I'm curious what's the level of magic in Golarion typically set at? Our GM says that it's an extremely low-magic world. Were currently in Absalom, and besides a few 1-3rd level scrolls, and a couple +1 trinkets there is nothing that you can buy magic wise. He's GMing so if he wants to set the bar that low it's fine, but I thought that typically you could at least find some decent magical items for sale at the "worlds" capital.
Not canonically. It's high-magic, and at the very least, is definitely nowhere near low-magic.
Thank Cheapy! That's what I thought. Me and the GM were having a discussion and he assured me that Golarion is traditionally supposed to be very low magic. This didn't seem right, but oh well.
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Citation #2 (Basically, it's exactly as the core rules set it up to be, and the core rules are nowhere near low-magic.)
The more north you go, the less magic. The more south, the more magic.
It is, of course, alright for his version to be low magic, as long as he is aware of the difficulties that come with that. You really can't just say "It's low magic" and change nothing but the wealth by level and magic item availability and hope it works out.
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Absalom... home of the premier magic academy of the world... where they teach an archetype of wizardry that makes you BETTER at crafting magical items, giving you additional bonus feats that can be used solely on magic item creation.
Tell your GM: NOPE! There should be a ton of magical items for sale, as well as craft-on-demand services. Only Katapesh, the city of trade, should be able to rival the magic capital of the world in terms of magical item trade.
Places like Nex, Geb and Jalmeray are actually very-high-magic, with zombie butlers and air elemental street-sweepers and everything.
To elaborate on my post: I think there is a HUGE discrepancy between actual low-magic and perceived low-magic in certain people.
To me, basic scrolls, potions and +1 gear isn't even "magic" in the big picture. It wows no-one, and it is considered as common as cell-phones are today. You have to go to some backwards tribe in the middle of the jungle to wow someone with the power of talking to someone across the world.
And on many levels, this comparison works. Like us not knowing how a phone REALLY works (who on the boards can make me one given only the raw materials and tools to make one, with no instructions or aid?), very few people know how magic REALLY works in pathfinder. Most everyone knows a mage can shoot fire from his hands, and a priest can heal. Big whoop. We've all seen it before.
However, REALLY powerful magic, which is not commonly seen, like teleportation, armors that let you fly, chatiots pulled across the sky by air elementals, named swords of power, calling down the servants of the gods etc. THAT is gonna make people stop and go "Whoa.", in their best Keanu Reeves impression. And THAT is where we can start calling stuff "high magic".
Consider this fact: Bob the blacksmith (commoner3/expert2) can MAKE magical armors and swords with the correct feats. Not the BEST stuff, but certainly +1 gear. Now ask yourself: How can a setting that allows Bob to hammer magic into a sword with NO spellcasting prowess, really be considered "low-magic"?
What the others said, especially absalom is one of the best (if not THE best) city to buy stuff, in my group (as soon as we have access to teleport) we always go to absalom to buy our stuff.
Thanks again everyone.
I think he's having trouble balancing the game due to weird house-rules and odd tactics on his part.
problem 1: We roll 3 sets of stats in the beginning rolling 4d6 and rerolling 1's (so super high stat characters)
problem 2: the monsters all seem to mysteriously attack the fighter and never target the casters/weaker characters (except for the occasional single goblin)
With these principles in mind we tend to lay waste to CR equivalent fights, and it frustrates him. Were currently level 4, and we've received 100 gold total from all of our adventuring.
We have other problems that are killing me too:
- we fought demons with DR and I rolled a 28 on my knowledge check to figure out basics of the monster. A 28 got me to know that the monster is called a Dretch. The other PC's have never faced this monster, and the GM didn't give any hint that any damage less then 5 wasn't affecting the monster at all. Luckily, he never used it's fear ability and stinking cloud ability, so we killed 6 of them (at level 2 when this happened) no problem, but it took forever. Of the 6 (4 attacked the fighter, 1 the cleric, and I colorsprayed the final one).
So I think his main goal is to not allow us magic stuff because were already killing everything he throws at us.
One interesting part of the rules is that if your damage is reduced by DR, it is obvious to you. Second sentence in the Universal Monster Rules entry :)
I know.... unfortunately the current GM doesn't.
You think that 3 sets of 4d6 drop lowest and reroll 1s leads to high stats?
Try 4 sets of 2d6+6..... that game's low levels were ruined big time.
First talk to you GM about what he means by 'low magic'
Some people consider it low magic if there isn't a magic item shop in every podunk village.
Some people consider it low magic if 5th level characters don't have multiple +2 or better items.
I've seen several GM's that consider Forgotten Realms or Ebberon as 'standard' or 'base' level magic. (After all, they were published so that is the norm.) Compared to those, Golarion probably is 'low magic.'
I personally disagree with that. To me:
Ebberon and Forgotten Realms are very high level magic.
Golarion is baseline magic.
I don't know of any published works with what I would call low magic.
FR was just a bit too over the top.
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OP: Not meaning to be critical but your DM sounds a bit inexperienced; maybe he'd benefit from being a player for awhile.
PF, like 3E, is built with the expectation that PCs will gain a certain amount of magic items over time - otherwise they'll lag behind CR monsters (squishies will be *really* squishy, and even front-liners will be hit much more often), unless some compensatory replacement is given to them.
But really it sounds like your DM gave away a lot at the beginning (if he wants a high-stat party, don't be surprised when they have the strength of a high-stat party) and needs to run his encounters so the monsters make better use of their abilities. That will solve a lot.
FR was just a bit too over the top.
Yeah 'cause it also suffers from the "every barkeeper is a retired 12th level badass" syndrome.
My guess is Ed Greenwood saw too many parties early on - or at least heard too many stories about them - where the PCs ride into town and, just because they're the PCs and NPCs "aren't real people" to them, abuse the locals, shove them around, and the like. I mention this because he also wrote the "Halfling [Hin] Gazeteer" (Five Shires) for Mystara/Known World, and the smallest village in the place (Pop. circa 100) is just chock full of "retired badasses."
In his favor, back in the day (early to mid '80s), PCs basically treating supposedly civilized settlements as if the PCs were an occupying army of reavers *was* pretty common (it's less common now, but not unheard of).
Much of FR seems to have been built specifically to thwart that - notably few if any of the "villages of evil" people have "kindly bearded hermits who turn out to be archmages, reclusive but hyper-protective of their village, and tavern wenches who are former leaders of a mercenary group and 15th level fighters, who bought a tavern when they decided to settle down" because, presumably, PCs are expected to fight the evils of such places, but parties who go wild in towns of simple "goodfolk," Ed seemed to want to make sure they got a thumpin'.
(IMO this did lead to a "theme reversal" in FR - PCs often had the sense they were the low men on the totem pole, meant to keep their head down and their mouth shut. But there was a reason why FR went "over the top" with the sheer number of badarse NPCs, especially in the communities sprinkled with them. PCs who "Hooo-raahh'd the town" like the band of bad guys in a Western Movie [see "High Plains Drifter"] *were* common in the era FR was being developed).
Nailed it Porphy!
I remember the time before FR, and it was Wild West mentality.
Makes you wonder why youd risk your bacon fighting dragons your whole career when it just meant you'd have to bus tables in a bar to make ends meet in retirement :(
Odd, I've played since the original basic game. Our groups never went wild west on the villages (except when someone would do a bad job trying to run an evil character).
However, I do remember several times playing FR where we were always wondering why our 3rd level characters were getting any jobs when the beggars were 5th level rogues and there were literally dozens of 10+ level characters who apparently had nothing to do.
Odd, I've played since the original basic game. Our groups never went wild west on the villages (except when someone would do a bad job trying to run an evil character).
Not every group (or even nearly every group) did that, but enough did.
I'll admit that in the group I was in, back when I was in middle school (middle schoolers. . .), we acted that way from time to time.
We used the old Judges Guild maps a lot (and Greyhawk) and had what today would be called "sandbox adventures," wandering from town to town (we also did published adventures, but most of the time it was sandbox-style). But villagers who, for whatever reason, annoyed one of the party members often led to the start of mayhem.
1) those were good times
2) I don't defend this kind of party/player behavior.
3) in our defense, we were middle-schoolers.
4) there were a lot of immature players back in the day, too, just like in any era.
Of course, I'm sure plenty of groups never had that play style, but a non-trivial amount of us did (eventually we outgrew it, but not till well into high school).
However, I do remember several times playing FR where we were always wondering why our 3rd level characters were getting any jobs when the beggars were 5th level rogues and there were literally dozens of 10+ level characters who apparently had nothing to do.
They had something to do; live an ordinary life. Let the young dumb ones go off and get killed. Somebody who's made 10th level has lived through a bunch of harrowing near-death experiences; sooner or later people give up on that kind of crap. Most adventurers are out to make a big pile of money, but most PCs don't think about retirement (for obvious reasons) when they have 'enough' to retire comfortably. NPCs should be thinking like actual people who eventually get a big enough pile of money and decide to take it safe from then on (start a family, have a few kids, etc.).
So yeah, 10th level fighter guy scrapes together the stupid amount of money required to build an inn (gotta love Stronghold Builder's Guide) and 'retires' to a normal life, save busting a few drunk heads every so often. I have little problem with that idea, even if FR is way over the top.
First talk to you GM about what he means by 'low magic'
Some people consider it low magic if there isn't a magic item shop in every podunk village.
Some people consider it low magic if 5th level characters don't have multiple +2 or better items.
I've seen several GM's that consider Forgotten Realms or Ebberon as 'standard' or 'base' level magic. (After all, they were published so that is the norm.) Compared to those, Golarion probably is 'low magic.'
I personally disagree with that. To me:
Ebberon and Forgotten Realms are very high level magic.
Golarion is baseline magic.
I don't know of any published works with what I would call low magic.
to him low magic means that a +1 sword is rare and very hard to come by. Any if not most towns will have a couple of scrolls and maybe a potion or two at the most, and they'll usually charge double the price b/c it's such a rare good.
Also, is it sad that he considered FR to be low-magic as well...... We used to play in FR way back when I was a teen, and I only learned about what he told me of it. He made it sound very low magic on par with being Tolkien-esk.
I don't know of any published works with what I would call low magic.
Cerilia (Birthright) sort of is. But it also illustrates the dichotomy.
On the one hand, it's a setting where even low-level Casters, if they have the right Holdings, can cast spells with massive effects (blessing or devastating entire Provinces). On the other hand, magic items are/were supposed to be rare, arcane casters capable of "high magic" (vs. "low magic" casters like Bards and Magicians) are supposed to be very rare (compared to other settings, at least), and high levels uncommon at best.
So when people speak of this or that setting being high or low magic, in some ways it begs the question: it can be "high magic" like Eberron in the sense of having magic fairly commonplace, but "low magic" in the sense that there aren't nearly as many people who cast the higher-level spells as their are in Faerun.
OtoH, Faerun is typically "lower magic" (except for places like Calimport), in that magic isn't as pervasive (ok, yes, there's an abundance of magic in Faerun, but no magical trains and the sort; it's not as pervasive as in Eberron), but Faerun has 10x as many high-level casters as Eberron.
Likewise, in one of the links someone mentioned Mystara (the 0E Known World) - in some parts of Mystara, it's High Magic in all kinds of ways (Alphatia, Glantri, Thyatis), but in other areas, not nearly so much (Karameikos, Vestland, Ylaruam, &tc; Norwold as described is "high level" but not necessarily "high magic") - it's more "standard magic" in lots of areas, with pockets of high magic (admittedly some of those "pockets" are pretty large).
Dark Sun in general I'd call "low[er] magic" at least in the aspect of how common decent magic items are supposed to be. (But then a lot of published adventures for that didn't follow the supposed atmosphere of the setting, and had just as much magic items as one would find on any campaign world. Which often becomes the case with modules, simply because the game's leveling assumptions are based on characters acquiring a threshold of boosting items).
My definition is very simple. If your party has an expectation that they will ever begin an adventuring day at full hit points, then it isn't low magic.
Well since a lot of parties - PCs being paranoid (and rightfully so!) - will spend as much time as it takes resting up to be fully healed before starting their next "adventuring day," (which often lasts 15-20 minutes after the beginning of the first combat encounter) that could mean anything.
OtoH it would mean that places like the Isle of the Ape (deliberately set up so the party might get ground down if they're not careful, where there are limited opportunities to rest and regroup precisely so they might get worn down) would be "low magic."
In other words, IMO you're envisioning a different variable - one more dependent on how often PCs are given, and take, the opportunity to R&R - than overall magic level.
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My definition is very simple. If your party has an expectation that they will ever begin an adventuring day at full hit points, then it isn't low magic.Well since a lot of parties - PCs being paranoid (and rightfully so!) - will spend as much time as it takes resting up to be fully healed before starting their next "adventuring day," (which often lasts 15-20 minutes after the beginning of the first combat encounter) that could mean anything.
Sorry. I was also assuming that if the party has infinite time to rest, it isn't really an 'adventure'. :) But resting for weeks between adventures is fine.
OtoH it would mean that places like the Isle of the Ape (deliberately set up so the party might get ground down if they're not careful, where there are limited opportunities to rest and regroup precisely so they might get worn down) would be "low magic."
In other words, IMO you're envisioning a different variable - one more dependent on how often PCs are given, and take, the opportunity to R&R - than overall magic level.
Careful, I didn't say it worked the other way around. Low hp doesn't always equal low magic, but mid-adventure full hp almost always precludes it.
Or in other words, if you have enough healing magic that you think of it as a 'resource' rather than something to save for an emergency, you're not in a low-magic environment.
... to him low magic means that a +1 sword is rare and very hard to come by. Any if not most towns will have a couple of scrolls and maybe a potion or two at the most, and they'll usually charge double the price b/c it's such a rare good.
Also, is it sad that he considered FR to be low-magic as well...... We used to play in FR way back when I was a teen, and I only learned about what he told me of it. He made it sound very low magic on par with being Tolkien-esk.
Ok, then yes I agree that is low magic.
However, I do not agree that is the default level for Golarion as published.
Don't get me wrong, that can be the level for 'his Golarion' and I actually really like playing in those kind of games. He mostly just has to be a little bit careful with what he throws at the players. It is very easy to overwhelm the party with just a little bit too much DPS or DR than they can handle without much in the way of magic items.
Careful, I didn't say it worked the other way around. Low hp doesn't always equal low magic, but mid-adventure full hp almost always precludes it.
Or in other words, if you have enough healing magic that you think of it as a 'resource' rather than something to save for an emergency, you're not in a low-magic environment.
Ok and fair enough and i'd agree that any campaign where PCs can expect to go into almost any combat encounter at full HP (enough healings to heal up between them) isn't "low magic." That's one area, then, where Dark Sun - at least as originally published - would be "low magic."
The usual healing tropes are few and far between (yes a properly created Psy would have some heals, and they did add things later to "fix" the general healing deficiency, but originally heals tended to be much more scarce in Dark Sun and they were supposed to be).
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Honestly, Dragonlance (Krynn) was a standard AD&D/D&D setting (high magic). The difference was the original campaign was about recovering divine spellcasting; arcane casters and magic items were still pretty common.
Golarion is more "post-apocalyptic" than "low-magic" in that the world ended like 10,000 years before the present and society has not yet fully recovered to the levels it was at pre-Earthfall (and might never.)
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12-year thread necro with a mostly off-topic comment has gotta be some kind of record.
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12-year thread necro with a mostly off-topic comment has gotta be some kind of record.
It's a real trip down memory lane. There are some people on this thread that I haven't seen here in a long time.
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And now, over a decade later, we know for sure Golarion is high magic, with 1 in 5 people having a Cantrip and 1 in 20 people being able to cast at least 1st rank magic.
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And now, over a decade later, we know for sure Golarion is high magic, with 1 in 5 people having a Cantrip and 1 in 20 people being able to cast at least 1st rank magic.Where is this from?
Lost Omens Travel Guide, and given that's the average, some areas will have higher or lower numbers (Nex iirc is named as a place where it's even more common)