D&D 5E Sword & Sorcery / Low Magic

[grimslade]

Sword and Sorcery is easy to do with 5E. Conan is essentially a comic book superhero without the cape and tights. You want your campaign to feel like the Schwarzenegger movie? No PC spellcaster classes. No other races but humans. Use the Custom Lineage rules from Tasha's to represent the different nations of Hyperborea. No permanent magic items. Done and done.
I am tinkering with a concept that removes spell casting from class and makes it a skill. Sort of like the old Use Magic Item thief skill or the 3E rogue skill. You would treat spells as a type of unreliable magic item. The spell would have a DC based on its power and if you beat the DC you cast the spell. If you just miss it, the spell fizzles. If you miss the DC by double your proficiency bonus you have a bad result. The Grey Mouser is able to cast spells occasionally, but more often fails to cast them. I also wanted to introduce the skill as a way to countermagic. Again the Grey Mouser using a wire trailing from his sword hilt to defeat lightning bolts thrown at him.

 

[Desdichado]

This is an interesting question to me, because regardless of what your tastes and preferences are, I think it's fairly obvious to anyone who really looks at it for a moment, that D&D does a poor job of emulating exactly the same source material that it says it's largely based on. Sometimes people say that D&D is "generic" fantasy, but that's clearly not true; there are a lot of very unique implied setting assumptions built into the system. It's probably better to say that it's broad rather than generic, i.e., you can do a lot of different things with it. But you can't do everything, without making some pretty substantive hacks to the system to change those implicit setting assumptions. And classic sword & sorcery of the type that filled up the old Appendix N is very poorly handled by D&D.

And as has been amply pointed out by now, Appendix N wasn't just a handwavey "inspirational reading" list; it was a list that Gygax prepared of very specific works that contributed in some way to the milieu of D&D.

Anyway, that doesn't offer much, so sorry. Carry on! I'll be watching this thread a bit.

 

[ART!]

Akiro doesn't do a whole lot in the movies - he's more a source of wisdom/advice than raw magic power. If I was to try an make a character based on him in 5e, I'd just stick to rituals and non-damaging spells - mostly divination with a handful of conjuration and transmutation spells as well.

It would work well in many games, but a player seeking to be a front-liner in combat or a jack-of-all-trades would probably find the concept unfulfilling.

The magic-y things I can remember him doing are...it's been a long time, but he has to maintain chanting (I think) to keep Valeria's soul (or whatever) in her body or to heal her? Then in Conan The Destroyer I remember he has a telekinesis-like tug-of-war of sorts with another spellcaster as he tries to close a big door/portcullis thing. Both of those seem to be physically taxing for him, and I'm particularly interested in how to emulate that in 5E. There's probably something else he does in those movies that I'm forgetting.

 

[Ath'kethin]

The magic-y things I can remember him doing are...it's been a long time, but he has to maintain chanting (I think) to keep Valeria's soul (or whatever) in her body or to heal her? Then in Conan The Destroyer I remember he has a telekinesis-like tug-of-war of sorts with another spellcaster as he tries to close a big door/portcullis thing. Both of those seem to be physically taxing for him, and I'm particularly interested in how to emulate that in 5E. There's probably something else he does in those movies that I'm forgetting.

No, I think you pretty much have it as far as his magic use is concerned. There's a scene in Destroyer where he's tied to a stick and about to be cooked before Conan rescues him, and Akiro seems completely unable to protect or free himself.

He knows some random arcane stuff and uses the Mage Hand/Telekinesis sort of spell as you describe and that's basically it. He's either pretty low level in D&D terms and the sheer rarity of magic-users makes him proportionately more powerful (a possibility) or just doesn't have a lot of flashy magic to use.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Curtail magic as a cheat code for PCs, and you're halfway there. Now, many players don't like doing D&D without the caster options, and that fine. I say this discussion isn't for them.

I'd rephrase that as: they don't want to play S&S.

Actually, after reading a bunch of this thread, it looks to me like the hard part is player buy-in. The rules, as they stand, are fine (or the the changes you want to make are things you likely generally change for DnD, not S&S specific.)

 

[Ath'kethin]

I'd rephrase that as: they don't want to play S&S.

Actually, after reading a bunch of this thread, it looks to me like the hard part is player buy-in. The rules, as they stand, are fine (or the the changes you want to make are things you likely generally change for DnD, not S&S specific.)

Tomato, tomahto.

And I agree 100% on the buy-in part. But I've found that to be true of every edition of every game I've ever played in my life. If the GM and players are all on board with the basic ideas, you can do anything.

 

[ART!]

No, I think you pretty much have it as far as his magic use is concerned. There's a scene in Destroyer where he's tied to a stick and about to be cooked before Conan rescues him, and Akiro seems completely unable to protect or free himself.

He knows some random arcane stuff and uses the Mage Hand/Telekinesis sort of spell as you describe and that's basically it. He's either pretty low level in D&D terms and the sheer rarity of magic-users makes him proportionately more powerful (a possibility) or just doesn't have a lot of flashy magic to use.

I got the impression that because he was trying very hard to use magic only for good, his options were limited. He really resisted Conan's pleas to save Valeria, for instance, because it required messing around with forces he was not keen on messing with.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'll reiterate it... if anyone actually wants to do a "low-magic" kind of game... you really can't have ANY spellcasting classes available for purchase (at least at Level 1). Because even if you cut down the number of spellcasting classes you make available to a smaller number... that's most likely not going to change the number of spellcasting classes actually played at the table. You could cut down the available casters to just cleric and wizard (stripping away bards, druids, sorcerers, warlocks, paladins, and rangers)... and when it came time to create a party, you'd get at least one cleric and at least one wizard. And voila... 2/5th of the table are playing spellcasters. And thus your desire for "less magic" is now gone. Heck... even if you made both those classes into half-casters... once they gain a couple levels they're STILL going to be casting 3 to 5 spells each every single adventuring day. That is PLENTY of magic. Eight to 10 spells cast each and every day. You as the DM are not going to get ANY real feeling of your "low-magic setting" if you have that.

If you really want "low-magic"... then only allow a party of barbarians, fighters, and rogues so you as the DM can at least get a sense of what having a no-magic party actually feels like in play (for probably the first time ever for you.) Just roll with that feeling for several levels at least. See what it feels like, what the experience is. How have the players changed their actions in-game by not having magic at their disposal.

And then... if you get the sense down the road that okay, maybe a little bit of magic might be all right, might add a bit of flavor... you can allow one of the group to take the Magical Adept or Ritual Caster feats or multiclass a level of caster. Preferably the one member for whom it made sense in the story to get it (like they activated some artifact or something and got blasted by magical energy). And treat gaining spellcasting like you and the players would treat gaining a magical item. Make it special. Heck... using an attunement slot for it wouldn't be out of the questions. Because at least that way the players know that this kind of magic is a rare and special thing.

At least, that's my feelings on the matter.

 

[Ath'kethin]

I got the impression that because he was trying very hard to use magic only for good, his options were limited. He really resisted Conan's pleas to save Valeria, for instance, because it required messing around with forces he was not keen on messing with.

You may well be right on that. I haven't seen Barbarian in ages; I have a 7yo and it's pretty much impossible to watch movies without the kid present, and I don't know how much my spouse would appreciate my showing a fairly hard-R rated film.

But that idea - avoiding magic that's problematic - is at the heart of the challenge of playing a S&S campaign as represented in a lot of media. The cost of magic in D&D as written is pretty low; your character has a few fewer hit points and can't use big weapons or armor, and many DMs shy away from implementing social or RP costs. Requiring some kind of check to cast a spell, or at least to cast it without developing a deformity or something similar, seems unfair when other characters can use their abilities unchecked, and actually implementing physical and mental costs to spellcasting (no check required) seems to double down on the unfairness.

I like the way Dungeon Crawl Classics handles magic, where there are definite costs to casting spells and such costs are part of the appeal to the game. I wouldn't be opposed to something similar in D&D, and I've even used such rules before. But, as always, the big hurdle is player buy-in - given the choice between playing a warlock with a reflavored eldritch blast and a wizard that slowly deforms and/or goes insane, my player picked the warlock hands down.

Which is part of why I say that if you plan to nerf a caster class, just ban it. That approach is easier for everyone in the long run, IME.

 

[overgeeked]

You may well be right on that. I haven't seen Barbarian in ages; I have a 7yo and it's pretty much impossible to watch movies without the kid present, and I don't know how much my spouse would appreciate my showing a fairly hard-R rated film.

But that idea - avoiding magic that's problematic - is at the heart of the challenge of playing a S&S campaign as represented in a lot of media. The cost of magic in D&D as written is pretty low; your character has a few fewer hit points and can't use big weapons or armor, and many DMs shy away from implementing social or RP costs. Requiring some kind of check to cast a spell, or at least to cast it without developing a deformity or something similar, seems unfair when other characters can use their abilities unchecked, and actually implementing physical and mental costs to spellcasting (no check required) seems to double down on the unfairness.

I like the way Dungeon Crawl Classics handles magic, where there are definite costs to casting spells and such costs are part of the appeal to the game. I wouldn't be opposed to something similar in D&D, and I've even used such rules before. But, as always, the big hurdle is player buy-in - given the choice between playing a warlock with a reflavored eldritch blast and a wizard that slowly deforms and/or goes insane, my player picked the warlock hands down.

Which is part of why I say that if you plan to nerf a caster class, just ban it. That approach is easier for everyone in the long run, IME.

Sorry, but which is it? In one paragraph you say making magic have a cost or cause mutation is unfair and doubly unfair, yet in the next paragraph you say you like DCC magic...which both has a cost and can cause mutations.