The Myth of the Necessity of Magic Items

[jmucchiello]

What's your point? That because I post 3 house rules, there must be 50 more? It doesn't take a system rewrite to play lower magic, no matter the 'theory.'

But it does take work and it does take rewriting some things. I wanted you to list those things. You cavalierly stated that your had but 2 house rules. Then you said you used action points. Then you explained how cavemen can convert DR to hit points. Well excuse me for not reading your mind but I don't think those 4 things are all you need to do to run a low-magic campaign.

Your thesis is that low-magic and D&D don't mix is a myth but you haven't really shown how simple it is to take a low-magic party of 4 characters at level 20 and throw a pit fiend at them and it will only use 20% of their resources as any party level = CR encounter should. So my point is where is the rest of it? DR is not the only sticky point. Expected DC levels for saving throws is another big sticky point. What do you to adjust them?

My house rulebook in fact covers the following topics:

That is the house rulebook for the players. I want the DM house rules. Those rules include the DR to hit point conversions. Are you saying that is all you have to do to make all core monster usable in low-magic games? I doubt it. So, perhaps it's house rule that is tripping us up. How about telling us your rules of thumb for simple monster conversion?

 

[Warren Okuma]

The Myth of the Necessity of Magic Items...

It's a myth that you need magic itemsm and also a myth on needing house rules. All you need to do is know your math. Creature X has N DR and does N amount of damage to AC N on the average (and do factor in critical hits). PC does and average of N to N DR and hits creature on N.

Do the math and scale your encounters. You don't need house rules. All you need is math and say a 20%-25% safety margin in case of bad rolls.

Know your monster and know your PC's.

 

[sukael]

Creature X has N DR and does N amount of damage to AC N on the average (and do factor in critical hits). PC does and average of N to N DR and hits creature on N.

A pretty good idea, really... problem is that you end up having to scale a lot more than just attack and damage - at higher levels, save DCs, immunities (how do you scale those?), movement rates and modes (flying, burrowing, teleporting, dimensional travel), etc etc.

 

[Warren Okuma]

Clarification:
PC group damage per turn (at N AC N, that's group average damage against X) minus DR (if applicable) divided by the monster's hit points = turns to monster kill.

Monster damage per turn (N at AC N, that's average damage against PC) divided by the PC's hit points = turns to PC death.

Thus if your monster's damage can kill a PC before the PC group kills it, somebody has a chance to die if you don't split your monster's fire. If it less, then the PC has smaller chance to die.

Just plug immunities into the formula. Dam=zero. Tactics is a multiplier 1/2KT ranges from .2 to 1. Movement is a multiplier 1/2KM and ranges from .2 to 1. Thus (KT + KM) is the total multiplier.

Yeah, when people use math in DnD it just gets ugly.

 

[sukael]

Clarification:
PC group damage per turn (at N AC N, that's group average damage against X) minus DR (if applicable) divided by the monster's hit points = turns to monster kill.

Monster damage per turn (N at AC N, that's average damage against PC) divided by the PC's hit points = turns to PC death.

Thus if your monster's damage can kill a PC before the PC group kills it, somebody has a chance to die if you don't split your monster's fire. If it less, then the PC has smaller chance to die.

Just plug immunities into the formula. Dam=zero. Tactics is a multiplier 1/2KT ranges from .2 to 1. Movement is a multiplier 1/2KM and ranges from .2 to 1. Thus (KT + KM) is the total multiplier.

Yeah, when people use math in DnD it just gets ugly.

What about save-or-dies, though, or similarly effective things?

 

[icedrake]

What about save-or-dies, though, or similarly effective things?

Look at your player's saves and think about how difficult you want the encounter to be. Set the DC based on the likelihood a character with a good save (+10 for argument's sake) or bad save (+2) will succeed.

DC 17's not too bad for the good save guy, 7+, but the bad save guy needs a 15+.

Need to use probability.

 

[QuaziquestGM]

"As an obvious example, consider the ever-popular "The party is taken prisoner and stripped naked" scenario. Given the bare minimums (basic weapons and spell components), certain classes are still going to retain a large portion of their power (the wild-shaping animal-summoning druid, for example) while others are going to be sorely diminished (the fighter)."


Heh, heh....

Happened to me and my party on the first night.
Soulknife
Warlock
Cleric will all spells
Gnome Aristocrat.

The only one hampered was the gnome.

 

[green slime]

"As an obvious example, consider the ever-popular "The party is taken prisoner and stripped naked" scenario. Given the bare minimums (basic weapons and spell components), certain classes are still going to retain a large portion of their power (the wild-shaping animal-summoning druid, for example) while others are going to be sorely diminished (the fighter)."


Heh, heh....

Happened to me and my party on the first night.
Soulknife
Warlock
Cleric will all spells
Gnome Aristocrat.

The only one hampered was the gnome.

Yes, it must be hard to be noble when your naked up to your nose in mud.

 

[monboesen]

The demons/devils/etc of higher CR/EL's are probably part of the problem for many DM's who don't take the time to have more higher level HUMAN or advanced natural monster encounters

So in order to make your low magic campaign work you, in addition to your houserules, have to avoid using certain types of monsters. I think that was my guess a) in my former post.

Now the last bit we need to clarify is how you avoid non-spellcasters feeling completely ineffectual. Last time we did a low magic campaign with few houserules the spellcasters started to dominate at 9-10th level.

 

[Darrell]

Given that many DM's may not always be running that kind of game, would you concede, that having a mechanical balance (that does not hinder you from creating blind commoners or Divine Hercules with DM-fiat) amongst similar character concepts (which is basically what the base classes represent, to a limited degree) could not be contrived to be a bad thing?

Possibly. For some people. By and large, however, I have always felt and will allways feel that 'mechanical balance' is completely unnecessary; and, indeed, often a hindrance to new players, who frequently feel that they have to 'measure up' to some ubiquitous standard in order to have a viable character. Any character can be viable, and those who aren't the 'equal' of the rest of the party are often the most interesting characters in the game.

Regards,
Darrell