Primer rationalle
Olive said:
Sorry. The sentence should have been:
This book as aimed at playing a Vance-style game in a d20 system right? Hence the lack of pre-reqs for magic item crafting? And the preponderence of low level spells?
A further question is how did you work out the market prices for the items if you didn't do pre-reqs?
I think I understand better where you are coming from now.
First off, the book is designed to be a resource for D20 players. We tried to make it useful for people who just want a few new spells (and items) like from any other D20 sourcebook, and we also put some extra flavor material in there so that people who wanted to try to run a Dying Earth type of campaign, or just move their D20 campiagn a bit in that direction, could try to do so.
For example, just like people did in this thread, we did discuss the role of alignment, various classes and races and etc. in the dying earth. Another thing we touched upon was the different attitude toward magic. Magic spells and artifacts are the most sought after commodities in the dying earth. Magic is frequent, but not commonplace. It is not mundane, nor are spellcasters a dime a dozen.
That said, this is not an all -encompasing Dying Earth sourcebook for D20. There are no monsters, no campaign background, no maps or cities or NPC's in there. Just spells, magic items, prestige classes, feats, and a few other useful tables and special rules.
The basic philosophy we took toward magic though hearkens back to early D&D. The idea of mages scouring through old libraries, and searching all over the countryside for elusive manuscripts, was originally part of D&D. Now the atitude is different, every spell in existance is available in the Players Handbook and in most campaigns, at least 2 per level can be selected automatically by the spellcaster. We wanted to make spells more mysterious again. In the Primer, I suggested that when making these Dying Earth spells available in a "normal" D20 campaign, it might be a good idea to make them special in some way, from another plane or a far gone era. This way they are truly special and mysterious.
I also suggested that if you use the spells as ranger or druid or bard spells, say, that they not be available in some general repetoire that any caster can choose from, but instead must be taught or learned in some special way.
Of course that is just a suggestion, you can use the manual any way you want to. It's just within the context of the "flavor" of the Dying Earth to make magic rare and enigmatic.
Similarly, with the magic items, we did not want them to be mundane. If you are running a Dying Earth milieux, the items within that context are not being made any more... generally speaking, they all come from the distant past (like the vast majority of the spells). In a 'normal' D20 campaign with just a few of these elements added in, we reccomended making these items again come from another plane, or some remote period in antiquity. It was just the approach Pelgrane wanted to take and I agreed. It just didn't seem right for any average magician to be cranking out Baron Kalofi's jewels or the Schiavona of Kavic at will.
I guess, in this sense you could consider them not regular magic items at all but very minor artifacts like in the 1E DMG.
Naturally, as with the spells, that can be changed at the whim of the user, we just didn't provide the prerequisites. Feel free to do so if you want to!
As for the spells being low level, that was just how I interpreted them. Those are the spells from the Dying Earth stories and novels, which as you know, are mostly not very high level. There are not a lot of meteor swarms or the like being bandied about in most Dying Earth stories, most of the spells are hold and charm type spells, illusions, summoning spells, spells to bind and entrap, to manipulate people, to investigate mysteries or to foil investigation. There are a few truly deadly high level combat spells such as the Excellent Prismatic Spray, the Forlorn encystment, Phandaals Gyrator and etc., and these seem to suffice for the purposes of powerful wizards.
Most of the spells fall really in the middle range, 4th level or so, which matches the level of spells found in the Cugel and Turjan of Miur level stories (the first two levels of play as established in the Dying Earth RPG)
As another feature for mid -high level play you have the Diabolists, who have an impressive arsenal of abilities and spells for coping with and controlling demons and other outsiders, as well as acquiring very useful permanent outsider companions.
Finally, for very high-level (Rhialto the Marvelous) play, Arch Magician prestige class, which relies more on these creatures called Sandestin, which are kind of like indentured Djinn, to work all their magic for them with Limited Wish and Wish spells (and other very powerful abilities)
Controlling the Sandestin requires excellent persuasion, bluff, and intimidate skills, as well as a superb lawyers attention to detail, (because they love nothing better than to accidentally-on-purpose misinterpret orders) but if you can get them to do your will, as the Great Arch Magicians can, you can literally move mountains.
Hope that helps.
DB
