Those old Conan modules put out by TSR were considered low magick. They didnt have much in the way of clerics or mages or magick items or spells. Or magickal creatures...This might be the most useful bit of info in the entire thread. If I were inclined to run a low-magic campaign, I'd research these modules and see what they did to alter 1e. I'd then try and model those changes to suit PF.
At the very least, my players would have access to the information I would be using to alter out game. It could be a group effort, well worth the undertaking.
Major things they did.
1. Limit to the extreme the spells available to the party wizard
2. Introduced a fast hit point recovery method between fights because standard divine casters did not exist. The priests in Conan's world varied between spell less adepts and dread summoner/necromancer types in service to foul gods. (i.e. Thulsa-Doom and his ilk)
Cool, thanks for the info. These changes seem reasonable too.
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I have to disagree with that. Just because you know it's there does not mean it is not a low magic setting.
That is like saying we are a middle space exploring world because well everyone knows about spaceships. So everything to do with space must be common and well known right?
You may know the great wizard Carl is real, but if he is the one and only wizard anyone knows about or has ever seen how is that not low magic?
I take "High-mid-low" to mean stage presence more than anything else, honestly. And of course, it gets affected by stuff like PC availability, but my general rule is "How much does Joe Commoner know about magic? How much of it is in his life?" If the peasants everywhere can tell you that Carl is a wizard, and not a sorcerer, and that he needs bat guano to make the big explosions, then that's high magic. Magic is playing a big role, even if it's mostly 'off-stage'. If Carl is known to be a wizard, and nearly everyone accepts wizards as wizards, that's probably middle magic. If he's rumored to be a wizard, but respectable people don't believe rumors of that kind, that is definitely low magic.
If the PC's are allowed to explore space in a world that is almost exactly like our own, I *would* call that middle space-exploring. Because they are allowed to explore space in a world that believes space exploration is possible, though it isn't common. People don't call you crazy if you say you went to space in a rocket, though they may be skeptical since it happens to so few.
Of course, if the PC's are not allowed explore space, then it's kind of a non-space-exploring game, or low space exploration at best. They're not exploring space, even though the world may permit it. If there's magic, and it doesn't affect the PC's in any way, that's a very low-magic game. But that doesn't happen much.
I'll have to disagree. If there is one and only one known spellcaster in the whole world I can't call that anything but low magic. Sure every one and his brother knows carl is a wizard, but he is the one and only wizard.
Also same thing with the space exploring. If all you can do is send up primitive ships to circle the planet that can be called nothing but low level space exploration.
As always YMMV but I can not agree with what you call middle magic level.
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Disagree all you like, I think we're closer than it first appears. After all, if Carl is the *only* wizard in the world, then it will create a world in which very few people know anything about magic and for whom belief in magic is effectively optional. The only way that Carl can convince the entire world that magic exists, if he's the only wizard in it, is to consistently and frequently give it raw displays of power.
So if Carl is the only wizard, I see only two real possibilities.
1) Hardly anybody knows anything about magic, and belief is optional for the common man.
2) The world is consistently and frequently rocked by awesome displays of magical power.
I would call 1) a low-magic world and 2) a middle magic world.
In such a world, Carl would be viewed as a god!
In such a world, Carl would be viewed as a god!
True, even now if I started throwing fireballs I could probably make a good claim that I was a god or that a deity supported me. I might just be some escaped military experiment, but who questions guys that throw fireballs, and other things even a low level wizard can do.
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Ooh! I thought of another.
If the world is full of magic tools, then it will be common to believe in magic, and to know something about it.
This would be a middle-magic world at the minimum. High magic, if everyone uses magic coaches driven by magic to get to work every day, and the farmers are all assisted by mysterious telekinetic forces. Which I guess would make our world a sort of "high-science" world. Weird.
Aside: Yes, in such a world, Carl just might be viewed as a god, or Lord Ruler, or something. This would not help people to know more about magic, necessarily. In fact, Carl could easily use that position to perpetrate a wide spread of superstition and misinformation about magic.
I've always used the "CLW" test for magic level.
Take your average farmer. In reality - and in one of those few moments where reality and D&D-esque rules match up - an average farmer who has an average accident with an average farm implement is #*$&*&.
However, a simple cure spell, a level one or even zero cure spell, will have said farmer back in the fields the next day, if not the same day. So, functionally, in terms of the game world, how likely is that to actually happen?