Why wouldn't something similar happen to anyone who can cast high level spells, or make high level magic items?
-Because locksmiths can't turn you into a hedgehog
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I just wanted to comment that if a non-magic baseline was clearly established over the 20 levels then it does make a useful tool to figure out three big things:A. What can be changed simply by "relisting" the items placement in the power scale of the game. An example of this is that you might be able to determine that the Bebilith doesn't itself need to be modified, but merely have it's CR raised.
So there should be elements that just need to be relisted, and this isn't invasive at all, just a few sheets of paper can explain how to shift items to scale to fit with a certain amount of magic in the game.
Excellent point.
I (personally) think some creatures are off a CR or two (up or down) - for example - I like the Fire Giant at CR 11 instead of 10. In a lower magic game the CR shift may (and probably should) be even higher.If you are worried about xp explosion (due to increased CR) you can try going with a lower xp advancement track to slow things down.
And yes, point A) would be the least intrusive. If lowering damage enhancements or boost you would still need to look at DR, but Mok's first point is probably one of the easiest ways to shift encounter requirements and power expectations.
B. The other end is those items that need major surgery. Monsters that can't simply be adjusted in CR, but need to be rewritten so that it would work within the game's vision. This rewrite might be minor or major depending on the specific element.
C. Elements that simply need to be omitted wholesale from the game. Some elements might just not work at all with a low-magic game. While some of it might be an issue of tone or flavor... say, being able to cast Wish on a daily basis doesn't exactly lend itself to low-magic. But sometimes it's the math that really can show how it would not fit.
Two good points, I am of a mindset (and I stated this in passing before) that magic, all magic - should be a case of diminishing returns. In a low magic game there should be little incentive for a supply/demand magic mart style economies.
Example - If the cost to make a potion is
1) harder to make (creation check)
2) drawback to maker (hindered or weakened for day(s) after item creation)
3) requires special/magical components (sourced from creatures - the 1st ed DMG had some great potion/scroll component suggestions)
What does all that do? Well for starters it makes magic more scarce. If low-level wizard can crank out at 1/2 cost = sales profit then people will be generating magic items (if there is a demand) as much as they can reasonably produce.
If on the other hand, making a potion or sword is very taxing, takes more resources (not just money, that is the critical part) than it might be worth then you will see a drop in production.
You will see magic items that are made for a limited market (adventurers), items that are up priced and reluctance of item manufacturing.
The wizard will really be hard pressed to make a sword due to the health cost and potential risks. But it may still make an item to give to a strong warrior friend to help his community from destruction, i.e. only desperate item creation and only as needed.
This can be applied in minor changes the way spells work, ex: Wish - you get 20,000 gp in diamonds if you spend 25,000gp in components to cast the spell. Why would you cast it at such a drawback? Well maybe you need diamonds, or X specific item worth the same. If shouldn't be about creating infinite loops or taking crafting jobs for PCs ala WOW.
Another side effect of making crafting harder - it brings magic back to the hands of those who deal in it: the lonely wizard in the tower searching for the creation of item X to give it to his warrior friend. The rest of the town doesn't know whats going on, and really doesn't understand. The comings and goings on with magic items and item creation is placed in the hands of the powerful or the desperate.
Make an item (at great risk) or go out and find and item (at possibly greater risk). To me that is a seed for motivation and heroics.
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I don't see why making monster listings a higher CR actually has anything to do with the amount of magic in a game. Low-magic games can be quite powerful. They can have equal amounts of treasure and equal amounts of DR-breaking items, especially silver and cold iron weapons. The party caster can use his spells shrewdly, even if he has fewer.
The lack of generic 'Big Six' items doesn't mean that the party is weaker. It may mean that they need to play better in order to overcome some of their foes.
I don't see why making monster listings a higher CR actually has anything to do with the amount of magic in a game. Low-magic games can be quite powerful. They can have equal amounts of treasure and equal amounts of DR-breaking items, especially silver and cold iron weapons. The party caster can use his spells shrewdly, even if he has fewer.
The lack of generic 'Big Six' items doesn't mean that the party is weaker. It may mean that they need to play better in order to overcome some of their foes.
It really depends on what "low-magic" means to the DM.
I don't see why making monster listings a higher CR actually has anything to do with the amount of magic in a game. Low-magic games can be quite powerful. They can have equal amounts of treasure and equal amounts of DR-breaking items, especially silver and cold iron weapons. The party caster can use his spells shrewdly, even if he has fewer.
It doesn't have to do with the amount of magic per se; it has to do with the re-balancing that is necessary when magic spells and magic items are made less available to the player. With NPCs, this isn't an issue, but some monsters can become much more dangerous if magic isn't available to combat them.
The lack of generic 'Big Six' items doesn't mean that the party is weaker. It may mean that they need to play better in order to overcome some of their foes.
At the adventure design level, the baseline CR system assumes the player has a certain degree of magical power. If you remove this, you are essentially increasing the CR of most enemies that were not similarly penalized. Most low-magic games reduce the amount of magic items, so it isn't just about the lack of the 'Big Six', but the lack of magic items at all that makes the party weaker. There are a lot of variables in all of this (e.g. how much less, why kinds of magics are reduced, etc.)
I believe the game can allow for these changes without too much difficulty, but the GM needs to be able to design encounters that consider the change. NPC encounters are no trouble at all since they are similarly affected, and many monsters work just fine. But in my games, truly magical creatures get CR increases of +1 to +3 depending n how unfavorable the circumstances of the encounter are. In Auxmaulous's example above, I would probably treat that Bebilith as CR +2 (=12) since my players would have few defensive items but would still have access to a few clerical spells or scrolls.
I see what you are saying Mok, but I don't think we would need a complete build of each class, at each level, in order to get a general idea of the difference in power between a default character, and one with half wealth and (slightly less magic). At levels 1-5, the difference is likely to be very slight. At 6-10, we are still mostly talking about 1-2. Once we get to 11th level, things start to ramp up fast, and by the time you hit 16th, we are talking about some fairly meaningful differences.
10th Level example:
Standard Character - 62,000gp.
+2 Full Plate 6000
+1 Composite (+5) longbow - 3000
+1 Shortsword - 2000
+1 Shock Greatsword - 8000
Headband of Inspired Wisdom +2 - 4,000
Belt of Physical might Str +2, Con +2, - 10000
Amulet of natural armor +2 - 8000
Cloak of resistance +3 - 9000
Ring of Protection +2 - 8000
58K With 4,000 left over for cold iron and silver weapons, potions, and various other consumables.
10th Level example:
Low Wealth Character - 31,000gp.
+2 Full Plate 6000
+1 Composite (+5) longbow - 3000
+1 Shortsword - 2000
+1 Greatsword - 2000
Headband of Inspired Wisdom +2 - 4,000
Belt of Physical Str +2 - 4,000
Amulet of natural armor +1 - 2000
Cloak of resistance +2 - 4000
Ring of Protection +1 - 2000
29K With 2,000 left over for cold iron and silver weapons, potions, and various other consumables.
[Note: Values rounded up and down because I'm lazy. This character also lacks any items to aid his movement, skills, or resistances. I feel that these items are probably more optimized then the character would have ended up with organically, but not too min/maxed.
So what is the difference between full and half wealth?
AC: -2 (-1 Deflection, -1 Na)
Saves:
F -2
R -1
W -1
HP: -10
Hit/damage: -0/-3.5
If we get rid of all magic, this is the difference:
AC: -6 (-2 Armor,-2 Deflection, -2 Na) (Note: for a shield using character, this would probably be -9!)
Saves:
F -4
R -3
W -4
HP: -10
Hit/damage: -1/-6
Yeow! That is pretty drastic!
Mostly the AC and Saves, but also damage takes a hit. I'm surprised that other areas of the character are not affected more, but perhaps I'm missing something.
I'm thinking that most classes would suffer a similar drop in power from half-wealth. Wizards, sorcerers, and perhaps some builds of druids, clerics, and bards would be tougher to calculate, as wands and spell selection are so circumstantial that numbers don't really show the true difference.
Seems like those crafty Paizo folks have things pretty dialed in, as a quick look at the monster table seems to indicate an approximate drop of 1 CR in the creatures the half wealth character should fight.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/monsterCreation.html
Note: Gear for a 10th level heroic NPC would be 12,750 gp.
I'll take a guess that a party of half wealth characters should be considered -1 APL at level 7, and -2 APL at level 14.
PS Odraude, please let us know when you post your playtest results.
Great post Fergie. Thanks for doing the math. Those are some interesting figures to think about, especially the "No Magic" one.
....I'm looking to play pathfinder with a few minor tweaks, not some other system. CR will need to be tweaked, that is obvious.
Maybe it's less obvious than that. As far as I'm concerned, you can run a RAW low magic game. It takes a lot more DM oversight in terms of keeping a careful hand on the spigot of monsters and magic, and acclimating players to the idea.
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I don't think of "Low Magic" and "Low Equipment" as being the same. There are lots of low magic stories that involve magic swords, special armors, scabbards that make the bearer invincible... heck, that's where D&D got the idea in the first place!
I do think that "Low Magic" and "generic magic equipment" are incompatible. A low-magic game is more likely to deal very powerful and dangerous items.
But if "Low Equipment" does "Low Magic" for you, then taking the monsters to CR -1 is probably a good idea.
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I don't think of "Low Magic" and "Low Equipment" as being the same. There are lots of low magic stories that involve magic swords, special armors, scabbards that make the bearer invincible... heck, that's where D&D got the idea in the first place!
I do think that "Low Magic" and "generic magic equipment" are incompatible. A low-magic game is more likely to deal very powerful and dangerous items.
But if "Low Equipment" does "Low Magic" for you, then taking the monsters to CR -1 is probably a good idea.
I think the idea is "low magic dependency".
So it isn't an issue of running a "no magic" game or one with no supplemental scabbards, armor, shields, etc. Many of those items could play a critical role in a low magic game story or theme-wise. And depending upon the level of the PC could also be part of his equipment set, i.e. special magic sword and magic helm, etc.You could be 10th level with a +1 suit of armor an a +1 flametongue (the old version of a sword with the flaming ability) with other abilities/intelligence/minor powers. The sword in question could be a critical component of the campaign and story, but its mechanical abilities are not as critical (damage per attack, etc) to survival at that level as it would in a 3rd/PF game.
Low magic is low equipment, or at least low equipment dependency.
The problems start to arise when you need X ability/item to kill a creature at a certain CR/level. When you are expected to have stat boosters to aid (in layers) on your saves.
Unless you are prepared to rewrite the way DCs scale (or at least how they are tied to CR) and do something about exploding hit points at higher levels you are not going to be able to run a low magic game by simply limiting items.
The game has certain numbers assumptions built into the system. If you are going to remove/reduce items you need to address this issue or low magic doesn't work.
I think it can be done, but not under a limited modification constraints as proposed by the op. The game - at least the creatures - must fall into a tighter line with CR and appropriate damage, saves, etc of the pcs who are going to fight them. The whole DC system has to be locked down to CR vs. its current incarnation of being wholly open ended.
+2 skill points for everyone per level, at least.
Encounters. It's easy to forget that there are so many magic beasts, aberrations, and other horrors with powerful magic that can make mince meat of the party. Remember to tone down some of these encounters (or use less exotic enemies) so they dont overpower the weakened mages and the ill-equipped martials.
Along these lines:
Up the importance and focus on monster lore.
Silver and cold iron weapons(and whatever other "mundanely mystical" materials punch through DR) may act as bane weapons against appropriate targets.
Introduce affordable and evocative solutions for everyone to take advantage of. For example, incorporeal undead creatures can't cross a line of salt.
Ability damage and drain and the healing of such need to be kept in mind as well, considering how many creatures dish it out.
Some monsters really will just have to be rewritten to work.
Dotting this so I can steal these ideas later. Thanks.
1 Remove deflection bonus from the game
- Add +1 dodge bonus to AC at 7th lvl and every 4 levels after
2 Remove resistance bonus to saves from the game
- increase saves by +1 at 5th and every 4 levels after
3 increase ability scores every 2 levels instead of 4, but not the same ability twice in a row
4 bonus feat at level 4, 8, 12, 16, 20
5 spellcasters can not single class and need to have at least half their spellcaster class in other classes. I would say it might be best to allow caster level to stack between different caster classes in this case. For example sorceror 10 druid 5 would cast as any spells as a 15th level caster
On magical items :
1 make (permanent)magical items only craftable through personal sacrifice, might lose permanent hitpoints or age the creator physically, and one shot items twice as expensive to craft
2 remove wands from the game, making them work like staves or wondrous items
3 Allow only one ring to be functional at a time
4 flavor items to make them special, casters will not go through the extreme effort to make a simple +1 sword, restricting items by alignment, race, class, gender, religion or any other suitable restriction goes a long way in this.
5 increase the requirements for crafting items, that relatively high level characters can start to craft permanent items. In addition require exotic components and possibly only during special events.
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I just do it that NPC spellcasters are very rare and magic items are next to mythical to common folk. Pcs are awarded the basics (magic weapon/armor/statboosters) and improve on existing items over the levels instead of hitting the Mage-mart to buy and sell, oddball toy items are next to non-existant. Enemies are primarily humanoid or beasts that are fantastic but not really magical, such as an owlbear. magical foes like lycanthropes and undead are truelly scary and many peasants might think them myths until facing them.
In another thread:
Of course, in the end, you should build your adventures to suit your own preferred play style. Mine runs to about 200% the numbers listed in the wealth by encounter charts, for example.
Out of curiosity, I equipped the 10th level fighter with 2X equipment...
10th Level example:
2X Wealth Character - 124,000gp.
+4 Full Plate 18000
+1 Composite (+5) longbow - 3000
+1 Shortsword - 2000
+2 Shock Greatsword - 18000
Headband of Inspired Wisdom +2 - 4,000
Belt of Physical Perfection Dex +2 Str +2, Con +2, - 16000
Amulet of natural armor +3 - 18000
Cloak of resistance +4 - 16000
Ring of Protection +3 - 18000
113K With 11,000 left over for cold iron and silver weapons, potions, and various other consumables.
So what is the difference between full and 2X wealth?
AC: +5 (+2 Enchantment, +1 Dex, +1 Deflection, +1 Na)
Saves:
F +1
R +2
W +1
Hit/damage: +1/+1
Except for AC (which was a little low in my normal example), it looks like a fairly subtle change, that seems mostly to improve defense, and round out the character rather then spike damage.
Obviously, the money could have been spent differently, but it seems 2X wealth isn't that much of a bump.
This has been posted in several low-magic threads.
Any idea on the sources for these? This is right up the alley for a campaign I'm working on (and indeed already includes several I had concocted alone). My current approach is to do a two-tiered "masterwork" system, wherein you can buy a +1 to hit, +1 to damage, or special effect, such as those on the list, that are a benefit of design.
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One idea I've been tossing around is to change the way masterwork items work, particularly weapons and armor. Instead of there being a generic "masterwork" category, weapons and armor come as mwk +1 to mwk +5. The cost is the cost of the weapon, + the normal cost of enchantment. The old +300 gp for masterwork items is instead applied only to enchanted items. I also open up a few of the abilities to masterwork weapons and armor, the ones that aren't particularly flashy. Masterwork items can't have a total bonus above +5, and can later be enchanted with a magic bonus up to +5, for a total of +10. This allows for characters to be equipped with well-made, but mundane, equipment. The one or two magic items they possess then seem a lot more special, but their equipment isn't too diminished in power.
You make the time it takes to prepare spells proportionate to the level of the spell, say 10 minutes per spell level per spell. The higher the level of the mage, the longer it takes to prepare spells. When it starts taking more than a couple of hours to prepare spells, spellcasters will start using fewer spells per day and will fill less inclined to cast their highest level spells unless they truly needed to.
EDIT: Just did the math, let's make it 5 minutes per caster level per spell... (Just over 53 hours for a 20th level specialist wizard without a ring of wizardry to prepare spells the other way.)
If we're talking about little-d design here, which means practical advice for getting a campaign off the ground:
The best thing to do is start running the game, and control the progress of the game so that it remains low-magic. You know that you will probably need to start low-balling CR in the mid-levels, but you'd have had to do that anyway to avoid "high-magic" type monsters.
I actually don't think the game needs any special rules to work as low magic, it just needs an attentive and experienced GM at the rudder.
As for big-D design, rules that you could put in a book, I'm a huge fan of the Epic-6 concept, and it's the first thing I would reach for if I felt I needed help keeping things low-magic.
(there are some interesting ideas here, though)
If we're talking about little-d design here, which means practical advice for getting a campaign off the ground:
The best thing to do is start running the game, and control the progress of the game so that it remains low-magic. You know that you will probably need to start low-balling CR in the mid-levels, but you'd have had to do that anyway to avoid "high-magic" type monsters.
I actually don't think the game needs any special rules to work as low magic, it just needs an attentive and experienced GM at the rudder.
As for big-D design, rules that you could put in a book, I'm a huge fan of the Epic-6 concept, and it's the first thing I would reach for if I felt I needed help keeping things low-magic.
(there are some interesting ideas here, though)
I'm loving the e6 concept personally, it'll probably be my next campaign.
I'm loving the e6 concept personally, it'll probably be my next campaign.
I think it really nails the type of game a lot of people think of when they think "D&D" (not pathfinder this time, sorry)
But Pathfinder/3.5 isn't that game. Pathfinder is a superhero game, most of it anyway. Not a shadow of doubt in my mind.
If players came to me and said "We want to play a pseudo-medieval team superhero game, like X-men, or Justice League", I would respond "So, Pathfinder then?"
How about this (just spitballing - needs some work)
Casters must play the Adept NPC class. However, at first level and each 3 levels thereafter they can choose from one of the following new Feats (note that any spells granted by these would mirror the level of spells or equivalent power levels given to the Adept not the class spell progression - so adjust accordingly);
Gift of the Oracle - gain access to an Oracle Mystery
Touched by Power - gain access to a Sorcerer Bloodline
Heart of Nature - gain acess to Druids Nature Bond
Lore Keeper - gain access to Wizards Arcane Bond
Echoes of the First Song - gain access to Bardic Performance
Divine Favour - gain access to a Clerical Domain
Hex Wielder - gain acess to Witch Hexes
Mystic Patron - gain access to a Witch Patron
Master Alchemist - gain access to Alchemy & Discoveries
To compensate, and to reflect the drop in power of the caster, give 8 skill points per level.
The use of magic SCARES people - requiring a DC10+spell level Will save or be frightened for 1 round + spell level when subect to it. In a surprise round the save DC increases by 2 - Adepts not being subject to this rule. Adepts get a bonus to Intimidate equal to the maximum spell level they are able to cast in any situation where their powers are apparent to a target.
Positive magic (healing etc.) which does something currently USEFUL (under the current circumstances) gives a +1/spell level Moral Bonus to allies and +1/spell level for the caster to all Diplomacy checks on affected targets - unless they did not want it cast on them!
Caliburn, it looks good. The trouble is, magic has its roots deep in the system, and you'll have to change a lot more than just how casters work in order to change the magic level in the game.
If I had to augment your changes I would play the game only at lower levels (E6, or you know just end the campaign around 6th or 7th with no fancy system).
I would also strictly control treasure, treating magic items completely differently. This would turn CR into nothing more than a comparative measure of power between monsters (no good for encounter balance anymore).
It's a really interesting problem, thanks for bringing the thread back.
Actually just redesigned the Witch to add Sorcerer Bloodlines, Witch Patrons and Wizard stuff whilst limiting spell availability to 6th level max.
Makes for a very dark, nice 'Conanesque' Sorcerer template.
May share here if there is some interest in helping me to iron out the wrinkes just a few hours cutting, pasting and re-writing is bound to have in it.