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Hopefully my thread title doesn't attract flames like graboids to a jackhammer, but here goes.
I had an idea recently for a new Pathfinder campaign, that I want to spin as having an old-world, "pagan" feel. I want there to be less flashy high-fantasy-style magic, and more subtle, natural-world type stuff.
The main way I want to do this is by providing a reduced list of character options (only X races and Y classes being available to PCs). For one thing, I first got the idea for the campaign by thinking of what it would be like to have the witch as the archetypal arcane spellcaster instead of the wizard. For another, it's a lot easier to give a player a list of options s/he's already familiar with, rather than try to create new houserules.
So, I figured for races I would allow humans, half-elves, and half-orcs, with a little re-flavoring of the half-races to be more like variant humans (no green skinned half-orcs!) - I'll probably look at using some alternate racial traits to help diversify here.
For classes, I'm pretty intent on banning wizard, cleric, monk, sorcerer, and alchemist, as they don't really fit the flavor I'm looking for. Maybe the oracle as well, but I'm not as familiar with the oracle yet.
I'm definitely allowing the witch, because I want to experiment with the witch being the primary arcane spellcaster. I also plan to allow the barbarian, bard, druid, fighter, ranger, and rogue. Certain archetypes for these classes might be disallowed or encouraged, depending on how well they fit into the themes of the campaign.
I'm not sure about the cavalier, summoner, inquisitor, or paladin. I'm not very familiar yet with the first three, but the inquisitor might fit in with the "arcane magic is viewed as evil" subtheme (I assume that the inquisitor can work as a witch-hunter of sorts). For the paladin, I'm thinking of allowing the spell-less version presented in the APG. I think making my vision of the church very clear to players will be important for capturing the right feel of the "holy warrior/knight" classes.
The other thing I should mention is that I don't intend to take this game past 10th level (my games are usually in the 1st-6th level range), so I won't have to worry about super high level magic anyway.
I'm still in the brainstorming phase right now, so I welcome any questions, comments, or suggestions.
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If you want a low magic spellcaster, you could turn the Adept NPC class into a PC class.....
And if you still want the diversity of casters, just let them still pull from the wizard, cleric or druid spell list as desired, and let them choose an Arcane Bond, Domain, Or Nature Bond as appropriate at second level in place of the summon familiar (which as a form of arcane bond, remains a possibility).
I think putting oracles and witches higher on the list than wizards and clerics is a great way to change a game's flavor.
Here is how I do low-magic campaigns.
1. No more than half your class levels may be in a class that can (at any point, not including talents and similar minor options) cast spells. Thus a paladin must be a paladin/fighter multiclass. Most clerics/sorcerers/wizards multiclass with Expert for extra skills. (We have a "PC Expert" class that is like the NPC expert, but gets 8 skill points/level, and a bonus feat at 1st, and every even level, but it can't be a feat either a fighter or wizard can take as a bonus feat).
2. Monsters follow the same rule – they won't have caster levels more than half their HD. (I end up using low-level casting monsters and adding fighter levels a lot. Hags end up being higher-CR, but hitting harder)
3.Cost of all magic items is doubled. Magic armor and shields are instead priced as if they were one +1 bonus more powerful (thus a +1 magic sword costs 8,300 gp). Caster level becomes a requitement to make magic items, which cannot be bypassed with a skill check. All magic items require two skill checks to create (spellcraft and some craft or knowledge).
4. Characters gain a +1 bonus to attack, or weapon damage, or one saving throw, or one skill every level as "facility." You can't increase the same thing more than +1 for every 4 character levels, except 1 category you pick at character creation which is +1/3 levels. (This keeps CR balanced with lower magic items).
I ran a lot of 3.5 games with very similar rules, and have used these for 2 pathfinder gams, and they work great!
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If you want a low magic spellcaster, you could turn the Adept NPC class into a PC class.....
If someone wanted to take levels of adept, I wouldn't stop them, but I wouldn't want to go through the trouble of adding in features to make it equal to a PC class - again, I'm looking to keep this light on houserules. Maybe I would let someone in with an appropriately bloodlined sorcerer, using the adept spell list instead of the sorcerer's...it bears consideration.
As for the oracle and the cavalier - I'll have to look over those classes again. Especially the spell list and supernatural abilities of the oracle - like I said, I want to keep away from big powerful flashy things (or powerful overtly deific things). For the cavalier...well, I'd prefer their not be a plethora of knights running around - that's really not the feel I want to have. There will be some knights and holy warriors, but I'd rather have them as NPCs.
I want lots of shades of gray in this game. I don't intend to alter the alignment system overmuch, but I certainly won't be emphasizing it as much as is usually done in the game (removing clerics helps, and like I said, I'm on the fence with paladins).
I played in a really great "low magic" campaign once, and the reason it worked out so well was that the DM and the PCs communicated a lot about what kind of campaign it was going to be. If the DM can give the PCs a great vision of what kind of campaign s/he feels like running, it can really ignite the imagination of the PCs, so they will WANT to play a witch, druid, and ranger instead of a wizard, cleric, and monk, or what have you. That way, you get the kind of campaign you want to run, but you can also use the wizard, cleric, etc., for your NPCs.
Another thing that campaign used was an alternate system of magic, so only the DM and the "Magician" PC really knew the rules of the magic system. That kept magic mysterious to the players themselves, which made it a lot easier to roleplay being ignorant peasants or what have you. You probably can't do that for a Pathfinder game, but the witch's hexes are different enough that if people who haven't read up on them will be surprised by their effects, etc.
With no clerics, be very careful of monsters that can apply effects that can't (easily) be removed. With your limit of no more than half caster class levels, paladins won't be able to remove disease (for example) for quite a while.
I agree with slim gauge, with these kind's of restrictions the pace of the game will change. If you are prepared for that great. It can even be good flavor for this kind of game, for after a single combat the party needing to rest for a couple days/weeks to recover from disease/injury. But be aware of that in the pacing of the story and of encounters.
Also keep in mind as you reach the upper limit (likely climax) of this game from level 6-10 your players will find themselves overmatched by alot of what's in the monster manual. Without the big casters certain monsters will be more challenging then they are meant to be (things that fly for instance are not a huge challenge after the wizard can cast fly, but if hte party is grounded, it is suddenly a much bigger problem.
Mind you if you have a straight witch in your game, alot of these problems are mitigated as the witch or oracle in your game these problems are pretty mitigated, as they can easily fill the roles you need if a little less efficiently then the wizard and cleric. But it would end up with lots of flashy magic anyway which i dont believe is what you are looking for.
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With no clerics, be very careful of monsters that can apply effects that can't (easily) be removed. With your limit of no more than half caster class levels, paladins won't be able to remove disease (for example) for quite a while.
Good advice, but the rule you mentioned is not one I plan to utilize. My goal is not necessarily to reduce the level of magic in the world (although I wouldn't mind that), but to change the way magic is presented by "forcing" players to utilize non-standard casters.
I've run a short-ish low-magic campaign:
* not let the party get above level 5 (would've been convinced to go to 6 if they argued for it)
* unnamed NPCs never have more than 1 level
* not allow primary casters (including monsters)
* greater masterwork weapons/armor (similar pricing/bonuses to magic items, no higher than +2)
* each PC gets [u]one[/u] magic item (name, history, 2+ related abilities, essentially a minor artifact)