Need help reducing campaign's magic intensity

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I want my homebrew campaign to be low-magic. Thus I would like
to see the major spellcasting classes (wizard, sorceror, cleric, druid) changed in some way. The problem is, how exactly do I
change them? I don't want to limit the classes' powers through roleplaying measures (disdain of arcane magic among the population etc). Nor do I simply want to state that there are very few spellcasters in the campaign world, since this never stops the
players from choosing those classes in the first place. I need some
crunchy rulings to reduce the power of these classes, but still make them a viable choice for players.

Any ideas?

 

[Carpe DM]

Well, I'm a big fan of playing the game by the rules.

The biggest thing you can do to limit magic is to Rule 0 Heward's Handy Haversack and anything else that allows people to draw something as a free action.

Then simply enforce the rules about drawing spell components, keeping spell components, GETTING spell components, etc.

A reasonable rule is that a player may only have quick access to 5 pouches. Anything more than that and he's going to have to make an intelligence check to recall which component pouch he needs in the heat of battle.

Other ways to make it low magic: no market for magical items. If the PCs want it, they have to make it, or find it. They can't buy it.

No potion markets, no trinkets, no wands of healing (the first buy any party makes), nothing.

This will keep magic low, as your casters will not want to make stuff for everyone in the party on an ongoing basis. A toy here or there will help, but generally they 'll want to keep their xps.

FINALLY (and here, only if you REALLY want to interfere with the game), remove all transportation spells.

This includes:

Plane Shift
Wind Walk
Teleport
Teleport Without Error
Shadow Walk
Fly (maybe...)

And all items that do those effects.

etc.

You get the picture.

What this forces PCs to do is to cross the game world as it is, rather than teleporting into the dungeon and then straight back to bed with a warm coffee in their hand.

What you don't want to do:

1. limit or remove item creation feats.
2. limit or remove standard caster adventuring spells.

It's too imbalancing to remove those.

Hope these help.

best,

Carpe

 

[Umbran]

Personally, other than perhaps restricting Item Creation Feats in some way, I'd leave the classes alone.

Why? Because rebalancing is a pain. If you tone them down so that each individual caster reflects the low-magic nature of the world, are you sure the character would still be useful? There's no fun in playing a character who can no longer pull their own weight, so if you plan on making spellcasters notably weaker than other classes, you might as well disallow them altogether and be done with it.

I know you've said you don't want to simply say there are fewer spellcasters in the world, buthonestly, I've seen that method work wonderfully in the past. It gives you a good handle on what items the party can get a hold of, and what spells your arcane casters can come up with.

 

[Petrosian]

Assuming you do not want them to be minor cosmetic tweaks...

Increase all casting times of 1 action to 1 full round

Require all non instantaneous spells to have a physical token or fetish which represents the spell and which must be openly worn/carried while spell is ongoing. Now anyone who can grab/sunder/strike-object the "bull sack" fetish for the bull strength spell can negate the spell.

Reduce the frequesncy of magic items across the board AND add more requirements for the item creation feats such as requiring magical materials to be collected for all of them.

 

[SpikeyFreak]

I think this would be better in the house rules forum, but....

How about taking the arcane casting classes and reducing the levels that can cast by 1 level. E.g. a 1st level wizard could only cast cantrips. But, give them a boost and give them a 3/4 BAB and maybe 4 skills/level.

Or just lower their spell levels and drop arcane failure. That would make battle/mage types more feasable, but it would cut down on magic too.

Honestly, I really think you could take the cleric and just reduce the levels it casts by one leave it like that.

--Brainstorming Spikey

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Thanx for the replies!

Ok, perhaps I should stick to the "there-are-very-few- spellcasters-in-the-world" method to make the campaign
low-magic.

I will also remove transportation spells, and make it more
difficult to bring people back from the dead.

A thing I noticed: would someone please explain to me why
the True Ressurection spell hasn't been changed? Whenever
a king is slain by an assassin or in battle, just have the high-
priest cast True Ressurection. No loss of level, no XP cost, only
a small sum of 5,000 gp (not much for a king I would think).

You don't even need the body!
So if a king (I use the king as an example, it could be any creature
with sufficient resources) dies on a military campaign somewhere,
poof, true ressurection and he's back. Many campaign-worlds loose credibility due to this IMO.

Just to take the first example that comes to mind (I am sure there
are far more):

King Azoun IV of Cormyr (forgotten realms) died battling a red dragon. Why wasn't he ressurected? He was important to the
stability of the land, and the people would rally if he returned.

 

[Voldrath]

I see no reason to mess with the classes themselves just limit acess to magic.
The lack of a magic item market is a good idea.

Another thing you might consider is limit the number of caster class levels a character can take
say 10 or so. My group recently started a low magic campaign we limited caster class levels to half your total character level.

 

[Wolf72]

limit access=increase price?

you could try making all spells cost a certain amount (components) to cast.

When preparing a spell (hmm no idea about sorc/bard) a character has to spend 10gp/spell lvl (or the spells requirement which ever is greater)

It'll add up real quick ...

 

[Rel]

It'll require a lot of work on your part, but require "power components" for all item creation AND all spell casting. Some of these components (the ones for casting low level spells and creating very minor magic items) would be available for purchase in large cities. All others must be found by the adventurers.

This will make every decision to cast a spell a decision to expend finite resources (as opposed to the "use it or lose it" way that spellcasters normally operate). Every bit of magic item creation will necessitate a quest of some magnitude to get that Wyvern Claw or Manticore Spike needed to make the item.

I belive that this will have the effect of making the non-spell-using classes more powerful but without a lot of magic items, they will somewhat plateau at the middle levels. The spell-users will start slower but be more powerful at higher levels when they have plenty of resources to spend on components. Perhaps this will mimic the feel of 1E?

Please note that this is just a suggestion and hasn't been playtested. It might require minor (or major) tweaks to be workable or it might not be workable at all. Depends on your group.

 

[Artoomis]

I know you don't want to use the "disdain for magic" thing, but how about making all magic use must be pre-approved in civilized areas. With very, very severe penalties.

Then have all major cities, at least, have special sensors set up to detect magic use anywhere wihtin the city. This could be for any number of reasons - one that comes to mind is self-defense. If magic is fairly uncommon, it becomes very, very powerful as there is little in the way of countering it, thus paranoia about magic creeps into society.

Before long, you might end up with all the PCs banned from at least all teh major cities, with prices on their heads. That should be pretty fun - about the only way out would be for the PCs to discover and foil the VERY EVIL PLOT to take over the world! And be able to prove they did it. tricky that one - "Sire, please don't kill me, I just saved the world!"

Did you now? I didn't know it needed saving. Take him to the anti-magic chamber and execute him!"

At a minimum you'll have spell caster who are afraid to use tehir magic - cool, eh? Secret wizards' guilds, etc.