|
Depending on how you do low magic you can end up penalizing melee or casters. I suggest writing out your low magic rules and working with your players to make certain they feel the rules are fair.
You might also be interested in E6 play where 6 is the top level and leveling is very slow. It end up almost defacto low magic.
First I think you ought to define what you mean by low level magic. That can mean alot of things to alot of people, and consequently would yeild different advice. Then once you have that defined, and you have a few ideas on how to manage it. Make sure you lay that stuff out to your players so they can make informed choices about characters.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I also like low magic campaigns (almost no matter how they are defined). Many people do not. =(
But, the rules are really not set up for it and require greater or lesser amounts of modification depending upon how you are defining it.
Consequently, I wouldn't recommend it for a "NEW GM" as you said you are.
I would suggest running at least a few modules with the rules 'as-is' before trying to modify things.
Now, if you aren't really a new GM and have some experience with the rules 'as-is' then go for it (if your group is ok with it).
Put up what you are think of as modifications and depending upon the week, you can probably get some input on what might or might not work.
My current game is "low magic" in the sense that I've removed all ability bonus items and am being real stingy about the rest. I started the characters out with a couple extra bonuses, and I'm handing out a bonus Attribute point at each level (15 point buy initially). That will cap at level 10 if we make it that far. I've also dropped magic only DR by quite a bit: 5 DR drops to 2, and 10 DR drops to 5. I may limit all DR to 5 at most, not sure yet.
I'm fortunate enough to not have any players interested in item crafting; I would imagine you'd have to limit or remove that to retain the low magic feel.
Or only some have DR.
Most gargoyles can be hurt by anything.
But the tribal leader still has DR of 10.
Or something along those lines.
As Rycault said, there are some excellent published adventures out there to help you get started. They give you the story background, the NPC's, the magic...everything you need to get you rolling.
I think - and please don't take this the wrong way - that you're at risk of falling into a common trap of new GMs. You see something in the rules, think "That's too powerful" or "That won't work in my game" or "I don't want players using this in my game" and reflexively ban or change it.
The Pathfinder rules (ideally, at least) are designed to be coherent - removing one thing impacts upon everything else. For example, if you reduce DR for players and for monsters, high-level enemies will be torn through by PCs, and PCs' own survivability rates go down (by definition, PCs are hit more than monsters).
Similarly, if you remove clerical magic and healing, the knock-on effects are far-reaching. The game is balanced with the assumption that characters have access to these powers.
It's possible to run a low-magic setting well and effectively without changing anything at all in the rules. Just saying.
|
I have been playing fore a while and ive learned a few things that id like to share with you.
First off, averages will make life easy. Tailor encounters based off of average to hit and ac of party. Average ac of party will give u a base to go off to determine how often u want ur monsters to hit the party and getting the average to hit of the party will help u determine how often the party will hit ur monsters. This way u can have balanced encounters that can last as long as u think they should.
Second, u dont want to make the party rich but at the same time u dont want to make the party poor. To much money will destroy ur game and to little party will make things to challenging for u and them. the key to this is to give the party non magic gear that they can use or sell in town to earn there cash.
Third, try ur level best not to give any creature the party encounters good crud. Remember if its there they will will touch and they will take. A group of mine went to the point of literally stealing every thing in a house including the floor boards and nails and what ever may have been attached to the walls.
Finally, all actions have a positive and negative reaction. If they do good reward them for there good if they do bar penalize them for thee bad. Example, party kills a little girl a day or 2 later guards are searching for missing girl a day or 2 later after that guards find girls body. Guards place area on high alert and look through all homes and establishment trying to find the people that did it. If they get caught have them serve jail time or be executed for there crimes like in real life and give them the opportunity to redeem fr there action or get themselves in2 further trouble based on how they act.
I hope what i had to say will aid u in the future.
That is quite easy, work out the rough culture, search names of that culture (e.g. Polish) and keep a list handy.