Low Magic

[Ahkliat]

I was wondering if there was anyone out there that might know of some resources (rules, campaign settings, etc.) to use in running a low magic campaign. I've become tired of the standard D&D campaign where magic is commonplace and would like to see how things would run if magic and magic items were kept at a minimum.


Ahkliat

 

[Sagan Darkside]

The preview of Midnight struck me as being a lowmagic campeign world.

Iron Kingdom is slightly low magic- there is no resurrection magic and steam technology is on the rise.

Good luck
SD

 

[johnsemlak]

Scarred Lands is a low magic setting. Magic Items are very precious and never bought or sold. But I'm not very knowledgeable about the setting, so I'm sure one of the Scarred Lands fans will pop into this thread sooner or later...

 

[Xarlen]

I don't know how much of a low magic world you want, but I got one for you. I'm attempting to pull off a 'moderately low' magic world.

Magical items follow three rules. 1) A person must put xp into something, to wake up its' power and attune it to them*; they don't fully work when you pick them up. 2) The one who creates an item knows all its' powers. 3) Evil items are easier to make, but they come with a price; usually turning the host evil.

*You must also do deeds and quests for your magical item. For instance, you must learn its' name to make it a +1. Or, you must quench the blade with some fire-bound creature to make it a flaming burst weapon, or stop a large conflict nonviolently to make it Merciful, or gain more knowledge about the weapon.

There is also the Spontanious Magical Items; those created via unintended actions. Imagine a weapon passed from an executioner to an assassin to a street thug to a serial killer, through chance. This weapon would be exposed to a lot of pain and suffering, and slowly it would become 'magical' through the intense emtoin that it has brought. In the BoVD places can be 'polluted' by evil acts, and so can items, in my opinion.

Magic is not dead, no. Mages and other spellcasters are still around. However, all spellcasters must have a theme. For instance, the Cabal of the Magi draw all of their power from elemental forces, which show in their spellcasting (Note, this is all flavor text).

I've also considered changing the Wizard. Interested? Here and Here.

If you'd like to know about the Xp into magical items thing, I got rules for this out of Dragon. I could send them to you, if you like.

Hope that helps.

 

[jmucchiello]

Here's a simple way: play D20 Modern in a fantasy setting. Turn all the PH classes into advanced classes. Instant low magic fantasy.

 

[haiiro]

Kingdoms of Kalamar is relatively low magic, as far as I know. From the KoK books I've paged through, it seems be a very realistic and detailed setting, and there are plenty of reviews of its products on the EN World reviews page. Others can give you a better KoK overview than I can, though.

You could also check out Harn -- a very low magic campaign setting from Columbia Games. There is a system associated with it (Harnmaster, I believe), but there's a ton of setting info available that's relatively rules-free. Harn is very detailed, and is touted as being very realistic as well -- much more Earthlike than, say, the Forgotten Realms.

AFAIK, there's only one d20 Harn product -- Nasty, Brutish and Short (their guide to orcs, if memory serves) -- but I think it had some conversion info in the back. Sorry about my fuzzy memory on this one.

 

[Desdichado]

Low magic is a very broad spectrum. Presumably that means lower than the default, but you can do from everything to no rules changes all the way to rewriting the classes and not allowing magic at all.

I'm probably working up something too low magic for most folks' taste: I'd like to play d20 Modern classes in a more traditional fantasy setting with no magical advanced classes at all: all spells will be cast using CoC-like mechanics. I'll convert some other spells to the system, working out ability damage (and Sanity damage if I decide to port that over as well) and as GM I'd control completely what spells PCs had access to.

 

[Ravellion]

A house rule that popped up a few times on these boards is not allowing PC or NPC to have more than half of their class levels in any of the spellcasting classes. (ie. you could be a Wizard 10/Sorcerer 10, but not a Wizard 20.)

This makes for a very low magic campign, and you might want to let spellcasting levels stack for purposes of Magic Item Creation.

Rav

 

[Voneth]

Wheel of Time was low-magic enough that some of the DnD classes (Bard) were rewritten as non-magical varients.

 

[kenjib]

Sovereign Stone and Swashbuckling Adventures can also help with a low magic setting. Sovereign Stone is medieval and includes a new magic system, elemental magic, along with numerous new non-spell casting core classes (since almost all of the PHB classes can cast spells).

Swashbuckling Adventures is really great for running a Renaissance/Restoration era game with low magic. It includes non-spell casting variants of the bard, paladin, and ranger. It also has lots of new rules that help characters compensate for the lack of magic items that often goes along with low magic.