Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Character Creation in Low Magic Games
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 5693863" data-attributes="member: 6669384"><p>My group ran a campaign designed to start as "low magic" and work its way up.</p><p></p><p>When the game started, there were magic swords and armor around, but nobody knew how to make such things any more. No permanent magic item creation feats were in the game at all.</p><p></p><p>We also started off without a few PRCs, and we stripped a few spell from the game. Like everything Level 9. Dimension Door was known, but Teleport and it's near cousins was not. Raise Dead and it's derivatives were gone.</p><p></p><p>We had to take a number of Wondrous items and shift their creation over to other feats, since some are non-permanent, but that wasn't a big deal. Most were just an extension on Brew Potion.</p><p></p><p>The premise of the campaign was that these Feats and PRCs had been closely guarded secrets held by guild masters and master spell casters, prized and precious. And as I'm sure you can see, secrets do one of two things over time: They cease to be secrets, or they cease to be at all.</p><p></p><p>Now the gods kind of liked the peace and quiet, where they didn't have Epic champions showing up at their doorstep with custom gear, trying to challenge the order of the cosmos every other month. But one day they realized that dark times were coming for mortals, and that they'd need the ancient secrets and crafts once more.</p><p></p><p>If they suddenly released this knowledge on the world, the turmoil would be worse than the dark times, and The Enemy would find it even easier to move in. So they sent word through their seers, oracles, prophets and priests. Each nation was to send a representative, and the group that would be formed would be guided to caches and troves of ancient lore, and that their mission was to find them and disseminate the knowledge to all lands.</p><p></p><p>So each player had a character from a different land, and several of those lands had histories of conflict and warfare. They weren't together because they were good friends, but because they weren't. Each would keep the others honest when it came to spreading the lore, guaranteeing that every major power got access to the knowledge at the same time. And the whole process was slow enough that no wars would be triggered.</p><p></p><p>At least, that was the theory. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>It made for a fun campaign. That's when we came up with the idea that dead could be raised only by going on an adventure to the "lands of the dead" to bring the fallen one back. It added a lot to the richness of the game, and all it really cost was the idea that dying was merely a financial inconvenience.</p><p></p><p>When someone finally managed to uncover/research Teleport, it shocked people. I mean, that was "Demon magic", wasn't it? They're the ones who can pop from place to place at will. Great fun to play.</p><p></p><p>Permanent items were precious and hard to come by. Every magic blade in the world was known, had a history and a name, was held by some rich or powerful family and was part of their family pride. Bags of Holding? Things of legend, like the original held by Perseus in Greek mythology.</p><p></p><p>We considered which spells to ban, based on how they influenced play. Spells that made people immune to certain game considerations were all candidates for the black list. Teleport, Death Ward, Raise Dead. Heroes' Feast was nerfed so it gave you a serious bonus to poison Saves, but didn't just render you immune. The Magnificent Mansion spell got modified so it was a level lower and not extra-dimensional, because once it was in play the night encounter completely vanished from play.</p><p></p><p>It was low magic for most of the run, and high color all the way.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Greenfield, post: 5693863, member: 6669384"] My group ran a campaign designed to start as "low magic" and work its way up. When the game started, there were magic swords and armor around, but nobody knew how to make such things any more. No permanent magic item creation feats were in the game at all. We also started off without a few PRCs, and we stripped a few spell from the game. Like everything Level 9. Dimension Door was known, but Teleport and it's near cousins was not. Raise Dead and it's derivatives were gone. We had to take a number of Wondrous items and shift their creation over to other feats, since some are non-permanent, but that wasn't a big deal. Most were just an extension on Brew Potion. The premise of the campaign was that these Feats and PRCs had been closely guarded secrets held by guild masters and master spell casters, prized and precious. And as I'm sure you can see, secrets do one of two things over time: They cease to be secrets, or they cease to be at all. Now the gods kind of liked the peace and quiet, where they didn't have Epic champions showing up at their doorstep with custom gear, trying to challenge the order of the cosmos every other month. But one day they realized that dark times were coming for mortals, and that they'd need the ancient secrets and crafts once more. If they suddenly released this knowledge on the world, the turmoil would be worse than the dark times, and The Enemy would find it even easier to move in. So they sent word through their seers, oracles, prophets and priests. Each nation was to send a representative, and the group that would be formed would be guided to caches and troves of ancient lore, and that their mission was to find them and disseminate the knowledge to all lands. So each player had a character from a different land, and several of those lands had histories of conflict and warfare. They weren't together because they were good friends, but because they weren't. Each would keep the others honest when it came to spreading the lore, guaranteeing that every major power got access to the knowledge at the same time. And the whole process was slow enough that no wars would be triggered. At least, that was the theory. :) It made for a fun campaign. That's when we came up with the idea that dead could be raised only by going on an adventure to the "lands of the dead" to bring the fallen one back. It added a lot to the richness of the game, and all it really cost was the idea that dying was merely a financial inconvenience. When someone finally managed to uncover/research Teleport, it shocked people. I mean, that was "Demon magic", wasn't it? They're the ones who can pop from place to place at will. Great fun to play. Permanent items were precious and hard to come by. Every magic blade in the world was known, had a history and a name, was held by some rich or powerful family and was part of their family pride. Bags of Holding? Things of legend, like the original held by Perseus in Greek mythology. We considered which spells to ban, based on how they influenced play. Spells that made people immune to certain game considerations were all candidates for the black list. Teleport, Death Ward, Raise Dead. Heroes' Feast was nerfed so it gave you a serious bonus to poison Saves, but didn't just render you immune. The Magnificent Mansion spell got modified so it was a level lower and not extra-dimensional, because once it was in play the night encounter completely vanished from play. It was low magic for most of the run, and high color all the way. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Character Creation in Low Magic Games
Top