more 'realistic'/ extremely low magic campaign?
- Thread starter greycastle
- Start date
Kae'Yoss
First Post
Enceladus said:
I think that's cold comfort for the ex-spellcaster classes. "We know you're far less effective than the others in the party. But see, our enemy's sorcerers are as crappy as sou."
(Relative) Balance must be maintained between all the base classes, or it will lead to dissatisfaction (or some classes just won't be chosen any more).
Nifft
Penguin Herder
In a low-magic world, I'd imagine that most threats would be from classed character races or other low-CR humanoids with levels.
Personally, I don't like the way that "D&D Demographics" interoperates with the normal D&D magic level... but I changed the other side of it, the demographics.
IMC, natural life expectancy is similar to modern life expectancy. However, there are a LOT of monsters which like eating people, and enough people die in "unrecoverable" ways to keep the good human(oid) population low.
With a small starting population, it's easier to threaten whole communities -- and that's a real threat, because "it takes a village to Raise a child".
In terms of level distribution, a dangerous D&D world has few (surviving) Commoners. They just aren't viable. My world has Apprentices being people of level 1-3, Journeymen being of level 4-9, Masters being of level 10-14, High Masters of level 15-17, and Legendary people of level 18-20. Every community has a Master or two, and every city has many Masters and a few High Masters. Important cities have Legendary people. Most citizens are Journeymen.
The two NPC classes I kept are the Expert and the Aristocrat. Most "worker" NPCs have Expert levels, but also use PC class levels to boost their effectiveness. In a farming community, most farmers have at least one level of Druid, and there are always a couple of Druids high enough level to cast Stone Shape and Plant Growth. Communities without such a resource just aren't viable.
Everyone is in the militia. Everyone has had some combat training. Communities survive because they are NOT threatened by hordes of 1st level goblin Rogues.
-- Nifft
Personally, I don't like the way that "D&D Demographics" interoperates with the normal D&D magic level... but I changed the other side of it, the demographics.
IMC, natural life expectancy is similar to modern life expectancy. However, there are a LOT of monsters which like eating people, and enough people die in "unrecoverable" ways to keep the good human(oid) population low.
With a small starting population, it's easier to threaten whole communities -- and that's a real threat, because "it takes a village to Raise a child".
In terms of level distribution, a dangerous D&D world has few (surviving) Commoners. They just aren't viable. My world has Apprentices being people of level 1-3, Journeymen being of level 4-9, Masters being of level 10-14, High Masters of level 15-17, and Legendary people of level 18-20. Every community has a Master or two, and every city has many Masters and a few High Masters. Important cities have Legendary people. Most citizens are Journeymen.
The two NPC classes I kept are the Expert and the Aristocrat. Most "worker" NPCs have Expert levels, but also use PC class levels to boost their effectiveness. In a farming community, most farmers have at least one level of Druid, and there are always a couple of Druids high enough level to cast Stone Shape and Plant Growth. Communities without such a resource just aren't viable.
Everyone is in the militia. Everyone has had some combat training. Communities survive because they are NOT threatened by hordes of 1st level goblin Rogues.
-- Nifft
Ravellion
serves Gnome Master
Take away Bardic, Paladin and ranger spellcasting. Give the paladin and ranger two or three bonus feats from a select list. Give the Bard d8 hit die.
Raise the wizard and sorcerer HD to d6. Give Sorcerers the Bard spell known table, but use their own spells per day table (higher slots can be metamagiced lower level spells).
Wizards gain 1st level spells at level 1, 2nd at 3rd, 3rdat 6th, 4th at 9th, 5th at 12th and 6th at 15. They use their own spells per day table (higher slots can be metamagiced lower level spells).
Wizards get no "free spells" in their spellbooks, so must scribe them all.
Just a slight weakening of the magic, quite enough to be noticeable, but not so much that it will become a pain quite so quickly.
Completely unplaytested, just a quick fix I could come up with right now which is slightly less drastic than just ahving half of your levels in a casting class.
Raise the wizard and sorcerer HD to d6. Give Sorcerers the Bard spell known table, but use their own spells per day table (higher slots can be metamagiced lower level spells).
Wizards gain 1st level spells at level 1, 2nd at 3rd, 3rdat 6th, 4th at 9th, 5th at 12th and 6th at 15. They use their own spells per day table (higher slots can be metamagiced lower level spells).
Wizards get no "free spells" in their spellbooks, so must scribe them all.
Just a slight weakening of the magic, quite enough to be noticeable, but not so much that it will become a pain quite so quickly.
Completely unplaytested, just a quick fix I could come up with right now which is slightly less drastic than just ahving half of your levels in a casting class.
Last edited:
Ravellion
serves Gnome Master
perhaps another thing you might want to consider: Any spell with a duration has its duration lessened by one category, if possible. This makes it a lot less likely for people to "buff up", and makes people more reliant on magic items: of which there aren't as much, so all in all, people will be more reliant on their own abilities.
greycastle
First Post
well, obviously i havn't put my intentions across clear enough, because while theres pleanty of very good ideas, i just don't see anything along the lines of what i was thinking, though i was thinkin a little along the d20 modern rules a little...
I was thinking of playing a game along the lines of Magician style (Raymond E.Feist) or Huge Cooks Series (specifically the Walrus and the Warwolf, the Wicked and the Witless)...these were 'worlds' where their were plenty of gods, but magic was rare...almost everyone was a warrior, expert, commoner, with some aristocrats *only true nobility* and enough adepts (though all would have been around very low levels)...
There were quite alot of races, *thinking of magician (Riftwar Saga)* from Forest, High, Dark Elves, Hill, Mountain Dwarves, Golbins, Orcs, Wraiths etc etc. This is the type of thing i'm thinking of...
From what i read, Aristocrats who were simply nobles never gained more than about 3 levels, but those that fourght in battles and campaigns, would have aquired Fighter levels. Northeners who were raised and trained in the barren wastelands would have gained barbarian levels, though losing out on abilities...
The idea of this campaign is to play it to about a level 12 stage, and then start again, possibly a different world, 'normal' 3rd edition etc...
While we all really love the current rules, some of us have just gotten a fancy to play something very...'crude' almost...
The only thing however that we've decided on is that certian classes have no multiclass penalties...and that players starting as commoners, instantly swap out levels for other classes at lower experience costs, and so don't have 'wasted' levels
Currently i'm wanting to create a character for such a campaign, to start off as an Aristocrat character *modeled alittle on Arutha* in that he could gain possibly 2-3 levels in aristocrat, then hopefully i could gain the 'faith' to go into a Paladin type class...
Any ideas?
I was thinking of playing a game along the lines of Magician style (Raymond E.Feist) or Huge Cooks Series (specifically the Walrus and the Warwolf, the Wicked and the Witless)...these were 'worlds' where their were plenty of gods, but magic was rare...almost everyone was a warrior, expert, commoner, with some aristocrats *only true nobility* and enough adepts (though all would have been around very low levels)...
There were quite alot of races, *thinking of magician (Riftwar Saga)* from Forest, High, Dark Elves, Hill, Mountain Dwarves, Golbins, Orcs, Wraiths etc etc. This is the type of thing i'm thinking of...
From what i read, Aristocrats who were simply nobles never gained more than about 3 levels, but those that fourght in battles and campaigns, would have aquired Fighter levels. Northeners who were raised and trained in the barren wastelands would have gained barbarian levels, though losing out on abilities...
The idea of this campaign is to play it to about a level 12 stage, and then start again, possibly a different world, 'normal' 3rd edition etc...
While we all really love the current rules, some of us have just gotten a fancy to play something very...'crude' almost...
The only thing however that we've decided on is that certian classes have no multiclass penalties...and that players starting as commoners, instantly swap out levels for other classes at lower experience costs, and so don't have 'wasted' levels
Currently i'm wanting to create a character for such a campaign, to start off as an Aristocrat character *modeled alittle on Arutha* in that he could gain possibly 2-3 levels in aristocrat, then hopefully i could gain the 'faith' to go into a Paladin type class...
Any ideas?
