Grim n Gritty. Your experiences.

[Joker]

Does anyone have any they want to share? In particular how you handled magic.

 

[Desdichado]

I currently use the d20 Call of Cthulhu brand of magic. Classes are mostly replaced with classes that have no spell-casting progression or supernatural class abilities. I seriously considered using the Midnight style magic as well, and Incantations (from Unearthed Arcana and Urban Arcana) and I'd have a look at the Black Company or Conan magic as well.

Keep in mind that low magic and grim and gritty, while often hand in hand, don't have to be. I've also been in standard D&D magic games that were grim and gritty.

 

[Narfellus]

I use Midnight spell points in my midnight campaign. I've also used the Cthulhu system, but that really doesn't encourage you to use magic much, as it should be in CoC. Grim Tales had a pretty brutal spellcasting system almost as bad as Cthulhu. I'm working on converting Ars Magica to a DnD equivalent, and anytime you can have a spell fail right when you need it is pretty bad. Not sure if i would call it low magic, but definitely grittier.

Midnight is really great because it takes magic away from classes and resigns it to feats. Casters will never get quite as powerful as they will in default DnD. They can't even cast fireball or magic missle until 7th level i think, or something like that.

I also like the Psychic's Handbook which turns the entire psionic system into skills and feats. It's very much like magic, but again, has a chance of failure and also deals subdual damage. Great mechanics though.

 

[Fieari]

You mean Ken Hood's system? Been working fantastically for my group. For the most part, spells function as written... we've changed a few to fit the new system though. Magic Missile now counts as an auto crit... so soak still applies, but you get to choose the critical effect of your choice (generally bypass some form of soak, since otherwise no damage will be dealt and thus no other effects are possible). True Strike now grants you UP TO a +20 bonus to your next hit, not to make your attack roll exceed the defence roll by more than one. This keeps it true to the purpose of delivering touch spells without it granting you +20 to damage as well, which is insane for a level 1 spell, even NOT in the GnG system.

I think those are the only two problem spells we've hit so far, other than continual damage stuff. For anything that deals continual damage, it deals normal damage round 1, then normal damage + normal damage again for round 2, then normal damage + normal damage + normal damage for round 3, etc. (If it's a continual acid attack, 1d6 per round, then round 1: 1d6. Round 2: 2d6. Round 3: 3d6. Total of 6d6 damage rolled over three rounds.) This makes getting through high soaks possible. Energy resistance also applies increasingly each round, so red dragons can still wallow in lava if they want.

 

[Joker]

Yeah, sorry guys, I should have been more clear. I do mean Ken Hood's system. I want to use it for a relatively high-powered campaign. I know that must sound a little weird but I really wanted it to be damn Gritty. However I did want to adress the spells issue. I was wondering if people used some of the variant rules for magic, i.e. slower progression, spell level +1 cap damage etc and what their experiences with that were.

I'll have to look into the Midnight thingie. Is that the title of the book or the name of the setting or something?

Fieari, don't you have the problem with 20 hp PC's getting roasted by one fireball?

I'll have to look at soak aswel. It's in the revised rules, right? I must say I didn't read it thoroughly because I got turned off by the health pip thingies but I'll give it a closer look.

 

[Desdichado]

Yeah, that invalidates much of my advice, since most of the options I listed are for actually lower magic GnG games, and for GnG generically, not Ken Hood's GnG specifically. I'm not sure I'd recommend Midnight magic with KH's GnG unless you want a really scary game, as KH's GnG significantly weakens characters while simultaneously making standard magic much more powerful overall, while Midnight significantly weakens magic while making characters much more powerful overall with heroic paths and whatnot. GnG with Midnight magic means weaker than either on its own.

Although I do very much like KH's GnG on paper, I've not actually used it yet in any game I've run. Personally, I think it works better for CoC than the massive damage threshold they did use, though.

 

[diaglo]

they burn witches don't they.

the use of grim magic makes it so there are few practitioners. those who do use the arts are secretive. and those that are caught are usually slain by angry mobs.

a secret force of police for the kingdom makes sure that all users of magic are found and possibly registered for use later.

 

[DarrenGMiller]

I used an older version of Ken Hood's Grim & Gritty system with my Midnight game. My resident power gamer hated it, but everyone else like it pretty well. It makes "small" PC's at a huge disadvantage though. I HATE the "revised" Grim & Gritty, but v2.6 was great. I think using it with heroic paths (a la Midnight - and yes, that is the name of the book and the setting) balance things out. Also, I like a feat and point based magic system but haven't found or created the "right one" yet.

In game play, Grim & Gritty (2.6) actually made lower level PC's harder to kill, but also made large/huge creatures truly fearsome and spellcasters formidable. PC's were played smarter for fear of death. The HP spiral slowed down greatly. The halfling was almost unplayable because he was so weak, but did have some spellcasting success before death. The Giantborn Barbarian with a Greatsword is a killing machine who is very difficult to take down.

DM

 

[Narfellus]

Wolf, what about Midnight's feat and point-based spell system do you not like? I think it works pretty well, and has tons of flexibility. The DM can control how little or how much power the pc's have pretty easily.

 

[DarrenGMiller]

Wolf, what about Midnight's feat and point-based spell system do you not like? I think it works pretty well, and has tons of flexibility. The DM can control how little or how much power the pc's have pretty easily.

That system was actually one of the biggest drawbacks of the game for me and for my players. There were some totally useless schools when all of the spells that summon from other worlds are correctly removed. For a variety of reasons we have been continuously on the lookout for something better. I am a huge fan of feat/point based magic systems, but have not found one that is adequate throughout the entire level progression from 1-20. I (and some of my players) are working on it, but nothing yet.

DM