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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 3498231" data-attributes="member: 19675">All of the above suggestions have merit.However, you don't need anything besides a little self-control and whatever D&D books you already own to run a low magic campaign.The last campaign I ran, the players had access to my entire fantasy D20 library- WotC & 3rd party publishers- and yet the acquisition of a Flame Tongue sword was a big deal.To illustrate, let me tell you a bit about it: the campaign started with the PCs (all 1st level) going to a great festival, then getting waylaid at sea by interplanar felinoid raiders (based on Kzinti).  Once they were overwhelmed (after a fight they almost won), they were taken to the private hunting preserve of the Emperor, and set free.Naked & unarmed.And then told that in honor of their fighting prowess, they were being given a 24 hour head start before a hunting party would be released.  (The cabin boys were roasting over an open fire.)  Some of their gear had been strewn about the island to give them a slightly better chance- the hunt requires challenging prey, after all!The PCs had to improvise weapons, evade and/or kill off their hunters.  Oh yeah, the local fauna and flora weren't too nice, either.  And of course, all the while, they were searching for their gear.  Sometimes, they even found gear from previous prey...With teamwork, they survived, eventually gathering most of their stuff.  The wizard had it toughest, not being able to rememorize spells without his spellbook. As he gained XP, he took Ftr levels.The party's first magic item was a +2 Flame Tongue sword, found when the party had reached 5th level.Eventually, they found allies who got them off of the island and started to make their way in the world.  However, there was little magic and few magic items to be had- this world had suffered some kind of arcane apocalypse, wiping out the original rulers of this world and their culture.  The new races that rose up to fill the gap were intelligent, but hadn't cracked many secrets of magic.  Learning spells was difficult because there were few scrolls or tomes to find, and teachers were just as rare.To balance this out, though, there were also few creatures that required magic to defeat- no lycanthropes, for instance.  In fact, the only critters that did need magic to put down were the ultimate scourge of the world that the higher level PCs had to face down at the end of the campaign.And so forth...You don't have to go that route- that's just a particular path to running a low-magic campaign without magic flying around everywhere.  Some people have used class level limits to get a low magic campaign- a level cap on spellcasting classes, or an overall limit on number or % of levels in spellcasting classes a PC can have can be just as effective.Essentially, you just have to know when to say "No."  "No, that spell isn't appropriate for this campaign, choose another."  No, I won't be able to use that creature as written because the PCs can't hurt it with their level of magic.</blockquote>

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