How do I make it really "low-magic"?

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Give out fewer magic items, waitin until higher levels, and deny access to item creation feats until high levels (if ever).

Avoid using lots of magical beasts, and things with magical damage reduction and the like, until higher levels (when you can make a quest to find a legendary (+1) weapon to fight the creature...

Most of the adversaries should be humanoids, animals, and the like.

Bards, rangers, and paladins have no spell abilities.

No sorcerers; wizards, clerics, & druids have limited spell lists, or aren't available, or have restrictions as mentioned above.

 

[DwarvenBrew]

You could force spellcasters to multi-class. So that a Wizard has to match those Wizard levels with Cleric or Rogue or whatever levels. That will keep the high-level spells out of the game.

This is the same approach that I would take. It fixes the problem with 0 changes to game mechanics/classes etc.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I agree with Lost Soul and Dwarven Brew. Require that spellcasters take one level of core-non-spellcasting class per level of core-spellcasting class.

Of course, you should run this by your players first. No use in starting a campaign that your guys don't want to play.

 

[Kareyev]

Casting / Using magic items causes damage. I'd keep it simple. Spell level times some multiplier. Perhaps something impacts the modifier (rare ingredients, full moon, etc). Want it really low magic, the damage is not healable via magic. Even lower? Con damage.

 

[netnomad]

Use d20 modern spellcasting and psionic classes. Make all the non-spellcasting core classes (Fighter, monk, rogue, etcc...)10 level advance classes.

-NetNomad

 

[2WS-Steve]

Using Wheel of Time classes and magic would be a pretty good way to get a low-magic game. There's also the Classically Modern pdf out there that gives a d20 modernized treatment of D&D classes.

 

[Gothmog]

I've been running a low magic world for 11 years, from 2E to 3E, and here are my mods.

1) Require that any PC who wants to cast spells take one of two feats at character creation: Magical Adept or Divine Aegis. The feats do the same thing, just one is for arcane magic, the other divine power. Basically, a character has to have one of these feats in order to cast spells, period. In addition, the feat can ONLY be taken at character creation, or under highly unusual circumstances, such as if the character is somehow infused with arcane/divine energy.

2) Since there are fewer magic items and beasties, spellcasters could be potentially omnipotent under usual D&D rules. To even the playing field, put an upper spell level limit of 5 or 6, but require the highest two levels of spells to be ritual in nature- they take 10 times as long to cast. In addition, bump all evocation spells up one level. Finally, every spell requires a casting roll, qith a spellcraft DC of 10 + 2(spell level +1). If the roll is failed, the spell doesn't go off, but the slot is not wasted unless a natural 1 is rolled, or unless the check is failed by 10 or more.

3) We didn't restrict item creation feat selection, but the GP and XP costs for making magic items are tripled. In addition, simply plunking GP down to make a magic item doesn't fly- you have to find rare components totaling the GP value of the item. Finally, for every 1000 XP of the item final value, the caster takes a temporary loss of 1 Con point. Lost Con points return at the rate of one per week.

I'm not crazy about enforcing one spellcaster level then one non-spellcaster level idea. It seems like you'd be making a character that would be half as useful as another character in the group, especially since the character's main abilities would be nerfed (spellcasting). Spellcasters as presteige classes seems workable and more fair to the player.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

IMO Gandalf is a fighter/sorcerer. (Yes, I know a high level wizard can wield a sword fairly well.)

I wonder why? Maybe gaining spellcaster levels take a long time. This might explain why spellcasters (Tom Bombadil, elves, Maiar) are almost always immortal in the Middle Earth universe.

AD&D was carefully, carefully, balanced.

You mean 3e, right? Right?

 

[Andor]

It depends on the culture you're trying to portray. Frex you might have a viking-ish culture where the only arcane magicians are bards. (Singer is synonomous with spell caster) Give Druids taboos like Wu-Jen get and redefine the holy symbol that serves Clerics as a divine focus to be a 300# granite altar.

-Andor

 

[D-rock]

Make them multiclass and only able to take one spellcasting class per non-spellcasting class and limit the spellcasting class to level 5. Make magic items extremly hard to find. Take away a spellcasting abilities from paladins and rangers. Cut the number of people that can cast spells in the world. Or require a series of feats to be able to cast spells of a certain level. Make them take more feats to achieve the same result if it isn't low magic enough. Just make certain that you carfully tailor the encounters they have.