aurin777 said:
I prefer a setting where magic is very rare. Only a few wizards spread across the continent, magic items few and far between. But the difference, I feel, is that the magic, once uncovered, is incrediably powerful. Am I drawing a wrong line here? Is this what people mean when they talk of "low magic"?
~~Brandon
aurin -
You were asking about terminology I believe, so I'll try and drag the thread back on topic.
Problem with the term "low magic" is that not all people give it the same meaning, which leads to confusion in many of the current discussions about magic levels in campaigns.
There are two very different types of "reduced magic" (to avoid the "low" for now):
If you reduce the frequency of magic (usually both items and casters) in a setting, you get what is often referred to as a "rare-magic" setting. As you've said, in this case, a magic effect of a certain level will be more "powerful" relatively speaking than in a standard setting because its impact is so unusual and magic countermeasures are much less likely to be available when it is unleashed.
If OTOH you limit not the frequency of magic, but the accessibility of higher-level magic, spellcasters and items of hedge magic (charms etc) may be found at every turn and even be more all-pervasive than in a standard DnD setting (e.g. with all or almost all races and/or classes having minor spellcasting abilities), but magic will usually come at much weaker levels than in a standard setting. That is often called a "low-magic" or, more accurately, a "weak-magic" environment.
Of course some people refer to any setting that limits either the frequency of magic as a whole or the accessibility of higher-level magic as a "low-magic" setting - never mind the differences.