For my next campaign in my own custom setting, I plan to reduce wealth completely. I don't like how the average wealth per level of an adventurer is extraordinarily different than the average wealth of a commoner. Sure the adventurer should be more wealthy, but IMO the economy shouldn't be based on magic item prices.
Magic Items are very rare in this campaign too. I want to make magic items mean something again, not just something to throw around or sell when you get it. Now in order to purchase a magic item, you need to go to the one guy in the whole country that can actually create one and he tells you to go find the material component he needs to make the item. That could be the gall bladder of a Chimera, so you need to go find a chimera and kill it to harvest the gall bladder. So magic items are now fueling story instead of being something that is handwaved when the party gets back to town.
Anyway, the advice I'm looking for is what various pitfalls or benefits you see to this type of campaign? If you have gone through something like this, what have your experiences been?
Below is a list of changes to the system that I see would need to be made in order to pull this off:
Characters:
Characters gain maximum hit points every level.
Characters start with 25 point buy.
Characters start at first level with 1/10th the wealth.
Character Wealth is computed differently. There is no scale of Wealth per level. Adventurers typically have more wealth than common folk, but it is not extravagant.
NPCs are not typically high levels.
Equipment:
All prices of basic equipment, weapons, and armor are reduced in price by a factor of 10. For example, a dagger costs 2sp while a longsword costs 15sp and a chain shirt costs 10gp.
Masterwork Quality component for a weapon is computed as 400 * original cost of weapon.
Masterwork Quality component for armor is computed as 200 * original cost of armor.
Masterwork Quality component for item is computed as 100 * original cost of item.
Skills:
Craft Skill to compute weekly progress is computed as DC * Result in copper pieces. If the value exceeds the price of the armor, weapon, or item, then it is completed in one week. If the value is double or triple the price, it is completed in ½ or ⅓ the time. If the value is below the price, it is not completed, but progress is made.
Magic Items:
Magic Items are extremely rare. Almost no one can make magic items. Magic items have non-ordinary components which are hard to come by. A quest is typically needed to get the components to forge the magic item.
Magic Items have no price as they are so rare and are typically bartered for.
Coinage:
Gold pieces are uncommon and Platinum pieces are rare and commonly mistaken as Silver. An appraise check must be made to identify a coin as Platinum.
Governments mint only copper, silver, and gold pieces. Unknown coinage is weighed by the merchant.
Monsters:
CR for monsters is increased by 2. This makes various monsters much more dangerous.
CR for Humanoid NPCs is typically not increased. They rarely are given magic items to be dangerous.
Encounters must be designed carefully to ensure that the party is not put arbitrarily into a TPK situation. A wraith should not be a random encounter if the party has no magic weapons.
Spells:
Detect Magic cannot be used to identify items but can be used to determine if an item is magical.
Identify can determine what an item is, but it costs 100gp to Identify one Item.
Fabricate can be used to make a permanent item from existing materials, but it requires a Craft or Spellcraft check to make a complex item.
Minor Creation or Major Creation can be used to make a temporary item no materials, but it requires a Craft or Spellcraft check to make a complex item.
Raise Dead, Resurrection, and True Resurrection require material components which are rare. Diamond Dust is not easy to come by, let alone finding enough to pay for the spell. Death is typically a permanent event, while only the ultra rich can afford to pay for it.
Restoration can be paid for with uncommon components, not Diamond Dust. In addition, no matter the usage, it costs 100gp of said component for each casting of Restoration.
I appreciate the sentiment of what you're doing, but it seems extreme and overly complex. If you intend for magic to only be acquired by being handed out, then do that. The world's economy is already an abstraction and not meant to model real life. I would just limit how much gold is passed out. If a masterwork or +1 sword represents the pinnacle of what a hero might obtain, then just make sure you don't go full strength as the characters get higher in level.
So, basically life in a communist country. Not sure where the fun is going to come from for the players...
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If your goal is to make your wizards, clerics, druids and witches godlike beings that dwarf the contribution of rangers, fighters, barbarians or rogues, this will work beautifully.
I do tend to go overboard and be overly complex when I try to design something.
However, a lot of my motivation is to really change the world economy and coming up with conditions that need to change in order to account for the drastic drop in wealth. Monsters are going to be much more difficult, Armor Class will be outpaced by Attack bonus very quickly, and certain spells will need to be limited to reflect the rarity of magic items. So there really seems to be some need to avoid pitfalls that could contradict and force a retcon, which I do not want to do.
Mr. Damage, Communism is besides the fact. I'm sure I can Communists, Democracies, Monarchies, and Olgarchies in different countries. Seems to be just a flavor of the setting. But having a more realistic economy makes having those options more viable.
Adamantine Dragon wrote: If your goal is to make your wizards, clerics, druids and witches godlike beings that dwarf the contribution of rangers, fighters, barbarians or rogues, this will work beautifully. Agreed on that Adamantine Dragon. Do you have any suggestions on how to limit the overpowering nature of magic users in this system?
To allow some balance for the martial classes i would suggest expanding masterwork items to include up to +2 enchancement bonuses on arms and armor so a master smith using the very best steel could make a long sword that grants a enhancement bonus to hit and damage but it would still be non magical.
You are still going to find by level 5 the casters will seriously outpower the non casters and that gap will only widen as the game goes on.
SqueezeBox wrote: Adamantine Dragon wrote: If your goal is to make your wizards, clerics, druids and witches godlike beings that dwarf the contribution of rangers, fighters, barbarians or rogues, this will work beautifully. Agreed on that Adamantine Dragon. Do you have any suggestions on how to limit the overpowering nature of magic users in this system? There are Pathfinder customizations designed for this low magic, low wealth system. "E6" is frequently referenced. You can do searches to see how other people have tried to address it.
Personally I don't think it's worth the effort. You have to adjust so much that you might as well find another game system to play, one that is designed to be what you actually want to play.
Because Pathfinder isn't.
Here's how my GM does it in the low-wealth campaign I play in:
Magic Stuff is almost impossible to find and we never get gold from anything and there is nowhere to buy things hardly ever.
Now, don't punish your players with things like impossible out-of-combat healing, creatures that have crazy DRs and/or gear-specific encounters and you'll be just fine.
Adamantine Dragon wrote: SqueezeBox wrote: Adamantine Dragon wrote: If your goal is to make your wizards, clerics, druids and witches godlike beings that dwarf the contribution of rangers, fighters, barbarians or rogues, this will work beautifully. Agreed on that Adamantine Dragon. Do you have any suggestions on how to limit the overpowering nature of magic users in this system? There are Pathfinder customizations designed for this low magic, low wealth system. "E6" is frequently referenced. You can do searches to see how other people have tried to address it.
Personally I don't think it's worth the effort. You have to adjust so much that you might as well find another game system to play, one that is designed to be what you actually want to play.
Because Pathfinder isn't. Look at Conan RPG. It pretty much has everything you are looking for.
I played in a game similar to this, and it was extremely fun, altho it has a shelf life of around 10-12th level.
In order to limit the godlike overpower of full casters in this system, you can limit them as my DM did to no more than half their total character level in full casting classes, (sorc/wiz/cleric/oracle) and limit druids to a 6th level progression(starting at 4th) with wildshape starting for 2 min/level (can be split 1 min at a time) at 1nd level instead of hours, stopping the full day wildshaping, or just include them in the every other level like other full casters.
Summoner shouldn't be allowed at all.
Magus, Inquisitor, Alchemist, and such should be treated as full caster and only allowed every other level.
Gunslinger not at all obviously.
In the setting you describe, there will never be enough "magic" to go around to make it your full career, so you will have to have something else for the other "half" of your training time.
I have also worked on divorcing the wealth system from my characters. And really the only issue you have is that magic items are part of the base assumption of character power at mid to high levels. Characters without signification wealth in magic items will not be able to do the things they want to do against CR appropriate apponents past around level 6.
To counter that you have a couple options. Dont advances the players past level 6 (you can search for E6 around here to find a whole ruleset around this). Finagle with the CR of monsters and be very concious about things like how much damage and how high save dc and saves of non-humanoid creatures are. And last you can replace the bonuses and abilities characters usually get. I worked out a system like this and my characters have done fine with just one or two magic items each at 9th level in a relatively challenging adventure (slumbering tsar by frog god games). The details of that system are laid on in this thread
Mr. Damage wrote: So, basically life in a communist country. Not sure where the fun is going to come from for the players... What's communist about it. Economy is the same, you create you sell and someone buys. Instead of using gold you use silver. Magic items are rare and hard to create but the state doesn't own everything you create and redistribute it to the populous.
Bertious wrote: To allow some balance for the martial classes i would suggest expanding masterwork items to include up to +2 enchancement bonuses on arms and armor so a master smith using the very best steel could make a long sword that grants a enhancement bonus to hit and damage but it would still be non magical.
You are still going to find by level 5 the casters will seriously outpower the non casters and that gap will only widen as the game goes on.
I think that is a very good option concerning weapons. That gargoyle is going to be superhard to kill with a +3 masterwork weapon, but with a +1 magic weapon, it becomes significantly easier. But those martial classes have an option to be more on par on a power level with the spellcasters.
Lamontius wrote:
Here's how my GM does it in the low-wealth campaign I play in:
Magic Stuff is almost impossible to find and we never get gold from anything and there is nowhere to buy things hardly ever.
Now, don't punish your players with things like impossible out-of-combat healing, creatures that have crazy DRs and/or gear-specific encounters and you'll be just fine.
I hadn't thought too much about scrolls, potions, and wands as of yet. But because they replicate spells that can normally be cast, I think they would be easily accepted and only limited based on the restrictions I put on particular spells.
The good thing about "there is nowhere to buy things hardly ever", is one of the benefits of reducing availability of magic items, there are no game sessions full of just selling and buying stuff. That is super irritating.
Gear specific encounters and crazy DRs are just fine in my book, as long as overcoming those challenges are part of the adventure. Like the gargoyle encounter. Normal weapons are going to barely do any damage against him (DR 10/magic), but give them a quest to go find that +1 flaming longsword and now they can face the gargoyle (and keep the guy with the sword alive for as long as possible).
SqueezeBox wrote: Adamantine Dragon wrote: If your goal is to make your wizards, clerics, druids and witches godlike beings that dwarf the contribution of rangers, fighters, barbarians or rogues, this will work beautifully. Agreed on that Adamantine Dragon. Do you have any suggestions on how to limit the overpowering nature of magic users in this system? Actually it's not hard at all. If you severely restrict the availability of magic items that many cheese builds depend on... i.e. metamagic rods, wondrous items, wands in general, pearls of power and any clones of same, and outright ban ALL item creation feats (substitute a spell focus feat for scribe scroll), you'll be surprised just how fast those casters come down to earth.
Just forget about magic item costs and prices, just keep total control on how items are brought into the campaign.
While you're experimenting with such major changes, I'd also advise that you keep your players restricted to Core and Advance Player Guide rules only.
Kolokotroni wrote: I have also worked on divorcing the wealth system from my characters. And really the only issue you have is that magic items are part of the base assumption of character power at mid to high levels. Characters without signification wealth in magic items will not be able to do the things they want to do against CR appropriate apponents past around level 6.
To counter that you have a couple options. Dont advances the players past level 6 (you can search for E6 around here to find a whole ruleset around this). Finagle with the CR of monsters and be very concious about things like how much damage and how high save dc and saves of non-humanoid creatures are. And last you can replace the bonuses and abilities characters usually get. I worked out a system like this and my characters have done fine with just one or two magic items each at 9th level in a relatively challenging adventure (slumbering tsar by frog god games). The details of that system are laid on in this thread
I'll definitely take these suggestions to heart. Though adding more rules on top of the other rules might be a bit too much for my players to deal with. My goal is to make every thing seamless to the players except for the fact that they are getting less money and loot (which could be problematic to begin with :) ).
I definitely don't have a problem carefully planning each encounter and making sure that they are not TPKs but still being challenging. It would make converting an adventure fairly difficult, but making it from scratch would be doable.
The power level is what really worries me. You and Adamantine Dragon point to E6, but that means reducing lots of options for those character in the higher levels. I was considering taking out the 5 foot step without AoO and defensive casting in order to make casting very difficult in melee. That might help against the Fighters being overpowered by the Wizards.
LazarX wrote: Actually it's not hard at all. If you severely restrict the availability of magic items that many cheese builds depend on... i.e. metamagic rods, wondrous items, wands in general, pearls of power and any clones of same, and outright ban ALL item creation feats (substitute a spell focus feat for scribe scroll), you'll be surprised just how fast those casters come down to earth.
Just forget about magic item costs and prices, just keep total control on how items are brought into the campaign.
While you're experimenting with such major changes, I'd also advise that you keep your players restricted to Core and Advance Player Guide rules only.
Great points. The fact that the spellcasters don't get those at all really makes it difficult for them to get by. Though instead of getting rid of those wands and scrolls, I might just make it a caster level check to use them successfully. Item Creation Feats would definitely be removed from play or only available at really high levels. Not sure about scribe scroll and brew potion though. I'll need to look more into that.
Oh, magic items won't have prices at all due to the story driving acquiring the items to begin with.
Thanks for the suggestions LazarX.
removing magic items doesn't unbalance casters too much in combat.
The real issue(especially at higher levels) is that there is a ton of stuff that only they can do out of combat. Invisibility and flight, for instance. Magic items help mitigate this.
Squeeze, you're going to run into two problems.
The first is melee/caster imbalance. Casters really just need a +stat item.
I'm not sure if it's conceptually okay with you, but I would just do the following. It basically gives people automatically the bonuses they would have gotten by spending money.
Melee types get +1 to attack and damage at level 3 and every 4 levels thereafter. (3, 7,
Melee types get +1 Armor bonus at 2, 6, 10, 14, 18
Melee types get +1 Deflection bonus at 3, 7, 11, 15, 19
Melee types get +1 Natural Armor Bonus at 4, 8, 12, 16, 20
Everybody gets an additional +1 to all saves every 3 levels (3, 6, 9, 12, 15), ends at 15th level.
+stat bonuses occur every even level, as opposed to every 4 levels.
-Cross
Crosswind wrote: Squeeze, you're going to run into two problems.
The first is melee/caster imbalance. Casters really just need a +stat item.
I'm not sure if it's conceptually okay with you, but I would just do the following. It basically gives people automatically the bonuses they would have gotten by spending money.
Melee types get +1 to attack and damage at level 3 and every 4 levels thereafter. (3, 7,
Melee types get +1 Armor bonus at 2, 6, 10, 14, 18
Melee types get +1 Deflection bonus at 3, 7, 11, 15, 19
Melee types get +1 Natural Armor Bonus at 4, 8, 12, 16, 20
Everybody gets an additional +1 to all saves every 3 levels (3, 6, 9, 12, 15), ends at 15th level.
+stat bonuses occur every even level, as opposed to every 4 levels.
-Cross
Good point on the +stat item Cross. Considering that magic items are so rare, getting an item that is just a +stat would not be up my alley. I'd probably want the item to have some sort of significant purpose if it had a +stat attached to it.
But it brings up a good point of +stat spells. Should those even be allowed at all? It seems to me that they could be problematic considering that only they can cast the spells. And then could they be used as potions instead and taken out of the spellbooks? Again, questions that would need to be answered when looked at more deeply.
As for your second point, I don't really see a benefit to giving all NPCs and PCs those bonuses. If they all get them, then what's the point of giving it to them. Perhaps it would help against monsters, but I could easily enough put lower end monsters up against them. I'm afraid that it would just be more work for the players than necessary.
SqueezeBox wrote: LazarX wrote: Actually it's not hard at all. If you severely restrict the availability of magic items that many cheese builds depend on... i.e. metamagic rods, wondrous items, wands in general, pearls of power and any clones of same, and outright ban ALL item creation feats (substitute a spell focus feat for scribe scroll), you'll be surprised just how fast those casters come down to earth.
Just forget about magic item costs and prices, just keep total control on how items are brought into the campaign.
While you're experimenting with such major changes, I'd also advise that you keep your players restricted to Core and Advance Player Guide rules only.
Great points. The fact that the spellcasters don't get those at all really makes it difficult for them to get by. Though instead of getting rid of those wands and scrolls, I might just make it a caster level check to use them successfully. Item Creation Feats would definitely be removed from play or only available at really high levels. Not sure about scribe scroll and brew potion though. I'll need to look more into that.
Oh, magic items won't have prices at all due to the story driving acquiring the items to begin with.
Thanks for the suggestions LazarX. If you want to be low magic go all the way or not at all. this includes banning scroll scribing and potion making by PC's. This not stop you from putting those items in the game as you think it neccessary.
johnlocke90 wrote: removing magic items doesn't unbalance casters too much in combat.
The real issue(especially at higher levels) is that there is a ton of stuff that only they can do out of combat. Invisibility and flight, for instance. Magic items help mitigate this.
Yes, that's where the big issue lies. Sure that fireball would be harder to dodge because you don't have any resistance bonuses to reflex saves, but I try to mitigate those types of things with more HP.
It's the invisibility and fly spells that really get me nervous. Think of a wizard with fly and protection from arrows going up against you. It would be extremely hard to kill that guy without anything but magic. Or turn it around and you are a wizard with fly and protection from arrows. What's to stop you from obliterating an entire squad of bandits or the pack of dire lions.
I think this is where tactics has to come in if there are no changes to spellcasting classes. You have to be able to get cover and try to lure the wizard down. Or perhaps you need to retreat to a safer place. Or maybe fly just can't be allowed.
SqueezeBox wrote:
Good point on the +stat item Cross. Considering that magic items are so rare, getting an item that is just a +stat would not be up my alley. I'd probably want the item to have some sort of significant purpose if it had a +stat attached to it.
But it brings up a good point of +stat spells. Should those even be allowed at all? It seems to me that they could be problematic considering that only they can cast the spells. And then could they be used as potions instead and taken out of the spellbooks? Again, questions that would need to be answered when looked at more deeply.
As for your second point, I don't really see a benefit to giving all NPCs and PCs those bonuses. If they all get them, then what's the point of giving it to them. Perhaps it would help against monsters, but I could easily enough put lower end monsters up against them. I'm afraid that it would just be more work for the players than necessary.
So, also, what you could do is apply penalties to an enemy equal to the bonuses that I just suggested, if you'd rather do that than give your players bonuses. But I find that players like bonuses, and if you're depriving them of magic items, the bonuses might be a fun reward for leveling.
I would not worry overmuch about +stat spells. First, with a few exceptions, they all last 1 combat (minute/level). If casters are buffing the fighters, that's fine - the fighters are the ones getting jobbed by this shift, anyways.
Casters buffing themselves is sort of a waste of time. Consider: Average combat lasts 3-6 rounds. You spend a standard action buffing yourself, giving your DC's +2. This has a 10% chance of making a difference, per spell cast. Do the math, and you'll find that, if they cast a spell every round of a 3-6 round combat, this +2 bonus has between a 27 and 46% chance of actually making the difference. So they spent a standard action for, best-case, something that matters less than half the time. I wouldn't worry much about it, thus.
-Cross (Also, you can only really pre-buff when you've got surprise round. If you are worried about this, just don't make too many combats where players get to sit outside the combat and buff themselves before starting it.)
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