As of late, i've been playing a lot of D&D/Pathfinder (Both systems back and forth for some time now) and I've grown a little tired of seeing a team half comprised of casters. As such i'm working on building a Custom Setting taking elements from Dragonlance, such as the removal of Gods and the limiting of magic. As such, i realize that monsters will have to be rebalanced and loot handled differently. I was hoping people would like to share their ideas on how i should handle what magic is in the world, as well as how i can figure out a mechanic for making Magic-using PCs a little rarer.
Read that thread a little earlier, but not quite what i was looking for, although it does help a bit. I'm more interested in a mechanic to prevent a "low-magic world" from having a team full of casters without directly banning them. Maybe a required Casting-relevant Stat of at least 16? input is appreciated.
My own low magic campaign consisted of the following:
1. Sorcerers were monsters only.
2. I took away the ability to memorize spells. Instead, wizards could cast any spell directly from their spellbook. This had a minimum casting time of 10 minutes per spell level. Certain spells had longer casting times.
3. Wizards automatically gained all item creation feats.
4. Magic items with charges could be recharged.
5. Spell-trigger items could take different forms, such as gauntlets. This allowed a wizard to have several spell-trigger items handy at the expense of magic item slots.
This meant that the only way to effectively cast spells in combat was with magic items. The expense alone limits wizards in the world. In response people's reactions to magic were much more extreme.
It was really fun, with a great sword and sorcery feel.
1. Drive the point home early that magic items will be few and far between. Throw them a bone though with a silver or cold iron dagger fairly early.
2. Heavily limit which spells get introduced.
3. Throw out the one stop magic shop. Make the players jump through a hoop (quest) just to get access to say a limited supply of healing potions.
4. Hordes of lesser monsters. Don't expect the group to handle level appropriate CRs, save those for the final challenge or two in a mission.
