D&D is best when the magic is high, fast and furious!

[Fenes 2]

*dingdingding* Yeah! That! Darn you for saying what I've been trying to put my finger on the whole time.

Using Raiders of the Lost Ark again, the Ark is a pretty impressive artifact -- definitely high power magic there. The Conan stories, to use another example, have cities that phase in and out of existence, sorcerers who raise jeweled towers overnight, and so forth. It's not the power level of D&D magic in general that's the problem, it's the everyday nature of it.

-The Gneech

Ding indeed. I have to correct myself then - I have problems with high-magic setting where magic is mundane and everywhere. (And I have problems with some spells/powers in D&D.)

 

[Celtavian]

Re

Well said, sir! (And sadly, I agree with you about the seeming weakness of the high-magic arguments). D&D is not only high magic (in the sense of power), it is also ubiquitous magic, and it is the latter and not the former that many people seem to object to.

I was thinking about this subject some more, and I find this statement very accurate. Magic is far too common and for the most part unexplained.

Novels like Lord of the Rings are not truly low-magic. Middle Earth is in fact high magic, but the difference is that magic is well-explained. We know where all the magic items come from, and that makes them more interesting and believable. For example, the magic swords the hobbits find in the tomb of the barrow wights are made by smiths of Westernesse for battle against the Witchking of Angmar. The magic cloaks that the fellowship wear are made by the elves of Lothlorien. Aragorn's magic sword was forged long ago by the people of Numenor. I could go on and on because there is alot of magic in Middle Earth and it is all explained.

In most D&D campaigns though, nothing is explained. The DM just says you find a +1 sword and a +1 suit of chainmail and 2 potions of Cure Light wounds. There are no explanations for where the magic came from or why it was made. It is up to the DM to explain why so much magic just happens to be lying around. That is very hard to do with many adventures.

I would prefer alot less magic with good explanations. I think it would greatly improve upon the story if a bard could use his Bardic Knowledge or a PC could use Knowledge (ancient history) to tell you who made the blade or any magic item for that matter. I am not so much concerned about the power level of the magic item so much as the lack of any explanation for its existence. Save for potions and low level scrolls, even the smallest of magic items are reasonably difficult to make, and should not be overly common.

 

[hong]

Umm, I wanted an answer from DragonBlade.

And this, of course, is why you posted on a public messageboard. I WILL NEVER FOLLOWUP TO FENES 2 EVAR AGAIN. Although I might followup to Fenes 3.

I never stated that I preferred high-level high-magic campaigns and found low-level low-magic campaigns boring. And with D&D (D&DG and ELH) you can play gods as well, so I fail to see the point in your remark.

Because, Fenes 4, you said, in relation to WHY you don't like "high magic" (whatever that means):

Because it is a whole lot of work for the DM (that means me in my case) just to create and adventures each week for a party with low-magic ressources. If I had to adjust the adventures to take godly powers into account the work needed would exceed my free time by far.

Which would imply, Fenes 5, that if it happened NOT to be a lot of work to DM such a party, then you wouldn't have any objection to it. And furthermore, I then pointed out that there already exist rulesets (Exalted, Nobilis, yadda yadda) to allow you to play ultra-high-powered characters without much of the overhead of 3E. And in fact, you'd already modified 3E so that you COULD play such high-powered characters.

So make up your mind. Do you, or do you not, have objections to high-powered characters?

As far as my answer to this question goes: Because I don't have fun playing gods, or DMing for PC-gods. If I don't have fun doing something then I don't do it if I can help it.

Now if you'd just said that right at the start, Fenes 6, we could have avoided all this messy toing and froing.

 

[Fenes 2]

And this, of course, is why you posted on a public messageboard. I WILL NEVER FOLLOWUP TO FENES 2 EVAR AGAIN. Although I might followup to Fenes 3.

Because, Fenes 4, you said, in relation to WHY you don't like "high magic" (whatever that means):

Which would imply, Fenes 5, that if it happened NOT to be a lot of work to DM such a party, then you wouldn't have any objection to it. And furthermore, I then pointed out that there already exist rulesets (Exalted, Nobilis, yadda yadda) to allow you to play ultra-high-powered characters without much of the overhead of 3E. And in fact, you'd already modified 3E so that you COULD play such high-powered characters.

So make up your mind. Do you, or do you not, have objections to high-powered characters?

Now if you'd just said that right at the start, Fenes 6, we could have avoided all this messy toing and froing.

I doubt anyone else had trouble understanding what I meant with my question, since it was aimed at a comment from DragonBlade.

(Not that I think you really misunderstood it, I know your style of posting too well for that.)

 

[S'mon]

Ding indeed. I have to correct myself then - I have problems with high-magic setting where magic is mundane and everywhere. (And I have problems with some spells/powers in D&D.)

I remember I enjoyed running an AD&D campaign set in Mystara, a good part of it centred around how (relatively) low-magic Thyatis (with good leadership and cunning tactics) could defeat ultra-high-magic Alphatia (beset by an insane emperor and civil war). Alphatian magic, though ubiquitous - with entire flying navies and its thousands of lightning-bolt wielding 'boltmen' - still never came across as boring in the way 3e D&D everyday-allday buff magic seems to me.

 

[hong]

I doubt anyone else had trouble understanding what I meant with my question, since it was aimed at a comment from DragonBlade.

I doubt you even know what you were talking about with your question. There's a lot of that going around.

 

[Mercule]

It's strange, I find the pro low-magic arguments here much more compelling, the adherents of high-magic arguments come across as very weak. Yet I've enjoyed GMing ultra-high-powered (deity level) AD&D for many years,

Low magic does not equate to low power or no magic in all cases. I'm a very strong proponent of low magic -- I have a hard time as seeing wizards as anything other than supporting cast (Merlin), while the fighters and rogues go save the world (Arthur).

None-the-less, I've allowed PCs to ascend to godhood (okay, only once, but the option remains present). It the time, it was intended as a retirement plan, but we've pulled the character out of mothballs a couple of times and had some good times with it.

I'm set to take over DMing the game after the party completes RtToEE, and I'm planning an epic game that will take the characters from 3rd level to 30+ level and ultimately end with them facing a god (I'm not railroading, most of the players have been waiting for this showdown for 10 years).

I make full use of "Hollywood physics", as I've come to call it. My goal is to make it so the characters are not dependant on "kewl stuff" and that a mundane has a prayer of being a lone hero. I like magic items to _mean_ something. That is, to be _magical_ in feel as well as name. I also want a believable world that is not so alien to ours as to be incomprehensible.

That's low magic, to me.

 

[mmadsen]

This came about as a recent conversation I had with my friend SHARK and some other friends of mine about the nature of high magic in games and my distate for WotC's emasculation of the Haste spell in 3.5.

"Emasculating" a powerful spell hardly shifts D&D from "high" magic to "low" magic though; it just makes that spell (Haste) less common and alternative spells (of that level) more common.

I don't know why some DM's fear magic so much.

Because it creates a world that doesn't make sense, where characters don't have to go through B, C, D, etc. to get from A to Z, where walls don't keep out intruders, where voyages aren't necessary, where investigation means casting a single spell, etc.

It's hard to create a coherent story in a high-magic world. It's a lot of work, and if you overlook something, the adventure might be over before it starts.

(If, on the other hand, you don't introduce spells like fly, teleport, etc. and just bump up the numbers -- Giants with 10 levels of Fighter, +5 swords everywhere -- then you haven't changed the game much; you've just increased the math.)

I don't go to work for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week so that on the weekend I can get together with my friends and die because a kobold criticalled my PC.

And what does that have to do with "high" versus "low" magic?

As my friend, SHARK put it so eloquently, "I don't play D&D to struggle for a +1 sword. $%^# that!! I play D&D so my character can wield that +5 Vorpal Holy Avenger!!"

Here's why I think "high" and "low" belong in quotes. Many people in favor of "low" magic don't want weak magic; they want rare magic. They want magic to feel magical. They don't want magic to ever feel mundane.

A +1 sword isn't very magical -- it simply doesn't confer much advantage to its wielder -- and running across dozens of such +1 swords doesn't add to their mystique either. Expecting to upgrade to a +2 sword, then a +3 sword, then a +4 sword really kills the mystique.

Similarly, owning dozens of +2 to something-or-other items is boring. Casting dozens of spells every morning to get +2 to everything is boring.

A +5 Vorpal Holy Avenger can fit into a "low" magic game if its the +5 Vorpal Holy Avenger, wielded by so-and-so against the demon-lord what's-his-name, etc. If you can simply save your pennies and buy one, it's not so magical.

 

[drnuncheon]

In regard to Brust/Taltos:

Yes, but there are restrictions placed there also. Because they can teleport does not mean they have all the spells available that a D&D 13th level mage would have.

Since Vlad isn't a highly capable sorcerer, we don't get an 'inside view' of most magics. However, in the few instances in which we see sorcery used, the effects are frequently similar to D&D spells. (It's rumored that Dragaera had its basis in an AD&D campaign.) So, even though teleport is available to many/most people, the true wizards of the setting seem to match up to D&D wizards in the depth and breadth of their powers.

Plus, there are other limits on what abuses one can perform, since you are endangering you House as well,

...which is a social feature of the setting, so I'm not sure what you're getting at. If you wanted the same sort of thing in D&D, you could easily have it - the mage orders from Dragonlance come to mind.

plus ritual magic can often track you down, etc.

You mean like...scry? Discern location?

J

 

[Psion]

Novels like Lord of the Rings are not truly low-magic. Middle Earth is in fact high magic, but the difference is that magic is well-explained. We know where all the magic items come from, and that makes them more interesting and believable.

Well, I know where that magic in my campaign comes from... it's a setting based (vice system based) decision that I think any DM should consider.