Let's say I run a campaign where quickly enchanting weak magic items, such as crystals that operate like cell phones, scarves of water breathing, zooming scopes for ranged weapons, and the like (basically, stuff that doesn't add enhancement bonuses to attacks, armor, or ability scores) were incredibly common and available to most individuals, but higher powered stuff (like weapons or armor that provide enhancement bonuses and stuff that increases ability scores) is incredibly rare. This is do to a law of magecraft that the more magic dumped into an inanimate object, the more likely something is to go wrong. People can control magic. Inanimate objects cannot. Relatively small amounts in an object are fine (and mass produced), it's powerful magic items that cause problems.
So basically I'm taking away magic weapons, armor, and ability score bonuses. What I need to know is how heavily the game relies upon them. I'd think it'd balance out, since magic weapons are less important without magic armor to oppose them, but am I wrong about that? What about high level monsters? Are their attack and armor bonuses tailored specifically to oppose magical equipment? Am I going to have to modify pretty much the whole Bestiary to compensate?
Let's say I run a campaign where quickly enchanting weak magic items, such as crystals that operate like cell phones, scarves of water breathing, zooming scopes for ranged weapons, and the like (basically, stuff that doesn't add enhancement bonuses to attacks, armor, or ability scores) were incredibly common and available to most individuals, but higher powered stuff (like weapons or armor that provide enhancement bonuses and stuff that increases ability scores) is incredibly rare. This is do to a law of magecraft that the more magic dumped into an inanimate object, the more likely something is to go wrong. People can control magic. Inanimate objects cannot. Relatively small amounts in an object are fine (and mass produced), it's powerful magic items that cause problems.
So basically I'm taking away magic weapons, armor, and ability score bonuses. What I need to know is how heavily the game relies upon them. I'd think it'd balance out, since magic weapons are less important without magic armor to oppose them, but am I wrong about that? What about high level monsters? Are their attack and armor bonuses tailored specifically to oppose magical equipment? Am I going to have to modify pretty much the whole Bestiary to compensate?
Core bonuses, like things that add directly to attack, AC, saves, defenses, (the things you want to get rid of) etc. are pretty darned important to the balance of things in the bestiary.
You're now talking about having monsters which have DR which should be bypassable when level appropriate which are much tougher, harder to hit, etc. You're talking about things which hit hard but should have a harder time hitting which hit all the time, etc.
In short, when you remove the core bonuses, yes, you're going to have to do balance work. A lot of it.
This hurts non-casters a lot more than casters as well, FYI, though everyone is affected.
Also, you are removing non-casters access to magic (movement, protection, and damage), which is gonna make things tougher for them, without removing much from full casters.
The other thing to consider is running a low level campaign. Up to about 6th level you can get by without magic items against CR appropriate monsters. Of course, if you want to go to high levels make the PC's the exception and give them access to lower-level magic items (maybe up to +3 bonus) but only as major quest loot. With proper forethought, a low magic campaign is doable, just keep in mind what you are getting into.
While it is true that a certain amount of magical augmentation is expected, I rather doubt that every high level creature has DR. I guess I'd have to check, but I don't even recall it being that common.
It is really that common.
Also, High level monsters have inflated ability scores to be a threat to well equipped high level PC's you will need to reduce ability scores (which in turns reduces to hit/damage, AC's, DC's of ex, su, and sp abilities and the monsters saving throws which in turns keeps them balanced when the characters don't have cloaks of resistance and stat boosting gear. or just consider capping the maximum DC boost/ saves bonus from ability scores.
You may want to look at making Penetrating Strike a non-fighter only feat available at BAB 6+.
How are you mechanically going to make players not make their own gear and invest in creation feats? As it can be done during the course of adventuring, they will have no time doesn't work. You need a mechanical reason to represent your premise.
Ohh and death to E6 play that HGsolo suggested, there are ways to play a full 12-20 level campaign but it does require a lot of work.
And that's just the stuff off the top of my head an by no means a comprehensive list of what you would have to change.
Bypassing DR isn't going to be as big of an issue as being able to fly, or not burn to death in lava.
Martial characters have ways to damage things with DR, they often times don't have ways to do super cool magic things. If you just got rid of fighters and rogues, and told everyone else who wasn't a full caster to keep in mind that magic items are rare, it wouldn't be terrible, but non-casters will need some buffing from casty types.
The simplest solution for the DR difficulty is to choose a different material that overcomes DR: for example, where you see 5 DR/magic, you can substitute 5/DR silver. That said, in a world where permanent magical armor/weapons are quite rare, you may want to compensate with oil of magic vestment, oil of magic weapon and so on just so the PCs can 'buff up' to be competitive with the monsters. (That said, monsters that are a little more challenging are OK with me - most PCs are more optimized than the baseline assumption anyhow, although not to the point where they can compensate for not having a +4 weapon...)
DR is just one consequence. On the high end, you're talking about a swing of at least +8 against the PC's on the 'to hit' end of things (+5 weapon, +6 stat item), which is a 40% reduction in offensive power (40% less hits) for non-casters. That a ridiculously crippling shift.
The simplest solution for the DR difficulty is to choose a different material that overcomes DR: for example, where you see 5 DR/magic, you can substitute 5/DR silver. That said, in a world where permanent magical armor/weapons are quite rare, you may want to compensate with oil of magic vestment, oil of magic weapon and so on just so the PCs can 'buff up' to be competitive with the monsters. (That said, monsters that are a little more challenging are OK with me - most PCs are more optimized than the baseline assumption anyhow, although not to the point where they can compensate for not having a +4 weapon...)DR is just one consequence. On the high end, you're talking about a swing of at least +8 against the PC's on the 'to hit' end of things (+5 weapon, +6 stat item), which is a 40% reduction in offensive power (40% less hits) for non-casters. That a ridiculously crippling shift.
Thus the best overall adjustment is to lower monsters stats.
While it is true that a certain amount of magical augmentation is expected, I rather doubt that every high level creature has DR. I guess I'd have to check, but I don't even recall it being that common.
With the exception of the CR 18 kracken, all monsters in Beastiary 1 with a CR of 14 or higher have damage reduction of some type. 6 of the 8 CR 13 creatures have damage reduction, and half of the CR 12 creatures have it as well. I stopped there. So most high-level monsters do have some form of damage reduction.
|
While it is true that a certain amount of magical augmentation is expected, I rather doubt that every high level creature has DR. I guess I'd have to check, but I don't even recall it being that common.With the exception of the CR 18 kracken, all monsters in Beastiary 1 with a CR of 14 or higher have damage reduction of some type. 6 of the 8 CR 13 creatures have damage reduction, and half of the CR 12 creatures have it as well. I stopped there. So most high-level monsters do have some form of damage reduction.
I knew there was a reason I didn't run those levels these days...
Thus the best overall adjustment is to lower monsters stats.
Sure is.
But at what levels, and at what rate? Its +8 on the high end, but equipment doesn't really scale linearly in my experience (I could be mistaken here, but at first glance...), so knowning WHEN things need to be brought down by 20%, when by 30%, etc. is going to be a LOT of work.
I mean, a LOT of work.
I knew there was a reason I didn't run those levels these days...While it is true that a certain amount of magical augmentation is expected, I rather doubt that every high level creature has DR. I guess I'd have to check, but I don't even recall it being that common.With the exception of the CR 18 kracken, all monsters in Beastiary 1 with a CR of 14 or higher have damage reduction of some type. 6 of the 8 CR 13 creatures have damage reduction, and half of the CR 12 creatures have it as well. I stopped there. So most high-level monsters do have some form of damage reduction.
Going a bit farther down, 11 of the 15 CR 11 monsters have damage reduction, but only 4 of the 11 CR 10 monsters do. I believe it is there that DR becomes less common as you go down. So even most upper mid-level monsters, and nearly all high level monsters have damage reduction. It is only the lower mid-level monsters and low level monsters that lack damage reduction. That makes it 17 out of 70 monsters of CR 10 or higher that do not have damage reduction. (Assuming I did my math right...)
Going a bit farther down, 11 of the 15 CR 11 monsters have damage reduction, but only 4 of the 11 CR 10 monsters do. I believe it is there that DR becomes less common as you go down. So even most upper mid-level monsters, and nearly all high level monsters have damage reduction. It is only the lower mid-level monsters and low level monsters that lack damage reduction.
Less common, but far from unknown. Templates skew thing too.
Low level outsiders, like Imps have potent DR.
The example werewolf, which is CR 2, has DR 10. Relatively easily bypassed DR, but still.
So basically I'm taking away magic weapons, armor, and ability score bonuses. What I need to know is how heavily the game relies upon them. I'd think it'd balance out, since magic weapons are less important without magic armor to oppose them, but am I wrong about that? What about high level monsters? Are their attack and armor bonuses tailored specifically to oppose magical equipment? Am I going to have to modify pretty much the whole Bestiary to compensate?
Without magic armor (and other items that produce AC bonuses) your characters AC will not scale with level. But monster to hit bonuses will. In addition, monster ACs dont rely on magic items, but they DO scale based on the assumption that higher level characters will have several bonuses to their to hit and damage based on magic items (both boosting stats and magic weapons). Without them your players will have difficulty hitting CR approrpiate monsters.
You will also have a disparity in saves. Player abilities that require a save will be saved against more often (due to the lack of stat items) and monster abilities (poisons, spell like abilities etc) will be more likely to succeed due to a presumed removal of save boosting items like cloaks of resistance.
So basically yes if you take away most magic items and do nothing to replace them you will have to adjust monsters.
I am actually running a low to no magic item game myself. But I am also giving the players significant bonuses to account for the missing items. The details of my method can be found in this thread
If you want to dump most magic items I strongly suggest taking a look at it and other such concepts that have floated around here and come up with something similar for your game.
Less common, but far from unknown. Templates skew thing too.
Low level outsiders, like Imps have potent DR.
The example werewolf, which is CR 2, has DR 10. Relatively easily bypassed DR, but still.
That is what I meant. There is still damage reduction at lower levels, it just isn't nearly as common as mid and upper levels.
Thus the best overall adjustment is to lower monsters stats.Sure is.
But at what levels, and at what rate? Its +8 on the high end, but equipment doesn't really scale linearly in my experience (I could be mistaken here, but at first glance...), so knowning WHEN things need to be brought down by 20%, when by 30%, etc. is going to be a LOT of work.
I mean, a LOT of work.
I do agree and it's why I made a crude excel sheet to do the math for me and figure up new bonuses i found as i was pondering a low magic item high fantasy game I ended up having to adjust each critter and as you say a 2-4 point reduction at say CR 5-8 may be right but a 8-10 point reduction may be right at say 15+.
I think though it hopefully shows to the OP just how much they will have to do to the system to make it possible.
I wanted do to something similar to this for my game - magic is not quite as rare in my game as you desire, but I wanted to make room for "interesting" magic items.
I wrote about my Hero Bonuses here. That is taking the opposite tack: instead of changing every single monster they ever encounter, there's a little extra math when they level up.
Thanks for the suggestions. I like the suggestion of giving each PC class extra bonuses that mimic what magic items would provide. It seems the simplest and most balanced solution.
As for DR, I could eliminate DR Magic/Good/Evil/Law/Chaos and implement other forms of DR,specifically more metals. Things similar to alchemical silver for all DR metals would keep characters from needing to buy 50 different weapons to bypass DR.
Thanks for the suggestions. I like the suggestion of giving each PC class extra bonuses that mimic what magic items would provide. It seems the simplest and most balanced solution.
As for DR, I could eliminate DR Magic/Good/Evil/Law/Chaos and implement other forms of DR,specifically more metals. Things similar to alchemical silver for all DR metals would keep characters from needing to buy 50 different weapons to bypass DR.
It probably is easy but if all you are going to do is give them the same bonuses why not just use the current rules?
It probably is easy but if all you are going to do is give them the same bonuses why not just use the current rules?Thanks for the suggestions. I like the suggestion of giving each PC class extra bonuses that mimic what magic items would provide. It seems the simplest and most balanced solution.
As for DR, I could eliminate DR Magic/Good/Evil/Law/Chaos and implement other forms of DR,specifically more metals. Things similar to alchemical silver for all DR metals would keep characters from needing to buy 50 different weapons to bypass DR.
This is a campaign that puts the PCs on a government paycheck and has no opportunities for gaining any significant treasure. The PCs simply won't have any money to buy high powered magic items, so I want to remove them from this particular campaign world altogether.
This is a campaign that puts the PCs on a government paycheck and has no opportunities for gaining any significant treasure. The PCs simply won't have any money to buy high powered magic items, so I want to remove them from this particular campaign world altogether.It probably is easy but if all you are going to do is give them the same bonuses why not just use the current rules?Thanks for the suggestions. I like the suggestion of giving each PC class extra bonuses that mimic what magic items would provide. It seems the simplest and most balanced solution.
As for DR, I could eliminate DR Magic/Good/Evil/Law/Chaos and implement other forms of DR,specifically more metals. Things similar to alchemical silver for all DR metals would keep characters from needing to buy 50 different weapons to bypass DR.
So modern countries make each fighter pilot provide his own aircraft? Why wouldn't the govt load them up if the mission was that critical? To use an analogy.
So modern countries make each fighter pilot provide his own aircraft? Why wouldn't the govt load them up if the mission was that critical? To use an analogy.This is a campaign that puts the PCs on a government paycheck and has no opportunities for gaining any significant treasure. The PCs simply won't have any money to buy high powered magic items, so I want to remove them from this particular campaign world altogether.It probably is easy but if all you are going to do is give them the same bonuses why not just use the current rules?Thanks for the suggestions. I like the suggestion of giving each PC class extra bonuses that mimic what magic items would provide. It seems the simplest and most balanced solution.
As for DR, I could eliminate DR Magic/Good/Evil/Law/Chaos and implement other forms of DR,specifically more metals. Things similar to alchemical silver for all DR metals would keep characters from needing to buy 50 different weapons to bypass DR.
The government would naturally want to load it's best people (The PCs do some pretty important work) up with the best equipment possible. Why would the government give a +2 weapon instead of a +5 weapon, even if +2 is appropriate for their level? I can't think of a reason, and letting them have +5 is going to unbalance things too much. Issuing gear just won't work. It's too powerful. Making them buy their own makes more sense. This is actually standard practice in the modern day. When I was issued gear when I was in the Navy, it came out of my paycheck. The same would apply here. The government gives them some money, and they choose what to buy. Having a variety of different power levels of magic items would screw up the balance of this system. As I said before, why would they not get enough money for the most powerful, even if their level is way inappropriate?
The government would naturally want to load it's best people (The PCs do some pretty important work) up with the best equipment possible. Why would the government give a +2 weapon instead of a +5 weapon, even if +2 is appropriate for their level? I can't think of a reason, and letting them have +5 is going to unbalance things too much. Issuing gear just won't work. It's too powerful. Making them buy their own makes more sense. This is actually standard practice in the modern day. When I was issued gear when I was in the Navy, it came out of my paycheck. The same would apply here. The government gives them some money, and they choose what to buy. Having a variety of different power levels of magic items would screw up the balance of this system. As I said before, why would they not get enough money for the most powerful, even if their level is way inappropriate?
So once again, why not use the current system rather than the level based passive bonuses? If they have to pay for their own requisitions, why not have the magic stuff available. Or Use Abraham Spaulding's idea of no matter what you take, liberate from the enemy, or otherwise acquire each time you level you adjust up or down to the recommended WBL for the new level. If you are just going to give them the bonuses anyway you end up with situations where you make them OP because some shoulder slot item that they can now use because they dont "have to have a cloak of resistance" is suddenly going to be much more effective in situations X,Y,Z. This is what happens where suddenly that cloak of the bat or manta ray that a player might like but decides not to get because they then can't also use a cloak of resistance (+silly) then becomes added effective ooomph due to the passive bonuses. This issue is in fact why I decided I had to do all that work on the monsters instead of a passive level based bonuses system. If the conceit of the world is magic items are fleeting then a WBL reset might be more effective as it becomes: "hey all this gear we got from the last BBEG yea it decayed to uselessness" or "was confiscated by the govt at the end of the mission", reset to an amount of gear = to X
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The best kept GM secret in the game:
If you are really careful about eyeballing stats when balancing encounters, class selection, challenge rating, experience awards, and almost every other GM guideline can be safely ignored. As a bonus, the game will actually be /more/ balanced.
If you want to play low-magic, I suggest playing E6, cap the game at lv6 and not have the epic/high fantasy stuff in your world except some CR10 or so creatures as "Holy crap, we're dead!"-bosses.
The difference between underequipped noncasters and casters start to shift severely around then, and cannot be balanced properly.
Also, the effect of having a "cell phone" item is not a minor one. The spell "Sending" is the equivalent of a text message (lv4-5 spell). And having a conversation with someone is even higher level.
But I can see how kids growing up in the 90s don't realize what a revolutionary piece of technology that is, being used to have it around all their lives.
Well, I guess by now you've got the idea that you need to compensate melee-chars at least for not having access to certain magic items.
While you know your players best there are a few more things to consider:
- will they like having an important part of the game (hunting for power items) be romoved from the game because they are on something as mundane as a payroll?
- what you call "low-powered" magic is actually pretty powerful, much more so than a simple belt +2, so to mee your distinction between powerful and normal makes not much sense (you can always rule that the government is giving them the best it currently has access to, so no need to give out +5 items to Level 1 guys).
Again, you can do to your game as you wish, but make sure the palyers like it.
I'm actually in a campaign along those lines right now honestly. Our DM has thus far pushed all gear acquisition into the background to focus on the characters themselves. It's still using normal wealth by level, but we're working for a massive 'adventuring guild' doing various services on a payroll. I, for one, am REALLY enjoying the chance to focus on character development and setting interaction and leaving the mechanics buried in my sheet as just a list of numbers and options.
- will they like having an important part of the game (hunting for power items) be romoved from the game because they are on something as mundane as a payroll?
Just curious are you doing something like Abraham suggested and doing a gear reset at each level up, in that game? I think the idea is doable to be sure. Just seeing how folks handle it.
There is no reset necessary. DM hands us a portion of the difference between the last level and the current one after each adventure, and it's up to us how we want to use it.
We also have a full resale exchange economy going to simplify things, so if you need to adjust gear at higher levels you trade in and trade up or flavor it as getting something upgraded.
Infact, I've been waiting for a cool opportunity to upgrade my armor with some magical attribute of an enemy we fight (I'm using a brutal two-hander, so I tend to get covered in gore anyway.)
Fair enough, I like that as a way to handle it as well.