feats, but you may not need to give more than that.
Maybe.
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My comments above assume that a huge caster nerf is accompanied by a huge magic item nerf (otherwise casters are replaced by items). As I see it, at higher levels the lack of magic items hurts non-casters disproportionately: casters lose uses per day (and perhaps peak power) of cool abilities, but non-casters lose capabilities entirely. To rebalance, then, you have to hammer the casters as well.
The result is (well, can be) a world where most folks have interesting mundane skills of various sorts, but a few folks (who aren't at all good at any of those skills) can do things nobody else can do. (It's very important to communicate this before a player decides to enter the class, because the play dynamic is quite different.)
FWIW, I don't think D&D is especially good at handling this sort of gaming, since the modifications are pretty significant. As mentioned above, though, there are other d20 games that are designed from the start for this.
One thing that hasn't been discussed at length, though, is that there are actually several very different styles of low-magic gaming. I've been (and I think others have also mostly been) discussing a game where magic is both rare and low-powered. You can also get to "low-magic" with low-powered and ubiquitous magic. Perhaps everyone has some low-powered SLA usable N times per day, but there are no actual casting classes at all.
High-powered and rare magic can also be described as a low-magic setting, but this is a harder style to pull off. I suspect your best bet is to make magic primarily the preserve of NPCs in this style. (See, for instance, the Conan novels -- I can't speak to the game version -- or LotR.)
Here's one:
All spells (magic or miracle) and all magic items glow when in use. The general populace is so superstitions/fearful of magic that it's generally outlawed in "civilized" areas (capital cities, etc.). Since the ingnorant commoner cannot differetiate between arcane spells and divine miracles, anything that looks like magic is magic and therefore outlawed. Even glowing armor/weapons, etc. are bewitched and the user feared/hated by everyone around him. Thus using magic of any kind, even a ring can get the user and even his companions mobbed. Those that don't die in the fight are stripped and held for the authorities for a trial and summary execution. The only place the PC's can use magic is in the wilderness/dungeon environment where their horrible acts of antisocialism cannot be witnessed.
There are no mages "guilds". Magic is taught secretly to carefully selected candidates. New spells are gained only be finding rare survining texts with the "new" spell still intact. When the mage attempts to learn the spell, roll the % to learn. If he blows it, the page(s) containing that spell crumbles and the spell lost.
Clerics, to get a miracle to work, have to maintain a certain amount of good grace with their deity. Devise a system of reward and punishment points that tell you whether the character has enough "in" with his/her God to get an answer when praying for an effect (Bless, Curse, Heal, etc.) Keeps clerics on the straight and narrow. But, how many clerics who uphold the laws of the land would adventure with a crew of magic using sinners?
Limit the occurance of magic items by really squeezing the % chance to get one to a minimum. If the party gets something, they'll be really ambiguous about it. They'll feel good that they got something that will finally help them hit a monster requiring magic to hit. They'll feel worried because now they're walking around with death-penalty paraphenalia.
This is a subject very dear to my heart.
I love playing spell casting characters, but I get tired of the higher level magic in D&D. I wish that magic was a bit grittier, less formalized, harder to come by, and not so all-powerful at the higher levels. I’ve kicked around handling this not by changing the class skills, but by making magic spells very hard to come by – no automatic spells beyond first level, spell research is very difficult and even dangerous, spells are less structured (a 2nd level spell with no material component for one wizard could be a 1st level spell with a costly material component for another wizard), and ancient tomes of magic with 5th+ level spells are rare and valuable indeed – but I haven’t found the proper way to balance it out yet. I’m leaning toward adding bonus metamagic feats and removing the experience cost for non-permanent magic items, but even that doesn’t seem to quite account for the loss of the power at higher levels. If anyone has been able to make something like that work, please let me know!
As I read through here I find some good things and some not so great. Several people but up things that overly complicate how to go about making a low magic world. There are some really simple steps, no matter what you mean by low magic.
Limit magic items, paticulalry permanent items like swords, armor, etc. This is done by first take out most to all magic shops. Make the players have to hunt them down. Second modify your rolls (if you do random)/ selection of items available in treasures after killing monsters. That will take care of that.
Next to maintain balance limit number of monsters of magical nature, like the dragons and demons. Also limit the number of creatures that you need magic items to hurt. It just makes sense to do so.
You don't have to do much work on limiting your PC's. Paticularly in limiting their feats/abilities. Remember the PC's are suposed to be the "heroes" of the world they are supposed to be exceptional to almost everyone around them. All you really have to do here is limit the number on PC's not actually in the group. The only other thing that might need to be done is limit how quickly a character gets his new spells. Maybe he has to return to his academy (or a satelite there of) to recieve his new spells. Allow for the forethought of "I'm going to be leveling up soon, but we fixing to head out on an adveture from who knows when I'll return, can I go ahead and get a copy of _______ ?". Give it to them in the form of a scroll. If they cast it to soon they can't copy it to their spellbook later. Tough titties for them.
Also you can make the spellcasters tell you what spell they are going to want to learn when they level up. Then assume they are researching it each night when they camp. This can be extended to feats and skills for everyone as well.
This works great with the previous thing or can be implemented on its own. While you allow for auto new spells, make them roll to see if the actually learned the one they wanted.
Lastly come up with a reason for the low magic. As Lawgiver showed religon can be a great tool for this. There is also the idea that maybe magic is either just being born or is dying. Or a various other reasons. One thing to keep in mind is the longer and lower the magic setting the more likely that technology has advanced itself. Religon again can be the simplest tool to limit this. Maybe not only do we have where magic is sinful but trying to pursue science is seen as just as bad as magic.
OK, I've successfully pulled off another limited magic campaign. We did it with Age of Worms (and quit at level 14..any higher couldn't be done limited magic). I wanted about 5 levels power difference between our campaign and D&D power.
Here are the tricks:
1. CLASSES: Spellcasters must multiclass with non-spellcaster. 3:1 for prime (cleric, wizard, etc.) and 4:1 for nonprime (spell-ranger, paladin, etc.) At "high level" APL 12 that means 9wiz/3rog or 10hexblade/2ftr
2. MAGIC ITEMS: Potions are ok and healing potions should be made available across the board for purchase (300gp or less). Weapons & armor are not considered "magical", but instead superior masterwork, until they are +4 or better (and may not be enchanted until then). Wands and other machine guns shouldn't be handed out at all and if they are, only with max 5 charges.
3. MAGIC ITEM CREATION: All appropriate feats except scroll and potion are bumped up by 5 levels.
4. CAMPAIGN AND ENCOUNTERS: the DM should use his non-autistic monkey part of his brain to expect that Beholders, Mind Flayers, Drow, Ghosts, and DR-Magic D&Dism creatures maybe aren't what you need to be using. Sensible substitution works well.
6. SPELLS: Bumped up the level of a couple spells that 'breathe' higher-magic (invisibility(ies), fireball, magic missile, evards game-stopping tentacles, etc.)
jh
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I have a question for those that force multi-classing for the caster classes:
Do you still enforce the XP penalty for large differences between class levels?
Or do you drop that rule?
I have a question for those that force multi-classing for the caster classes: Do you still enforce the XP penalty for large differences between class levels? Or do you drop that rule?
We've dropped a lot of rules that we found irritating, but we could have left them if we wanted. For example:
1. Multiclassing/favored class penalties
2. Cross-class skill rank penalties (ironically, it didnt' make rogues weaker)
3. Minimum ability scores for feats (strangely, it didn't escalate power; it diluted it)
4. PrC requirements (except for "level equivalents" and RP stuff)
5. Alignment, detect alignment, protection from "alignment" (now just called "hostiles"). Clerics choose whatever is relevant each level change.
6. Extra bonus damage for 2-hnd weapons for power attack (allows more normal character balance)
7. Random rolling anything for character creation (unless a player wants to)
Here's what we added (just for fun):
1. A fumble roll that allows you to break your weapon (if you want) and auto-critical
2. X.p. for blowing money (prevents loads of gold in our lower-magic world)
3. Action points (allows the DM more leeway in monsters knowing that a PC can auto-stabilize with an action point)
4. Access to any WotC book necessary for play (frostburn, sandstorm, complete nerd-books, etc.)
5. "Wearing a helmet in light or no armor grants a +1 helmet bonus..with concentration help.."
6. No class may cast spells/psionics in heavy armor without a check penalty
7. MOST IMPORTANTLY: The players know that the campaign only goes to about 12th level before we reset.
There are a few others, but that's all I can think of. We play in Hyboria
jh
I don't think there's a quick fix for a low magic D&D. You need to rebalance a lot of the class abilities, feats and skills if you want it to work properly. Because, lets face it... if it were easy, products like D20 modern or Iorn Heroes wouldn't exist.
That would be my answer too. If doing low magic, I recommend using Iron Heroes.
I ran a Lower Magic campaign in the past. There were very few magic
items at all, and also very few spell caster either. Spells were
extremely hard to come by and cheerished greatly by those that
could actually use them. Now I also made true spell casting Clerics
rare as well too. Most Priests didn't cast spells, but a few did.
I think it was Sean K. Reynolds' site that talked about this kind of campaign. (Assuming I'm attributing this to the correct source,) He created a low-magic campaign, and in addition to reducing the wealth-by-level substantially, he restricted primary spellcasting classes to no more than half your current class levels. So for example, if you wanted to play a cleric or wizard, you had to take something else for your first level (because half of 1 rounds down to 0), then at 2nd level you can multiclass into the spellcasting class.
It sounded like a really cool campaign, back when I read about it. I think he also set things up so that all the possible character races were equivalent to what other campaigns would call EL +1 equivalents (adding things to the EL 0 races, like humans, until he was comfortable they balanced with the rest). At least one of the races had as its racial ability that it could start as an arcane caster at 1st level. But they still had to alternate levels.
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I am, in fact currently running a "low magic" campaign. It was as simple as cutting the amount of treasure I handed out by half, and making magic something you couldn't buy on every street corner. When the best you can buy at the weaponsmith is a MW sword, it quickly cuts down on the magic in a campaign. My party has a couple of magic creation feats (potions and arms/ armor), but with half the cash to spend, fewer magic items have been created. In general the party has been very happy with the changes, and npc's and monsters don't have to be decked to the gills with magic to present a challenge to the PC's. This has had the added benefit of making one shot treasures like potions and scrolls more valuable because they can't be easily replaced.
One last benefit:
We've gotten back to naming our magic items. I might be older school, but I always liked the sense of history and mystique that recieving a named item gave the game
that's my two coppers
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My long term D&D group always felt very hesitant about magic. Even fire ball spells were considered "weapons of mass destruction". In consequence the second half of the PH is considered to be superfluous by a voiceful minority of my group.
Consequence:
No arcane spell casters until two years ago, only one divine spell caster (a druid), the only ranger barely ever used his magic abilities.
The rest of the group were one fighter (bow specialist), one barbarian (finally replaced by a priest), and at last one scout (Yes, an oversized group which makes balancing even more difficult).
Result:
Urgent need for healing potions, the druid was often overtaxed, the group had to rest often. I had to reduce the number of fighting encounters in any given time.
CRs used to get out of sync: The group was heavy on martial combatants, but didn't have any magical means to overcome obstacles (apart from the few spells the druid had, finally buffed by a sorcerer, but that was just two years ago).
Even high hit point critters were meat in a matter of a few rounds, but if an opponent used to have high armour class, high damage reduction, or resistances, even lower level monsters proved to be too powerful.
Conclusion:
Reducing access to magical classes, items, and spells does work, but it unbalances the game and requires a lot of readjusting.
At higher levels fighters/ barbarians/ rogues *need* magical items in order to stay at eye level with their magic wielding fellows (and the monsters). If you don't follow this rule, you have to "downgrade" magic users and critters, too, which means even more modifying.
There doesn't seem to be an easy way, although alternative settings like Iron Heroes, Midnight, and Kingdoms of Kalamar certainly promise less magic.
For my specific group this meant that some players had to re-think their attitudes about magic in general: They still feel contempt for spells like fire ball, but they accept by now that some obstacles can't be overcome without some "extra help". Nevertheless magic will never be as mundane as in most other settings.
Greetings,
Günther
I think running a low magic game is a great thing. I’ve always enjoyed those more it seemed. The ones I have been in we more or less left the class as is. The DM restricted magical items each player would end up with I would say about 2-4 magical items, usually one was powerful staff or sword or the such and the rest fairly weak. There was less wizards, sorcerers, and clerics. Rangers and paladins were more combat centered, but didn’t mean that once in a while that didn’t cast a weak healing spell or an animal based spell. I think it’s more about how the DM crafts the world than anything else.
I would suggest reading Dragonlance novels especially the first three Dragons of Autumn, Winter, and Spring.
That seemed like true D&D to me. The mage had a magical staff, the knight had an ancestral sword that might be magic, the ranger found a magical short sword that buzzed around dragons, the cleric had a healing staff, the rogue had magical glasses that kind of saw the truth, and the barbarian hated magic and didn’t use any.
It just had the right feeling about it. Clerics were also slim to none in DL, and arcane magic was 1. hated by most 2. regulated by the Tower of High Sorcery to the point you had to pass a test to use magic if you did that you got color coordinated by alignment white-good, red-neutral, black-evil, and if you practiced magic with out their ok they hunted you down.
Hope this helps
Fizz