Hi! I've recived last Savage Tide adventure, and after revising the whole campaign path, i think it needs a new setting for my games. It's namely "low magic", but i think the word is "low magic avaliability". Those are the changes i pretend to do, i will thank some comments about it. I try to made it simple, rather than balanced, and i'm afraid some quirks escape me and ruin the game.
It's mostly a "pirates of the caribbean" setting, while magic exist, its not common. I plan to do this:
-use Defense bonus from unearthed arcana.
-Firearms exist (using rules from Dragon magazine #321)they are Simple, touch attack weapons.
-Remove most permanent magic items (except those needed for the storyline, and some scarce ones)
-Cut treasure 20% down (after all, don't need armor nor magic items)
-Expendable magic items exist (wands, potions & scrolls) but cost double. I aslo been thinking about reducing avaliability.
-Magic is exhausting. Every spell causes 1 point of subdual damage per spell level. spelcasters can cast one spell per spellcaster level ignoring this damage.
-Rangers has no spellcasting. Instead they have d10 hit points and a bonus feat at levels 5, 10, 15, 20.
For balancing purposes, I adapted character creations as follows:
-Use action points from unearthed arcana(they could be equivalent to magic items in some way)
-They gain a bonus feat every 2 levels, instead of every three.
-They gain an atribute increment to all atributes at level 6, and every four levels (6, 10, 14, 18) in adition to the normal increments.
-a feat, Armor Compatibility, allows to stack half your defense bonus with your armor bonus.
So long, that's all. I'll thank your advice and comments.
Well, honestly instead of eliminating all those magic items, why not just hand out the same ones, but combined into stronger and weirder items? So instead of one character getting a boring set of Cloak of Resistance +1, Flaming Longsword +1, Gauntlets of Ogre Strength +2, and a Ring of Fire Resistance 10, that character instead gets one named sword that combines all of these bonuses? This then becomes that particular character's signature weapon, and instead of being replaced by new weapons it gets leveled up along with the character. A few paragraphs of backstory for the weapon could be used to suggest what sort of upgrades the player could hope for, you have a rare and unique magic item that the player will never even consider parting with or replacing.
That'd be the simple way of handling it. Another simple way is simply to play Iron Heroes or C&C or something, since those are already-playtested rules sets that don't shaft one particular player type.
Quite frankly, your proposed changes alone screw over the fighter-types completely. A few points of nonlethal damage will barely slow down a spellcaster; they'll simply hide out for a few hours until they get better. Meanwhile, the fighter-types will run out of hit points and die, because the clerics sure as heck aren't going to heal a whole party in a hard fight when there's a nonlethal-damage beatstick applied that'll drop them unconscious right next to the monsters if they're foolish enough to try to heal.
I wouldn't even consider playing a non-caster in the game you suggest. Sitting on the ground unable to reach or do anything while archers, casters, and fliers do whatever they please is not a play style I'd enjoy, and it's sadly inevitable when you barely nerf the casters, nerf the monsters not at all, and strip the fighters off ALL the versatility they can get from magic items.
Have you looked at the Vitality/Wound Points system from Unearthed Arcana?
I first encountered that is Star Wars d20 and liked it, so I have been using it in my D&D campaign.
Converting STAP to VP/WP is simple enough.
Living things get VP=HP and WP=CON (or CON x something big things)
Crits do Wound damage, but damage is not mulipli.
Reduce Crit threat range to 20 for most weapons though, not as listed in UA or you will have TPK a lot.
Constructs/Undead just get WP=HP and can't be critted.
VP are healed quickly (1 VP per level every hour) which works ok in low magic system.
You have to change how healing spells work, but most things remain unchanged.
What, paladins don't get anything to replace their spells?
I suppose you could always use the Complete Warrior variants- paladins lose spellcasting and gain:
6th lvl: Weapons count as Good-aligned
11th lvl: 1/day, for 1 min/lvl, +4 to Str, Wis, or Cha
13th lvl: Spend 1pt of lay on hands for 5hp of healing or 5pts to remove status ailments (mount only)
16th lvl: 1/day, Holy Sword as per spell
And on the hp/nonlethal stuff, here's an idea: why not just have cure spells change hp into nonlethal? That way, it's still dangerous, but it wears off quicker and leaves your pcs still feeling vulnerable and shaken.
There's a great section on this in one of Simon R. Green's book Beyond the Blue Moon, basically, the heroes get mightily trashed by a bunch of bad guys, beaten up, and left for dying. A local mage is able to heal them but it uses up about a month's worth of life energy from them. So their wounds are closed, the bleeding stops, all of that, but they are completely exhausted and sleep for the next 16 hours or so.