Toning the Magic Down

FCWesel

First Post
I was looking for opinions on how to tone magic down to a more "Middle Earth/LOTR" style of play.

Obviously magic items should be more rare, and some out-n-out not available, but the biggest challenge would seem to be Arcane and Divine spellcasters. The magic of ME is far more sublte then D&D and thus many spells would not be available, but at the same time I don't want to cripple spellcasters too much; perhaps upping their HD or a bonus feat or something to rebalance them?

Any ideas?
 

log in or register to remove this ad

nsruf

First Post
While some of the main characters in ME can cast spells, there are hardly any full-fledged spellcasters. A very easy way to simulate this is to disallow wizards, sorcerers, clerics and druids completely - all spellcasting has to come from rangers, bards, and paladins. And since you are still using core classes as is, you don't have any balance problems.

The magic items problem should actually take care of itself, as the three "lesser" spellcasting classes have a hard time creating the more powerfull stuff.
 

Darklone

Registered User
Another easy possibility is this rule:
Spellcasters have to be multiclassed and your highest class always has to be a non spellcaster class.
 

Bauglir

First Post
Another way to do this which I quite like myself is to disallow taking 2 consecutive levels in a spellcasting class.

So a character that starts off as a Wiz1 must choose a class other than Wizard for their second level, although they may freely take Wiz2 when they reach character level 3 and so on.

End result: the most powerful (non-epic) spellcasters are 10th level and have access to 5th level spells max.

To retain balance in this you need to carefully screen spellcasting prestige classes, and those that give supernatural benefits.

Why do I like this method? It reduces magic without weakening magic-users. (Many of the low-magic solutions simply weaken magic as a whole, which leaves little incentive for the players to play a spellcasting class..)

edit: Great minds Darklone?
 
Last edited:

Darklone

Registered User
Bauglir said:
edit: Great minds Darklone?
... post together :D

I had some other houserules to adress this... such as starting as either Expert (alchemy, wizard apprentice stuff) or Adept (shamanistic stuff). Wizard& Sorcerer and the other spellcasting classes from the PHB were only available with either Craft (alchemy) 8 ranks or 2nd level spells from Adept classes.
 

Methos

Explorer
FCWesel said:
I was looking for opinions on how to tone magic down to a more "Middle Earth/LOTR" style of play.


Any ideas?

I play in a campaign where there is decidedly less magic available. Here is a brief synopsis of how this works. I can't give away all the campaign secrets since my DM also is a writer, and thus many of his campaign ideas are either copywrited, or he uses/is using for his work.

1. Magic items are severely limited in their general availability. For example, finding a potion shop is pretty much out of the question. For that matter even alchemical items are pretty rare. As far as spellcasters being able to purchase scrolls and the like, that is pretty much off limits. And as far as being able to purchase magic weapons, armor, or other types of itms, etc. there just is nothing available. If you are lucky, you can possibly make a donation to a religious institution in order to procure potions and scrolls, but that is pretty much the limit. In addition, as far as our party being able to sell magic items, it just doesn't happen.

2. Spells are separated into 3 categories. Common which allows you access as normal in the sense that you can choose them when you gain levels, etc., and there are no negatives associated with trying to cast them. The second category is also available but is considered "tainted" in the sense that you incur penalties to cast and can have negative results. Again, you can choose these as normal, but you have to accept the penalties that go along with them. These two classifications apply to both arcane and divine magic. The third category of spells are those spells that have effectively been placed in a "rare" category which means that they are not readily available, and can only be obtained by "finding" either another caster who has them (good luck!!), or finding a scroll/spellbook in treasure trove (it does happen, periodically). You cannot choose these spells as an arcane caster when you gain levels, and this classification doesn't apply to divine casters.

Oh, did I mention that the "rare" spells also have penalties to cast, as well as potentially negative consequences?

Also, we generally only use spells from the PH or Tome and Blood, so other spells are off limits, which again limits the availability.

It is possible to research spells, so it is possible that we could obtain spells from another source by using spell research with all that entails.

As you can see, the above tweaking can severely impact on a caster, particularly arcane casters. Does it make me happy? Of course not, however, it does cause you to be creative, and certainly, you can always choose not to play a spellcaster, particularly arcane casters who are decidedly more limited than divine ones in their spell selection.

For, example, imagine playing an arcane caster who cannot choose mage armor at 1st level because that spell is on the "rare" list? We did however, over the course of adventuring, discover it on a scroll, but not until about 5th character level.

Cheers
 

Midnight did a good job of converting D&D magic into a feel that's somewhat similar to ME. Check out the reviews of Midnight here on the site; there should be some that have a detailed explanation of how magic works.
 

Mal-2

First Post
FCWesel said:
I was looking for opinions on how to tone magic down to a more "Middle Earth/LOTR" style of play.
Any ideas?

If you don't want to do a lot of work re-writing magic rules and such, make the primary spellcasting classes into prestige classes. Set the entry requirements depending on how difficult wielding magic is in your campaign.

Mal-2
 



Remove ads

Top