Fading Magic

[Nifft]

How about a quick run down on FR? I've always been a home-brewed campaign ref; never bought the other settings and not going to start now

I'm no expert, but here's the bits I recall:
- In ye olde ancient times, everything was awesome and we had 10th level spells and flying cities and then some jerk tried to eat the gods, so now everything sucks.
- After that, the elves were still allowed to cast super-awesome spells (because elves are super special), but for some reason their ancient mythic magic is impossible to cast anymore and also the stuff they left behind is broken and sharp and dangerous to walk on.
- Most recently some kind of magic disease killed all the annoying NPCs who were more powerful than you, and also destroyed all the spells and items that aren't in 4e.

Cheers, -- N

 

[S'mon]

Robert's post makes me think about the very traditional trope that human civilisation is itself inimical to magic. This could at a stroke make the typical pre-4e D&D world finally make sense! It would explain why cities look realistically medieval, while Wizards live in towers out in the wilderness, and dungeons are full of powerful magic. It would be especially ideal for a Greyhawk or Yggsburgh type setting with medieval city + nearby sorcerous megadungeon.

In general, for pre-4e play I use the 1e Manual of the Planes 'Magic Factor' rules to give different worlds and times variable amounts of magic. The default is OD&D pre-Supplement I magic level, ie M-U spells go up to 6th level, Cleric to 5th level, with typical variation up to 9th/7th and down to around 2nd.

Edit: Here's a suggested table for variable magic by civilisation level

MAGIC (CHAOS) VS CIVILISATION (LAW)

For pre-3e D&D

AREA TYPE Max Spell Level M-U/Cleric

DEAD MAGIC 0 0
VERY LOW/CIVILISED 2 2
LOW/RURAL 4 4
MID/BORDERLAND 6 5
HIGH/WILDS 7 6
VERY HIGH/CHAOS NODE 9 7

It's designed so that low level PCs starting in a typical Gygaxian Borderland locale may have access to Raise Dead from the local High Priest/Patriarch, while more powerful sorcery is found out in the Wilds; the very highest level stuff is found only in Chaos Nodes such as the depths of megadungeons. Meanwhile civilised areas have low or no magic and can plausibly feel realistically medieval.

Enchanted creatures may have their own magic level, eg no Type VI Demons in civilised areas.

Edit 2: It's also designed to have little or no effect on normal PC activity, yet prevent high level spellcasters from dominating the setting.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Ya know, when I saw the title of this thread I began to thing of magic that actually "faded"...like a mechanic such as:

each round of duration there is a 5% chance per level of the spell cast for it to "fizzle", its duration instantly ending.


Don't know if that helps, but it's what occurred to me.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Robert's post makes me think about the very traditional trope that human civilisation is itself inimical to magic. This could at a stroke make the typical pre-4e D&D world finally make sense!

Edit 2: It's also designed to have little or no effect on normal PC activity, yet prevent high level spellcasters from dominating the setting.

Exactly. That was the point of it. It justifies a medieval feel to something that really shouldn't be like that if magic worked per standard, while still giving the PCs all the benefits of wielding magic in a FRPG setting.

The mechanic prevents the PCs from using their magic to "take over" in non-magical kingdoms as well, which is a nice side-effect, too.

Really though, it doesn't nerf the PCs - it nerfs the NPCs, but does so in a way that prevents the PCs from then taking advantage of the situation.

I came up with the idea initially because I was really dissatisfied with both teleportation and magic items for-sale -as-commodities in the marketplace, the two aspects of most FRPG game systems which are very much at odds with most fantasy literature. The standard fantasy novel (well, before the "gaming fiction" era of the 90s at least) is a place where magic is relatively rare and places far away are mysterious, hard to reach and news travels slowly.

With this mechanic, that aspect to a standard fantasy setting is once again "believable".

 

[Haltherrion]

Exactly. That was the point of it. It justifies a medieval feel to something that really shouldn't be like that if magic worked per standard, while still giving the PCs all the benefits of wielding magic in a FRPG setting.

It is a very good mechanism to allow a world that can be earth like in many places yet still has the high fantasy aspects as you move towards the edges of the human lands.

I'll have to give it more thought for a future setting; not a fit for the current one but good stuff.

 

[Jhaelen]

Have you ever run a campaign where magic was somehow weakened? How did you implement that in game terms?

The Earthdawn/Shadowrun setting features magic waxing and waning over time, but since it involves very long time periods there's not really any actual rules associated with it (except that higher level magic becomes (un)available).

In my current 3E campaign I've been doing it the way it was suggested in 'Elder Evils': At the speed of plot all magic sources get increasingly weaker. Some of the things I've been using:
- manifesting psionic powers costs additional pp (without any additional benefit)
- the DC to save against arcane magic is lowered
- the caster level of divine magic is reduced
- concentration checks related to spellcasting are penalized
- spellcasting as a whole is impeded (see planar magic)

Worse things might happen:
- casting time goes up (e.g. swift -> standard; standard -> full-round)
- caster must beat 'the world's SR' for spells to have any effect
- basically invert any kind of metamagic/-psionic feat, so that taking a feat is required to get the normal effect

I'd be careful about the latter ideas, though, since it potentially hoses spellcasting pcs.

 

[Haltherrion]

I'd be careful about the latter ideas, though, since it potentially hoses spellcasting pcs.

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All of those can get pretty harsh for spell casters

But interesting thoughts and if the players know the general outlines of this going in then it is on them if they picked a caster. One way to handle it from a balance point of view is to have every player run a caster and a non-caster, then everyone is hit equally. Might work well for a smaller group.

We're about to start our first 4E campaign and it does change these sorts of equations in my mind. In previous system, casters would have a lot of spells per day (eventually) and a large number to choose from. Compared to a melee class, they had far more "things to do" with their casting then the guy with the sword.

But with 4E, everything has been leveled and while for some classes, powers might be "magic" and others they might be neat fighting tricks "exploits", in the end, every one gets the same amount of stuff to play with which means nerfing magic powers can really gimp those classes compared to other classes.

But interesting suggestions; good to hear them. Lots of different ways to play with it and lots of control on the magnitude of the effect.

To be honest, I would be very leery of introducing some of the more significant effect without some careful player prep and the realization that some classes would be less playable but this could be applied in a more local setting (not world wide) with some interesting affect- as players approach the realm of the gods, magic gets harder for instance.

 

[Orius]

Exactly. That was the point of it. It justifies a medieval feel to something that really shouldn't be like that if magic worked per standard, while still giving the PCs all the benefits of wielding magic in a FRPG setting.

The mechanic prevents the PCs from using their magic to "take over" in non-magical kingdoms as well, which is a nice side-effect, too.

Really though, it doesn't nerf the PCs - it nerfs the NPCs, but does so in a way that prevents the PCs from then taking advantage of the situation.

Interesting idea. My opinion in general is that while fading magic is a somewhat common theme in fiction, it's not as easily workable in a game. It can be done rather clumsily or heavy-handed rather easily and I think many players would see it as a nerf rather than a feature. This idea might be more workable.