Is it time for a low-magic setting?

[kigmatzomat]

Here are three QUESTIONABLE ASSUMPTIONS which leap to mind:

1) The system is really balanced as is.

The system is fairly balanced as it is, yes. It is NOT perfect, some creatures come out high or low on the CR system and a lot of the problem is that "challenge" is itself a subjective term. What challenges my players could make yours into pate or yawn. But I'd say that for the bulk of players for the wide majority of creatures, the CR/EL system is functional.

It is NOT flexible. It is a 3-way axis between character abilities/loot/critter abilities. Too much of any one throws the other out of whack. The CR system somewhat requires this flaw, but the fact is that it would equally impact the old "experience for defeating monster:x" system. It would require a more dynamic XP system that was based on multiple factors that DMs could recalculate.

Take that flaw as an accepted fact and either come up with a better system or sigh and get on with life.

2) The only way to make non-magic using classes fun / interesting / or powerful within D&D is by giving them lots of powerful magic items.

If you allow magic, this is a big factor. Social is great for bards and stealth for rogues but neither does jack for the fighter. Fighters primary enjoyment is in whomping on things. Fighters, without access to magical doodads, simply cannot cope well with opponents who can cast spells unless the spell system is heavily overhauled. Improved Invis and fly are able to pretty much nerf a magic-free fighter.

And hacking the combat system.....Blech. It basically turns into writing a low-magic system.

Look, the only way you can radically alter the amount and magnitude of magical gear is to derive a math function that evaluates the PCs' combat potential based on their equipment and apply it for each and every encounter. Waaaaaay too much work.

3) Lower magic means VERY LOW MAGIC, including for the party. Again, lower magic doesn't mean there is no magic. That doesn't mean 5 or 6 strong magic items per player in a world where their items and personal abilities really stand out is terrible compared to a world where each player has 20 magic items and their skills are commonplace.

The gradation of "low" is just as subjective as "challenge" is. Your "low" magic might be my "just about right" magic or somebody else's "way too much" magic. Without having it explicitly defined is that it can mean all kinds of things. Generally flexibility comes at the cost of complexity, so a system that can handle a dynamic range of magic will require additional DM overhead.

From a play standpoint, the problem with low magic is that supply is very, very finite. It has to be finite or else the setting will quickly cease to be low magic. The players will not be able to commission or plan on acquiring any particular item. Even with a moon-sized hunk of gold, they might not be able to get a party member resurrected. In many ways, it sucks more to know that something is possible but you can't find it than to think something is impossible. This is why many players dislike low-magic settings and people in the Peace Corps become clinically depressed.

 

[Nyaricus]

Big Dummy, I beleive there is a place within the RPG market for a low magic setting - indeed I am certain there are more than a few publishing them. Personally, I know of Castles and Crusades, which I beielve is more rules -and- magic lite (rules for sure, magic not so sure), Black Company (from what I've heard), that Grim and Gritty one, and Iron Heroes (and Raven Crowkings excellent PHB, which he mailed me and I've subsequently fallen in love with ).

Personally, I'd say that if you haven't taken a look at Iron Heroes yet, please do. The power level in Iron Heroes ~roughly~ matches 3.5 D&D and there are no magic items and an *optional* (please note the *OPTIONAL* part) arcane spellcasting class. It's an excellent take on a low/no magic D&D world. I am personally using Elements of Magic: Mythic Earth Revised in combination with Iron Heroes to make a low magic campaign setting with my players. There are several wikis that combined both systems, and we'll be using one of those rulesets.

Regardless of my own games and campaigns, here are my opinions: 3.5 D&D - splatbooks and all - would never properly be able to give a DM or his players a low magic campaign setting. It cannot work that way. The games balance wouldn't be able to recover in such a game, with no magic items or spellcasters, or whatever your definition may be. Furthermore, WotC has said in more than one occasion that they have no interest in a low magic campiagn, becasue of many of the above reasons, but mostly because game balance would be in the pot. D&D is a game with Pokemounts, spellcasting Assassins, martial monks, spell-flinging archmagis, flying carpets, fighters with swords enhanced with powerful magics of the elements, speed, sharpness, et al, druids that shapeshift into Elementals, neverending Warlock Evocations, and the kitchen sink to boot. Taking something like "20% of d20 Modern" will not solve all the problems of taking out 90% of D&D 3.5 edition, because low magic does just about that.

I like low magic, it's just really frickin' hard to craft a varient ruleset to it.

Low magic settings = lazy dm'ing.

And thread crapping is not going to do anything to help this thread. Please leave, or simply take it elsewhere (ie not EN World).

 

[Agamon]

My homebrew is low magic. It started as 3.0 (actually as a 2.0/3.0 hybrid) and it went okay, but it was a bit of work making things work. And it didn't turn out as low magic as I would have liked. I'm now running it using Iron Heroes and the new rules make a lot of difference making the game low magic.

Midnight and A Game of Thrones are good examples of d20 low magic, but again, they aren't D&D. I used to be on the side that said low magic was doable in D&D, but I don't think it's worth the effort anymore with all the other options available.

 

[Imp]

There ought to be systems you could sub in for the magic item Christmas tree system that's currently the default, and it's very annoying that there aren't, and the idea that there could be draws such ire. A sacrifice/favor system (sacrifice x amount of wealth and the nature spirit favors you with the benefits of some miscellaneous magical item for an adventure), more powerful mundane items, mystical trainers, something along the lines of PHB2 affiliations, IH-style stunts, increased stat gain, action points, inherent supernatural abilities, stronger temporary magic items, all or any of these should be able to be slotted along with various weakenings of the magic system as is: no permanent magic items, no player-made (permanent) magic items, undependable, cross-interfering, or otherwise restricted magic and/or magic items, spellcasters as prestige classes, skill requirements for spells, increased material component reqs, increased casting time or changed processes, etc. In other words there ought to be options for dressing up the abilities provided by magic in different clothes and retain game balance so that people can play in different worlds. Imagination, right? Or bean-counting, whichever you want.

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

Historical Campaign Suplements

For a little more than three years I ran a series of campaigns using TSR's Historical Campaign Supplements for AD&D 2nd ed. I had more fun in those three years than I've had in more than 25 years of D&D. Granted, none of the heroes ever got past "name level" so it might've fallend apart at very high levels. I'll never know. But it was tremendously fun and refreshing for everyone involved.

 

[big dummy]

There ought to be systems you could sub in for the magic item Christmas tree system that's currently the default, and it's very annoying that there aren't, and the idea that there could be draws such ire.

Amen brother.

BD

 

[Raylis]

you could always go with Dragonlance it's pretty low magic, especially early 5th age.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

For a little more than three years I ran a series of campaigns using TSR's Historical Campaign Supplements for AD&D 2nd ed. I had more fun in those three years than I've had in more than 25 years of D&D.

I'm doing that with True20. I'm doing an ancient Greek mini-campaign right now, and will probably do a Viking one, next. Great fun, and True20 is works really well for low-magic stuff like this. Since the historical campaign supplements offered variant classes, rules, and subsystems for AD&D2, I'm sure that works fine, as well. (This is what would need to be done for 3E, too, IMO, which is why everyone keeps saying standard 3.5 won't work and to look at a variant system.)

Oh, has anyone mentioned Sean Reynold's New Argonauts? There's an example of a low-magic setting based on 3.5 rules, with minimal changes (i.e not a bunch of new classes or systems). It can be done -- it's just always going to require some tweaking. He gives Combat Expertise to all fighters as a "free" feat, lowers the power levels of standard monsters like chimera and medusa, bans certain classes, et cetera. Again, certainly do-able, but not standard 3.5, by any means.

 

[Felon]

OK, I'm now officially convinced there ought to be a sticky thread entitled "Creating Polls 101". Or maybe "Polls for Dummies".

If you're going to bother to poll, doesn't that mean you actually want to see meaningful results? Keep it simple, unbiased, and to the point. Don't offer six versions of "no" and two "maybes" and two of "yes". And don't bait folks with cutesy little straw-men like "No. This smacks of heresy, blah blah perfect blah blah play some other game yadda yadda".

 

[Umbran]

Agreed. I find it amazing, and an indication of how far things have gone, that this is such a contraversial idea!

No, what's amazing is that while people have already correctly mentioned that such settings exist, both sides persist as if there's some issue to contend over.

The point, as I see if right now, isn't over whether it should exist - it already does, in multiple forms. The question is about whther it should be in the core rules. And you'll alqways have disagreement on what the D&D baseline should be.

Again, agreed. We aren't a majority, but we are a sizable part of the market. And in fact, I think (just a hunch) we are an even more sizable chunk of the more hard core DM's out there.

*shug*. As you mention - it is a hunch. Assertion does not make for fact. Anyone who is not privvy to WotC market research on the subject is guessing. And wishing will not make it so for either side.

I give the characters the ability to improve their own defense, and as they reach higher level, to cause severe critical hits. Weapons are more effective and play arole in both attacking and defending, but Armor is more effective too (as it is in real life) and works as damage resistance. You can also utilize many of the feats out there to give the players all sorts of interesting non-magical abilities.

I will bend the words of Mr. Clarke to my will, and note that any sufficiently advanced character ability is indistinguishable from magic. Which is to say that if the abilities crank up the character power levels to the point that they can still take on the big honkin' dragons without what we now call "magic", and those abilities are still interesting, then they are, in the end, no different than magic.

It seems to me that for a game to seem less magical, it actually has to be less magical - have fewer fantastic elements. That includes wacky character abilities.

In some larp circles, you'll see writers that don't refer to "magic" at all. They refer to "High Weirdness" - this covers magic, super-science, psionics, deific power, and anything else that produces superhuman results. At the root, if it does things that normal people just can't do, it is "magical".