Does anyone do non-overpowered anymore?

[Nifft]

Exactly. Mystery depends on not knowing the rules.

I think you can know the RULES, but add mystery and keep your players on ther toes by changing the CONTEXT. For example, if the PCs are in a region that is suffused by Evil Shadow energy (due to mysterious conditions that they still haven't fully puzzled out yet), certain spells will behave differently -- Light spells are less effective, and spells with the [Shadow] descriptor are Empowered.

MotP is of great use in this regard.

-- N

 

[barsoomcore]

I think you can know the RULES, but add mystery and keep your players on ther toes by changing the CONTEXT. For example, if the PCs are in a region that is suffused by Evil Shadow energy (due to mysterious conditions that they still haven't fully puzzled out yet), certain spells will behave differently -- Light spells are less effective, and spells with the [Shadow] descriptor are Empowered.

Okay, obviously the DM has to know the rules. The point is that you have to keep the PCs from knowing the rules. The very example you described has the PCs not knowing what rules are currently in effect. Thus creating mystery.

Mystery, pretty much by definition, means something is unknown. If you want a magic system that creates a sense of mystery, you will have to withold certain facts about that system (that is, rules) from your players.

 

[Remathilis]

My main problem with really "low" magic games is that they tend to be, uh, UN-heroic.

For example, a game I played in a long time ago (2e) allowed for non-casting classes only (fighter, ranger (no spells) and thief, IIRC). The only thing our group wanted to do was go home. We hid from the guards, told a group of mercs to attack some kobolds we saw on the road, and left a wounded man in the road to die because he was "too far gone" for a heal check. By the end of said game, I was bored to tears and too afraid to do anything with my PC. We gave the game up after one session.

I'm not a munchkin. I don't give lots of magic and treasure, but a game where I start out weaker than a house cat and am told to "go adventure" will be a game where my PC is a 5th level pig-herder and not a hero.

Give me fighters, rogues, clerics and wizards any day of the week.

 

[Ogre Mage]

Low-powered games

A note to DMs: if you are going to run a low powered game, you MUST take that into account when you design encounters. I had a DM who ran a relatively low magic game and then proceeded to use the MM as if we were "typical" characters for our level. It sucks when creatures with special abilities are as common as they are normally, but the level of magic available to PCs is not.

 

[barsoomcore]

A note to DMs: if you are going to run a low powered game, you MUST take that into account when you design encounters.

Let's agree on this: demanding low-power PCs is entirely different from running a low-power campaign.

Barsoom is sort of a low-power campaign, and yet my PCs have gone toe-to-toe with dinosaurs, flirted with undead goddesses, wandered deep caves filled with half-spider women, and foiled entire armies. They kick huge amounts of rear end despite the fact that there are no magic items for sale, no clerics, wizards or other spellcasting classes, and most of the PCs (at 10th level or so) have at most one magic item.

A boring story isn't "low-power", it's just dull. Who wants to play a pig farmer that is just, well, a pig farmer? A PC by nature ought to be somebody exceptional. If they're not, why are we telling a story about them?

 

[ThirdWizard]

I ran a low powered game once. Flopped. The players all made me drop that campaign and start over. I guess they didn't like being city guards and walking across a wall to stave off invaders that hadn't attacked in centuries. And it was just about to get to the part where the gnolls attack because they were displaced by undead to the north and they were going to find the ancient ruins underneath the city. Ah well, nothing I could do about that one.

Then there was the game where my 10th level fighter's prize posessions were a +2 heavy flail and a ring of protection +1. AC became worthless in that campaign and due to some bad hp rolls, he was just waiting to die. *sigh* What I wouldn't have given for an amulet of health or a set of magical armor.

So... been there... done that... Give me my standard wealth with the good stories! They arn't mutually exclusive here. If you're proud that the highest level character ever was 4th level and remenisce about that one time you found a wand of detect magic (If only you ever got to use it!!) then good for you, but I'd just as soon hear about the 100th level Pirate with a half dragon/fiendish/axiomatic/vampire parrot familiar someone else is bragging about. In other words, levels and power don't make the character - for good or bad.

 

[AnthonyJ]

Without trying to get into the 'which is better' argument:

Characters who have low wealth for their level will have more trouble with encounters scaled for their level, and will thus seek out either lower level encounters, or fewer encounters. Either way, they will not gain experience as fast. As such, a 'low wealth' game rather naturally leads to a low power game, not only in terms of availability of magic items, but in terms of overall personal power.

Making the game particularly low magic, by either limiting spellcasters or by requiring spellcasters to multiclass (spellcasters are usually less crippled by few magic items than other classes) should finish the job of creating a low power game.

 

[Cbas10]

In a world where fly+invisibility=invulnerability, why would a wizard expecting trouble NOT memorise the combo? And it's not really something that's difficult to fire up once a combat starts - unless the players totally get the drop on him, then he'll be able to do it.

First: that is by far NOT an "invlunerable combo." Any competent wizard should have at least one scroll handy that would either cancel or see through the invisibility. Any wizard who does not take advantage of his free Scribe Scroll feat deserves to die on the pointy end of a kobold spear, anyways. Additionally, why would a wizard memorize such killer combos EVERY day? Does he have no life? Or does the DM assume that the only antagonist spellcasters are insane wizards and sorcerers with nothing else to do except wait in towers and dungeons with arsenals of killin-n-destroyin spells?

The fundamental problem is that magic cancels magic, and also has the potential to cancel everything else.

A lot of times, good ol' brain power cancels anything out there, though. You are not doing well, here...proving magic is a crutch.

That's fine - as long as each magical item is useful while being interesting. +1 longswords should be the LAST investment that someone (a non-spellcaster) short on cash should make anyway. Counters to nasty tactics should be top of the list - counters to darkness, invisibility, flight, illusions, death magic etc. Next up is probably armour (or other items to boost class abilities, like cloaks of elvenkind, or pearls of power), and finally those plus one longswords.

After that is minor useful items, like bags of holding, which solve problems which are more-or-less ever present, but not life threatening.

After that is stuff like murlynd's spoon, which solve relatively minor, uncommon threats that have many other solutions (unless the DM has set you up to starve to death, or you're playing on athas).

Why do I feel like we are discussing a video game more than D&D?

True - but since everyone else is less dangerous, and less likely to be able to counter your protections, you end up being much more resilient. In a campaign where no flight items exist, flight negates melee combatants, forcing them to use ranged weapons. In a campaign where detect invisibility items don't exist, invisibility more-or-less means you win any combat at range. The counters to these tactics all reside in magic, whether that magic is items or spells. You NEED a spellcaster or magic item to defeat the tactic. Conversely any opponents will NEED a spellcaster to defeat tactics employed by your spellcasters.

I won't argue about the supposed end-all, be-all invincibility of Invisibility spells (or in this case, Greater Invisibility), as this is not the topic to do so {Edit: okay....maybe I will be tackling this; I'm feeling far too precocious to pass up something so absurd}. However, this tactic has nothing to do with the availability of magic items in a given setting or campaign. Everything you are talking about can be countered by regular characters and their natural abilities (class features, spells, etc). What does any of this have to do with the number of magical items available for player characters to find or buy in a game?

 

[ThirdWizard]

Well, for one if you don't have a spellcaster capable of negating an invisible opponent's advantage, then you can go out and get a lantern of revealing or somesuch other magic item in a normal D&D campaign so that you can deal with those issues if need be. In a low magic world, that might not be an option, and you are left either with someone playing a class they don't want to or just running if you are up against a wizard that can cast [greater] invisibility.

The same can be said of many other spell effects.

 

[Cbas10]

Well, for one if you don't have a spellcaster capable of negating an invisible opponent's advantage, then you can go out and get a lantern of revealing or somesuch other magic item in a normal D&D campaign so that you can deal with those issues if need be. In a low magic world, that might not be an option, and you are left either with someone playing a class they don't want to or just running if you are up against a wizard that can cast [greater] invisibility.

A few points:

One reason I am seriously in favor of lower-magic games (hopefully you've read this entire thread to know in what context I have placed this concept) is the agonizingly lame "Magik-Item-Quickie-Stop," where "adventurers" may stroll on down to some Ye Olde Shoppe and just sort through magical trinkets at their leisure. In a setting where individuals with enough wealth to even benefit from such a place are such a tiny minority, how or why would businesses survive when that minority is so obviously their only clientele? Additionally, all those items came from somewhere: spellcasters who created them in the first place. Judging by how it is supposedly so "easy" to gain said items, there must have been hordes of wizards, clerics, and others sitting around devoting lives to crafting items. Where did they all go? How did they all get so powerful (how could there me ANY monsters or threats left in the world?)? Did Elminster bring the concept of Mass Production to the fantasy worlds from his vacation spot in Detroit?

However, if a PC uses his feat to make his own items to do whatever he wants to do (including making them for others in his party to use), I would never dream of placing any restrictions on that...and would find it to be completely lame for DMs to do things that artificially hinder said activity.

As for the continued Greater Invisibility panic: We are talking about at least a CR 7 encounter (4th level spell; 7th level wizard). Even assuming there is not a single spellcaster in the party (rare, but I have been there), I would expect characters (especially those who have gotten that far) to be able to use their heads. Run, hide, wait for the spell to fade, throw flour up into the air and all around them....the list goes on and on. Maybe everyone should get out their bows and ready themselves to shoot at any sound in the room (unless the sadistic DM really is TRYING to kill the party by saying "Coincidentally" the wizard has prepared a crapload of Silent Spells). It is not extremely likely, but that is why it is called a CHALLENGE. Heck, many offensive spells have some sort of visual effect that will show the point of origin, allowing characters to blast away with bows and blows.

If all else fails, the smart adventurers - the ones still alive at the end of the day - know that sometimes you just have to run; the upside is the fact that you have learned more about your opponent. Brains will beat magic item dependancy every day of the week.

I recognize that we have our own styles. Whoever said "I like more magic items and higher power games," is perfectly cool in my book. Choices and likes/dislikes is what makes life interesting. Those that claim the low-magic game "cannot work" or is "the result of incompetence" should not be throwing stones from behind your glass sheilds.