Should Ravenloft be a Low Magic Setting?

[Odhanan]

Hi Chris.

I'm not saying your and the other authors' work sucks, far from it. I hope it's sufficiently clear.

I'm not feeling Ravenloft is a D&D setting, with Dungeons, Dragons and such. I feel like it's a World of Darkness setting using PHB rules. Maybe it has to do with the way the "weekend-in-hell" approach was discarded. Maybe this triggered a focus on the setting itself and logically its background as opposed to its synergy with D&D itself. It gives me the feeling that you guys were thinking "hey, how can we make RV less D&D?" rather than saying "Cool, I always thought about that Dungeon crawl set in RV..."

In yet other words, in my opinion, D&D's core story, "a group of adventurers goes down in a dungeon, kills the monsters, loots them, goes back to town to sell their stuff and do it all over again the next week" was neglected.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

IMO Sword Sorcery did a great job capturing the feel. The Magic Rating for domains was a great idea.

 

[Klaus]

I think it should be low magic. No, wait, that's not quite accurate.

I think it should be unfair magic.

D&D assumes a certain ammount of treasure per level. RL PCs should have FAR less. They should be in over their heads. More often than not, they should face creatures of a higher CR. Being also low-combat, you could probably only throw Level +3 CR creatures at the PCs, since it will be the only combat of the session.

Of course, a DM must give the PCs *some* chance to survive, so maybe replacing some of the monetary treasure with inherent abilities, like Reserve Points or Class-Based Defense, is a good idea.

That being said, I like both the Black Box and the S&SS versions of RL.

 

[Umbran]

In the default 3E setting, PCs are assumed to have the means to simply purchase the items they want.

Don't confuse the setting's assumptions with the player's and DM's assumptions.

The rules say the PCs should have a certain level of wealth - I don't recall anywhere there being a suggestion of exactly how the PCs get it. I think the "magic shop" is a construction by folks who play the game as an easy way of dealing with the wealth guidelines. It is by no means the only way of managing.

And, of course, this sort of invites the question - assume that you keep the party low-magic. What does that do to the encounters you have to choose? In general, it will mean either a restriction to less powerful foes, or dead party members. Is that acceptable to you and your group?

 

[Voadam]

In the default 3E setting, PCs are assumed to have the means to simply purchase the items they want.

I think the DMG guidelines for availability of purchase are based on population size, so if you are a 20th level character in a sparesly populated area with no metropolises your options for buying are limited to cheap items like potions and not so powerful items. Ravenloft has a few cities but I think it is mostly diffused populations and semi isolated villages. The biggest most cosmopolitan and magic rich city was turned into Necropolis IIRC. This leaves a higher proportion of items to come from loot from evil hags, wizards, tombs, etc. which is more in the DM's sphere of control as far as what feels right for his view of Ravenloft or for PCs to make them themselves.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

Ravenloft has vistani though, and they make for an easy plot device to buy magic iteams from.

Ravenloft doesent have to be low magic. Its ok to make a low magic ravenloft, but its not assumed that it is a low magic world for the pc's. The flavor i think of ravenloft is that magic is less common, but the pc's are heros, and they should have ways of getting magic iteams. This should make commoners even more suspisus of them and give them higher outcast rateings, the more the are decked out with magic.

 

[Drew]

I'm not feeling Ravenloft is a D&D setting, with Dungeons, Dragons and such. I feel like it's a World of Darkness setting using PHB rules...In yet other words, in my opinion, D&D's core story, "a group of adventurers goes down in a dungeon, kills the monsters, loots them, goes back to town to sell their stuff and do it all over again the next week" was neglected.

Well, with the exception of the original module, which was something of a dungeon crawl through Strahd's castle, the Ravenloft setting never existed the way you describe it. Even the boxed set advised the DM to avoid random encounters and other trappings of a typical fantasy setting. When was the dungeon archetype ever a key component of the Ravenloft setting in any D&D edition?

Maybe it has to do with the way the "weekend-in-hell" approach was discarded. Maybe this triggered a focus on the setting itself and logically its background as opposed to its synergy with D&D itself.

Abandoning the weekend-in-hell approach was not, in my opinion, to change the focus of Ravenloft as a setting. It was done to make Ravenloft a more viable setting for long term campaigns.

I personally don't see what hinders the gothic horror feel when a character owns an animated shield, for instance. I could describe the PCs descent in some cave of Darkon and describe how suddenly the shield stops moving along with the PC to rather follow him, staying in his shadow. Is the shield becoming aware? Corrupted?

That's a nice way of adding a certain amount of creepiness, sure. In my high-level D&D game, before the 3.5 revision, at least half of my party was wearing boots of striding and springing. It just struck me as somewhat difficult to keep the horror alive as I imagine the heroes bounding around Barovia like moonwalking astronauts.

My problem doesn't lie with magic items per se. It just felt to me after running a party from 1st to roughly 19th level that, as wealth increased, the characters came to feel more and more like medieval superheroes. By decreasing the wealth a bit, the DM can delay this phenomenon until the truly high levels. There is also the side effect of making certain kinds of monsters a bit more of a threat for their CR, which is a good thing in this setting.

 

[Voadam]

The 2e hardcover made the shift to focus PCs as natives, 3e continued it. 3e disassociated details from the other D&D worlds so Soth was the "Black Knight" and Krynn was not specifically mentioned by name. Same for the red wizard Hazlick with no mentions of Thay, Faerun, even Bane turns into "The Tyrant" or some such.

 

[Drew]

Don't confuse the setting's assumptions with the player's and DM's assumptions.

The rules say the PCs should have a certain level of wealth - I don't recall anywhere there being a suggestion of exactly how the PCs get it. I think the "magic shop" is a construction by folks who play the game as an easy way of dealing with the wealth guidelines. It is by no means the only way of managing.

And, of course, this sort of invites the question - assume that you keep the party low-magic. What does that do to the encounters you have to choose? In general, it will mean either a restriction to less powerful foes, or dead party members. Is that acceptable to you and your group?

The question isn't really how the PCs get the wealth. I accept your proposal that the magic shop is something of a hand-wave to ensure that the PCs are properly equipped to face encounters of the appropriate EL. So, if I create a clever and setting-specific means for them to aquire magic items, they're still aquiring them, right?

So, whatever I call it, the PCs still have a means to order up whatever magic items they want. Besides limiting their wealth, how else am I supposed to fairly arbitrate what they can and can't have? If I think that everyone purchasing, for example, undead bane weapons, seems a little against the "in over your head" theme of Ravenloft, do I just tell them no? While that's my right as DM, I prefer a more eligant way of screwing the players. By reducing wealth, I'm saying "Sure, the vistani can get you a warhammer of destruction, but it will cost you all of your gold."

Choices, not restrictions.

 

[Voadam]

If Players are recovering magic from bad guys they defeat, then you control what they get completely. Players can have full wealth value or even above value without choosing their own. Or limit the types that are for sale, though bane is easy to make as a +1 weapon quality only requiring summon monster I. Ravenloft is full of lycanthropes and golems and hags and cultists though in addition to undead, so keep the adversaries varied and no big problem with undead bane weapons.