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I've seen a number of threads here discussing relative power of classes and how seemingly magic using classes can become voerly powerful at high level. Rather than create another "How do I fix this class" thread, I'd like to open up the forums to ways DM's have used their campaign setting to keep things in check. This is useful across all levels of play.
I'd like this to be an ideas thread as much as anyhing else. It'd be nice if we could keep it less argumentative than some of teh toher threads have become, but I guess we'll see.
Some ideas I've used
- Arcane magic takes from the world, divine magic takes from the gods. In essence, arcanist restructure the material around them to make their spells. High enough magic can have very unpleasent effects on the imediate vicinity.
Divine casters ask their gods for spells, but high level spells draws more power from a deity than low levels. The divine casters have to return teh power they borrowed somehow (maybe running a local church or converting people to their faith). Without the payback, their access to high level magic gets restricted by their god.
- Summoning comes from somehere and has repercussions of its own. Bringing forth a wall of iron means that wall came from somewhere. Someone may come looking for the person who keeps stealing their iron.
Summoning critters that have intelligence and forcing them to do your bidding means they may get cross with you. At high levels, with critters that have the potential resources to track you down, you may think twice about summoning them for aid.
Divine summons is restricted by your god. The god can only send emiisaries that they have in their power or have created pacts with. For example, your god may be worshiped by the Eladrins, therefore a high level summon monster may only net you Eladrins. Higher level summons only nets you you Eladrins, but maybe they have class ranks to help build up their power.
I've run out of time now for more of the things I've tried, but if you have some, let us know. I find these types of trweaks to how magic works in a world can really make a campaign feel alive.
I probably won't get to check back here any time soon, butt feel free to take the thread and run with it.
Cheers
My group has a gentleman's agreement to be reasonable. Now I know different groups play at different levels of optimization, but we have similar ideas about what is and is not broken.
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My last post for another week at least (deliberately limiting my time on these boards to spend more time with family).
- I just mentioned this one in another thread and thought I would drop it in here. Each form of magic has a distinctive style and appearence. Players can learn to tell what class of caster, or what god a cleric follows, or what school a wizard went to, by watching their spell effects. While this doesn't seem immediately power limiting, it does mean NPC's and PC's can glean much information about their opponents merely by watching the spells they cast. (Particularly since learning certain spells only happens in some schools, and those schools will ban students from other schools attending).
It's one way I limit the spell selection of players at higher levels. They can always try coming up with unique ways of learning the spells, and that's a whole new challenge for them.
Well cheers for another week at least. Hope more people post to this with ideas of their own.
Wratihstrike - The gentlemans agreement is a fine way of keeping things in control. I was hoping more for campaign flavour things, but that doesn't make your post any less valid.
Cheers