What does it take to run a low magic but not gritty pathfinder game?

[Kthulhu]

The balls to occasionally tell the players "That's not an option in this campaign world"

[Helic]

Magic = Money. Limit money, and you limit magic. There's no need for magic marts if nobody has the kind of scratch to actually buy magic devices. You can always prepare alternate rewards (land, for starters) in lieu of easily sold treasure.

[Mok]

Greg Wasson wrote:

Without sarcasm, I am curious on how to achieve less gritty and remove CLW's wands and increase damage from other sources.

I have been working on a strongly modified E8, but it is very gritty. When I compare critters and villains abilities to HP of heroes, death is still a lil' easier than I like. I am strongly considering modifying the HEAL skill and making it more like a ioun stone of regeneration. ( kind of a SLOW fastheal. :P ) Several checks during game day to add heal CON bonus of HP minimum one. or something like that. I don't mind the players entering combat with out max HP...but I do like them to at least get back up to 70% or so.

I think it was Evil Lincoln, in this thread... or some other recent one. He suggested that you record the damage for crits, and perhaps for negative hit point damage.

That damage is actual "wounds" which require magical or natural healing to get rid of.

Any other hit point loss is considered the more abstract loss of energy/got the wind knocked out/unnerved/bruised/etc. These hit points will recover after 10 minutes of rest.

That way magical healing can be a bit more rare and fantastic, and the abstract nature of hitpoints gets a better acknowledgment. Plus if you're keeping track of the actual damage from specific crits, you can draw that flavor out a bit more descriptively. Unless someone is getting critted or knocked out over and over again it's more likely that you'll have character's hovering around that 70% mark.

[Ion Raven]

Greg Wasson wrote:

Without sarcasm, I am curious on how to achieve less gritty and remove CLW's wands and increase damage from other sources.

I have been working on a strongly modified E8, but it is very gritty. When I compare critters and villains abilities to HP of heroes, death is still a lil' easier than I like. I am strongly considering modifying the HEAL skill and making it more like a ioun stone of regeneration. ( kind of a SLOW fastheal. :P ) Several checks during game day to add heal CON bonus of HP minimum one. or something like that. I don't mind the players entering combat with out max HP...but I do like them to at least get back up to 70% or so.

** spoiler omitted **

Greg

The idea in separating stamina and hitpoints is that the characters can regain their stamina back by resting, eating, or through a clerics channeling. Normal damage instead draws from the stamina, when their stamina reaches 0 they become fatigued and their stamina goes into negatives. If their stamina goes into a negative equal to their constitution, they go unconscious.

The only way to take hitpoint damage is when the character takes hits when fatigued or the attacker gets a critical hit. The way I'm doing the critical hits is a little special. I have a base value determined by how heavy/deadly the weapon is (for simplicity's sake, 1 for light, 2 for one-handed, 3 for two-handed) and it is multiplied by it's critical and then strength is added afterwards. So using an axe on a critical from a warrior with 16 Str would deal 12 hitpoints of damage. The hitpoint damage is applied as well as stamina damage. If it's a critical on a fatigued character, the then the damage normally done to stamina is applied to hitpoints. It only gets gritty if the party decides to continue fighting after they have been exhausted.

The heal skill is very useful for fixing up the wounds dealt by critical blows.

[Greg Wasson]

Thanks Mok and Ion. Gonna have to reread the stuff in UC. ( mostly just glanced at the alternate systems) When I can get ahold of the group's copy again ( we're poor so we have community books :P )

Greg

[Ion Raven]

Greg Wasson wrote:

Thanks Mok and Ion. Gonna have to reread the stuff in UC. ( mostly just glanced at the alternate systems) When I can get ahold of the group's copy again ( we're poor so we have community books :P )

Greg

<_< To be honest, I don't actually remember how it's put in Ultimate Combat, I'm really just using my own made-up system. ^^; I was just inspired by those systems.

[Suppression]

Hey Ion,

I am starting a PF Game in a couple of months and by reading through the books I always felt that the PCs are going to be Superman at the higher levels, which is something I definitely want to weaken a bit. Then I found your thread and it's exactly what I had in mind. Thing is - I already made up my mind and produced a pretty long list of changes, but one thing I haven't done yet is the spells.

So, lazy as I am, I wanted to ask if you have worked on the spells yet and could post some of your most significant changes here? I don't mean to be greedy or something it's just that if one member of the community has already done some work, why shouldn't I use it? ;)

Well, I hope you are reading this - and thanks.

Greetings,

supp

[Robespierre]

Low levels it works fine but I think that the modification isn't worth the results.

[mrfisk]

How about using the E6 with some sort of prestige/ability feat chains (character gain higher level abilities from base classes by choosing feats or they can start a prestige class feat chain and gain those abilities)? I would also look at the masterwork items from the d20 black company book, improve the heal skill effects (like doubling the healing effects), introducing a wounds/vitality system (ultimate combat has one) and perhaps creating a few feats to improve armour class.