Embracing the D&Disms

[Shallown]

Actualy Lord Pendragon I am taking into account that Scry exist and is used a good deal. As far as temples go I just assumed the God's wanted their business kept quiet. The alchemical substance is a natural extension of the same. Regular (versus high magic) people finding a way to keep out nosy wizards. I think of it as I didn't change the spell I actually assumed it worked and people dealt with it.

Think of it as, if thieves exist, I put locks on the important things but didn't Nerf Thieves. They still have plenty to steal just not everything.

If you seriously think about it Why should mid level spells Scry (at 4th) Teleport (at 5th) Raise dead (at 5th) Be so much more effective than higher level spells. I mean even stone walls stop most higher level spells from working.

I just put some of the reaction to prevelant magic into the world.

I have stolen and used PC's ideas as well but that is more a BBEG idea/plot than creating a campaign with the D&D spells taken into account.

At least that is my outlook on things. It is part of the campaign building not a matter of rules. Not every temple is proof against scrying nor every major figure shielded but enough are that the Players and the Bad guys can't use some mid level spells to throw the world on end.



Now to address the Healing and disease curing...

In my games I tend to run a campaign where character's are a breed apart so therefore it is not assumed every village priest has any divine ability to heal. Most priest are not spell caster's and such. So curing is not so universal. That's the easy way out though.

so here are some not so easy ways to deal with it.

Assuming healing is as handy as it could be then serious injury would be more rare but not neccessarily. Think about the infra structure education we have and the fantasy world doesn't. Even Basic first aid is not that well known so someone gets trampled by a horse chances are they die before the local cleric/priest can make it to them. No ambulances to rush people to aid.

Plagues happen becuase thousands get sick not just a few. Clerics can't handle the volumne even if they wanted to.

Think of how the God's touch would be given out in a measured controlled manner. It is not for the faithful to demand healing or gifts from the God's It is expected /believed that the commoner is an instrument of the God's not someone who demands or even expects healing. I know people now days pray for divine intervention but do you expect it? Just becuase the miracles are available doesn't mean people expect them. Its one of those issues of Divine right that modern people have trouble "getting" much like how King's had divine rights. They were chosen by God in the commoner's eye's. You just didn't question it.

See now I have gone and rambled on. My appologies.

later

 

[TheFan]

Eberron does this pretty well IMO. The prevalence of magic items is an assumption and magic is common in society. Everburning torches line the city streets, mages are payed to arcane lock the prisons, etc. Divine magic is uncommon, but not entirely rare, particularly in faith-heavy nations like Thrane or Eldreen.

 

[kolikeos]

i never had a problam with any of the spells in the phb. as you said, only a very small % of the people in the world can use these spells, and the pcs happen to be of the few powerful beings in this world who can cast them. it wouldn't be very interesting to play 'the everyday loozer', would it? we get to be 'the everyday loozer' in real life, so where's the fun in role playing that?

 

[LadyIslay]

I'm still 'new' at DMing, and thus far, I haven't found anything 'core' to be something I want to get rid of. I'd much rather play out everything and see how it fits before I start revising the basic rules. That said, there is non-core material (including thrid party) that I won't allow for the same reason: I want to see how the basics work before I start tinkering with them.

One of my DMs had an interesting approach to this issue: if the PCs used something, it meant that the NPCs could use it to. If Scry was in the mix for PCs, then it was available to the NPC foes, too (if they had the ability to cast it, that is). If someone used Disintigrate in battle, it was fair game for the DM to use it against the group at a later date.

 

[maddman75]

Personally, I take the exact opposite approach. If I just accept these things and change my world to account for them, I end up with something quite different than a typical fantasy world. That's not what I want. I play D&D to act out stories like in the fantasy novels and movies that I love. The less the game is like that, the less interested I am in it. Probably explains why I have so little interest in Eberron.

But to each his own - its just useful to understand the 'other half's' perspective.

 

[RangerWickett]

I have a problem with spells that have a gold piece cost. I would prefer they just made them higher level and not have a 'cost,' because, well, I think the D&D money system is silly. I don't like my players having to track the coins they have in their pouches and the gems they've looted. I want them to worry about enemies.

Basically, the only spells I have a problem with are the ones that bring back the dead. It really gives me a hard time as a game master when a PC dies if they can just come back. Even worse is the villains. True, I've had NPCs who were immortal, but that was plot-important. I never had a villain get himself raised; that just feels like cheating.

I like convoluted conspiracies, so I enjoy high-level divinations, because they let me answer questions without making the villains seem incompetent at keeping secrets. Teleportation is primarily in the hands of powerful individuals, and it is rare that someone will pay the exorbitant fees teleporters can charge, so that doesn't ruin the world. Teleportation certainly doesn't ruin adventures, except when it means the PCs have no time to rest. Honestly, in my last game the PCs leveled twice in a week because they were just doing so much stuff, all over the world. It was crazy.

But fun.

 

[kolikeos]

I have a problem with spells that have a gold piece cost. I would prefer they just made them higher level and not have a 'cost,' because, well, I think the D&D money system is silly. I don't like my players having to track the coins they have in their pouches and the gems they've looted. I want them to worry about enemies.

you don't use the money to cast the spells, you use some rare spell components. if you buy that in the big city, it costs lots. i usely give the players the option to look for their spell components themselvs (wilderness lore to find rare herbs, for example). sometimes they don't have a choice, they most find the costly stuff on their own if there is no place to buy it anywhere nearby.

as a player, i don't care how much it costs in gps, as long as there is no xp cost.

 

[RFisher]

I play D&D to act out stories like in the fantasy novels and movies that I love.

I know exactly what you mean. That drove me away from AD&D.

My current feeling is that I'll play GURPS or Fudge or something that gets out of the way of me creating the world I want to create when I want to play that kind of game. When I play (A)D&D (and certain other games), I instead accept its assumptions of what the world is like.

Well, mostly. I find it nigh impossible not to tweak something.

 

[RangerWickett]

you don't use the money to cast the spells, you use some rare spell components. if you buy that in the big city, it costs lots. i usely give the players the option to look for their spell components themselvs (wilderness lore to find rare herbs, for example). sometimes they don't have a choice, they most find the costly stuff on their own if there is no place to buy it anywhere nearby.

as a player, i don't care how much it costs in gps, as long as there is no xp cost.

My design theory is that character abilities should not require resources like XP or GP unless their results are long-lasting and somehow affect the world drastically.

Raising dead I see as a valid case of a spell that should cost XP. Preferably the XP of the target.

Awaken, certainly, should cost XP. You've permanently created sentience.

Identify costing a pearl, though, makes no sense.

 

[kolikeos]

Identify costing a pearl, though, makes no sense.

why does it make no sense? as a said before, some spells require speciel matirials to cast them.