Low-Magic Campaign

[Guest 6801718]

Low magic in D&D can be a bit tricky, as D&D is designed to be more high magic. Though I will say, I currently play a level 7 paladin with no magic items and he's still very dangerous. There are very few magic items in our party and everyone works just fine. So don't worry so much about how the party will do without them initially.

If you want to gradually reveal magic to the party and give them gradual access to it, there are a few things you can do. You may need to be a little flexible as the DM. If you have a battlemaster fighter who gets exposed to magic in the later levels, you may want to consider letting him trade in the battlemaster for the eldrich knight. Things like that. Don't be afraid to be a little fluid with the rules and let the players explore the new magical options to them without much hassle. So players love multi-classing and would be fine splitting fighter and cleric or paladin levels. Other players may hate multi-classing and want to go full single class but not get cheated out of some of the new stuff. So perhaps that fighter starts to develop paladin abilities and he just trades out fighter levels for paladin with out much fuss. He's still a front line warrior, he just occasionally uses magic when he didn't before. There isn't a ton of difference, especially if the player always played their fighter a certain way, like as a knight or something.

Treasure and rewards could actually be a lot of fun. Since you're holding back magic items initially, give them treasure that helps them in different areas of the game. Giving them a supply cache when they've been lost and starving in the woods would be appreciated. Give them other rewards like political favors, small pieces of land, and contacts that can help them in tight spots. If you want them to find something physical for treasure, give them masterwork gear that can be enchanted later when they get access to magic. They key to doing fun physical treasure is to give it a cool story in the game world. Don't just give them a masterwork longsword. Give them the "Goblin Scythe", hammered from a plow in to a blade so that Sir Sebastian could defend his village from a 100 goblins (which he totally did, according to local legend). They players will find the sword cool, feel connected to the world and want to improve it so they can keep it. Be descriptive and the players will eat it up.

Having a low magic world gives you opportunity to explore some different aspects of the game. Focus more on survival and natural hazards, social interaction, using different skills to succeed, and other things. The slow reveal of magic will feel mysterious and cool. It's all in how you sell it. Since magic is so rare, is it considered taboo or evil? Is magic something to be feared for the consequences or is it something to learn about from a civilization lost? Sometimes focusing on something more "mundane" or non magical, like intrigue or survival, will make the magical seem more special.

 

[Caliburn101]

Yes it is very tempting to modify LoTR 5th Edition to run a D&D style game in a world with more realistic levels of magic.

 

[Irda Ranger]

I want to reiterate what was said above, that this will work for some players and not others and you need to ask your group if they're interested.

I played in an Iron Heroes (gritty, low magic) campaign for 3-4 years and had a lot of fun, but it's not for everyone.

5E is well designed such that spellcasters aren't strictly necessary. The main problem you'll have to design around is the lack of healing. Either you're going to be more generous with healing rules, or your players will be a lot more cautious and there will be more "5 minute adventuring day" issues.

My suggestion for introducing magic to a campaign-
1. Make multi-classing into a spellcaster class a quest, and limit the number of levels they can take in it.
2. Be stingier with permanent magic items than with spells, scrolls, or potions.
3. Allow weapons to be "blessed" to overcome magic resistance (without providing any +x benefit).

 

[Yaarel]

If gritty and concerned about healing, then,

Reaching zero hit points and dying, usually results an impairing injury (broken bone, sprain, stab wound), instead of death.

 

[Yaarel]

Warlock.

I can see your recommendation for a Warlock is highly qualified. Even so, I would recommend staying away from the Warlock in a low-magic setting.

The Warlock is weird, but is still moreorless a full caster, like Wizard and others.

And the ‘always on’ magic of the Warlock, seems the opposite of low magic.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Hey everyone. I'm thinking of running a very low-magic campaign (initially).

"low-magic" has been used very different ways in D&D's history. It can mean few magic items, it can mean casters are very rare in the setting, or it can mean restrictions on playing magic-using classes/races, or it can mean (and you virtually never see this) actually reducing the magical powers available to such PCs.

I'd like to start the campaign as low-magic as possible, this would include limiting players on class (Barbarian, Bard, Fighter, Monk, Ranger, Rogue) and backgrounds (non-magic related).

The 5e Monk is officially magical (Ki = magic), the Bard is a freak'n full caster. The Totem Barbarian, EK, & AT all use magic. The Ranger has only one non-casting sub-class, and it was experimental.

The classes with magic listed would have to choose cantrips and spells that could be role played as being non-magic. All others would be off the table (to start). Even potions of healing would be tough to get a hold of.

I'm not sure how that would go. One alternative I'd consider for a low-magic game, one where magic is lower-impact in adventuring scenarios, that is, while still having an impact in the world, and being defining of character that use it and thus closer to the way it's usually depicted in genre is to simply remove slots from the casting classes, entirely. The can still use cantrips, so display magic consistently, and can still use rituals, so magic can still powerful, it's just very limited in how it can be used...

The players could gain access to magical classes, spells, tools, etc. as they made progress in the campaign and with their personal goals. For example, if they are overly noble in combat and attended to the wounds of a friend (or foe), then perhaps a deity would bless them with access to a cleric spell (or be granted access to leveling as a cleric)

Sounds like you could re-imagine the casting classes & sub-classes as Prestige Classes.

I'm looking for advice and suggestions. I’m sure I’m not the first to try this. Has anyone Dm’ed something similar?

Sure. It rarely worked out well in most editions, because magic - especially healing - is kinda baked into the system. The one exception was 4e - heck, I've played in Encounters sessions where everyone just happened to play a non-magic-using characters, and there was barely a hickup - but then, isn't it always? :shrug:
With 5e, you can let the party depend on HD, but I'd suggest making short rests, well, shorter, to facilitate that, and have all HD recharge with a single long rest. You do have two classes that can heal, though they have to somehow re-skin it as "non-magical" (hopefully you & your players can handle that, it seems to be a cognitive hurdle for some) so that could clear it up.
Another thing I've found from experience is that any magic you do allow in is magnified in importance and impact because, in a world with very little magic, few enemies are prepared to cope with it. In a standard D&D game, vigilant foes are on the lookout for invisible infiltrators, shape-changers, illusions, invaders flying over their walls and so forth. In a low-magic game, a few 1-3rd level spells and you might even be able to take over a kingdom for a little while - high level ones and you'd be ruling the world securely until challenged by another magic-user.

And would anyone be interested in a game like this? If no one is interested, then I suppose shouldn’t bother. Thank you everyone in advance.

Are you planning on running it on-line for players drawn from the forum?
But, yes, there's always been some interest in low (at least lower than the D&D norm) magic games.

 

[Caliburn101]

@Yaarel. As described, it's for a mid magic game and caps at 6th level magic, only one level more than a half caster.

 

[hastur_nz]

The default 5e design assumption is that the game works perfectly fine with no magic items, in fact the reason the game gets too easy as written at higher levels is because the PCs scale up too much compared to monsters as they get more magic items; Mike Mearls has said this a few times by now (that the default assumes no magic items).

The key thing about restricting magic spells and/or items is, will your players enjoy the challenge, or will they feel resentment about having one arm tied behind their back? No-one can answer that, except your players. Don't assume they will apprach it like you do, you need to have that discussion, and listen to what they think. Ive personally played in a couple of campaigns where the DM spent ages tweaking the rules more and more to make it more challening and 'realistic' in his view, but in reality his changes just made his games less and less fun for us players and eventually we all stopped playing.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Hey everyone. I'm thinking of running a very low-magic campaign (initially). I'd like to start the campaign as low-magic as possible, this would include limiting players on class (Barbarian, Bard, Fighter, Monk, Ranger, Rogue) and backgrounds (non-magic related). The classes with magic listed would have to choose cantrips and spells that could be role played as being non-magic. All others would be off the table (to start). Even potions of healing would be tough to get a hold of.


I guess I was thinking something similar to an “Arthur Pendragon removing all magic from Albion” type campaign. Still working out the details.

The players could gain access to magical classes, spells, tools, etc. as they made progress in the campaign and with their personal goals. For example, if they are overly noble in combat and attended to the wounds of a friend (or foe), then perhaps a deity would bless them with access to a cleric spell (or be granted access to leveling as a cleric). Or if they came into contact with an ancient relic infused with the soul of an archmage, then they would have access to a sorcerer's spell (or be granted access to leveling as one). Or maybe something not so plain.

I'm looking for advice and suggestions. I’m sure I’m not the first to try this. Has anyone Dm’ed something similar? And would anyone be interested in a game like this? If no one is interested, then I suppose shouldn’t bother. Thank you everyone in advance.

You might give Low Fantasy Gaming RPG a look; d20 variant, mix of old school and 5e, plus a few new ideas, with a low magic base. Quite dangerous and gritty (injuries). Free PDF or print on demand: https://lowfantasygaming.com/

 

[Capn Charlie]

This document has the rules I used for my low magic game. The parts not listed are that no magic casting classes or archetypes are allowed, and short rest take 8 hours of rest while long rest require a week in a town.

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