fuindordm
Adventurer
An idea for low magic D&D
Something that's always bugged me a bit in trying to reconcile D&D/D20 with low magic games:
Spellcasting seems to be to be the most powerful and versatile ability a magic-using profession could possibly have. You can make a spell to do pretty much anything.
And all the major spellcasters get it at 1st level. The minor casters get it at 4th level.
I mean, yes it's a useful game mechanic, but there's no sense of working your way up to that sort of power. In literature, people with magical talent often exhibit it in subtle, unusual, and often uncontrolled abilities long before they arrive at the "ultimate cosmic power" that spellcasting provides (at least in theory, with
plenty of research time).
I've always wanted to put together a world where spellcasting is a high-level ability rather than a low-level one. Characters who aspired to magic use would work their way up to a generic spellcasting prestige class that requires extensive scholarship and development of their innate (potentially powerful, but much less versatile) magical abilities.
For example, there could still be a paladin/champion class. The class comes with magical abilities, and after a certain threshold is passed (say, 5th level when they have 3 spell-like abilities: lay on hands, detect evil, and cure disease) they pass the power benchmark that allows access to spellcasting. They can't take levels in the prestige class, however, unless they've invested enough skill points in Knowledge: Arcana.
As another example, there could be a psychic feat chain similar to those found in Call of Cthulhu. Even a fighter or a rogue could invest in this feat chain, and when they had developed three powers they could enter the spellcasting PrC if they has also invested enough skill points in Knowledge: Arcana.
All the core classes would be mundane (like the barbarian,
fighter, rogue, expert) or semi-mundane (like the bard, paladin, monk); and very few of these (maybe only the expert and bard) would be able to get Arcana as a class skill. Maybe the sorcerer could be kept as a starting arcane class, but with progression only to 7th-level spells and funky special abilities based on lineage.
The spellcasting prestige class would be very simple, like a stripped-down wizard. It can top out at whatever you want the maximum power level of spells to be, and school access depends on what kind of powers got you into the class to begin with. Psychic feats gives you the divination school, lay on hands gives you the conjuration (healing) spells, extraplanar lineage gives you conjuration (summoning) spells, etc.
These ideas are OGL.
Anyone with the time should feel free to run with them.
--Ben
Something that's always bugged me a bit in trying to reconcile D&D/D20 with low magic games:
Spellcasting seems to be to be the most powerful and versatile ability a magic-using profession could possibly have. You can make a spell to do pretty much anything.
And all the major spellcasters get it at 1st level. The minor casters get it at 4th level.
I mean, yes it's a useful game mechanic, but there's no sense of working your way up to that sort of power. In literature, people with magical talent often exhibit it in subtle, unusual, and often uncontrolled abilities long before they arrive at the "ultimate cosmic power" that spellcasting provides (at least in theory, with
plenty of research time).
I've always wanted to put together a world where spellcasting is a high-level ability rather than a low-level one. Characters who aspired to magic use would work their way up to a generic spellcasting prestige class that requires extensive scholarship and development of their innate (potentially powerful, but much less versatile) magical abilities.
For example, there could still be a paladin/champion class. The class comes with magical abilities, and after a certain threshold is passed (say, 5th level when they have 3 spell-like abilities: lay on hands, detect evil, and cure disease) they pass the power benchmark that allows access to spellcasting. They can't take levels in the prestige class, however, unless they've invested enough skill points in Knowledge: Arcana.
As another example, there could be a psychic feat chain similar to those found in Call of Cthulhu. Even a fighter or a rogue could invest in this feat chain, and when they had developed three powers they could enter the spellcasting PrC if they has also invested enough skill points in Knowledge: Arcana.
All the core classes would be mundane (like the barbarian,
fighter, rogue, expert) or semi-mundane (like the bard, paladin, monk); and very few of these (maybe only the expert and bard) would be able to get Arcana as a class skill. Maybe the sorcerer could be kept as a starting arcane class, but with progression only to 7th-level spells and funky special abilities based on lineage.
The spellcasting prestige class would be very simple, like a stripped-down wizard. It can top out at whatever you want the maximum power level of spells to be, and school access depends on what kind of powers got you into the class to begin with. Psychic feats gives you the divination school, lay on hands gives you the conjuration (healing) spells, extraplanar lineage gives you conjuration (summoning) spells, etc.
These ideas are OGL.
Anyone with the time should feel free to run with them.--Ben
