D&D 3E/3.5 3.5e/PF/OGL Low-Magic Campaign Resources and Ideas

[Alzrius]

Well, there was an article on Dark Sun's defiler magic in Dragon #315, though it wasn't about fatigue per se; rather, it was a system that granted easy access to metamagic, but you accumulated corruption as you used it.

Your campaign world sounds pretty awesome; I'll try and come up with some more stuff you can use to put a twist on the standard d20 System tropes where magic is concerned; as you might have guessed, this is something I've put a lot of thought into over the years.

 

[_Michael_]

Well, there was an article on Dark Sun's defiler magic in Dragon #315, though it wasn't about fatigue per se; rather, it was a system that granted easy access to metamagic, but you accumulated corruption as you used it.

Your campaign world sounds pretty awesome; I'll try and come up with some more stuff you can use to put a twist on the standard d20 System tropes where magic is concerned; as you might have guessed, this is something I've put a lot of thought into over the years.

So glad to know I'm not the only one! My world actually came about as a result of an issue or two of Dragon magazine where they talked about "sheen" mages who used machines in their spell casting, and how machines would try to colonize and fight back. Low-magic just fit right in, and thus, Atlán was born. I have a thread here that goes into a bit more detail if you're interested. Trying to capture lightning in a bottle is not as easy as Tolkien would have us believe. lol

 

[Alzrius]

So glad to know I'm not the only one! My world actually came about as a result of an issue or two of Dragon magazine where they talked about "sheen" mages who used machines in their spell casting, and how machines would try to colonize and fight back. Low-magic just fit right in, and thus, Atlán was born. I have a thread here that goes into a bit more detail if you're interested. Trying to capture lightning in a bottle is not as easy as Tolkien would have us believe. lol

I remember the sheen articles in Dragon! I admit I had to go look up the individual issue numbers on the DragonDex, but those were great articles as I recall.

 

[Alzrius]

Would I be wrong in saying that alchemical reagents should be the rule, not the exception? Like, not using them would be more rare and usually only done in desperation? Seems that would make for a more interesting story if characters have to carry dangerous substances to cast spells. Like Alchemical Grease, for instance. Sure, a bit of olive oil or butter might work in a pinch, but alchemical grease would be the preferred component. My thought is doing it this way would make alchemists a much more valuable commodity in big cities, and they would likely work hand-in-hand with spell casters, or have a list of clientele they do business with on a regular basis.

Returning to alchemy briefly to mention that there's a lot of excellent material for this in Frog God Games' Tome of Alchemy for PF1. It doesn't have the same reagents per se that Paizo does, but it does have a similar (albeit brief) system of using alchemical components for spellcasting. And it has a lot of alchemical items and related rules as well.

 

[_Michael_]

Returning to alchemy briefly to mention that there's a lot of excellent material for this in Frog God Games' Tome of Alchemy for PF1. It doesn't have the same reagents per se that Paizo does, but it does have a similar (albeit brief) system of using alchemical components for spellcasting. And it has a lot of alchemical items and related rules as well.

Even the PDF is $35 for this one. Ouch! Don't suppose you know where I might get it a bit cheaper...?

 

[Alzrius]

Even the PDF is $35 for this one. Ouch! Don't suppose you know where I might get it a bit cheaper...?

Wow, that's expensive! You can get it for $20 over on the Frog God Games website; I wonder why it's so much costlier on DTRPG?

 

[Alzrius]

A very niche method of limiting spellcasting is a particular way of depowering a lich that only appeared in Pathfinder Adventure Path #33, The Varnhold Vanishing, where the cyclops lich Vordakai has the following ability that (to my knowledge) has never appeared anywhere else:

Atrophied Lich (Ex) A lich that remains immobile and insensible for extended periods of time (as Vordakai did after he was imprisoned in his tomb just prior to Earthfall 10,000 years ago) can grow atrophied. The exact effects of atrophy vary from lich to lich. In Vordakai’s case, his effective wizard level has declined from 20th to 9th. Note that these are not negative levels—Vordakai must earn back the lost XP normally. More troubling to the lich is the fact that until he achieves at least 11th level as a lich, his phylactery is unusable—if he is destroyed, he crumbles to dust, forever dead.

 

[Celebrim]

Another thing to think about is making sure that if you are going to have a low magic setting you don't have a lot of easy access game breaking magic. So, for example, "Fly" gets bumped up to a 4th level spell in my game. Most other flying related magic is also likewise a level higher. Teleport in my game has a range limit of 1 mile per caster level. So it can still do quite broken things at short range but one thing it can't as easily do is long distance travel. I also assume the existence of defensive "lair" type spells that are at least the counter of low level offensive spells. Again, one of the risks of assuming a "low magic campaign" is ending up with a high magic campaign where the PCs have a lot of magic in a low magic setting with no counters or defenses.

I should also suggest in line with the "How bad is necromancy?" suggestion, that I run an extremely harsh setting in the legal sense. Necromancy, diablerie (conjuring evil monsters or making pacts with evil monsters), and mind control are considered crimes almost universally punishable by death. Civilizations that wouldn't break your fingers, cut out your tongue and burn you at the stake for casting "Charm Person" are far rarer than ones that would. Likewise, of the four main spellcasting classes in my game world - wizards, clerics, shamans, and sorcerers - only wizards and clerics are considered licit magic users. Shamans and sorcerers are generally considered witches, and sorcerers are generally not even considered people and have no legal protection or rights.

 

[Alzrius]

Another indirect method of lowering the power of magic (though this one applies just as much, if not more, to martial characters) is to make use of the optional "Combat with Very Large Creatures" rules in Necromancers of the Northwest's Weekly Wonders - Cinematic Dinosaurs Volume II.

This basically gives creatures more than two size categories larger than you "zones" of where you can attack them: the head and certain vital areas are the primary zone, and everything else is the secondary zone. Attacks to the secondary zone have their effectiveness reduced, while attacks to the primary zone are more effective than normal...but you have to be able to reach the primary zone first. It specifically calls out that AoE spells are typically treated as targeting the secondary zone (and targeted spells are treated like other ranged attacks as far as reaching the primary zone goes).

 

[Alzrius]

Here's an interesting way to limit a spellcaster's options: make what spells he knows dependent on what monsters he's captured!

The monster trainer class, from Samurai Sheepdog's Mystical: Kingdom of Monsters: Anniversary Edition is a full-progression arcane spellcaster. However, while he has a spell list, his "spells known" is dependent on the monsters he captures. Each of the monsters in the book has its own (quite small) spell list that they can let a trainer use once captured. There's also an appendix that assigns spell lists (based on that book's monsters) to all six of Paizo's Bestiary volumes! (There's also some further restrictions on which spells a monster trainer can use at a time.)

The benefit here is that the GM is the one who decides what monsters the PCs will encounter, so if they never meet a creature that has a spell you'd prefer they not have, then it's your prerogative that they never encounter it.