D&D 5E (2024) Preferences in a New Official 5.5e Specific Setting

[Remathilis]

Heh. That's always a problem - nailing down what "low magic" actually means.

Honestly, while I'm not a Pathfinder player, I find Paizo's approach to setting evolution to be absolutely the gold standard. Each region gets an adventure path and then a MOUNTAIN of information about that region. It's a fantastic way to build the world.

Golarion is IMHO world building done to perfection. Rather than a multiverse of settings that don't have anything in common, you have one world where each region gets it's own unique genre and flavor and crossing the streams is as easy as walking to the next region over.

It would be amazing if D&D had one world where you walk to the giant magetek megalopolis, the haunted vampire grotto, the clashing dragon army fields and the apocalyptic desert, but D&D opted to make each unique and require either a planar Metropolis or space fairing galleons to get from one to another.

 

[Distracted DM]

When we play low magic (which wr pretty much always do), we still allow magic classes. The conceit is that magic is very rare and hard to come by (spells and magic items) If the PCs are a magical class they are basically unique (or nearly so) within the setting. We don’t technically limit classes, but we only ever see fighters, rogues, rangers (spell less), and wizards. Typically, 3-5 of non-magic classes and 1 wizard.

Having less magic in the setting always seemed to lead to certain classes enjoying a lot more power, because there're fewer common counters to them.

If fewer folk know about magic, there's less reason for enemies to know the counters to said magic.

I wonder what could be done about that

 

[Scribe]

So, as of now, Sword and Sorcery wins.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

So, as of now, Sword and Sorcery wins.

Yeah, somebody's going to come in here pretty soon and accuse us of being too old.

 

[Minigiant]

Having less magic in the setting always seemed to lead to certain classes enjoying a lot more power, because there're fewer common counters to them.

If fewer folk know about magic, there's less reason for enemies to know the counters to said magic.

I wonder what could be done about that

You'd have to create natural materials that are counters.

Like iron giving bonuses to saving throws.

Or throwing salt countering spells.

 

[Minigiant]

Yeah, somebody's going to come in here pretty soon and accuse us of being too old.

 

[Scribe]

Yeah, somebody's going to come in here pretty soon and accuse us of being too old.

I'm more than happy to take such comments from the people I consider too young to know anything.

 

[Corinnguard]

Yeah, somebody's going to come in here pretty soon and accuse us of being too old.

Hasn't someone already done that? Besides, when you compare the human lifespan to that of an elf or a dwarf, we're still seen as youngsters by them.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Having less magic in the setting always seemed to lead to certain classes enjoying a lot more power, because there're fewer common counters to them.

If fewer folk know about magic, there's less reason for enemies to know the counters to said magic.

I wonder what could be done about that

short of actually banning them you mean?

i mean, if you could go the route of banning them then i would give the solution of making specific subclasses for the remaining classes in order to replicate the features of said excluded fullcasters.

 

[Deset Gled]

Would love to see how you could do a low magic, low fantasy game using 5e D&D.

... You'd have to toss out so much of the game that there's nothing left.

I've done it, and I love it. I even thought about making a thread about it, but never got around to it. The answer is surprisingly simple yet possibly highly unsatisfying:

Only low levels. Like, 1~3 only. My favorite is level 1.

Does tossing out levels 4+ count as tossing out a huge amount of the game? Probably.