Need advice for a very low magic campaign

[Bastoche]

Hi,

I'm starting an oriental adventure campaign soon. I'd like to make a no-magic campaign. No spell caster classes, very few "magic" monster, very very very few magical items (a +1 sword will be considered a priceless artefact).

Now I know 3E balance stands on a fragile equilibrium between a 28 point buy system and a "standard" money income progression.

If you want to keep balance in check, what adjustment should be done to the charcter in order to keep the CR rating ok ? If you disallow spell casting classes (that imply no magical healing), what adjustment to the ability scores and HP/level should be done ? What else should be taken in consideration ?

There will be "wizards" and "priests" but they will be charlatant (adepts or aristocrats).

Thank you.

 

[wolfpunk]

It really depends on the type of campaign you are running. An oriental campaign, based on courty intrigue will not have a difficult time adapting to a low magic world. A campaign based on fighting inside the realm of a city and it surrounding areas (meaning mostly pc races as enemies) also will not have much trouble, a campaign with low level monsters at the start will be fairly safe, but at higher levels, combat with higher level creatures will be very unfair. Probably an adjustment of -2 on the CR would be in order. Then again, if the players can't hit the creature, then they can't hit the creature. Also massive damage becomes a problem, normal armor is only so helpful, after that it is magical defense and healing.

So decide how many levels the campaign is designed to give the characters and go from there.

Hope this helps.

 

[LostSoul]

If you disallow spell casting classes (that imply no magical healing), what adjustment to the ability scores and HP/level should be done ? What else should be taken in consideration ?
Thank you.

In my game there aren't any Clerics, so I "fixed" the problem of damage this way:

All damage taken above your Constitution score is Subdual.

So if you have 25 hit points and 12 Con, you can heal the first 13 hit points at your level per hour. If you drop beneath that, you've got to heal them naturally. Critical hits, sneak attacks, and some other things take one point away from that vital damage.

There are a lot of different versions of this system out there, so look around and see which one you like.

Oh yeah, I demystified some potions and allowed the Wizard to cast Goodberry. Endurance potions became known as "Gursnip Root" and almost everyone carries them around.

 

[Bastoche]

Thanks. It's a good starting point. I think I will go along the campaign "normally" and modify the rules after each session if necessary

 

[Deadguy]

AC is a problem

Mentioning armour, it's important to note that D&D3 is balanced on the assumption that armour is acquired through magic (or rather, AC is acquired through magic). Without that addition, other bonuses to AC are going to be impossible to come by. It might be necessary to add in some class modification to AC by level, otherwise the Attack bonuses will rapidly outstrip the protection offered by armour, and fights will get very bloody. An alternative is to look to a ssyatem where armour doesn't add to AC but instead reduces the damage taken (cf Damage Resistance).

Either way, Bastoche, you will have to rebalance the campaign as you go along - the system does make assumptions about the prevalence of magic and magical items that ignoring will require careful thought. I'd advise against using too many weird monsters, and focussing on human (or whatever race!) opposition. These are far easier to adjudge and balance.

 

[Bob Aberton]

As for armor, how about 1/2 (rounded up) the character's base attack bonus every other level can be added to the AC.
For example, With a BAB of +2, the character would get an AC bonus of +1 (prolly a competence bonus).

And as for DR, instead of magical weapons, make it _/(special material). For example, a demon might have DR 10/cold iron. A vampire might have a DR 10/holy water. A dragon might have DR _/+1, to show just how hard they are to kill. You get the idea. O

 

[Bastoche]

Well...

We played the first game yesterday. Since there is a monk character and that this character has a clear advantage in a non-magical world, I gave a few freebies to the samuraï. I changed the ancestral daisho ability for a bonus feat and for background reason and the fact that his scores are a little lower I gave him Leadership for free.

For armor, what I did is the following: 70% of their hit points are "endurance" point, that they recover after an hour of rest. The 30% other hit points are the true hit points. Instead of gaining 1 hp/level/8 hours of rest, they get 0.3 hp/level/8 hours of rest. Seems to be ok. Since the AC are lower, feats like expertise, dodge and karmic strike gets very valuable.

If I ever find the AC are too low, I give AC bonus per level.

Thanks again, keep them comming !

 

[willpax]

Another way to deal with lost AC

What I've done in my low-magic-item campaign was to allow everyone the equivalent of the expertise feat (up to 5 pts); the expertise feat removes this limit. Everyone is free to shift as many points as they have in attack to defense. This allows the players some control/strategy: do you fight recklessly in hopes of a quick conclusion, or more defensively in hopes of not taking damage?

I'm still fiddling with this idea. You may want to increase the BAB progression (especially for the warrior types). I use HP/WP and criticals are very serious, so most of the players like a high AC to reduce the chance of confirming a critical hit.

 

[Bastoche]

There is a feat in oriental adventure called "superior expertise" which does exactly that: remove the 5 points exepertise penality. Althought I could give Expertise for free. Food for thoughts...