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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3518523" data-attributes="member: 4937">I generally agree, but take that logic one step farther.In D&D it has always been the assumption that at mid-levels, no one encounter represents the possibility of death for the players.  Third edition has even formalized this, albiet in a somewhat vague way.  A encounter with a CR equal to player level has the expectation of only using 20% of the player 'resources'.  D&D's other assumption is that the PC's are heroes, and as such are much more powerful by mid-levels than ordinary folks.  So, in D&D mid-level PC's - the so called 'sweet spot' - can always push around most everything in thier environment without any significant risk.Attempts to fix this with magic are likely to make the problem worse.  For example, probably the single worst design decision in early Gygaxian modules was to try to increase the defenses of the local good guys by giving them lots of magical loot.  The 'Keep on the Borderlands' is more worthy of looting than the Caves of Chaos.  (This was pointed out to me by the DM that first taught me my craft as an example of what not to do.)  In 'Temple of Elemental Evil', its far easier to buff yourself up with tons of magical items by slaughtering the relatively defenseless villagers who possess ludicrous amounts of treasure for being peasants, than it is to get loot from the very dangerous Temple.  And if you actually did put enough ubiquitous high level magic into the world to put a stop to rogue PC shennigans, then the PC's would loose thier uniqueness and sense of being heroes (or villains) that they are entitled to as the stories protagonists.Whether we are speaking of PC's beating up the settings bad guys or rogue PC's beating up the good guys (where here I only mean by 'bad guys' the creatures that the DM intended for the PC's to beat up, and conversely by 'good guys' I mean the creatures that the DM didn't so intend), the only way to reasonably threaten PCs is for the PC's opponents to be  proactive.  No intelligent group is just going to sit there and take it while someone kills them and takes thier stuff.  They are going to do something.  If the PC's adopt hit and run tactics, the opponents will do something in the break - even if it is just take thier stuff and run away so that when the PC's come back the next time the monsters (and the stuff) is gone.In the case of PC's beating up villagers, shop owners, and local militias using high magic in a low magic campaign, the PC's are making enemies of three very intelligent, very resourceful, very proactive groups simultaneously and they are pretty much guaranteeing a TPK in the medium to long term.  The first of those groups is the leaders of the nation in which the PC's dwell.  Whether its an alliance of city states (like the Greek Confederacy) or a true unified nation state (like the Roman Empire), rumor of one of thier members getting trounced by powerful magicians in a low magic world is going to be percieved as a significant threat to the entire group and all the force that can be spared to meet the threat will be mobilized.  If it could happen there, then it could happen here.  In the D&D setting, this most likely means the equivalent of other adventuring parties - patriotic ones loyal to that nation.  Within weeks of the PCs robbing shop keepers, fireballing the militia, or whatever, as many as dozens of NPC parties could be out searching for the PC's.  Eventually, the PC's could find themselves facing a veritable army of classed individuals near thier own level, or depending on when they decided to start pushing thier weight around, much higher.  In fact, if things get really serious, they could end up facing mid to high level NPC's backed by the actual army - that campaigns equivalent to Spartans or Roman Legions or rows of Welsh longbowmen or whatever is appropriate to the setting.The other group that is going to go nuts is the religious authorities.  If magic is low level in the setting, there is probably some cosmological reason for it and simply the emergence of a group of mortals using magic against villagers is likely to carry a significant religious component.  In short, the PC's are very likely to be facing the campaign's equivalent of an auto-de-fe/fatwa or whatever either because of the improper use of magic specifically or simply because of the injustice perpetrated.  In D&D terms, what this means is Paladins and adventuring Clerics, and these two groups are not going to be defenseless against magic and its likely in a low-magic world that the various religious groups maintain special anti-magic rapid reaction forces for just these contingencies who know what arcane magic can do even if the average person in the campaign world doesn't.The third group likely to be very offended is the campaigns NPC wizards.  Here they are trying thier best to keep thier heads down and not have angry mobs coming to burn them at the stake, and some upstart wizard out thier with the wisdom score of a hamster is rousing the society against wizards and threatening to bring about the bad old days when a wizard wasn't safe in his tower unless he had 500 yard wide moat of lava and a half dozen tame djinni.  Now they've got angry soldiers and inquisitors beating on thier doors right when they are in the midst of some crucial research, adventuring parties are begging for divinition spells, blah blah blah.  Together this is a crisis or at least a major annoyance for wizards of any alignment.  The good ones are going to be upset at the injustice being perpetrated and the bad ones are afraid the PC's shenigans are going to threaten thier secret plans to take over the world.  My world may be 'low magic', but that doesn't mean its 'no magic' and that there aren't at least some NPC wizards which represent a threat to PC's of almost any level.In short, even a small amount of world building will take into account this sort of behavior by PC's.  The inherent assumption by PC terrorists that start using magic to abuse the commoners and store keepers is that no one has ever tried to do this before.  That's simply an unwarranted assumption in a world with any sort of history.</blockquote>

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