Power Level of Default Setting

[Nifft]

It's my opinion that the default setting and the default power level (especially magic) are out of sync.

The default setting is very similar to Feudal Europe (whether or not such a thing really existed). The power level provided to society by the spells & items found in the core rules allow a far more modern lifestyle -- perhaps even exceeding modern medicine.

Does this bother anyone besides me? I've worked to make a setting where high magic is taken to its logical ends. Many others are taking the opposite approach: creating low-magic rules which don't invalidate the implied setting. I assume we're bothered by the same dissonance.

-- Nifft

 

[d4]

i've found the easiest way to make a low-magic setting in D&D is to simply restrict the number of spellcasters in the world, and especially the number of mid- to high-level casters.

other than that, i don't think any specific rules need to be changed at all.

 

[jgbrowning]

The default setting is very similar to Feudal Europe (whether or not such a thing really existed). The power level provided to society by the spells & items found in the core rules allow a far more modern lifestyle -- perhaps even exceeding modern medicine.

-- Nifft

i voted "Several of my house rules address this, but I didn't have to change much." and then, upon reflection, realized I'd written a book about it , so perhaps I should be under the last option.... hehe

joe "Failed his poll check roll" b.

 

[Alchemist]

i've found the easiest way to make a low-magic setting in D&D is to simply restrict the number of spellcasters in the world, and especially the number of mid- to high-level casters.

other than that, i don't think any specific rules need to be changed at all.

This only really works as long as you don't let the players make spellcasters. Otherwise, they're super-elites and you've made the problem worse.

I dig low-magic, but my players are happy with the rules as-is, so I've taken the existence of magic to logical (and reasonable) extremes.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I have a hunch this is what the future Eberron setting is based on: magic replacing tech.

Of course, I also had a hunch that Sean K Reynolds would show up to Gen Con on 2-meter stilts wearing a Sailor Moon mask and screaming "I AM THE PENGUIN KING" ... so maybe my hunches are best treated with a grain of salt.


As for my personal feelings: I'm not so sure. What is an experience point exactly? What precisly am I giving up when I enchant an item?

Example: Biggus Geekus (our hero for the duration of this narrative) gets into a barfight with a dozen men of dubious reputation. Naturally, he wins. He then goes home to drink a bottle of fine wine and ruminates over this fiasco.

"Perhaps", the rogueishly handsome Biggus thinks to himself, "I should create bracers with my arcane abilities, the better to protect my stunning profile the next time I engage in such an alteraction."

Biggus Geekus then retires to his laboratory and with bracers of masterwork quality, creates Bracers of Armor +1. As fate would have it, that costs him 40 exp, the exact number of experience points he earned while fighting off the interlopers at the tavern. What becomes of this experience?

1) Does it fade from his memory? Not gone, but the sharp colors of the event are lost to him?

2) Does he simply revert to his "old" status? For example, Biggus took a knife wound in the fight (don't worry, it wasn't in the face). Has he now "forgotten" how best to deal with such a combat move?

3) Or is the experience simply a measure of personal "power" available to him? This isn't such a blowoff concept in D&D because casters gain spell slots on leveling up. So the exp could be power the mage was generating that would normally be used to gain more spell matrixes (or whatever they are in your campaign)

.. if the answer is 1 or 2, I don't see item creation happening for anything other than the serious item creation junkie. Personally, I'd be loathe to give up my memories and experiences. If the answer is #3, then, yes, I'd say that for any campaign with a multi thousand year history, that there would be items a-go-go floating around.

Of course, a lot of campaigns deal with this by simply making their worlds "young" or throwing in the obligatory catacalysm. But, as always, your milage may vary.

 

[Chimera]

In my setting it is not economically feasible for peasants and commoners to rely on magical healing.

A semi-skilled craftsman makes about 5 silver dollars per day, or 125 dollars per month. Working 25 of 30 days, if he's not sick or has family trouble or whatever.

Cure light wounds runs 150 dollars, or more than a month's wages.

An everburning torch is fairly cheap at 250 dollars, but that's still 2 months wages for our craftsman.

Removing blindness, deafness, curses or diseases is going to cost a minumum of 1,000 dollars, or eight months wages.

Raise Dead? A minimum of 25,000 dollars. Bare bones minimum for a member of a major religion in very good standing with the Temple, Shrine or Church. That's 200 months or 16 years 8 months of wages for our craftsman. Well out of his family's price range.

This leaves a lot of openings for Herbalists and Healers.

 

[Chimera]

Item creation wise, it seems to me that most Wizards and Clerics have better things to do with their time than work their butts off making magic items (expending a part of themselves in the process) for other people.

You don't get to be a 16th level Wizard by spending years at 8th or 10th level reducing your power and slaving away on making things.

Economically speaking (again going back to my own setting), it requires being willing to tie up large amounts of cash and spending a lot of time shopping for or acquiring magical ingredients.

 

[Wombat]

Given the world of D&D magic (which is its own private world, very definitely) there would be no reason to have castles at all. Between Fly, Portable Hole, Rock to Mud, Disintegration, etc., the whole purpose of castles has been circumvented.

Equally with so much Purify Food & Water and easy Cure Disease the waves of plagues would be cut down.

With Detect Lie criminal cases would be pretty much open and shut; equally, due to Resurrection and Raise Dead you could easily execture a serial killer multiple times.

I could go on, but those are major factors that would change the landscape of Europe in a D&D world. I won't even bother to get into the whole matter of economics, which are downright frightening

 

[S'mon]

If you take the default setting to be Greyhawk, the default D&D 3e magic level is badly out of sync with it. It's also caused problems with my own campaign world which has a similar magic level to traditional (pre-3e) Greyhawk. Forgotten Realms is much more suitable to 3e magic level IMO, it much less resembles medieval Europe and has always been based on isolated communities clustering round one or more ultra-powerful NPCs who protect them.

One problem with ultra-high-magic as in 3e is that it makes some scenarios like protracted sieges of major power centres highly unlikely; which was IMO a weakness with the finale of the Neverwinter Nights computer game.

 

[S'mon]

Re XP - levels (and by extension XP) represent life energy and personal power, the caster spending XP to cast a spell or enchant an item is spending part of his personal life energy. Undead take life energy when they drain levels.