Theorycraft: Creating a low-magic setting through Prestige Classes

[bedir than]

There aren't many classes in 5th edition without spells, and even most of those still have some spell-like effects. While magic items are no longer assumed, the rather low cost of spell-casting as a service indicates a fairly high level of magic within a "standard" 5th edition world. There are a few ways around this, the simplest of which is just having a DM or setting designer use a hand-wave fiat and declare that magic users are rare. Some may seek to utilize the old minimum ability scores as a way to indicate that only certain special snowflakes can do magic, not those pesky commoners. In my personal setting I eliminated partial casters, wizards, and warlocks. Divine users within the standards of the setting cast spells at ritual length. Sorcerers are only wild, and their chance of wild magic grows with the power of the spell and amount of spells they cast.

That is a complex and weighty rules system. The Paladin, Ranger, and Bard needed to be rebuilt.

What if there's another way? What if the casting classes and subclasses all became Prestige Classes?

The common man is then clearly cut-off. But so are all 1st tier PC/NPCs (maybe even 2nd tier for the casting Ranger/Paladin/Trickster/EldritchKnight). This would use the mechanic to re-enforce a world fiction where spells are special and amazing. Not only does not every one know, but only the chosen can even try to learn them. It would be an even more weighty rules rework than my current homebrew, probably a disgustingly large one.

Has magic, in the form of spell-casting, grown so common in popular RPGs that such a thing shouldn't even be considered?

Would there be advantages to a re-built version of DnD along such lines?

 

[Tony Vargas]

What if the casting classes and subclasses all became Prestige Classes?

The common man is then clearly cut-off. But so are all 1st tier PC/NPCs (maybe even 2nd tier for the casting Ranger/Paladin/Trickster/EldritchKnight). This would use the mechanic to re-enforce a world fiction where spells are special and amazing. Not only does not every one know, but only the chosen can even try to learn them. It would be an even more weighty rules rework than my current homebrew, probably a disgustingly large one.

I did have a campaign concept - it was called "the Second Millennium," a very low-magic setting based on the dark ages but with D&D races - and I used that idea. First 10 levels of caster classes became 10-level PrCs with 13 rank skill requirements. A big change, but not a great deal of work. I didn't go forward with it because D&D-style combats would have been impractical without anyone to cast Cure..Wounds and no WoCLW or healing potions. I went for a low-level but pervasive-magic campaign, instead: PC classes were rare - PCs even started with 2 levels in an NPC class based on backstory - but divine magic was common, with most people 'initiated' into various mystery cults that granted them a single Domain.

Has magic, in the form of spell-casting, grown so common in popular RPGs that such a thing shouldn't even be considered?

The only really popular TTRPGs in a mass market sense have been D&D products, which have always been very high-magic spell-casting, so it's not so much grown common or evolved, as fiat acompli, a sort of founder's principle. D&D was always high magic, so other RPGs tend that way.

Would there be advantages to a re-built version of DnD along such lines?

There are any number of ways you could re-build and improve upon D&D, but they wouldn't be D&D anymore.

 

[transcendantviewer]

Tony's got the right idea; something like this would indeed be quite the undertaking, requiring not just the reworking of class features, archetypes, and abilities, but even of encounters and certain monsters. Not to mention, such a world would be completely dominated by Liches, Dragons, and Aberrations. Anything with innate magical abilities that would allow them to assert control over the wills others would be tyrannical and borderline unstoppable. To reinvent the wheel in such a way does not make the wheel differently, it makes something completely new. That's not to say you aren't free to do so, but keep in mind; you won't be playing D&D 5th Edition anymore. You'll be playing Kingdoms & Calamities. (I just made that up. No idea if that's actually a thing...)

 

[Li Shenron]

Would there be advantages to a re-built version of DnD along such lines?

I think it's a great idea.

The main advantage is that the needed mechanical changes to your game will be virtually none. Just require a minimum level before taking the 1st level in any spellcasting class, and you don't need to change anything else. The only things left coming to my mind which can grant magic at 1st level would be racial features (e.g. High Elves' cantrip) and the Magic Initiate feat. For the latter, just require the same minimum level as for spellcasting classes. For the racial cantrip, you can find some replacement feature, or you can just postpone it until the same minimum level (or you could also keep it, with or without restrictions, if you want Elves to be an exception).

The real changes that your game will need are in adventure design, because you may find that many existing adventures are built with some assumptions on what the PCs can do via spellcasting, and now it will not be true. First and foremost, watch our for monsters which can inflict permanent or long-term conditions that can only be cured by magic! It's up to you then, if you want to offer alternatives for curing those conditions, or you just decide to avoid those monsters altogether.