good books for a low-magic campaign?

[molonel]

Beowulf had a bad habit of breaking swords. I guess his DM prefered using critical miss tables, and the player playing Beowulf, like me, was a Master of the Natural 1:

http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~beowulf/main.html

Chapter XXXVI

But Naegling5 was shivered,
broken in battle was Beowulf's sword,
old and gray. 'Twas granted him not
that ever the edge of iron at all
could help him at strife: too strong was his hand,
so the tale is told, and he tried too far
with strength of stroke all swords he wielded,
though sturdy their steel: they steaded him nought.

And actually, Beowulf used a dagger to finish off the dragon, not a sword:

Chapter XXXVII

At last the king
wielded his wits again, war-knife drew,
a biting blade by his breastplate hanging,
and the Weders'-helm smote that worm asunder,
felled the foe, flung forth its life.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Since a "sufficient" rules set, for me, is not a low magic solution, it addresses the challenge of creatures or NPCs or situations where PCs cannot win with a large toolbox of answers that includes magical movement, spells which create a temporary stalement or divide the battlefield (like a Wall of Force), or character abilities that involve some sort of evasive manuevering. A lot of those simply wouldn't be available without magic, and how someone is supposed to "run away" from creatures with higher than 30' movement is an intriguing proposition. Sometimes retreat is not an option. I find a world where you can run away whenever you want, and nothing ever follows you, or hunts you or presses the fight to be an equally implausible world alongside one where you can always win.

Interesting... It occurs to me that one could argue that one lynchpin of the low-magic setting is the possibility that the characters sometimes find themselves up against creatures that they cannot hurt and cannot flee from: i.e., a parallel verisimilitude to "the real world."


Wulf

 

[Desdichado]

Interesting... It occurs to me that one could argue that one lynchpin of the low-magic setting is the possibility that the characters sometimes find themselves up against creatures that they cannot hurt and cannot flee from: i.e., a parallel verisimilitude to "the real world."

Possibly. But if they cannot defeat it and cannot escape it, then it seems putting that up against the PCs seems like a sign of bad GMing.

 

[mmadsen]

Interesting... It occurs to me that one could argue that one lynchpin of the low-magic setting is the possibility that the characters sometimes find themselves up against creatures that they cannot hurt and cannot flee from: i.e., a parallel verisimilitude to "the real world."

I think that may be a better description of grim, rather than low-magic. And if the characters can't win and can't flee, that's pretty damn grim.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Possibly. But if they cannot defeat it and cannot escape it, then it seems putting that up against the PCs seems like a sign of bad GMing.

I agree 100%.

But my premise wasn't the inclusion of such encounters-- merely the suggestion, the importance of that possibility dawning on the players.

It is, after all, this premise that is at the heart of the tension that works so well in CoC.

 

[Desdichado]

But my premise wasn't the inclusion of such encounters-- merely the suggestion, the importance of that possibility dawning on the players.

It is, after all, this premise that is at the heart of the tension that works so well in CoC.

Ah, I see. Yes, that's a good point. I don't know that any such fear is clearly articulated in my own group, but they do all know that death is a very real (and permanent) possibility for them, which really changes the way they play for the better, IMO.

 

[mmadsen]

But my premise wasn't the inclusion of such encounters-- merely the suggestion, the importance of that possibility dawning on the players.

It is, after all, this premise that is at the heart of the tension that works so well in CoC.

Good point. Again though, that's about being grim, not low-magic. A campaign with balrogs wandering the countryside isn't low-magic, but it is grim.

 

[molonel]

Or, to put it another way, the Midnight campaign setting is both low magic and grim.

 

[Drifter Bob]

I don't think it's heavily exaggerated, and I think it's possible that many of the tailorings of the rules required for running low magic games are so heavily ingrained in your game design that they run as background processes. That's a compliment, by the way: I'm saying that you might do some things so naturally that you forget they are work.

Thats possible, it's true that you dont see that many competent DM's out there frankly, but I think dealing with this isn't quite as technical as you seem to feel.

I understand that evaluating CR is more art than science.

Definately, but you have to check out your assumptions...

Undead are more challenging against a party without a cleric, and some undead are a cakewalk with a cleric. CR is a baseline for a DM to work from, and not a math problem with easy predictable answers.

... for example, low magic does not mean no magic....

But my opinion does not arise from ignorance, nor a fixation on numbers.

I don't assume it does, but you seem to be looking at it a different way than I do

DR, especially DR -/magic, becomes a more important consideration. So do spell-like and supernatural abilities. So does ability damage, ability drain and energy drain. Incorporeal creatures move from challenging to a TPK in a bottle. SR becomes less of a factor, and thus less valuable in determining a monster's CR. All those things and more need to be considered.

They do, but I don't find this difficult. It's just a matter of thinking about your campaign world, how things are going to work out logically. In a world where +5 Holy Avenger swords and wands of meteor swarms are rare, a dragon or even say, a werewolf or a wraith is going to be a profoundly dangerous creature, with a reputation more likely than not.

In standard D&D, there may be swarms of these critters around ever corner, but in my world, any creature which cannot be harmed by normal weapons is going to create a BIG 'footprint' if you will. Legends of the nature of the fearsome Dragon of the forlorn mountain range will spread far and wide (as they do in good fantasy literature and in mythology) Similarly, the old house haunted by the wraith has a reputation of being a place where heroes have died. Half sane survivors may babble of ghostly evil spirits unharmed by normal weapons. Just the same with the werewolf that stalks the still glades of the dark forest.

So the party doesn't tend to just run into these kind of beings by surprise. They are very powerful and the area where they roam is generally going to be known. When they learn of these things they can take appropriate measures. You may forget that in many cases such simple expedients as silver or holy water, a blessing from a good priest, or something else like fire or acid can harm a Damage Resistant monster.

In other cases, remember, low magic doesn't mean no magic. Just because the party doesn't routinely carry +5 Holy Avengers doesn't mean they cannot find temporary items, less powerful items, or sympathetic powerful spellcasters to help them. The high level wizard can cast magic weapon for the party, or give them a scroll. I had a recent adventure where the party went on a short quest to acquire a quantity of "Gliminister of Sharpness" which conveys +3 magic bonus to weapons for a fixed amount of time.

Generally speaking, you should really know the monsters you use in your campaign, have a sense of what their power is and what their weaknesses are, if any. Remarkable monsters which have extraordinary powers should be treated as just that, extraordinary.

Finally, humans are very devious. A brown bear or a tiger or a polar bear is a mighty dangerous critter in real life and even in D&D, let alone a pack of wolves or a pride of lions. Humans in real life routinely slaughtered such beasts well before the availablity of firearms. It is my experience that if you have enough verisimilitude in your campaign, your players will tap into this ingenuity and craft and will amaze you with their abilities to solve the problems of defeating a monster. I find the heightened level of immersion often inspries my players to "rise above" as black flag used to say.

A dragon in a lair somewhere has the same problem as a castle in medieval warfare... if it is a known entity, ways can and will be invented to defeat it.

I'd also like to add, that my idea of low magic is not "no magic" or even "less magic", I actually have a lot of magic in my campaign, I'll even boost the number of spells available to casters. It's just that higher level spells and more powerful spells are much rarer.



DB

 

[molonel]

Thats possible, it's true that you dont see that many competent DM's out there frankly, but I think dealing with this isn't quite as technical as you seem to feel.

To which I'd reply that most things probably don't seem technical after you've been doing them for twenty-five years.

Touche?

In standard D&D, there may be swarms of these critters around ever corner, but in my world, any creature which cannot be harmed by normal weapons is going to create a BIG 'footprint' if you will. Legends of the nature of the fearsome Dragon of the forlorn mountain range will spread far and wide (as they do in good fantasy literature and in mythology) Similarly, the old house haunted by the wight has a reputation of being a place where heroes have dies. Half sane survivors babble of ghostly evil spirits unharmed by normal weapons. Just the same with the werewolf that stalks the still glades of the great forest. So the party doesn't tend to just run into these kind ofs beings by surprise. They are very powerful and the area where they roam is generally going to be known. When they learn of these things they can take appropriate measures. You may forget that in many cases such simple expedients as silver or holy water, or something else like fire or acid can harm a Damage Resistant monster. In other cases, remember, low magic doesn't mean no magic. Just because the party doesn't routinely carry +5 Holy Avengers doesn't mean they cannot find temporary items, less powerful items, or sympathetic powerful spellcasters to help them. The high level wizard can cast magic weapon for the party, or give them a scroll. I had a recent adventure where the party went on a short quest to acquire a quantity of "Gliminister of Sharpness" which conveys +3 magic bonus to weapons for a fixed amount of time.

I'm always very interested to hear about how other people run their games, and I really appreciate this description of your campaign world.

But understand, too, that from my perspective, what you have described entails a substantial retooling both of backstory, assumptions and monster selection. While I read the storyline with great interest, when I re-read it comparatively with the games I run, I puff out my cheeks and exhale slowly while thinking about the sort of work it would entail for me to steer my own ship in the same direction. It doesn't seem like that much work to you. But I've run them, and it does involve more work for me.

In the games I run, the Prime Material Plane is only one plane in an infinite number of planes. It is one of many battegrounds between opposing planes - Hell and Celestia, the Abyss and everywhere else - and extraordinary creatures are rare and wonderful to common folks. That's one of the reasons low-level adventurers don't encounter certain powerful beings early in their career: not because they pop into being when the odometer rolls over a certain point, but rather because the PCs are not powerful enough to venture into areas controlled or inhabited by such beings. There are lands ruled by lich queens or dracoliches, places where alternate planes cross over the Prime with odd effects, places where gods have died and angels have fallen from heaven. It is ASSUMED in my games that at some point characters will gain access to extradimensional travel, and when they do, they can venture far beyond the confines that most mortals ever see. Changing that sort of cosmology and world into a low-magic setting would be, in my opinion, more work than its worth, and I've run low magic games. The changes are far-reaching and cascading throughout my universe. The rewards promised - richer roleplaying, deeper immersion - don't satisfy any apparent gaps in my present games, so the work doesn't offer any apparent benefits for me.

Generally speaking, you should really know the monsters you use in your campaign, have a sense of what their power is and what their weaknesses are, if any.

I couldn't agree more. But then again, that's why I've said that monsters need to be very carefully considered when running a low magic game, and for precisely those reasons.

I'd also like to add, that my idea of low magic is not "no magic" or even "less magic", I actually have a lot of magic in my campaign, I'll even boost the number of spells available to casters. It's just that higher level spells and more powerful spells are much rarer.

And there are certain changes I've used myself. I've considered moving Scry to a Brd 6, Clr 8, Drd 8, Sor/Wiz 7, and Greater Scrying to Clr 9, Drd 9, Sor/Wiz 9. The route I've taken so far is to make wizards and sorcerers who can either thwart or detect scrying a valuable commodity, and using variant spells from The Complete Book of Eldritch Might for high magic wards on more powerful foes.