Making "Rare Magic" Work Without Changing Rules (Long)

[The_Gneech]

So let's just say for the purpose of arguement that I want to run a "rare magic" sword-and-sorcery flavor* campaign, but that I still want to use as much off-the-shelf D&D as I can. I have proposed here a series of campaign ground rules, tell me what you think. In particular, I'm looking for ramifications, potential pitfalls, and ways to improve them.

*NOTE: I say "rare magic" to dodge the standard "low magic/high magic" debate that tends to flare up here. For the purposes of this post, I'm envisioning a setting a la Conan, where magic is rare and mysterious, where characters have few or no magic items, and where non-humans are either unheard of, or the last remnants of a dying race, or are in enclaves so remote as to make them legendary, and so on. If such a campaign is not your bag, please ignore this post.

STATISTICS
High point-buy. High base stats will help compensate for the lack of magical buffings.

RACE
All characters are human. Assume the game setting has various cultural and regional feats available to provide some variation.

ALIGNMENT
This may be replaced by the loyalties in d20 Modern, or simply dropped. "Protection from alignment" spells become simply "magic ward" spells.

CLASSES
This is where the most changes occur. Most of the spellcasting classes have been either restricted to being taken at every other level, or removed entirely. Some NPC classes have been buffed and added to the available pool to make up for this (or provide an option for "synergistic" classes for would-be spellcasters to multiclass to).

Aristocrat - This is now a PC class. They gain "Inspiring Speech" -- basically as Bardic Music except based on Perform (Oratory) and without the "countersong" ability. Aristocrats also gain Leadership as a bonus feat at 6th level.

Barbarian - No change.

Bard - Dropped. Wandering minstrels are rogues with ranks in Perform.

Cleric - Characters may take this class but must alternate levels with a non-spellcasting class.

Druid - As with cleric.

Expert - This is now a PC class. Experts also gain Skill Focus as a bonus feat at 1st level and get a free feat at 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th levels.

Fighter - No change.

Monk - No change.

Paladin - Characters may take this class but must alternate levels with a non-spellcasting class. The normal restrictions on paladin multiclassing are removed. Alternatively, the non-spellcasting paladin from Complete Warrior may be used. The paladin's mount may no longer be "summoned," but is treated as an animal companion.

Ranger - The non-spellcasting ranger from Complete Warrior replaces the standard ranger.

Rogue - No change.

Sorcerer - Characters may take this class but must alternate levels with a non-spellcasting class. The class gains "Arcane Knowledge" (acts as Bardic Knowledge) at first level.

Swashbuckler - Available as a core class.

Wizard - Dropped. Sorcerers are now the arcane spellcasting class for player characters.

Prestige classes are generally not used; base classes from non-Core books (e.g., the Samurai from Complete Warrior) may be available on a case-by-case basis. However, any class with spellcasting ability must alternate with a non-spellcasting class. The "adept" NPC class is dropped.

MONSTERS/FOES
Most foes will be other humans, who are under the same restrictions as players. The stereotype "cackling evil wizard" probably has Aristocrat and Expert levels between his Sorcerer levels. Also, they'll have evil staves, amulets, gems containing the souls of ancient godkings or whatever that boost their magic ability. (See "Ritual Magic" below.)

Monsters, when they appear, will generally be the "boss fight" or major encounter of any given adventure. Most will tend to be dumb brutes (dinosaurs in the place of dragons, things like that), but when a D&D monster has the capacity to use magic or spell-like abilities, that will be retained.

TREASURE/MAGIC ITEMS
The amount of treasure and magic items available to characters is radically reduced, far beyond the scope of this post. Generally speaking, finding a masterwork item will be a big deal! Players should be prepared to lose their equipment from time to time as well, such as when the characters are captured or in a shipwreck or something. Most equipment is purely mundane in nature.

RITUAL MAGIC
There are rituals that can be learned by anybody with the Spellcraft skill, and do not use up magic spell slots. Generally speaking, a ritual takes several minutes to perform, requires a Spellcraft check, and may require an expenditure of hit points (either from the caster or from a sacrificial victim). Rituals must be learned by the character from books, scrolls, or mentors. Many rituals are summoning, protective, or binding in nature, but there are plenty of others. One popular ritual is "Ghost Touch."

Ghost Touch Ritual: This ritual is used to imbue the weapon of someone who expects to fight incorporeal undead with the "ghost touch" property. It takes 10 minutes, has a Spellcraft DC of 25, and requires a minimum of 1d6 hp worth of blood from the person wielding the weapon smeared onto the blade/striking surface. It lasts for 1 hour per hp of blood applied; the weilder may willingly drain up to 3d6 of blood onto the weapon for this purpose.

Rituals are generally restricted in their utility -- they're more plot devices than anything else. Generally speaking, characters should not be allowed to create their own rituals unless they have at least 5 levels of Sorcerer.

This is just a start, but what do you think? Assuming you think a "rare magic" game is fun, what do you think of this implementation?

-The Gneech

 

[I'm A Banana]

Pretty good, I'd say. Sounds like a rare-magic campaign I might enjoy.

I'm a little leery of the vastly reduced magical equipment (since, as per this post, sub-10th-level items should be craftable, which means most of them; and if I can craft magic items by not find them, and I think I need them, crafting suddenly becomes HUGELY powerful), but only a little, because I'm guessing you have some other method of rewarding powers and upgrades to characters other than levels (such as just giving them the powers of a magic item instead of the magic item itself).

 

[Mort]

Sounds fun, but 2 quick things:

If you allow the monk unchanged, the PC will be too powerful. Monks have great abilities that make magic items not as necessary for them as for other classes. This is even truer if you have a high point buy as it will negate the monk's multiple attribute dependency.

Next, I like sorcerers but, wizards seem to fit better in a sword and sorcery setting (been reading Conan) all the reliance on looking for rare spell books and even rarer materials. Plus with a wizard, it’s much easier to control spell selection (especially if you rule Wizards do not automatically gain spells with level)

 

[A'koss]

Not a bad start, very much like how Andy Collins runs his Umber campaign. As a matter of fact, you may want to have a peek at his site for some other tidbits in this vein. http://www.andycollins.net/Campaigns/Umber/Umber.htm

Also, you will probably want to institute some kind of Class-based defense bonus for everyone. Probably wouldn't hurt to give everyone a few extra feats as well.

Cheers!

 

[Yair]

I'm not a fan of allowing D&D magic for PCs in a rare-magic setting. Even allowing a few spells, in my experience, quickly make magic dull and predictable.
I would personally remove all spellcasting classes, and rely on individually crafted and approved Incantations or at the very least institute some alternate spellcasting system. In one such campaign I allowed Wizards to work as normal, but made arcane magic always Evil (requiring evil material components and procedures, mostly: spellbooks made of human flesh, spells learned from diabolical pacts, items enchanted by dipping them in baby blood, and so on).
In other words, I'd just leave the Rituals.

I don't know how to deal with DR, incorporeality, etherealness, and so on. I don't think your rules cover that, which will make using some monsters more difficult.
Likewise, not having a means for elemental resistance and similar protections would, I believe, make some monsters nearly invincible.
Edit: Your Rituals may be able to deal with all of that, actually. Hmmm.

Instead of magic items I did use a point-buy method for "extraordinary abilities". But I reckon that's not to your taste.

Anyways, that's my 2 cents.

 

[Zappo]

I've been thinking for a while about a "rare magic" campaign with limited rule changes. A concept I've been toying with is as follows. Mind ya, I haven't really thought this through yet.

• Only classes allowed are barbarian, fighter, and a modified rogue that can switch sneak attack damage for extra skill points. No other class is allowed (except maybe a "sage" class which is broadly the same as a rogue but gets a good Will save and knowledge-related skills and powers instead of Tumble, Evasion and such).
• Characters never find standard treasure. Loot is confined to a bit of money, the occasional gem, and mundane items. Adventurers are no longer richer than kings.
• Characters can spend XPs to purchase the powers that a magic item would provide (1 XP = 10 GP). For example, a fighter can spend 100 XP to get a +1 enhancement bonus to AC, or 400 XP to get a +2 enhancement bonus to Strength. Unlike magic items, these powers are a property of the character, not of the item. The AC bonus in the example would apply to any body armor worn by the character. Powers that don't have an obvious supernatural effect are not magical and do not detect as such.
• Powers can only be acquired during downtime, when the character is relaxing or training between adventures. The time required is the time it would take to craft the item. You can't spend enough XP to drop a level.
• Normal class restrictions on magic items apply. This means that the only way to cast magic missile is to purchase the power of a wand of magic missiles and have Use Magic Device (this skill is renamed "Magic Ability" or something). Characters that do so are known as spellcasters.

 

[Sigg]

I have been away from the boards for a couple months and so may be out of touch a bit, and for pure curiosity's sake...why not just go with a system (like Blue Rose) that's already de-emphasized magic?

 

[The_Gneech]

I have been away from the boards for a couple months and so may be out of touch a bit, and for pure curiosity's sake...why not just go with a system (like Blue Rose) that's already de-emphasized magic?

Well, part of it is just an exercise in "what-if," to see if it can be done and if so how to do it. And part of it is because I have a lazy bunch of players who don't want to learn new game systems. And part of it is because I'm lazy myself and don't want to learn a new game system either.

If you allow the monk unchanged, the PC will be too powerful. Monks have great abilities that make magic items not as necessary for them as for other classes. This is even truer if you have a high point buy as it will negate the monk's multiple attribute dependency.

Next, I like sorcerers but, wizards seem to fit better in a sword and sorcery setting (been reading Conan) all the reliance on looking for rare spell books and even rarer materials. Plus with a wizard, it’s much easier to control spell selection (especially if you rule Wizards do not automatically gain spells with level)

I wondered about that with the monk; but given that I've never actually see anyone play one, I wasn't sure if it'd be an issue.

The reason I picked sorcerers over wizards was for the slower spell progression and longer metamagic use times. Sorcerers still need to use material components, and spell books is where rituals come from. However, it may end up being better to toss both sorcerers and wizards and have all magic use the "ritual magic" model. (An expert with Spellcraft as a class skill could still make a pretty hefty sorcerer-in-practice, as opposed to sorcerer-in-class.)

I'm a little leery of the vastly reduced magical equipment (since, as per this post, sub-10th-level items should be craftable, which means most of them; and if I can craft magic items by not find them, and I think I need them, crafting suddenly becomes HUGELY powerful), but only a little, because I'm guessing you have some other method of rewarding powers and upgrades to characters other than levels (such as just giving them the powers of a magic item instead of the magic item itself).

Well, what magic item powers are you referring to? Most items are of the "+x to y stat" variety, which don't really to that much by way of flashy powers. Stuff like invisibility, flight, teleportation and the like, are precisely the kind of powers people usually don't have in a setting like this, so that when the rare character comes along who actually has a magic carpet or The Precious, it's a big deal and everybody notices. BAB inflation does make the lack of magic armor worrisome; implementing a class-based Defense bonus might ameliorate that a bit, tho.

As for item creation, that's a good point, although going by the model as originally posted, it would take a 19th level character to be a 10th level sorcerer. If you keep the standard GP cost for item creation but have considerably less treasure floating around, it's going to be a lot less appealing to tie up a lot of money into items. (Again, tho, if the sorcerer is also removed, item creation feats become a lot harder to come by.)

-The Gneech

 

[WizarDru]

Looks good, so far, but be careful...some monster CRs, especially undead, are now going to be incorrect. A Bodak, for example, becomes much more deadly: his death attack, normally something to be easily countered with Death Ward, now isn't available until to a PC cleric until 13th or 14th level. That Invisible Ogre Mage or Ice Devil who can cast Cone of Cold now is more dangerous, when Resist Energy isn't available to a sorceror until 7th level and Protection for Energy is a precious commodity even at 12th level (with only 2+bonus spells). Certain creature types such as Outsiders, Undead and many Aberrations will be varying degrees of more difficult for a magic impaired party.

You should factor that into the CR ratings or in which creatures you pick for a particular encounter.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

With low healing abilities I'd redefine hit points and use the wound/vitality system.

I'd have the 1st level be the character's "real" hit points with everything else representing fatigue and whatnot. Then I'd increase the rate of getting hit points back with rest. Otherwise your guys will be perpetually walking around at half health and that's no fun.