Greetings folks.
I'm looking to start developing a high-magic setting part-time with a friend who has some experience in world-building. I'm wondering if there are any high-magic settings for Pathfinder at the moment, so that I've got some kind of bar to aim for.
Mor Aldenn is a City of Mages with an old-world feeling published by Headless Hydra Games.
NeoExodus by LPJr Design is a rather far-out setting with cyberpunk/sci-fi-topics transported to fantasy.
Rite Publishing's upcoming Questhaven: City of Adventure-project features a city ruled by adventurers.
That are the ones I can quote from the top of my head, though 2 of them are cities.
Whole worlds can be restrictive in their appeal, as they demand a certain commitment. (Though that might change with the "Sailing the Starlit Skies" and "It came from the Stars"-Kickstarters...)
From those listed, it appears Mor Aldenn is going to be the closest in flavour to what I'm aiming for. I'm looking to do what I hope are interesting things with the magic system.
Currently released alternate magic-systems:
Misfit Studios' Spellweaver. Glorious basic skill-based system.
Other than that, be sure to check out SGG's archetypes in Beyond Bloodlines and New Arcane Discoveries - they offer rather interesting alternate systems and point-based wizards and sorcs, respectively.
Oh, and Psionics Unleashed by Dreamscarred Press is still a great "magic"-system :)
Well what I'm currently designing is the standard 3-pool magic system (Arcane, Nature and Divine) which will contain distinct spellcasting classes in line with the existing RPG classes.
As an example of the direction I'm taking, there is no 'God' of magic. Instead, a few hundred centuries prior to the setting, an enormous magical war raged across the planet and was only stopped when the most powerful wizard 'ascended' and effectively took control of the entire pool of arcane magic. Since then, power is only given to those who can prove they can control it.
However, there are still those who can manipulate magic (Sorcerers) without going through the appropriate controls. They are heavily hunted and controlled to prevent such problems arising in the future.
Nature and Divine magic will operate in a similar manner to the core game, but there is an additional pool that I have tentatively named 'Eldritch'. There will be a new base class for this which will draw spells from the other three pools but there will need to be some kind of balancing. I'm initially pondering spell restrictions being applied through their casting being tied to their health pool. They can cast these spells but at a huge personal detriment.
Hmm, it's hard to judge the feasability/rules for me, so let's just say I find it interesting. Th controlling wizard-entity reminds me NeoExodus' Kaga - though restricting wizards to being sanctioned and controlled might limit the appeal of the class in the setting greatly.
There is no rpg material that I know of, but if you want some inspiration on the setting information for a high magic setting you should check out the Taltos series of novels by Steven Brust. There is a lot of interesting extrapolation of the effects of high magic in there. It wont help you with mechanics, but it will definately give ideas for how to shape the setting.
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I think what you need to decide is whether the setting you want to create will be for publication OR for a home game (or a few home games).
Second thing, decide how closely you want to stick to the rules. Knowing that the more you diverge, the less accessible your setting is to the "man on the street".
This will greatly influence some of your design. There are no right or wrong answers here.