Define "low-magic"

[beaver1024]

I've DMed a few low level magic campaigns. It can be fun but can easily turn into a farce. The reason is because DnD 3.X is balanced around an assumption that high level of magic is present in the campaign. To maintain the balance the amount of needed magic to overcome challenges need to reduce in direct proportion the player's reduced magical resources.

A few simple guidelines in order to get a quick and easy low level magic campaign up and running.

1. Ban full progression casters except the Bard. I find that nerfing full casters are more trouble than it's worth because then I have to do other special things to compensate for the nerf. The best thing is to just ban them all. That also means that opponents don't have full casters on their side which is good for balancing challenges.

2. Allow no items that have a spell level over 4th.

3. Reduce the wealth per level by half.

4. All monster CRs are increased by 4.

 

[dvvega]

My homebrew isn't really Low Magic, however there are aspects of it that lean that way.

1. flash-bang stuff is a no no (ie. evocation bad).
2. if you're not a formally trained wizard you're a "witch" ... "may we burn her"
3. formal training = not having to use it unless there is no option (martial arts kind of thinking)
4. high penalties for the use of magic openly

there is more, but the gist is that I don't believe Low-Magic has to be non-existent magic, or rare magic. It could also be Low (Use) Magic.

Clerics don't heal just anyone, you have to "believe" and they're used to people saying they follow god "blah" just to get favours. There is more reliance on alchemical healing and the Heal skill than magic.

D

 

[Nifft]

IMHO the definition of "Low Magic" is that a big (normal) human with a big (normal) sword is a credible threat at any level.

-- N

 

[Krieg]

IMHO the definition of "Low Magic" is that a big (normal) human with a big (normal) sword is a credible threat at any level.

-- N

That would probably also cross over into Gritty vs Cinematic territory as well.

 

[deltadave]

Put some kind of mechanic in the system that limits magic cast per day. for example - 1 con point per level of spell in temporary ability drain. Have spells cost hit points to cast (like force use in d20 Star wars). It could be anything as long as it limits the massive use of magic in the game that is characteristic of classic style D&D. this has a cascade effect that limits magical item creation and thus the amount of free magic floating around in the world.

A different mechnaic that has worked for me is adding a casting DC to spells.... 2x spell level plus a d20 opposed by a Craft (arcane) roll. success means normal, a failed roll can have various nasty effects ranging from fatigue to a magical backlash effect that can kill the caster.

 

[Galethorn]

For me, low magic is when the presence of magic has no noticeable effect on the society as a whole.

This is a very good point, but I don't entirely agree. Personally, I'd say any world where magic has a noticable effect on society would be High-Magic and one where the effect isn't visable would be "where 'normal' should be"-magic...and that makes the default 3.x level of magic higher than it should be.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I've run extremely high magic campaigns (a Rules Cyclopedia gloss on Spelljammer, and a dwarven age campaign where the average level of a common soldier was 8, and many were spellcasters), but outside of 'Jammer, I prefer very low magic.

The current campaign I'm running uses the following limitations:

No spellcasting classes - Magic is the province of eldritch horrors
No magic items below artifact level - See above
Humans and goblins are the only starting races - Only because of the source material

Any other d20 class is available to the PCs. d20 Modern? OK. OGL Steampunk? Please do. Conan? Dodge/Parry will be dropped, but bring 'em on in. Core D&D? Welcome. Non-core D&D? Why not?

The PCs will be able to take warforged and minotaurs, among others, if they create new characters after certain plot events, and possibly dragons as well.

The PCs will also probably GET an artifact level magic item before reaching 4th level.

Is that "low magic"?

It's very different from D&D magic. I'm not sure how "low" it is.

 

[ptolemy18]

I know there is a lot of love for low-magic campaigns going around. What I don't know is exactly what "low-magic" means. What exactly makes a campaign low-magic in your opinion?

In my opinion, these are the two most "high magic" aspects of magic. I'd remove these first in any "low-magic" games.

* RAISING THE DEAD. You don't have to totally remove it, but making it harder makes the game-world more realistic. Monte Cook changed "Raise Dead" to the 7th level spell "Resurrection" in ARCANA UNEARTHED. In my campaign, I added an XP cost to the spells, and changed the "maximum amount of time a corpse can be dead for it to work"... for "Raise Dead", I made it the caster's level in hours, and for "Resurrection", I made it the caster's level in days. And no raising the dead without a body.

* TELEPORTATION. Agggh, I hate teleportation! Well, at least, I like wilderness adventures, and it REALLY changes the game when players get access to teleportation magic. In my campaign, I changed the range of Teleport to the caster's level in miles.

Beyond that....? Well, I guess it's up to your own opinion. If you want to be REALLY radical, and have a more realistic damage system, you can limit the effectiveness of "cure wounds" spells. NYAMBE: AFRICAN ADVENTURES introduced the idea of diseases with Spell Resistance, so clerics may have to case multiple "remove disease" spells to get it to work.

Or your tastes may turn towards getting rid of flashy evocations and summoning spells... but personally I like that kind of stuff. Lightning storms, meteor swarms, etc. just add to the level of death and entropy, and subsitute for modern high-tech weaponry. (The "nuclear wizard" effect.) I'd rather have a world where things are easy to (magically) destroy than a world where things are easy to fix. I don't care how many fireballs and giant monsters the spellcasters produce, as long as death and long distances have meaning.

Whatever floats your boat and makes the most interesting campaign world, in your opinion...!

Jason

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Bottom line is there are a lot of ways to do low-magic.

And there are some ways that seem to, but don't actually do it so much.

Something I haven't seen mentioned yet is that a lot of 'low-magic' do it by making magic plentiful and powerful but slower and less certain.

The Conan RPG is often cited as low-magic, for instance, but you can't actually go through an adventure without running into lots of it and you are likely to have magic users in your party and so are a lot of people. You feel the effects of high level magic everywhere and high level magic has the potential to be even more world changing than DnD staples.

It explicitly thinks of itself as fairly high magic but pretty low fantasy.

Items are very unimportant to characters, though they may be to plot, and very rarely magical. When they are magical they tend to be primarily useful to people practicing or practiced in some form of magic.

There's a high ramp for magical power. You have to be willing to do some pretty awful stuff and really prepare to do it. Low level magic users have a load of advantages but they are an edge to normal activities rather than explicitly the only thing they do.

It's true that a guy with a sword is a threat to everyone, but that's mostly because guys with swords are cooler. On the other hand, it's also true that there will always be things with magic that it will be nearly impossible for a guy with a sword to kill.

Things that aren't the norm are objectively frightening, even if they might not be terrificly evil.

So not low magic, but low item, high cost, gritty, and nasty is just as good.