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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 2946241" data-attributes="member: 32164">Well, I agree that there's a difference between low/high magic worlds, and low/high magic parties.I actually sorta hate the whole "low/high" thing because it doesn't capture the essence of what I think of as the problem. Low/high is fuzzy. And, moreover, we're talking about something that's really a continuum. You can end up anywhere on the continuum, and different people would disagree about whether it was low, high, or the nebulous "mid" magic. To clarify, I'd like to quote from something Rich Baker wrote a while back. The 2e supplement Player's Option: Spells and Magic said that magic in the game essentially functioned on three criteria: Scarcity, Power and Mystery. To whit:Scarcity: How common is magic? Can anyone become a spellcaster or is it a "gift" that only a few people have?Power: What's the most magic can accomplish? How powerful is it?Mystery: What do people know about magic?Rich proposed that a DM should rate these criteria on a 1-10 scale as he sees fit, and then determine, for his campaign, whether the same ratings apply to spellcasters and items, arcane and divine, and so forth.I think D&D 3e has written more common magic and less mysterious magic into its rules. Maybe not compared to earlier editions (that's been debated to death) but there's defintely a baseline assumption on these three criteria written into the 3e rules. It's not my impression that earlier editions carried the same assumptions. Maybe their modules did: that's, to me, one of the points of a setting. However, from my impression, the Core Rulebooks themselves were surprisingly neutral on the subject.From my impression, 3e would rate those as follows:Scarcity (1 being rare and 10 being common): 7-10Power (1 being weak, and 10 being ultimate): 7-9Mystery (1 - magic is technology, 10 = Cthulu): 1-3I can conceive of magic-users being more powerful than they are in D&D, but not by much. They're definitely on the high-end of the power spectrum. Certainly at the higher levels. I can't think of many things beyond the ken of Epic Level magic. But even a moderate level caster has spells that completely eliminate the need for certain skills.Scarcity is an issue. Magic is very common in D&D. I'd put Eberron at about 9, with FR falling somewhat below that (but not much). Giving credit to the design team, Eberron does vary the "scarcity" rating somewhat by making low-level magic common (say 9) and higher-level effects less common (maybe not even 5...).Mystery is another area that's taken a beating. Most D&D settings now have stripped the mystery out of magic. Everyone knows how it works. The sense of wonder that Harry Potter gets when he walks into a magic tent is being ruthlessly removed from most D&D settings. "These people are used to this - they'd expect it." The problem is that ubiquitous, non-mysterious magic basically means "magic is everywhere" and the residents of the word don't think twice about it. They're no more impressed by a flying wizard than we are by a helicopter or a dishwasher. I actually think power is the least worrisome of these. Because, as many people point out, that can be adjusted by limiting the number of high-level casters in your campaign. Well, that and limiting the degree to which spells make skills and other mundane activities worthless. Heck, as I mentioned above, Eberron even does the former (though not the latter). The ubiquitous nature of magic and lack of mystery associated with it are the things that I find frustratingly "written into" D&D.Moreover, in 3e, items basically hit the same marks as spellcasters, and arcane and divine magic score about the same as well. It would be nice if it were easier to vary the criteria somewhat.My two cents.</blockquote>

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