Trying to Lessen the Level of Magic in 5e

[Hussar]

Huh. Now this is embarrassing. I never even thought to look in the DMG. That healing surge thing might be just what the doctor ordered.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Of course, I'm also going to be trying the 8-hour short rests and 7-day long rests variant, in order to try to get those resource-management classes to actually manage their damned resources.

One of my favorite rules in the DMG. Combining it with only being able to rest in towns (or with some appropriate wilderness skill/adventurer/resource) for extra sauce. I'm running WotC adventures right now so I didn't want to screw with their pacing, so I haven't opted for it in the game I'm running, but man, that alone makes resting a MUCH bigger deal.

 

[Hussar]

Hrm. What if you split it up a bit. Long rests are seven days but short rests are still one hour.

Means that the non casters GE their goodies back but hit dice are long time coming back and casters get seriously restricted.

 

[dave2008]

Because I don't want full casters?

As soon as you put a full caster on the table, every single round of every single encounter will feature spells being cast. Whether it's just cantrips or full spells, it will be constant.

This is very much outside of what I want for a low magic game. I have no interest in the PC's dropping polymorphs or negating travel challenges with Goodberry and Create Water and Teleport. I want things like disease to be an actual challenge, not just a speed bump for any group with a 3rd level caster. Sword and Sorcery stories do not feature protagonist casters, generally. Outside of Moorcock and maybe the Thieves World books, you rarely see protagonists dropping the level of magic that any party, even low level ones, that have a full caster can drop. If someone dies, I want that to be an epic journey if you want to bring him back. If you get lost in the jungle, I want there to be a real danger of disease and starvation. Heck, I want getting lost to be a real danger.

What I don't want is the 4th level druid dropping shape changes every other encounter and then blasting away with Produce Flame on the odd numbered encounters.

So, no, no full casters. No one is going to banish dragons to pocket dimensions in this campaign (banishment spell). No one is going to befuddle a small army with a Hypnotic Spray spell. You want to face twenty Beastmen? Better bring about thirty friends with you.

That's what I mean by low magic.

Since the frequency of casting seems to be the issue, why not allow full casters, but double all the casting times. Actually, double the casting time of all classes/spells. As an extra nerf you could eliminate cantrips. I've been toying around with this idea myself. It realy nerfs magic in combat (since combat doesn't seem to last much longer than 3 rounds it means you get 1 spell off per combat), but it makes it more special too. If your worried about balance you could increase the effect of the magic, or give magic casters an additional feat or two to compensate.

 

[dave2008]

Hrm. What if you split it up a bit. Long rests are seven days but short rests are still one hour.

Means that the non casters GE their goodies back but hit dice are long time coming back and casters get seriously restricted.

I like that approach as well.

 

[Tony Vargas]

One thing that you might do, that I am going to be introducing at Wednesday night's session, is the "Healing Surges" rule from the DMG. On a bonus action, a player can spend up to half his HD + constitution per HD rolled to regain hit points.

That would go quite some way towards making up for the lack of magical healing, methinks.

Healing spells have significant impacts that still wouldn't cover. 1) they can bring a character up from 0, which is not just handy in the sense of getting him back into the fight, it's the most efficient way to heal, because all the damage the character took over that which dropped him to 0 is just gone, healed for free. 2) they add to the total healing available to the party. 3) spells can be cast on whomever needs it, HD are self-healing, only.

 

[Hussar]

Healing spells have significant impacts that still wouldn't cover. 1) they can bring a character up from 0, which is not just handy in the sense of getting him back into the fight, it's the most efficient way to heal, because all the damage the character took over that which dropped him to 0 is just gone, healed for free. 2) they add to the total healing available to the party. 3) spells can be cast on whomever needs it, HD are self-healing, only.

OTOH, it does make combat just a bit more lethal - no whack-a-mole style combat. Works for me. Going down should be a major thing.

 

[the Jester]

This has been my latest bugaboo.

Sigh. I miss Bugaboo.

 

[Tony Vargas]

OTOH, it does make combat just a bit more lethal - no whack-a-mole style combat. Works for me. Going down should be a major thing.

I think the net effect would be shortening the adventuring day, since you have less total healing available and it's less flexible/efficient. But if you force the same day length and difficulty, sure, deadlier.

 

[Hussar]

I think the net effect would be shortening the adventuring day, since you have less total healing available and it's less flexible/efficient. But if you force the same day length and difficulty, sure, deadlier.

I'd buy that. Not terribly concerned about shortening the adventuring day to be honest. Unless it gets ridiculous. But, if they do 5 encounters or 7 per day, I'm pretty happy. I'd only be concerned if it dropped to like 2-3.