Is it time for a low-magic setting?

[Gold Roger]

Buddy, just because you don't like it doens't mean other folks don't.

That's why I said personal opinion (Like Psion already said). My point wasn't "I'm a fan of high magic and want the game never to change". My point was more "D&D, as is now, depends much on magic to provide interesting gameplay".

Why cant it ? LOL! This sounds like a religious sentiment. It's just a game.

Does it? Must be your interpretation, I'm not religious about D&D at all. I've tried Iron Heroes. I've tinkered a lot with it, at times. I'm seriously eyeballing M&M to fill most of my future gaming needs. It's simply that D&D isn't a standart fantasy emulation. It's a game that leans on common fantasy imagery and clichees.

Also, please don't disagree with me in a derogative way. I've done a civil reply, please discuss it that way, I don't enjoy being belittled.

Maybe they would come back into the fold a bit more if the mainstream game addressed their needs better?

Maybe. But many of these have strong oppinions. What's the right low magic for one, is rubbish for another (discussions when IH came out show as much). "Is low magic=grimm and gritty?" is only one question that arises in that context.

I dont...see... how that would be much different from exactly what I was talking about, if you just add the setting part.

The difference is that my suggestion provides a toolbox, while you suggest a definite. The market for the first is much broader, and in such a big book there would be enough space for some sample setting building blocks. Many strong opinioned DM's take badly to definites.

I think your assumption that your idea is opposed because people are reactionary is wrong. For one, you didn't even suggest a change to the basic D&D rules, how could people then be opposed to those changes. And then, many people that will disagree with you, simply stating that it won't work aren't even high magic fans themself.

But you accuse and insult us for saying no to, what looked to us, like a simple question. Please stop it, we can talk this out in a normal way.

You also didn't jet acount these points (quoted for your convenience):

-There are already many such settings by other companies

-It would require deriviations from the Core books, something wizards isn't really willing to do (and shouldn't be, that's what the ogl is for)

-Any other setting would splinter WotC's recourses. The many different settings are said to be one of the reasons TSR went down

 

[Nomad4life]

If a lower magic D&D setting needed to borrow some mechanics from D20 modern, or Conan, or True20, how or where would that be a problem? It would have the benefit of forming a standardized base from which some of these other systems could more comfortably connect back to the core system, IMO.

I don’t really follow. If I had to modify 3.5 until it ran like True20... Why wouldn’t I just save myself the trouble and keep playing True20?

I think one question you’re asking here is “Can D&D be used to run low-magic settings.” The answer is that yes, it can... If you nerf half the game and modify the other half. At which point, would you still be playing “D&D” or something else?

It’s not about stating that “D&D should never change.” It’s about asking “WHY should D&D be changed, when other D20 systems already cover the target area better.”

If you have an answer to that, then more power to you- happy modding. As for me, it just seems like a lot of extra time spent reworking the game; time that other companies have already put in for me.

 

[Eva of Sirrion]

With all due respect, it doesn't sound to me like what you need is a new campaign setting. What you need is more of a guide or an alternate set of rules on how to do a low-magic campaign. Because you can indeed make FR or Eberron or any other setting into a low-magic campaign, with a little legwork. It takes two things:

1. Scaling back the amount of treasure you hand out and the power of monsters (especially at higher levels, you may not want to throw baddies that'd ordinarily be of appropriate CR at the party).

2. Getting across to your characters that magic isn't widespread. Don't have friendly wizards in every town and friendly clerics in every temple (or if you do, make sure they're lower-level and can't meet all the party's potential healing needs).

Now again, that kind of thing takes legwork, and I can understand if people are miffed that it does take legwork to do low-magic. After all, we've laid down $90 USD of our hard-earned jink for the core rulebooks. It would've been nice of WotC had included variant rules and guidelines for lower magic in the core books. The way D&D is built, the rules are balanced on the edge of a dime, and if you have to tweak rules, you waste time in and out of the game, and if you miss (which is a good possibility due to the aforementioned balance) you run the risk of pissing off or perhaps losing your gaming group. But unfortunately, the rules are what they are. You want low-magic D&D, you gotta do one of three things:

1. Sit down with pen and paper and grind out how you want to do it, crunch the numbers and try to get everything so it's challenging and fair for your players, but not to the point where they get pulverized.

2. Sit down with your players and tell them what you want to do. First off, make sure they're all on board with the idea. If they're not, don't waste time with #1. Second off, see if they're willing to help with the number-crunching and retooling. Two heads are better than one as they say.

3. If 1 and 2 fail, go on to the WotC boards and beg for them to publish like a DMG3 for low-magic.

 

[big dummy]

The difference is that my suggestion provides a toolbox, while you suggest a definite. The market for the first is much broader, and in such a big book there would be enough space for some sample setting building blocks. Many strong opinioned DM's take badly to definites.

I don't think you read all my posts in the thread then (which I'm not blaming you for...) I'm not trying to suggest a very specifically defined setting, just the opposite, in fact basically what you advocated, a very broad setting which could encompass much of what is already out there and kind of tie it together..

I think your assumption that your idea is opposed because people are reactionary is wrong.

Look at the poll carefully.

You also didn't jet acount these points (quoted for your convenience):

Thats because they were already addressed in my replies to other people in the thread.

BD

 

[big dummy]

With all due respect, it doesn't sound to me like what you need is a new campaign setting. What you need is more of a guide or an alternate set of rules on how to do a low-magic campaign. Because you can indeed make FR or Eberron or any other setting into a low-magic campaign, with a little legwork. It takes two things:

1. Scaling back the amount of treasure you hand out and the power of monsters (especially at higher levels, you may not want to throw baddies that'd ordinarily be of appropriate CR at the party).

2. Getting across to your characters that magic isn't widespread. Don't have friendly wizards in every town and friendly clerics in every temple (or if you do, make sure they're lower-level and can't meet all the party's potential healing needs).

Now again, that kind of thing takes legwork, and I can understand if people are miffed that it does take legwork to do low-magic. After all, we've laid down $90 USD of our hard-earned jink for the core rulebooks. It would've been nice of WotC had included variant rules and guidelines for lower magic in the core books. The way D&D is built, the rules are balanced on the edge of a dime, and if you have to tweak rules, you waste time in and out of the game, and if you miss (which is a good possibility due to the aforementioned balance) you run the risk of pissing off or perhaps losing your gaming group. But unfortunately, the rules are what they are. You want low-magic D&D, you gotta do one of three things:

1. Sit down with pen and paper and grind out how you want to do it, crunch the numbers and try to get everything so it's challenging and fair for your players, but not to the point where they get pulverized.

2. Sit down with your players and tell them what you want to do. First off, make sure they're all on board with the idea. If they're not, don't waste time with #1. Second off, see if they're willing to help with the number-crunching and retooling. Two heads are better than one as they say.

3. If 1 and 2 fail, go on to the WotC boards and beg for them to publish like a DMG3 for low-magic.

Thanks, but I can definately do my own homebrew. What I see is that a significant percentage of D&D players are doing it low magic, and as folks have pointed out there are several lower magic settings, it might therefore be a good idea for WOTC to put out something which can tie it all together, and break up this "thin as a dime" interpretation of the rules as they stand. If it's really true that you can't run lower magic in the current rules, then I think thats a big problem! Why limit the game so much especially when a lot of people play it lower magic?

BD

 

[Gold Roger]

I don't think you read all my posts in the thread then (which I'm not blaming you for...) I'm not trying to suggest a very specifically defined setting, just the opposite, in fact basically what you advocated, a very broad setting which could encompass much of what is already out there and kind of tie it together..

Then why a setting at all? Can we agree that a genre product may be the best way to go about the problem then?

Look at the poll carefully.

What has the one to do with the other? Soory, I don't see it.

It's quite ambigous, by the way.

I had to search before aI found an answer that was remotely my cathegory.

The answers don't fit the question (You ask if it's time for the setting-question for a objective ancle, and give possible answers that are build on subjective base).

Thats because they were already addressed in my replies to other people in the thread.

I've read the whole thread and reread it. You adress any one of the three points or at least you did so far from sufficient.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

For the record, this is exactly the kind of attitude I find worrisome in D&D today. Who says the D&D rules have to be interpreted so narrowly? Why does balance trump every other reason for playing?

First off, I never complained or even praised the balance of other settings. Yeah, I like D20 Modern. I haven't even tried Conan, AGOT, or many other low magic settings, so I'm not qualified to judge their balance.

Second, balance doesn't just hurt GMs, it hurts players. Right now, I'm in a low magic DnD campaign. Not knowing it was low magic at first, I made the mistake of playing a "light fighter", and my AC has increased from 16 (at 1st-level) to, at 4th-level... 16. In a few levels, my horse (Wild Cohort) will be more powerful than my character! Other characters are going to run into this problem in a few more levels, too. The DM puts a lot of work into the campaign, he's a very good GM, and he still can't balance it.

Third, it's not just an issue of balance. It's an issue of "time" or "workload". It would take a lot of effort to re-jig the 3.5 rules so they're fun for everyone in a low magic setting. It'll take more than using Unearthed Arcana's "class bonus to Defense" rules. You'll have to alter every magic-using class, which is 8 out of 11 base classes. If you're going to change the rules so much, you might as well work "from scratch".

With all due respect, it doesn't sound to me like what you need is a new campaign setting. What you need is more of a guide or an alternate set of rules on how to do a low-magic campaign. Because you can indeed make FR or Eberron or any other setting into a low-magic campaign, with a little legwork. It takes two things:

1. Scaling back the amount of treasure you hand out and the power of monsters (especially at higher levels, you may not want to throw baddies that'd ordinarily be of appropriate CR at the party).

No, no, no. Too much work for the DM. Assuming he charts and charts (or goes by feel) and assigns appropriate amounts of treasure, he still has more work to deal with. He's going to have to ensure that defensive items get handed out more often than offensive items. (Losing magic items doesn't just make characters weaker, it lowers things like saves and AC more than it affects thinks like save DCs and attack rolls.) I don't want to think about classed NPCs and their magic items.

I don't trust statements like "if it has spell-like abilities, boost the CR by 3". Sure, it might kill the PCs unless they do something like catch it by surprise and then cut it into pieces.

Furthermore, the effect of monsters will also be uneven. You can have monsters with high save DCs from poison in a non-magic setting, which will hurt the PCs disproportionately when they have weaker Cloaks of Resistance. (That's just an example.) You would need to modify every monster to take the new PC expected stats into account. You can do it by feel, but that increases the chances of accidental TPKs.

And then there's the class changes... it's so much work, you're better off using a set of rules that are actually designed to take this into account.

Iron Heroes is the closest "unmodified" rules set that I've seen. They use very different classes, which are not only more powerful than DnD classes, but are also "evenly balanced" once you take the lack of magic items into account. Generally, IHs can take on DnD monsters. They have high saves (almost like they're wearing Cloaks of Resistance), high ACs (they learned to dodge - and this makes up for the lack of defensive magic items), and powerful abilities overall. You can take a lot of DnD adventures and let IHs run through it. You'll still find holes though (no healing magic, can't deal with big grappling monsters, etc), and you'll note that IH PCs use different classes from DnD. Because there's no magic items, there's no risk of unevenness.

2. Getting across to your characters that magic isn't widespread. Don't have friendly wizards in every town and friendly clerics in every temple (or if you do, make sure they're lower-level and can't meet all the party's potential healing needs).

Ok, that's Eberron or similar settings Eberron is a high magic setting, even if there aren't that many high level good aligned spellcasters.

 

[Gold Roger]

Thanks, but I can definately do my own homebrew. What I see is that a significant percentage of D&D players are doing it low magic, and as folks have pointed out there are several lower magic settings, it might therefore be a good idea for WOTC to put out something which can tie it all together, and break up this "thin as a dime" interpretation of the rules as they stand. If it's really true that you can't run lower magic in the current rules, then I think thats a big problem! Why limit the game so much especially when a lot of people play it lower magic?

BD

Oh, you can run D&D that way, no thing, I'm doing it right now. We had some extremely high mortality rate, but that's because I'm a killer DM, more than anything.

However, you can't do a setting with unmodified Core Rules (something WotC has explicitly stated with the setting search it isn't interested in).

Also D&D looses quite a bit of it's oompf with reduced magic, something you have to replace with something else.

Further, all the problems D&D has in the high levels become worse in a setting like you suggest (So, where did all those level 10+ villains come from? Why didn't they destroy the world earlier).

 

[Eva of Sirrion]

(Psi)SeveredHead: Thank you for cutting and drying the point I was alluding to earlier. So I guess the question really comes down to is, is there not some happy medium between standard D&D (where characters need to be decked out from head to toe to meet challenges commensurate with their level) and a game like IH (where characters have virtually no aid aside from the class abilities). We have two extreme cases, is there not a middle point within already-published d20 works? Again I think it's not so much a setting problem as the OP seems to think, but a rules problem.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I think it would be good if WotC released a "core" low magic setting just so the sub-genre got a wider audience but it would have to be a serious rules modification. The CRs of monsters would skyrocket, casting classes might be limited to PrCs, spell lists would need grooming, treasure tables rejiggered, etc, etc.

WotC is highly unlikely to muddy the waters with a low-magic setting/system and will likely direct developers with those kinds of propositions to other d20 publishing houses (to at least keep the d20 demand high). I've heard really good things about Iron Heroes and Black Company and so far the only thing that kept me from buying IH was I wanted UA more (dang budget!).