Gaaa!!!! I need a Low Magic System!!!!

[JimAde]

You know, I'd also reccomend some of the stuff from UA for a low-magic game: reserve points, class-based defense bonuses, and maybe even action points. It'll at least make PCs less reliant on magic.

But then, that's another book you'd have to buy...

I was also going to suggest incantations. I don't have Unearthed Arcana yet, so I'm not sure, but I believe the incantation system there is the same as the one in d20 Modern's Urban Arcana, which is now part of the modern SRD. Which is, of course, available for free. Free is good

One other option would be to disallow wizards, and make sorcerers roll their spell acquisitions randomly or assign new spells yourself. That would require a lot of trust and cooperation from your players, though.

 

[Sarellion]

Perhaps you could use a spirit based system. Your spellcaster has to negotiate with spirits that they grant him power. they could grant him spells or work directly for him. So there has to be a way for the spellcaster to contact and deal with spirits. There is some inspiration for this in the old spells and magic book (2e). The shaman dealt with nature, animal and ancestor spirits. they gave you advice, information and granted you spells.
They could have some way to bind them or charm them. An evil spellcaster would be some who binds spirits and force them to work for him, a good one uses diplomacy and honest deals.

Another way to restrict magic would be that spellcasters don´t get all their spellslots every day. They have to wait longer to gain their power back. This could lead to a longer downtime so you may have to push your group forward. Another way could be that spellcasters only gain their powers back if they visit magical shrines, guarded by spirits of magic or powerful wizards. They will grant you magical power but will restrict access to more destructive spells.
Perhaps you need to give the spellcasters a little bit more in other departments so that they don´t feel shafted. More skill points perhaps? A little bit more combat power with a better BAB and better weapons? Perhaps you could use something like the bloodlines of UA. Every spellcaster has some minor magical abilities that he can use granted by his blood or by his magical tradition.

 

[ajanders]

Hrmm

THis new campaign world I'm making is a bit strange. The spirits that created the world dwell within it and all around it. Its a highly mystical place. But I don't want it to be soaked with magic. In this game, I want magic to be convient, not required. Its been my view that by the time you reach high level, you need a hoard of items to survive. I don't want that.
...
Please help!!

Well, I'm tinkering with this concept myself and have about three implementations come up with. In order of increasing variance from D&D d20, they are.
1) Weird magic. Remove bard, ranger, paladin, wizard, cleric, and druid. Replace the ranger with the Woodsman variant fighter class from Dragon (it may also be in UA). The IK variant is also an option, or Ken Hood's bushfighter. Anything that fills that rustic variant and doesn't cast spells.
Replace the paladin with the knight variant fighter class from Dragon...or the Birthright Noble class. Or buff the aristocrat NPC class to the point you feel it works as a PC class (which may be none). Again, it preserves the noble fighter concept...but without spells.
Replace the cleric with the evangelist class from Dragon...or the spontaneous divine spellcaster from UA.
The net results are that spells become less things people learn and more things people are given by spirits of various sorts. The details of how those spells are given are best left to roleplay, but I like the concept of doing quests for elemental spirits and the like.
You may want to allow the sorceror especially a bonus feat at first level: for this setting I recommend either the bloodline feats from Dragon or Spell Thematics.
You'll also need to remove spells you don't like if you're opposed to combat spells.
This has the advantage of being pretty compatible with all other D20 material: you'll need to do a minimum of kitbashing with CR's and the like as well.

2) D20 Modern, the medieval way. A number of people have tinkered with this: change the skills and occupations while using your choice of the Shadow Chasers or Unearthed Arcana FX packs and prestige classes will do most of what you might want...though again, you're using Vancian magic there. If you don't want to use Vancian magic, check out the magickal prestige classes from Dark Matter: Diabolist and Hermetic Alchemist. Those'll give your supernatural a completely different feel from anything in D&D. The disadvantage is you might have to invent lots of prestige classes to handle different types of spellcasters.

3)Rip the Force system out of Star Wars, because that's all feat and skill based. You may be able to do this with the Wheel of Time as well.

4) (Bonus) You could just say there was no magic and make it all psionics: that should be functionally the same as standard D&D d20.

Let me know what works for you

 

[MerakSpielman]

Some ramblings off the top of my head:

Mages gain one new spell per level. This spell is always unique and specific to the particular mage. After the player designs the spell they want, the DM arbitrarily decides what level the spell is. There's no going back. If the DM decides that a fireball-clone is a 5th level spell, so be it. The player doesn't get to change his mind. The more the DM doesn't think the particular spell fits the magic system of the world, the higher the level he gives it. The DM is free to give spells levels higher than 9 if he wishes.

All wizards can cast all their spells spontaniously. All wizards always have access to all of their spells.

All spells are extraordinarily difficult to cast. To cast a spell, the caster must make a spellcraft check where the DC=25+(3*spell level). Note that the DC goes up considerably faster than the wizard's ranks in spellcraft.

Modifyers can add to the caster's spellcraft check. For every hour added to the casting time of the spell, the caster gains a +1 bonus, to a maximum of +5 at five hours.

Expensive components can also add bonuses (measured by the cost of the components):

10gp for a +1 bonus
100gp for a +2 bonus
500gp for a +3 bonus
1000gp for a +4 bonus
3000gp for a +5 bonus

Researching the current signs and portents can add bonuses. For every full day the mage observes signs and portents of the natural world (alignment of the starts, behavior of animals, eating specific foods at certain times, etc...) the better he can specifically modify his upcoming spell to be more successsful. Every day so spent provides an additional +1 bonus, to a maximum of a +5 bonus for five days of study and observation. No other spells can be cast during this observation time.

The wizard can opt to take ability score damage to get a spell to be more likely to work. This ability score damage is applied randomly to either Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution. This is always temporary damage. If the damage taken reduces any score to 0, then the spell fails. The amount of damage taken is based on the amount of bonus desired, based on the following chart:

+1 - 1d4 points of ability damage.
+2 - 1d4 points of ability damage to two separate ability scores.
+3 - 1d8 points of ability damage.
+4 - 1d8 points of ability damage to two separate ability scores.
+5 - 1d8 points of ability damage to all three scores.

Results: 1st level mage has a +9 spellcraft (+3 ability, +2 skill focus, +4 ranks) and one spell. Unless they were greedy, this spell is a zero or first level spell, for spellcraft DCs of 25 or 28. Now, if this mage takes five days of research, and increases the casting time to 5 hours, he has a +19 spellcraft and a decent chance of pulling off a spell. If he tries to cast a spell on the fly, the chances go down drastically.

A 9th level spell requires a spellcraft check DC 52 to cast. With all the bonuses above, he'd have a total spellcraft modifier of +48 (at 20th level), giving pretty decent odds of casting the spell, but only if he's taking all that damage, spending the gold, and taking the full time to research and cast. Of course, this mage will only have a total of 20 spells in his repitoire.

What do you think?

 

[Altalazar]

Why not just eliminate magic altogether? Tell your players up front they can play no spellcasting classes and tell them all the other spell-like abilities of classes are really just supernatural.

Then later on, you could always sneak in a little magic here and there, but basically, make it medieval europe with a bit more diversity in races and wildlife (orcs, trolls, etc). Of course, you really ought to limit certain monsters as well - and eliminate the spells from others you might want to keep, like Dragons. If you do eliminate 99.99% of magic, one thing you ought to do is eliminate all magic resistance. Magic would be too rare for any creature to build up an immunity to it - this includes dragons.

 

[Piratecat]

I hear good things about Grim Tales from Bad Axe. Maybe Wulf can tell us when to expect it.

http://www.badaxegames.com/html/products/grim_tales/index.html

It's superb, and it's hitting the printer's this coming week.

 

[Desdichado]

You're not making it easy to offer alternatives.

Have you considered the CoC system? UA's incantations? The Midnight system? WoT? Arcana Unearthed?

I'd use (and in fact, have used to some extent or another) all of those systems. Arcana Unearthed isn't exactly low magic, though.

A simpler system would be to remove all four "dedicated" spellcasting classes. Fighter, Barbarian, monk and Rogue would still be the completely non-magic classes, wizard, sorceror, cleric and druid would be out, and the ranger, bard and paladin would become the effective druids, wizards and clerics.

That one, at least, is probably you're simplest bet, along with the enforced multiclass option described above.

 

[Yokiboy]

But its also about feeling of the magic system. I can't just start nerfing spells. That will simply be the same thing, just different. Its hard to describe. The standard system as lost that special feeling needed for this game...

Okay, my top suggestion then is Unknown Armies, the magic system is not to hard to port over to d20. Perhaps make an Expert able to choose one of the magic schools from Unknown Armies and you're set. The system is way different than standard D&D and a whole ton cooler!

Or how about Ars Magica? It should also be easy enough to port over to d20, and they were giving away the rule book in PDF format for free. It is a terrific system and "feels" like magic.

There's also Warhammer FRPG, which starts out very low magic, and as deadly as the game is, high level magicians are scarce.

I would also like to recommend Conan the RPG from Mongoose, but you already eliminated that option. You're missing out though...

Are you dead set on D&D/d20? Otherwise the Over the Edge rpg from Atlas Games features a very good system and it is darn easy to implement just about any magic system for the game, I developed a freeform magic system for it, which is sort of my version of the Ars Magica system, but cooler!

TTFN,

Yokiboy

 

[MerakSpielman]

Elements of Magic, but reduce the number of spell lists gained and spell points available...

 

[Red Spire Press]

[hijack]Dark Legacies is a low-magic system in every sense of the word. Magic is rare. Magic is hard to use. Using magic has consequences. Most people won't want to use magic (for roleplaying reasons, not because the system is complex). Desinging such a system requires that all aspects of the game rules and setting contribute to promoting low magic - it's as much about the why's as it is about the how's.[/hijack]

http://www.redspirepress.com