Starting a 'low magic' campaign for my 10yr old and his friends. Need help

[Visigani]

Fools... the answer is obvious... adopt Expanded Psionics to be the "spellcaster". You'd keep all the wizard/sorcs weaknesses (i.e. arcane spell failure) and the spells they would cast would be based on the powers in the book.

Finally, you'd get rid of kinetics.


So, you'd have what amounts to a first level Wiz who could have disable, dissipating touch, and sense link in their spellbook... and would be functionally identical to the psion... except they would cast spells rather than have supernatural abilities and therefore suffer from arcane spell failure chance..


The Wizard learns spells just as the psion does, save one significant difference.

A wizard's spellbook is idellibly etched with the spell written on its pages and the wizard MUST have the spellbook in his or her hand and reading it.

This means that each book is essentially a spell list the character has access to.

A first level wizard could have two spell books, and during down time could swap them out.

The first spell book might have Skate, Sense Link, and Synthesete, and the Wizards other spellbook would have Crystal Shard, Deja Vu and Demoralize.

As the wizard levels up he can add to these spellbooks whenever he has the opportunity to research a new spell or ability or naturally when he levels up. However, no single spellbook may have more than maximum number of spells the character could have at that level.

This means a level 5 character could have two or more spellbooks that had 11 spells (upto lvl 3 and following the psion spell progression), but would have to wait until 6th level in order to inscribe 2 more spells in each.

Due to the inherent paradox inscribed into the tomes a character may only carry a single Spellbook on their person at any given time lest the fields that surround them come together and begin disturbing the natural order of things (limbs and digits go missing and so forth).

This is why Wizards libraries are so "weird" and prone to having bizarre things in them.


Finally, change the name from Wizard to "Sage" and allow them to cast the psions healing power abilities as well. Allow body purification to be used for poisons, diseases and other miscellany, but it's a caster level check to overcome.

 

[Gilladian]

I agree with Empirate; I have been running an E6 campaign and am very happy with it. There IS higher level magic in the world, it is simply only available to groups of ritual casters. So your pharaoh has a group of 20 minions in the background chanting, feeding him power.

You can have every/any NPC you want, too. Just be clear to your PCs that you're breaking the "pcs and npcs follow the same rules" rule, (4e does and nobody really yells about it), and you'll be fine.

 

[Dandu]

So your pharaoh has a group of 20 minions in the background chanting, feeding him power.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0z6ICLYkcA[/ame]

 

[xigbar]

Unless your group has some optimizers in it, you may not need to change your game. Most people who pick a wizard will grab fireball, and most people who grab cleric will become healbots. Unless your group has an advanced grasp of the rules, they won't be playing Tier 1/2 to their respective pinnacles.

 

[HoboGod]

If you fear the people you're playing with to be powergaming munchkins, then all hope is lost no matter how you restrict your players unless YOU build their characters for them. There isn't balance in D&D, only a seemingly endless permutation of options. It's up to you as the DM to give your players balance. If one player seems to be building an optimized powerhouse, give your less experienced players some tips to make their character better or make the optimizer share some tips. At which point, just play it by feel and be ready to use rule zero to lay the smackdown on a munchkin. Make sure you know what your powergamers are trying to do, if you think it's too strong for the game you are trying to run, say "no, I'm not allowing that".

 

[irdeggman]

Try using Dark Sun as the base setting.

They (official fan site) did a 3.5 up date (free).

The Burnt World of Athas

The setting is high in psionics and low in arcane magic (it actually is powered by draining life energy) and high in clerics (although oriented by element and not deity).

For beginners I would drop fixed casters and go with the ones that don't have to memorize spells (sorcerer and favored soul instead of wizard and cleric) - makes play easier and picking spells on the fly is more enjoyable for a newbie. They know fewer spells, but can use them more often per day (usually).

Psionics is good as it is more akin to the spontaneous.

 

[Jeffrie]

Unless your group has some optimizers in it, you may not need to change your game. Most people who pick a wizard will grab fireball, and most people who grab cleric will become healbots. Unless your group has an advanced grasp of the rules, they won't be playing Tier 1/2 to their respective pinnacles.

See, i don't really want wizards tossing around fireballs. Actually, i don't mind if they do, i just don't wan't it to happen often.

 

[Jeffrie]

If you fear the people you're playing with to be powergaming munchkins, then all hope is lost no matter how you restrict your players unless YOU build their characters for them. There isn't balance in D&D, only a seemingly endless permutation of options. It's up to you as the DM to give your players balance. If one player seems to be building an optimized powerhouse, give your less experienced players some tips to make their character better or make the optimizer share some tips. At which point, just play it by feel and be ready to use rule zero to lay the smackdown on a munchkin. Make sure you know what your powergamers are trying to do, if you think it's too strong for the game you are trying to run, say "no, I'm not allowing that".

My elder son (19) is rather smart, and has already got the idea. I'm starting to like the plan of nerfing an E11 with IDEA #4.

 

[Jeffrie]

Try using Dark Sun as the base setting.

They (official fan site) did a 3.5 up date (free).

The Burnt World of Athas

The setting is high in psionics and low in arcane magic (it actually is powered by draining life energy) and high in clerics (although oriented by element and not deity).

For beginners I would drop fixed casters and go with the ones that don't have to memorize spells (sorcerer and favored soul instead of wizard and cleric) - makes play easier and picking spells on the fly is more enjoyable for a newbie. They know fewer spells, but can use them more often per day (usually).

Psionics is good as it is more akin to the spontaneous.

Thanks for the link. I will read it later. Wizards D20, right? cool.
The tip on spont/fixed casters for beginners is smart.

 

[Jeffrie]

I talked with my son last night and we came up with some ideas. I was looking for a way to teach some history, as well as lean on my strengths in the subject. I was also getting tired of playing precrafted worlds; since everybody can't help metagaming. My son is a big imagination talker, and i thought our own world would let him imagine instead of read, and play to his strengths.

Did i mention he can get school credit for different things like writing assignments?

***********************
Our characters live in a place called the Feywold (fairy world) which is where all the faeries are from. None of the other humanoid races are from there, but have been all stocked from the rare traveler from another world.
Each race has it's own planet/plane where they live with their respective gods. The gods came to the feywold long ago from fey knows not where and built their dominions and moved into them, populating them with their respective kinds.

Now there are doors between the Feywold and the Dominions that can be opened by great power. Very few understand that and only the fewest of them can perform it.

But on occasion a storm or eruption can make the rift open and the sailor come out of the storm into the Feywold. Eons have brought many, and many have prospered, but the Feywold is still a largely unmapped and dangerous world. Wild and beautiful, it is rich in everything. Towering trees and mountains mix with impenetrable jungles, marsh, and uncrossable expanses of desert.

But leaving is nearly impossible. For one, opening the portal is a divine act, and none but those and their peers can do it. As such, the gods don't jive on you opening the doors they closed. For two, the storms and events are rare, so you could sail into storms your whole life, and even if you finally found a storm portal, where/when would it take you?

The eldarin were the first non fey in the Feywold. They are elves directly from the Dominion, and live for ages. Their children here live less long because they don't bath in the divine light of their creator as the eldarin have. They were here for uncounted years before the orcs came.

The orcs and other monstrous humanoids live in their Dominion, where they battle eachother. The door between there and the Feywold is easier to open and the orckin can sail through with exponential regularity. They have learned this and their highest magics include divining the portals. Their home is harsh and they seem to think of the Feywold as a berry pick. All other races are united in hatred of them, but whole armadas sail out of the storms fully armed in nearly every generation of humans in the Feywold.

The coming of the Dwarves was the opening of the third age. They had battled the orckin in their own Dominion, which is harsh, but rich and beautiful. The wars were bloody, but the dwarves were on home ground and always prevailed.
The dwarves built a mighty empire greater than any on either of the three dominions or the feywold had ever seen. Then the dwarves stopped coming, and one day a mighty armada of orckin came, heralding the end of the third age.
The portal rarely opens in 'modern' times and so the dwarves long for their kin, and hate the orcs passionately for their ongoing assault on their ruined empire.

Humans arrive in the Feywold in small numbers usually, though there have been instances of whole cultures of humans coming through a portal. They were here in the second age with the elves, and took heroic and virtuous actions in the great wars of that age, but from the very beginning humans have been willful, independent and individual. They even had a hand in the breaking off of the Dark Dwarves.
There haven't been any documented new humans appear in the Feywold in many centuries, though scholars mostly agree it may have happened.

Gnomes were in the Feywold during the first age, and knew about the eldarin who they found here, but remained undetected. A lucky gnome found a portal once by chance underground, and soon had dug himself out the other side into the feywold. Once he realize what had happened he led his entire clan into the virgin world of magic and set up camp. The camp became wide network of small 'cities' under the high lush hills of their land. They lived undetected for ages until the Dwarves found them near the beginning of the third age.
When suddenly the gnomes portal closed it was the end of an era itself. This one portal is the only recorded instance of a portal staying open and predictable for so long.

Halflings argue about their native origins, and there is a theory about everything, but not a single theory has a scrap of evidence but instead a pile of contradiction.
*********************

The seas of the Feyworld are dangerous sailing filled with storms and orckin. Distance and direction are not entirely dependable. Certain smaller island groups seem to shift time and place. Some of the more remote places are rumored by sages to do so also. The larger and tamer areas seem not to and most folks don't suffer the effect if they don't leave the landmass they live on.
Long distance travel is risky and arduous. Geographical barriers are intimidating and not all populations are friendly. Friendly populations are often cautious, and those that are not are usually quite powerful. Distant lands are only rumored about, and though the size of the world is extrapolated it is not well mapped and impossible to do so.

Waddya think? I got stuff about dragons too.