I was asked in This Thread to explain in greater detail a campaign I put together that was meant to be a low-powered campaign without the eradication of magic. This is what I plan to do here (forgive the delay, Real Life got in the way of all my gaming).
Purpose: The idea behind the campaign came from reading and watching a variety of fantasy stories where the heroes were not plunged into worlds where magic wasn't omnipresent, where monsters were horrific and lurked in the wilderness, and where exceptional people were held in high regard by the populace. I'm still playing through the Age of Worms and, while I love it, it's highly magical nature diminishes a bit of wonder from the adventurer's life.
What The World Is Not: This is not meant to be a world where there is no magic, where heroic deeds did not occur, and where there are no monsters. This is not meant to be a Cthulhu-esque world (as much as I love my Lovecraft) where the supernatural devours the players.
Theme: I selected a quasi-Celtic theme for my world, borrowing where needed from Norse, German, and French tradition. Fog features heavily in the weather patterns, and much of the territory is stuck on the tail end of a "mini-Ice Age."
Assumptions: Instead of giving you all my hard-and-fast rules, which are scattered throughout my notes, I'll give you the Ten Assumptions I wrote down at the onset. These have been modified a bit since the beginning, but they remain true to their origin. I should also note I shared these with the players at the beginning, so they understood where I was coming from and played along accordingly.
This is problematic, because 3.X assumes some magical powers and items. These I strictly limited the distribution of, and each magical item was found on a quest or by some rare event. It isn't just weapons and armor - wonderous items as well. Nearly every magic item found had a unique name, which adds to its lore and history.
Enchanced masterwork items proved to be a good filler. Instead of just adding +1 to attack rolls, masterwork items made by master smiths (think Hattori Hanzo) could grant up to +3 to attack rolls, could be keen, wounding, or otherwise remarkable without being magical. These legendary weapons were also prized possessions. I owe Green Ronin thanks for these ideas.
What I discovered was that the players were not at so great a disadvantage, because their opponents were not armed to teeth as well.
Assumption 2: The world is dangerous and not a magical mirror of the modern world. People live in towns and castles because they are safe. The wilderness is dangerous.
This speaks for itself, but walled cities and towns are common. Adventurers, such as the PCs, are very rare. Most who go into the woods for adventure do not come back. Travel along roads is also dangerous, but not as much as other locations.
Assumption 3: Most people the PC's meet are between levels 1-3. Of these people, they are usually NPC classes. The best guardsman in the town may be a Level 2 Fighter. The Chief of Police is probably a Level 3 Fighter. The Mayor is a Level 3 Noble. They are skilled and otherwise established persons who form the baseline for talent.
Assumption 4: There are exceptional people in the world, who are levels 4-8. Also usually NPC Classes, but not always. The great fencer of Pellin is a Level 6 fighter. The High King's wizardly advisor is a level 7 Wizard. These people represent the apex of skill and power, and are otherwise so rare that their presence represents change in the world.
Assumption 5: Most of the common enemies in this world also fall under this distribution: Orcs, goblins, Kenku, etc are the primary foes. Again, they lurk in the wilderness, or under the cities, or in far off kingdoms. They are just as dangerous, but do not possess any greater power than the ordinary folk of this world.
Assumption 6: Each race is unique and interesting in their own right. Elves are the forest dwellers of deep contemplation. Dwarves are great craftsmen of deep halls. Gnomes are trickers who live in the hills. Orcs are ferocious hunters who hate all otehrs. This is a hearkening back to their original stereotypes, but it also helps seperate them. The lack of a cosmopolitan feel, and a cosmopolitan city, makes different races and their interactions more important.
Assumption 7: The PCs are going to be extraordinary. This is the big one. I didn't want to limit my PCs in their level caps, or take away magical class abilities, or otherwise tweak the PHB classes to the point where they only had 'realistic' abilities. I wanted my players to be heroes.
The PCs have been called to a great, world-changing quest. They start off as all the others -first level. And through adversity, and through adventuring, they gain power, find treasure, and will grow.
I did slow advancement a bit, to help preserve the notion of expanding beyond their boundaries at a more reasonable pace.
The big plus of this is it means you can play the rules from the PHB as written. When the wizard gets fireball for the first time, it means something truly dramatic in the world. When the fighter can wield the greatsword against multiple-foes, it shows off their skill. This is as much roleplaying as anything else, but it was very well recieved.
Assumption 8: Dark and great powers lurk in the depths and in the heavens, and as the PCs go about their quest they will wake these powers.
This is Tolkein's "Balrog" solution. There are things capable of challenging high-level players, and the reason they haven't destroyed the world is two-fold: 1) They are far and few between; and 2) They tend to be dormant.
This was a great way to help the players stand out as the greatest heroes of the world as they went to combat their final villain. While the town guard could band together to kill an Ogre, the entire army was powerless against the Red Dragon from the mountains, and needed the PCs to come in and aid them.
This also lets the game scale properly, so the party isn't fighting wave after wave of orcs.
Assumption 9: Combat is lethal. Healing is painful. People die in combat, and clerics aren't there to bail them out. The PC cleric quickly learns that their talents are in incredibly high demand and they will be taxed to the limit.
I also ruled that the healing skill on a DC 15 check heal 1d4 points of damage, on a DC 20 check heal 2d4 points of damage, and on a DC 25 check heal 3d4 points of damage, once per day per person. Thus a truly skilled doctor can nurse wounded patients back from the brink, but PCs who are badly wounded in one fight can't simply bandage themselves up for the next three rounds.
The end result: The PC Cleric was judicious about healing, because there weren't potions waiting around every corner, the PC's chose their battles more carefully, put a higher premium on tactics and armor, and generally considered the combats more closely. I felt this made for a much better game.
Assumption 10: It is still Dungeons and Dragons. Players will do crazy things, and succeed. Comedic moments will come from role-playing mis-steps. The rogue will try and rob the King, and there will be consequences. I didn't want to adhere too strictly to the notion of a somber and dark world at the expense of fun. Besides, my players learned quickly that being too goofy got them killed.
Sources: My sources were numerous and varied, but for ideas I looked to Tolkein, Chrichton (especially Eaters of the Dead), Gaiman, White, Tennyson, Mallory, Goodkind, and other staples of the genre. Recommended movies include The 13th Warrior, Excalibur, The Village, and Braveheart, as all four go for the theme I was looking for. I do not comment on the overall quality of any of them.
And there you have it. I welcome any constructive comments, as it remains a work in progress, and I would be glad to answer any questions. I've purposefully avoided going into certain details (government, economy, etc.) but I'd be happy to talk about them as well.
What is the backdrop for the starting point of your campaign?
And by that I mean so and so emperor has been slain in a coup leaving power in the hands of a theocracy that sees itself as absolute and toelrates no other religion, even people of other races are viewed with suspicion if not outright animosity as they represent to them all that is evil (Somewhat biased view from reading Dire Destiny)
|
Well, I haven't looked at the parent Thread yet and only browsed the 10 assumptions, but my initial thought still remains: How much differently will this campaign end up being...
The PCs, mechanically, will be just like PCs in the standard 3x. And since 99% or so of the campaign revolves around the PCs, will they see and, more importantly, feel the difference. It seems like the only difference from the Players' perspective is that clerical healing will be more rare; death happens to PCs more often.
Hmmm, have you considered only allowing, say, a couple schools of magic to exist beyond 1st level? It is not too difficult to greatly reduce the number of available spells to PCs (if you don't want to outlaw magic from the campaign) without losing the class's effectiveness: take away spell failure chances for casting in armor. Now you have a Wizard who can only cast, say, enchantments and divinations -- oh, and 1st level spells -- but he's still playable because he can wear armor. Afterall, spell failure is just the stupid way to better attempt to fix what would be a broken class.
Also, you'll have to redesign the monsters the PCs fight if you go beyond about 4th level. The CR system does depend on magic and equitable power levels.
-W. E. Ray
I would like to offer something up for you to use:
This prestige class was made for something like this campaign.
What is the backdrop for the starting point of your campaign?
And by that I mean so and so emperor has been slain in a coup leaving power in the hands of a theocracy that sees itself as absolute and toelrates no other religion, even people of other races are viewed with suspicion if not outright animosity as they represent to them all that is evil (Somewhat biased view from reading Dire Destiny)
The party began on a smaller island, akin to something in the Irish Sea, and were tasked by a religious figure to transport a relic across the channel to a monastary which had loaned it to them as part of a ritual decades ago. Finding the monastary sacked, the party was dragged into an internecine war between three powerful religious sects. Each of these sects was backed by a number of small kingdoms, and so they were set on a number of missions that eventually caused them to realize there was a "sleeping God" that needed to be wakened to end the strife. The rest of the campaign focused on waking this sleeping God and restoring some order to the land.
It had a lot of similarities to 4.0's "Points of Light" theme; which frankly I and many others had concocted some time ago. These Kingdoms all sought more power but lacked the population base to expand. The religious officials kept power through threats and money; the truly faithful were pushed aside.
Demihumans, especially Dwarves, had their own Kingdoms and were either involved in the wars or otherwise supplied it. Elves and Gnomes were generally aloof, trying to keep to the forests. Racism wasn't a huge theme of the campaign, and racial purity was really not mentioned. Religion filled that central role.
Well, I haven't looked at the parent Thread yet and only browsed the 10 assumptions, but my initial thought still remains: How much differently will this campaign end up being...
The PCs, mechanically, will be just like PCs in the standard 3x. And since 99% or so of the campaign revolves around the PCs, will they see and, more importantly, feel the difference. It seems like the only difference from the Players' perspective is that clerical healing will be more rare; death happens to PCs more often.
Hmmm, have you considered only allowing, say, a couple schools of magic to exist beyond 1st level? It is not too difficult to greatly reduce the number of available spells to PCs (if you don't want to outlaw magic from the campaign) without losing the class's effectiveness: take away spell failure chances for casting in armor. Now you have a Wizard who can only cast, say, enchantments and divinations -- oh, and 1st level spells -- but he's still playable because he can wear armor. Afterall, spell failure is just the stupid way to better attempt to fix what would be a broken class.
Also, you'll have to redesign the monsters the PCs fight if you go beyond about 4th level. The CR system does depend on magic and equitable power levels.
-W. E. Ray
The major differences in play came outside of combat; which is what I was going for in a lot of respects. The parent thread touched on this - I wanted a world in which the PC's were extraordinary to a great degree (the Exalted World was cited as an example). I didn't want to dramatically screw with the mechanics by overpowering the PC's, as that didn't address my concerns about the power creep we had in Age of Worms.
The solution, therefore, was to depower the world and leave the PC's at their current level.
Outside of combat, I found the PCs much more concerned with food supplies, maintaining their gear, and interacting favorably with NPCs. The reason being this was much more crucial to survival, fit in with the gritty nature of the campaign, AND was no longer taken for granted. The NPCs encountered got to react to the PCs in unique ways as well, especially the common folk who came to adore them.
There were differences in combat, of course. What few magic items there were became prized possessions. Monsters needed to be tweaked, but most creatures which were in need of heavy modification were inappropriate to the campaign anyway. But overall, the PCs eventually became walking demigods, lords of the battlefied. As I said, this was the point. It made the battle with the Giants feel that much more epic, much like Hercules and the Hydra.
Your idea about limiting wizard schools is intriguing. I'd have to do the same for Sorcerers, and probably extend it to all casting classes to some degree. I'll experiment with it and let you know what I come up with.
|
Also, you'll have to redesign the monsters the PCs fight if you go beyond about 4th level. The CR system does depend on magic and equitable power levels.-W. E. Ray
This isn't true, I've played quite comfortably using the CR system up to 12th level with players who had no magic items or very limited. (i.e. what they found they kept) what you find is that the CR system works better at those levels than if they have the assumed amounts of magic items, well the main difference is your able to have 1-2 fights a day of equal CR instead of the pigeonholed 4 per day. If you have 4 per day the last one can be pretty tough but the CR system actually holds up. The campaign was dropped at 12th level due to burnout, but could have kept going quite nicely
I particularly like assumptions #3, #4 and #8 (i.e. high-level NPCs and monsters are very rare). That's one of the things I thought that Eberron did particularly well with their setting, although the omnipresence of minor magic and the "modern" feel (e.g. big cities, "railroads", airships) in Eberron can be a big turn-off for some people.
Yes, I am going to mention Hero. But bare with me, I promise it will be somewhat relevant.
There have never been a lot of magic items in my Hero campaigns. Players have to spend Character Points for exceptional items. Most of the time, players just put those points into abilities instead. These abilities can be things like tossing fire balls or flying, but they can also be much more subtle than that.
I usually run high magic campaigns, but Hero does lend itself well to low magic campaigns because you do not have to worry about the Christmas Tree Effect.
I had suggested in another thread where someone was worried about magic items making players pay some kind of cost to simply buy abilities they would gain from magic items without having to actually have said magic item. Things seem to be working for you, so I doubt you would need to even try this. I just thought I would throw it out there.
I would think Sorcerers and Wizards would become even more powerful since their access to magic, in effect, would be less restricted than most of the other classes. I would be very curious to see if this actually happens in play.
You might want to look at Iron Heroes for ideas on how to lower the dependence on magic items. Coupled with a reduction in XP awards (say 1/2 normal) and keeping the assumptions in mind when world-building and designing adventures, you should be able to put together a pretty good campaign.
Or, as CourtFool says, you can use a different system (such as HERO) where magic items are less necessary. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay pretty closely matches your assumptions, for example...
|
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay pretty closely matches your assumptions, for example...
I agree completely, this is the Warhammer world - however I would say more 1st edition rather than 2nd edition. In 2nd edition magic actually became usable by PC's...
Having said that 1st ed. AD&D is still great for this feel of game. D&D v3.x and more so v4 has a more of the players are all powerful central theme.
Luck, exactly the type of game I love.
S.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay pretty closely matches your assumptions, for example...I agree completely, this is the Warhammer world
Well, without the whole "chaos/corruption" theme, at least. :-P
This isn't true, I've played quite comfortably using the CR system up to 12th level with players who had no magic items or very limited.I stand corrected -- a very easy thing to do when I jump out of Fluff or good-gaming arenas and try to posit anything about Crunch.
-W. E. Ray
Well, a certain amount of common sense has to be heeded to when creating encounters, of course. For instance, with no magic items or spellcasters, a shadow is practically unbeatable.
|
|
Well, a certain amount of common sense has to be heeded to when creating encounters, of course. For instance, with no magic items or spellcasters, a shadow is practically unbeatable.This isn't true, I've played quite comfortably using the CR system up to 12th level with players who had no magic items or very limited.I stand corrected -- a very easy thing to do when I jump out of Fluff or good-gaming arenas and try to posit anything about Crunch.
-W. E. Ray
This is true, also DR actually becomes much more significant although with the 3.5 version not insurmountable. As for the shadow, in my game spellcasters were there and had full progression and from what I've read his game has them too with full progression they are just distrusted. Anywho, the point I was making is that when playing in low magic campaigns I found the CR system held up better than in the normal games I played, in the normal games, I found myself for even the 4/day fight assumptions of the CR system having to throw CRs two or higher at the party to have a challange. if I only wanted one fight in the day the CR usually had to be 4-5 CRs higher and this was against a party that wasn't optimized at all (a fire sorcerer, a bard, a ranged ranger, and a two weapon fighter)
Have you looked into the E6 system? Basically, it is like standard D&D until after 6th level.
The Conan rpg is also interesting, as is Harnmaster; both have fairly deadly combat systems, little magical healing, spells that require ritual preparation and actual powerful obvious magic being very rare.
The Conan rpg is also interesting, as is Harnmaster; both have fairly deadly combat systems, little magical healing, spells that require ritual preparation and actual powerful obvious magic being very rare.
I really enjoy the Conan RPG, if as much for its brutality in combat as it's capturing of Howard's theme. I hadn't really looked to it for inspiration, but I think I will now.
To be honest, I don't want magic to resemble the Howard/Lovecraft model too closely. I really like Cthulhu D20 and Cthulu BRPS, but between those and the Conan RPG magic is too costly and often very dangerous. In a world where the PC's are meant to excel, that can be a price that's a bit too steep.
Their combat model, however, has a lot of great ideas.
This is true, also DR actually becomes much more significant although with the 3.5 version not insurmountable. As for the shadow, in my game spellcasters were there and had full progression and from what I've read his game has them too with full progression they are just distrusted. Anywho, the point I was making is that when playing in low magic campaigns I found the CR system held up better than in the normal games I played, in the normal games, I found myself for even the 4/day fight assumptions of the CR system having to throw CRs two or higher at the party to have a challange. if I only wanted one fight in the day the CR usually had to be 4-5 CRs higher and this was against a party that wasn't optimized at all (a fire sorcerer, a bard, a ranged ranger, and a two weapon fighter)
DR is a challenge for any party. Again, this is where my thoughts on masterwork weapons proved helpful; a cold-iron sword famed for its fey battling abilities needed to be found before the party entered the haunted woods. I had to carefully select opponents to match the party's capabilities, but the casters soon learned to keep Magic Weapon in their repetoir on a regular basis.
Bards and their buffing abilities seem like they'd really come into their own in this style of game; none of my players have tried one yet.
I must say, I like what you have come up with. Recently, I've been getting more and more into a lower magic mind set and your world seems right up my alley.
The ideas for master smiths being able to make +1 to +3 items is intriguing. What Green Ronin book gave you that idea? I also really like the idea of Heal checks restoring hit points once per day.
All in all, it seems pretty solid.
I've been thinking of doing soemthing very similar in my next campaign. Your ideas seem very well considered - I think you'll have a lot of fun.
The DnD game as presented in the core rule books has always seemed a little over the top to me, especially with regards to magic. Eeking out the goodies rather than throwing them away puts the emphasis back on the story, tactics, and (most importantly) the players imagination. As you say, when a PC finally achieves that spell or feat, it will actually FEEL like a major thing.
Also, it forces the PC's to really get into the character as they rely on the relationship to survive - and they get time to play their characters at a given level for more time rather than levelling up just as they're getting into the stride of the level they were at.
Please keep us posted as to how it transpires.
I must say, I like what you have come up with. Recently, I've been getting more and more into a lower magic mind set and your world seems right up my alley.
The ideas for master smiths being able to make +1 to +3 items is intriguing. What Green Ronin book gave you that idea? I also really like the idea of Heal checks restoring hit points once per day.
All in all, it seems pretty solid.
Thank you!
The Advanced Gamemaster's Guide had the weapons rules I referred to. It makes sense and is a good fantasy trope, in my mind. A master smith can make incredibly sharp swords without the need to turn to a wizard.
The healing rules were brought about after a d20 Modern campaign in which our surgeon proved to be the party's saving grace. I'm hoping a PC in a future game is based more as a battlefield medic; it's a role made rather obsolete by Good Cleric.