I'm looking to run a 'lower magic' campaign in Pathfinder (not no magic as in Iron Heroes). I do not want a 'weaker magic' campaign though, just rarer magic. However it seems that the CRs of many creatures assume that the PCs will have buffing equipment (Gauntlets of , Headbands of , Belt of, insert attribute of choice here) and Magic weapons of about 1 "+" worth of abilities per 2 character levels. This is what I want to avoid. I have currently one PC full caster (A Sorcerer, if it matters), and one partial caster (Paladin) the other two players are running a Barbarian and a Rogue. As the players know there are no 'magic marts' in my world, they are already expecting the campaign to be a meat grinder. How can I balance this without the scads of numeric bonus items?
Sigh... well, first of all, you could try to avoid running the game in a manner that is counter to what the game designers intended when they wrote the rules.
But if you are determined to throttle down the magic item use, do some searches on these boards for "low magic campign". I believe their is something called "Kirthfinder" which is designed to do just what you are attempting. Or something very close to it.
And come up with something to help with healing, otherwise it might turn to "15 minutes of aventuring, 3 months of recovering".
And come up with something to help with healing, otherwise it might turn to "15 minutes of aventuring, 3 months of recovering".
Well, unless you want realism. Because "15 minutes of adventuring, 3 months of recovering" is pretty consistent with real world martial combat.
It takes a bit of work, and it's immensely harder when you still allow full-power casters in the party.
My suggestion is:
1. Replace numerical bonus items with numerical bonus abilities. Basically, turn the items invisible by giving out "hero points" whenever they gain a level, that's like 90% of the regular WBL, and that is spent on abilities for the same "HP" price as normal "gp" price. So you can spend 2000 HP to gain a +1 enhancement bonus on attack/damage with one of your hands, for example.
2. Realize that the sorcerer will dominate unless you specifically design encounters to play on the other's strength. For example, avoid flying monsters, monsters with DR/magic, and large monsters. Keep to humanoids.
But realize that what you're doing is basically playing a supers game without high-tech equipment - storm will be storm, but iron man will just be a guy in funny metal clothes.
One relevant question though, is: "Why?"
Why do you want to get rid of magic items but still keep full-powered not-item magic?
If you want magic that is very powerful but that is too uncertain in nature to be put into magic items, and having an easier time to balance it, consider applying a hefty spell failure risk or high DC check to cast spells unless spending a LOT of time doing it precisely - magic will be as powerful in the hands of the BBEG but the players won't find it as easy to use, thus characters not as dependant on magic will have an easier time.
Hey Leo Negri,
When I did this I simply adjusted the APL of the party down, and built encounters accordingly. We played a campaign from 1st level to 10th level without any balance problems.
My advice is just try it before you assume it won't work. In my experience, it's a lot easier then people make it sound.
I'm looking to run a 'lower magic' campaign in Pathfinder (not no magic as in Iron Heroes). I do not want a 'weaker magic' campaign though, just rarer magic. However it seems that the CRs of many creatures assume that the PCs will have buffing equipment (Gauntlets of , Headbands of , Belt of, insert attribute of choice here) and Magic weapons of about 1 "+" worth of abilities per 2 character levels. This is what I want to avoid. I have currently one PC full caster (A Sorcerer, if it matters), and one partial caster (Paladin) the other two players are running a Barbarian and a Rogue. As the players know there are no 'magic marts' in my world, they are already expecting the campaign to be a meat grinder. How can I balance this without the scads of numeric bonus items?
As suggested above you can give them the bonuses separate from the items or adjust the game downward for the lack of bonuses. Giving out much higher than normal attributes can also alleviate the problem to a degree (like 50 point builds). This will create more work on your part, but if you are trying to simulate a certain style of game world then it may be worth the effort.
Another idea is to combine several of the items together into quasi artifacts so they feel more special and have some of those bonuses scale over time. Like someone gets a Belt of STR +2 that also gives +1 to saves, then becomes STR +4, +2 saves, +1 Deflection bonus to AC when they level up enough or do something appropriate. Maybe even use the rules for intelligent items so that the characters have less items but they are more powerful.
As mentioned above be careful what monsters you throw at the party as some creatures assume the characters have access to certain levels of magic to overcome the creatures powers. For example a CR 5 monster assumes the characters potentially have access to around 3rd level spells. Lacking those the encounter may be more difficult, or it might not as it depends on the creature in question.
My friend, Kolokotroni on the boards, came up with a system where characters select "Heroic Distinctions" as they level, which emulate the "Big 6" magic items (weapon enhancement, armor/shield enhancement, natural armor, saves, and ability scores, implements for casters) through mundane means. That looked to be only a partial solution, so he also had us overlay a Super Genius Archetype on our standard characters without replacing abilities. This allows for greater diversification or focus, and opens up some possibilities for more mundane characters to gain ways to handle not having magic items.
http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz3t1t?My-solution-to-the-Christmas-Tree-Effect#1
We've only run a few game sessions with the system, so it's hard to tell what does and doesn't work, but the parts that jump out at me as being insufficient or problematic are that characters who use two different weapons are worse off than those who use two of the same, that characters who use shields are worse off, as are monks, and casters really don't get enough out of the system. Neither do any characters that don't care about their AC.
A few abilities could stand to get added to the list of options.
Kolo's intent with this system was to make magic items almost entirely absent, whereas my goal with this system would be to make magic items rare, or uncommon, but ALL interesting, so that the items you DO find are highly prized and special.