Low Magic in D&D - How'd it work out for you?

Rechan said:
But if you have spellcasters in the party, they're still going to be casting magic in every fight. That's not very Low Magic. That's pretty high magic for the rate of magic being used.

Low Magic is a relative term.

A party where the casters are limited to 1/2 their level in magical power is going to have significantly less magical capabilities than a party with full casters. The differences even where the casters have only taken a level or two of LA or dip classes or prestige classes that give up a caster level are fairly noticeable IME.

Low Magic does not mean magic not useable at all by PCs regularly in combat, IMO.
 

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Rechan said:
But if you have spellcasters in the party, they're still going to be casting magic in every fight. That's not very Low Magic. That's pretty high magic for the rate of magic being used.
My recommendation is to remove the spellcasting classes -- or to make them prestige classes -- but to allow anyone with ranks in spellcraft to take the item-creation feats to make "scrolls" and "potions" -- which don't have to be rolled parchments or vials of bubbling liquids.

Thus, each use of a spell is fairly expensive -- and the ingredients do not have to be commonly available.
 

It seems to me that defining what "low magic" means is more difficult than tweaking the system to suit a particular gaming style. I consider our gaming style to be low-fantasy/high-magic. In our system, magic is just as powerful as core, just much more rare. In order to give the game the right feel for our group, we made adjustments that put the emphasis on the characters, and lessened the impact of their gear in the game (Hmmm...isn't that what 4th Ed. is claiming to do now?). It looks to me like the 4th Edition people paid a LOT of attention to the houserules sections on WotC and here and implemented a lot of those kind of ideas into their new system.

Here's what we've been using for the last 4 years or so:

* Armor as DR (straight AC-DR conversion)
* Class Defense Bonus (straight BAB=CBD)
* Feats every other level (instead of every 3 levels)
* Ability points every 3 levels (instead of every 4 levels)
* EXP chart is 2X core (keeps us in the sweet spot a bit longer)
* Epic after 12th level (hasn't happened yet in our last 2 campaigns)
* I created a Masterwork weapon system that goes to +3 to make + weapons more accessible
* All casters (including divine casters) have a base 5% failure to make casting a bit less stable
* I created a Magic Item Reaction table, whereby every magical item has a signature of sorts which means that some items may react with others.
* Magical items cost 2x core.

We have a host of other additions to make combat much more strategic yet very fast. One of the biggest additions to running this type of game smoothly has been using DM Genie. This program is invaluable for managing a modified game and cuts our combat down to about 1/4 of the time it used to take us playing conventionally.

I love the idea of magic in a fantasy RPG. What I don't love is when magic becomes mundane and ordinary. I prefer magic to be rare, powerful, unpredictable and special.

I've recently fallen in love with the ConanD20 RPG. But we are about halfway through our current campaign, and it's going to take me a LONG time to convert the Conan game into DM Genie. But it has exactly the flavor I've been looking for in a fantasy RPG. My goal is to create a conversion for DM Genie for our next campaign while implementing some of our houserules that we've gotten very attached to over the last few years; namely our Battle Fatigue System and Modified Healing System.

I love the D20 system for its flexibility that allows it to become whatever you want it to be. I talk to a lot of DM's who nearly faint when they see our houserules, and say that they could never stray that far from Core. I always ask, why not? Making changes to Core isn't a big deal, and it's just as easy to change something back as it is to change it in the first place. Roleplaying is way to simulate a fantastic reality, and a good game system allows gaming groups to realize their own vision of how the game should feel. I really think the D20 system does a good job of this. Of course, I'm biased towards D&D since I've been playing it since 1981. ;)
 

In some of the campaigns I have run I limited the commoness of magic items, instead most players found masterwork items created by grand masters of thier art. Masterwork items are not common and generally cant be purchased unless you are nobility or have a large sum of money with which to buy them.

Spellcasters are few and far between, this doesnt mean a character cannot choose to be a spellcaster they just have a harder time of it. There are no shops or public guilds were they can purchase spell books or the like, and the public treats spellcasters like witchs in old salem.

Some of the harder monsters that require enchanted weapons to hit them I have either nerfed or increased thier CR depending on the rule set being used.

In 3.5 I have added requirements beyond what is already stated for the magic item creation feats, by either adding components that are rare or hard to obtain or by adding a training pre requisit for that feat.
 

You can do it but, in the end, it requires far more effort than it's worth -- there are other systems out there that do low magic out of the box and arguably do it better (much better, in my personal experience).
 

jdrakeh said:
You can do it but, in the end, it requires far more effort than it's worth -- there are other systems out there that do low magic out of the box and arguably do it better (much better, in my personal experience).
For example d20 Modern does it pretty well, and has spellcasting as PrC to boot. AND you can import a bunch of D&D stuff (I'd say most feats and spells work pretty well).

Sadly, my players are NOT the low magic type and it's more of an occasional mood for me... so I have no experience with it. But I'd also grab the Condition Track from SWSE and ditch d20 Modern's wonkly massive damage and nonlethal damage rules. They're pretty strange.

As good as Iron Heroes is (in giving you a D&Dish power level), I think d20 Modern is probably the best low-magic d20 out there, mainly because it's still very D&Dish. Though I think Conan d20 also does pretty well.

Note that I really hope for a nice 4th edition revision of d20 Modern.

If you REALLY want to do it with D&D, I strongly suggest trying out rycanada's E6. It's probably the best way to do that, plus the thread has worked out the ramifications for magic items.

Cheers, LT.
 
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The campaign was low-magic, the party wasn't.

I used a variant on Hit Points that wsa something like VP/WP from the old Star Wars d20 games. I also gave the Wizard the spell Goodberry.

I also had a deal with the players: if you don't cast fireballs, the NPCs won't either.

It broke down when the Wizard got access to 4th level spells.
 

Lord Tirian said:
For example d20 Modern does it pretty well, and has spellcasting as PrC to boot. AND you can import a bunch of D&D stuff (I'd say most feats and spells work pretty well).

Grim Tales does it by default, to boot. Low magic has never been a strong point of D&D (save perhaps OD&D, which can handle it fairly easily). I recall giving myself convulsive fits of frustration when trying to adapt AD&D 2e to faithfully model the low magic tenets of HarnWorld religion and sorcery. By the time I was finished with the house rules, I might as well have been playing HarnMaster -- so that's what I ended up doing ;)
 

E6 did it without changing from 3.5e, but people have a hard time believing it can be that easy, or that the game is still super fun that way. See the sig.
 

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