D&D General Crime and Punishment in a Less Magical World

[James Gasik]

Mages have Alarm and Leomund's Impossible to Sneak Into Battle Hut, so what was that about assassins again?

 

[Krachek]

You play for a bit, and a caster decides to blatantly commit crimes and use magic to escape the consequences. Maybe they assume another identity. Frame someone by taking on their form. Dominate magistrates, teleport to another continent, create simulacrums to do face consequences while you go free, kill people invisibly and without evidence, use divination spells to learn state secrets and sell them, wild shape into a mouse and become the world's most feared assassin, abuse invisibility- etc., etc.

That is a very good definition of a Vilain that would fit many universe.

How do governments catch and punish magical criminals if they do not have access to magic themselves?

So the basic answer is “it is a job for Superman!”.

 

[LordEntrails]

Mages have Alarm and Leomund's Impossible to Sneak Into Battle Hut, so what was that about assassins again?

There are plenty of ways around both of those. Google it if you don't believe me. There have been numerous threads on ENW alone on how to do it.

edit: But look, if you want the magic user to be a super god in your world go for it. Not going to be much fun for a lot of people to play in, but if it's what you want at your table, do it.

 

[James Gasik]

There are plenty of ways around both of those. Google it if you don't believe me. There have been numerous threads on ENW alone on how to do it.

edit: But look, if you want the magic user to be a super god in your world go for it. Not going to be much fun for a lot of people to play in, but if it's what you want at your table, do it.

That's not the point; I don't want a magic user to take over the world, lol. But I'm seeing potential scenarios where even a tier 2 spellcaster can cause all kinds of havoc, and only other spellcasters could do anything about it, making me think a world with few casters really can't work.

Like I said in the first post, a low level spell lets you conceal your identity so that just tying you to a magic crime in the first place would take very high level divinations.

 

[bloodtide]

How do governments catch and punish magical criminals if they do not have access to magic themselves?

If your set on the low magic setting, and you let the spellcasters get normal "demi god like power" magic, there is nothing much a government can do.

If you do want to add something, you could add say a Ghost Constable or something like that to catch spellcasters.

 

[aco175]

Casters would need to control themselves or else the government will need to step in and do it for them. There would be some sort of restraint like thieves in the world. The local mage society would need to come down upon the renegade mage to keep the nobles from killing everyone. Same thing the thieves do. People might tolerate some activity, but at some pint, it gets out of hand and it becomes bad for business and you are Joe Pesci in the scene with the aluminum bat.

 

[LordEntrails]

That's not the point; I don't want a magic user to take over the world, lol. But I'm seeing potential scenarios where even a tier 2 spellcaster can cause all kinds of havoc, and only other spellcasters could do anything about it, making me think a world with few casters really can't work.

Like I said in the first post, a low level spell lets you conceal your identity so that just tying you to a magic crime in the first place would take very high level divinations.

And you're missing my point. RAW their are plenty of non-magical ways to limit the godliness of a caster. But if you don't want to limit the caster than sure, a low-level caster can get away with anything, but that's not RAW and it requires the DM to make rulings in such a way to allow it to happen.

I've played low-magic, and it did not turn out the way you are fearing it would. But that's because the DM didn't want it to. Neither did the players.

 

[cbwjm]

Send in the witch hunters, warriors and rogues who are specialised at killing casters, or inquisitors if it is the church chasing them down.

Casters have to be careful of mobs, they'll chase them down and cast them out if they aren't careful, or outright killing them.

 

[Storyteller Hero]

People have to eat, sleep, or use an outhouse some time...and magical thieves tend to get overconfident in their security...

Huehuehuehuehuehue...

 

[Tonguez]

Youre now playing in a world of Superheroes, so you get your Lady Amanda Wallers or Colonel Nicholas Furys involved or possibly some Dark Knight develops his own contingency plans