Magic Items And Campaign Balance?

[S'mon]

Re: Re: Re: Magic Items And Campaign Balance?

I tend to disagree with doing stuff like that, because situations like this will occur:



Fred The Fighter: Crap, the enemy is flying! I can't touch him!
Steve The Sorcerer: Not to worry, Fred. (Steve fries the enemy.)
Fred The Fighter: Damn, you're good.
Steve The Sorcerer: That I am. Oh look, there are some kobolds you can smash. Have fun!

Fred The Fighter: Crap, the enemy has DR+3 and I only have a +2 weapon! I can't touch him!
Steve The Sorcerer: Not to worry, Fred. (Steve fries the enemy.)
Fred The Fighter: Damn, I wish I could be more useful.
Steve The Sorcerer: (Pats Fred on the back.) It's ok Fred, you're good at being a bodyguard. And oh look, there are some kobolds you can smash! Have fun!

Fred The Fighter: Crap, the enemy is invisible! I can't see him!
Steve The Sorcerer: Not to worry, Fred. (Casts See Invisibility and fries the enemy.)
Fred The Fighter: Damn, what am I even doing adventuring?
Steve The Sorcerer: It's okay Fred. We can't all be as amazing as me.

Etc, etc. There are too many situations which practically require Fighters to have good magic items (and specific ones) to do well. When you take away a Fighters choice of what magic he can buy, it's no different then it would be to start randomly rolling for a Sorcerers spellcasting choices. And if you limit it, it's even worse.

I haven't found that. DMing for PCs from 1st to 9th level I've found that non-spellcasters dominate at low levels, while spellcasters tend to be more powerful as the mid levels are reached. Since it's a low-magic world there are few invisible or flying foes, and certainly no DR+3 (Balors?)!! Although the 2 non-spellcaster PCs both have +2 weapons. Most foes are Warriors or evil humanoids and giants (trolls, ettins, a hill giant, etc).

Currently the main PCs are 2 level 8 Monk types (one with a Fighter level, one with a level in Rogue and Sorcerer) plus a single-classed Sorcerer 9 . If spells are precast in advance, the Sorc dominates. In an ambush where the enemy melee him first, he's completely useless. The Monks and the NPC Fighters with the party prove very useful in keeping him alive long enough for him to start casting.

 

[S'mon]

Incidentally, the PC Sorc above doesn't have 'Fly' - he has Levitate but has never used it. The only flying foes they've met, last week, had no ranged attacks.

I think if you're running a low-magic game, the foes need to be low magic as well as the PCs! That's fairly obvious IMO. 6th level Fighters with limited magic don't feel the lack if they're cleaving through 5th level Warriors with NO magic. Wizards and Sorcerers without powerful wands and scrolls don't totally dominate either, they have to conserve spells or risk running out at the crucial moment. The limited spell selection of the Sorc greatly balances his ability to pump out fireballs or lightning bolts. Low magic means Wizards have limited access to new spells, also.

As has been said before, if anything this playstyle really favours Monks - but Monks, while very good at not dying, have very limited offensive ability, they never threaten to 'break' the game the way a flying improved invisible Wizard with wand of fireballs can.

 

[tburdett]

Broken campaign idea.

I think that the term 'low magic campaign' is a code word that easily identifies a 'must roleplay at all costs' DM.

This campaign type features lots of talking because combat is particularly lethal for the party. The DM regularly puts the party in situations that result in instant death if the party even thinks about using a weapon or spell without first talking the enemy into a semi-comatose state.

Suffering and misery are the high points of these campaigns. You will find yourself dying repeatedly because you aren't able to hit that 10/+3 creature with your 'poor quality' (DM created weapon quality that represents the opposite of masterwork) weapon.

These DM's are usually unemployed and have 8 - 10 hours a day to work on the most banal backstory to their campaign world. EVERY detail will be worked out to the nth degree. Complete family trees will be available for every family in every city on every plane that the DM has created.

The 'campaign bible' that the DM has written usually has a page count that exceeds the three core books combined. No rule has been left intact. Rule 0 becomes the ONLY rule that retains any semblance to the original work.

Sigh.

 

[S'mon]

'low magic'

The above doesn't bear any relation to me or my game, which I'd call 'lower magic' - since there isn't 100% free trade in MI like many think is vital to the game. I have a full-time job and get paid a living wage, in my experience it's unemployed gamers who like ultra-high-magic best, as they need the escapism more! My current tabletop games are about 80% combat to 20% roleplay, mostly because 3e D&D handles combat so well. Currently a lot of my prep time is painting minis and preparing buildings & scenery for the game's battle scenes.

I do have a very detailed campaign worl since it's been around for 16 years or so, but I try to keep Rule 0 to a minimum - if it's in the PHB it stands, unless there's a very good reason why not.

True, I don't use standard starting PC wealth by level, because all the new magic items every time a new PC arrives would quickly unbalance a campaign - for a 1-shot or tournament game it'd be fine.

 

[tburdett]

True.

While it is true that many capable DM's are able to earn a decent wage and maintain steady employment, the very best and very worst DM's that I've had have been either unemployed or underemployed. There's just something about having 24 hours a day to yourself that seems to bring out the best or worst in people.

I do want to add that as long as the setting/world/campaign is changed/created/adapted to reflect the fact that there are no, or few, magic items in the game, you are not lumped into the above category. If, as one poster above noted, your world does NOT have creatures with DR then the need for magic weapons drops off by quite a bit.

 

[Darkness]

Being a meatshield is a supporting cast role. If that's all you want fighters to be, just ban them. Have your players play wizards or sorcs, and hire NPC warriors to be the meatshields.

Wasn't that the premise for Ars Magica?

 

[LostSoul]

I think if you're running a low-magic game, the foes need to be low magic as well as the PCs! That's fairly obvious IMO.

I think that's a big part of the problem.

I run a low-magic game - which means (or meant) that the PCs had conflicts with low-level humans without magic. This worked fine for a couple of levels. No character was more powerful than any other; the Fighter hacked away and the Wizard Colour Spray-ed 'em. But at a certain point, this changed. The Wizard was often the heavy-hitter in the group, taking down foes left and right (a few low-level characters aren't much of a threat to a Mirror Image-d Wizard). And then it got really bad, with Improved Invisibility, Haste, and Fly. At that point, there wasn't anything the typical NPCs I'd been using could do to challenge the Wizard. But at the same time, they were a challenge for the Fighter. So I had to change my campaign.

Now the Fighter holds his own, thanks to a few magic items.

 

[kengar]

Then who the hell makes them in the first place?!?!

The campaign setting I've designed centers on exiled people slowly repopulating a continent where a magical empire fell centuries ago. There are lost cities, etc. where magic items can be found that no one living knows how to make.

It makes that +2 Axe of Frost like an artifact.

This is also why there are limits on classes for PC's. No wizard's guild among the exiles, so no wizards. A few sorcerers, though. The people were exiled for religious reason (state church is intolerant), so folks hate the clergy. Result? No PC clerics (or paladins). A few druids, though. Bards & Rangers exist, but their spell lists have been tweaked a little bit (I gave the bard a little bit better combat ability at low levels to compensate). I could go on, but you get the general idea.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

And then it got really bad, with Improved Invisibility, Haste, and Fly

Err.. why bother saying you are running a "low magic" campeign when you are allowing the full spell list to the casters?

You are not running a low magic campeign, you are running a low magic item campeign.

FD

 

[nharwell]

wrong game

I personally love low-magic item but high fantasy games (Conan genre, etc.). Unfortunately, D&D is not the game for that. There are many other systems that work fine for this type of game -- from GURPS to Feng Shui to HERO ...

The nature of hit points and armor class in D&D require that a certain amount of healing and protective magics be available. The fact that a 15th level fighter without magic is, in general, as easy to hit as a 5th level fighter really hurts the "high fantasy-action" part of the game (not to mention realism). Hit point differences do not adequately represent this, given that they must "heal" -- the recovery time for hit point damage is far too slow to represent "fatigue" or "luck."

In addition, creature abilities such as damage reduction, flight, invisibility, etherealness, etc., are much more powerful in a low-magic game. Even though the CR system is far from perfect, it does work reasonably well -- and a DM in this sort of game must reinvent the whole system to determine balance and appropriate experience. Likewise, some classes (rogue, barabarian, fighter, etc.) are at a severe combat disadvantage compared to the abilities of other classes (monk, sorceror, cleric, wizard) to overcome various creature abilities and defenses.

Finally, despite the addition of feats and a workable skill system to D&D, non-spellcasters do not have very many "abilities." Skill points are too few and feats too rare to really represent the range of abilities of any fictional fantasy character -- even at high levels. Magic items fill that roll in the game. Even more than helping in combat, the items add flexibility to the characters.

Now, even though I've mostly spoken against "low-magic" games, it is possible to run and have fun with such a setting. In my experience, though, those games never really work past 5th level or so (I'm sure many here will counter that with their own experiences, though). If you run such a game, here's what I think you need to consider:

(1) modifying the combat system, perhaps using defensive bonuses, armor, and Vitality/Wound points from Star Wars. This would reduce the necessity for defensive and healing magics.

(2) greatly limiting the more "magical" creatures in the game -- anything with damage reduction, etherealness, etc., must be rarer, or they would overrun large areas of civilization (and will certainly kill PCs more easily)

(3) Giving more skills and perhaps more feats (or using some other type of "special abilities"). Since the PCs won't have much magic to cover their weakness or to represent the "cool abilities" they see in fictional characters, add more to the characters themselves.