Magic items and gold in low magic Aventure path

[gordbond]

Hi guys i am running an Adventure Path with my players and its a low magic item campaign where the players need to craft magic items to get them execpet for pations, wands and scrolls.

So they are saying that i need to include more gold to make up for the magic items lost propities is that true?

In the game i strip all the magic weapons and armours of there magic qualitys and turn them into master work weapons.

I rekon that since they are crafting items at half retail price they dont need as much gold.

am i right?

[jlord]

Well...Yes and no, let me explain...

You are taking magic items out of the treasure, which they could normally sell for 1/2 price towards making or purchasing magic items. By taking magic items out, you are taking a huge amount of the power or wealth needed to make their own magic items. Most games I play in, players keep magic items, especially at low levels, its more economical.

Now in your game it is understandable that the items would not be magical, so they don't get them. As to whether they should get more mundane treasure to compensate, It depends on what you want in the game. If you want it to be low power, they your fine as you say. If you want the game to be normal/high power, then your players are right. Remember, the items you are taking away are items the AP is expecting the players to get to complete the game, whether they use them or sell them towards their own items. If you take them away, you may want to add at least half of the monetary treasure, as if they sold the items, possibly more. If you go the low power path, you may have to adjust encounters later to make them a bit more easier.

Personally, If I did this, I would add 50-75% of the dropped magic's cost into monetary gain to keep the game balanced so i would have to change little from the modules. If you feel you've given too much, cut back as appropriate. So for example, if the character were supposed to find a +1 flaming sword, they would find a masterwork sword and ~6,000gp worth of monetary or artistic treasure.

hope this helps.

Hopefully this helps

--Edit
Also, if you are taking the magic items off bad guys, they are weaker too, so my above money numbers might be a bit high.

[gordbond]

thanks mate. I am stripping magic items off everyone and everything. I am also dropping DR for magic related items dexept for Cold iron and other metals.

I am still including magic items in the game but one or two per module. I think thats fair. THat they there more valueable then "oh great a tenth +2 longsword throw it into the pile of swords and we'll sell it when we get back to town".

[Selgard]

it sounds like you and your players may be on "different pages" concerning what the purpose of the campaign is. Did they sign on, agreeing to do a very low magic campaign? From what little you posted it sounds as though either they didn't, or that they didn't really fully understand what they were getting into.
(not that low magic is bad or anything.. but it does require the players agree to it, and to go with it).

-S

[gordbond]

Yes i told them from the start that this would be a Low Magic game and that if they want magic items they will need to craft them themselves. I told them that before we began the game, that the mosters would be reduced acordingly.

This would be our first game thats low magic. Its come quite a bit of a shock to them too.

[Darkheyr]

A piece of advice: What you are running is not a low magic campaign, but a low magic equipment campaign. What this means, effectively, is that the gap between melee and caster classes widens considerably with increasing levels. You might have to watch out for the casters completely overshadowing the rest.

Noncasters are significantly more reliant on equipment.

[Steel_Wind]

Darkheyr wrote:

A piece of advice: What you are running is not a low magic campaign, but a low magic equipment campaign. What this means, effectively, is that the gap between melee and caster classes widens considerably with increasing levels. You might have to watch out for the casters completely overshadowing the rest.

Noncasters are significantly more reliant on equipment.

This. He's absolutely right.

My suggestions:

1 - Improve masterwork weapons, so that they also do +1 to damage.
2- Reduce the cost for magical weapons, armor and ammunition by 50% off of your player's magical construction cost. Effectively 1/4 cost for those things.

Don't change the cost for other items, however. This will go some way to improving the power balance for non-casters. The truly snazzy magical weapons (those with abilities) will STILL be quite expensive in a world where the loot does not include magical items to sell in order to be able to fund the construction of those items.

[Galnörag]

Spell casters will get hampered at high levels where it comes to saming the parties bacon, as some of the best spells come at a high price, stone skin, true seeing, restoration, raise dead, etc.

[gordbond]

Thanks guys i will implent these ideas into my game.

So what are your through on giving them 1/4 gold of all the magic items cost?

Would that help make up for it.

They dont need to worry about food or housing since that has already been taken care of by a nice manion. It also includes servents. So the only thing is equipment (which they can make themseleves) and food on adventure (which will be taken care of because the sorcerer is making dancing spoons or my favorate the brooth Stone.)

So what more do they need?

[Darkheyr]

Galnörag wrote:

Spell casters will get hampered at high levels where it comes to saming the parties bacon, as some of the best spells come at a high price, stone skin, true seeing, restoration, raise dead, etc.

Nah. Any possible "weakening" will be more than offset by their advantage over low magic melee types. Not to mention that they do have gold, just little found magic equipment.

gordbond wrote:

So what are your through on giving them 1/4 gold of all the magic items cost?

I'd really do it only with weapons and armor to give the noncasters a competing chance. Reducing all costs makes the entire "few magic items" idea rather redundant.

[stringburka]

The easiest way when it comes to magic weapons and armor is to simply reflavor them. Instead of a +2 weapon being magic, it's simply really really really masterwork. Turn +1 flaming weapons into +2 nonmagical weapons.

Magic armor can work the same way.

It's only tricky for other equipment such as magic rings and the like. For those, I recommend simply giving a +1 "heroic" bonus to your characters various stats at an appropriate level.

[The Admiral Jose Monkamuck]

I have a question for you. Are the enemies not in possesion of magical items or do the items stop being magical when the players loot them?

[gordbond]

I have stripped almost all the magic gear from the bad guys too. Only a few still have magic items on them and they will only have ONE two at the most.

No the items dont stop being magical if the PCs pick them up

[Alexander Kilcoyne]

This kind of game nearly always ends up becoming spellcaster dominant, especially when a cleric simply gets around your low magic with greater magic weapon and magic vestment.

[The Admiral Jose Monkamuck]

Since the bad guys are low in loot too it depends heavily on the type of badguys. NPCs that are expected to have gear will lose some power, although not as much as the PCs. Creatures that aren't expected to have gear will be at the same power level. So if the AP is NPC dominant then they don't need quite as much money to make gear.

I'd also recommend looking at what alexander said and removing or at least limiting the spells he mentioned as well as similar spells.

[Darkheyr]

Weakening those spells will exclusively weaken noncasters, because they profit from them the most. I recommend against it. Every buff spell cast is one less wtfpwn spell to overshadow the party.

[gordbond]

I must agree with Darkheyr if they use magic weapon or magic vestments its 2 spells gone for the day.

[EWHM]

Gordbond,
I'd ask WHY the campaign world has such low levels of magical equipment. Not why you want to run a low magic campaign, but why low levels of magical items persist in the world. For instance:
1) Is there a low number of magic item creators in the world relative to the default presumption? If so, why?
2) Is it a 'young world' perhaps, with no stocks of 'ancient magic items of power' to draw from?
3) Is it harder to make magic items in this world than the default presumption? If so, why?
4) Do people really like to destroy magic items moreso than the normal expection? If so, why?

With satisfactory answers to these questions it's possible to make a world where you don't excessively aggravate the disparity between casters and non-casters, but if you 'just change one thing' (i.e., how often magic items are available as treasure or for sale), the outcome of your noncasters feeling like they've been sold a bill of goods is extremely likely.

Here's one possible answer.
In this world you've got to have an innate 'spark' to be able to do magic at all. It's rare and uncorrelated (or only modestly correlated) with good attributes otherwise. So if you want to be a mage as a PC, the set of all possible persons you can 'inhabit' as the controlling player is far smaller than if you're choosing a rogue or a fighter. Therefore, you get a far less advantageous build rule. For instance, if you elect to have the ability to be a full caster, you might get a 10 or 15 point build, the ability to be a semi-caster (like a paladin or ranger) would get you a 20 point build, and a noncaster would get 25 points. Make sure to exercise due dilligence on any stats that get dumped, especially ones dumped to 7.

Or,
perhaps in this world everyone has a greater level of magic resistance than is the norm...say a +3 profane bonus to all saves against spells, perhaps because the blood of darkness taints nearly everyone's veins. This would reduce the number of casters because it directly reduces their power and thus the draw to study magic

Or,
Perhaps this is either a VERY young world or a world recovering from a terrific catastrophe. There simply aren't many ancient items at all to be had, and lots of magical 'technology' and 'tribal knowledge' has been lost. If you're a caster, you're going to have to research a LOT of your spells yourself and no new spells will be guaranteed to you as you advance levels.

The common thread is that almost all of these possible reasons hit casters about as hard as they hit the more gear-dependent noncasters.

[Anonymous Visitor 163 576]

Watch out around level 7+

Because, it's not the assorted +1s that you have to worry about. It's the other stuff.

For example, a manticore is terrible BECAUSE IT CAN FLY. Without ready access to flying potions and things like that, it's pretty much going to destroy a normal village. Against players, it's really only got to worry about the archers and wizards. And the wizards are easy to shoot apart.

Trolls, for example, become more dangerous, as do incorporeal foes (move through walls!), and creatures with different movement types, or attack forms that rely on DCs (medusae, for example)

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I'd counter this by adding more, cheaper foes to encounters. The shaman of the lizardfolk doesn't get a lot of nifry magic items, but he does get ten more guards.

At some points, like 7th and 10th level, you will want to hand our stat bumps to players. Make a story reason for it (The gods approve of you). Likewise, you can give skill/save bonuses out as treasure. (Your time with the pirates gives you a +2 to swim and profession sailor checks)

Otherwise, the players won't be able to keep up with the DC's built into higher level adventures. It's really frustrating as a party to be faced with an iron door that they simply have no way to open, no matter what.

[gordbond]

This is what i am thinking

Masterwork items are treated as a +1 item. (300 gp plus Craft DC 20)
Superior work items are treated as a +2 item. (8,00gp plus Craft DC 25
Exceptional work items are treated as a +3 item. (1200 gp plus Craft DC 35
Relic work items are treated as a +4 item (cost 2,000gp plus Craft DC 45)
Ancient worked crafted item are treated as a +5 item (cost 5,000 gp plus Craft DC 60)
These bonuses are non magical. But do not stack with magic bonuses