waxing philosophical on "low magic" versus "high fantasy"

[der_kluge]

I'm curious as to how some of you with low/rare magic campaigns correlate divine magic versus arcane magic? Do you stifle both, make both rare? Do town priests casts divine magic, or not? How do you handle some people having access to divine magic, and not all?

 

[Desdichado]

I'm curious as to how some of you with low/rare magic campaigns correlate divine magic versus arcane magic? Do you stifle both, make both rare? Do town priests casts divine magic, or not? How do you handle some people having access to divine magic, and not all?

Most "clerics" are, mechanically, experts, aristocrats or even commoners, even when using normal D&D rules. The very rare one would be an adept, and the extremely rare one would actually be a cleric.

Of course, now, I'm not even using divine magic at all, I'm only using Cthulhu magic, in my current campaign.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I prefer low magic for essentially mechanical reasons: as a player or a GM, I hatehatehatehate D&D magic because of what it does to the gameplay. I don't mean the wish, scry/buff/teleport or polymorph game-breaking elements, I mean the way every spellcaster slows down play.

A human fighter will have at most 19 feats at 20th level, most of which are passive (allowing him to take actions without an AoO, applying a bonus to weapon attacks with the weapon he basically always uses, allowing him to use his Dex bonus to attack, etc.) and none of which will take up more than one or two paragraphs in the PHB.

A sorcerer will know 43 spells at 20th level. At 1st level, he'll know 6 spells to the human fighter's 3 feats. Wizards, and especially clerics and druids, will know easily twice that many, and in the latter cases quickly go into the 100s with additional books.

Spells take up about 1/3 of the Player's Handbook. The mere lists of spells by level occupy more space (16 pages rather than 10) than the races. The longest spell descriptions occupy an entire page.

Barring a player with a photographic memory, this ludicrous amount of (oft-overlapping) spells bogs down the game beyond imagining.

I have no problem dealing with 3-base class, 3-PrC characters who made class choices to maximize their number of feats in certain critical trees - they'll still be a dozen or more spells shy of even a single-classed Sorcerer, the least egregious core spellslinger. And considering the relative simplicity of feats, a player has a better chance of memorizing 30 feats than he would 30 spells.

 

[diaglo]

I'm curious as to how some of you with low/rare magic campaigns correlate divine magic versus arcane magic? Do you stifle both, make both rare? Do town priests casts divine magic, or not? How do you handle some people having access to divine magic, and not all?

all magic is rare.

the divine casters channel the gods' wills.

they hear the divine in their dreams and prayers.

not every town is lucky enough to have a priest who can channel such magic.

no spells for clerics until lvl 2.

 

[GlassJaw]

I'm curious as to how some of you with low/rare magic campaigns correlate divine magic versus arcane magic? Do you stifle both, make both rare? Do town priests casts divine magic, or not? How do you handle some people having access to divine magic, and not all?

I'm using Grim Tales as the foundation for my campaign. Essentially, magic is magic. While you may use a different ability to cast something, there is no arcane vs divine magic.

Basically, every spell is unique. There are no spell lists. Even learning magic or how it is cast is different. There may an orcale who can roll bones and "cast" an augury spell. A shaman may have the ability to create water from a droplet or cast entangle on a patch of brush. The PC's may find an ancient tome that details ghastly rituals. They may find a bell with ancient runes on it that if read while ringing the bell invokes some magical effect.

 

[howandwhy99]

all magic is rare.

Ditto. Make 99% of your world 1st level Commoners. even most of the priesthood. Elder priests may have a level or two of Adept. Hedge wizards also have 1 or 2 levels of adept.

Remember that 4th and 5th level characters are exceptionally powerful compared to others. Over tenth level your characters are fighting combats around the known world in the blink of an eye. They are travelling to other "realities" and confronting their own myths.

Just like 1st AD&D, 15th+ level characters have a very difficult time working on the material planes. They are out destroying dragons sucking the power off the Positive Energy plane.

 

[barsoomcore]

I'm curious as to how some of you with low/rare magic campaigns correlate divine magic versus arcane magic?

I completely redid the magic system anyway, so the whole arcane/divine divide doesn't exist for me. Barsoom has sorcery (manipulating the power of the Shadow Realm through mathematical operations), psionics (manifesting the potential of the Dream Worlds through innate ability) and spirits (summouned/created entities formed from the raw chaos of the Dream Worlds, bound to the will of the summouner).

But I'm a tinkerer. One of the reasons I like D&D. It's easy to tinker with.

 

[Frostmarrow]

I just want my high level characters travel on the backs of hippogriffs and dragons rather than simply teleport around. Of course. You've read that before.

I want the big stuff be the domain of the DM. I really can't see the need to have rules for how to craft a holy avenger. It's a lot more fun to go collect the weapon in hell than casting a couple of miracles on a metal stick.

Indeed. I got this idea the other day. I'm going to use it for a project I'm working on but ... You know, I like you guys so here goes nothing:

Magical items can't be created. They create themselves. Or rather become magical with time. Like 12 year old scotch or vintage wine magical items must be stored to come into themselves. That's why you use your father's father's sword. From using the heirloom more than a hundred years it just might become +1. A frost brand has been left in a glacial for a thousand years. It begun as a perfectly ordinary weapon when it was dropped into an icy gorge. Now, with time, the blade has been changed...

This means ye olde flying castle is a really old place and might have been the roost of dragons for millennia! -Why else would the castle take to flying?

 

[RobJN]

This means ye olde flying castle is a really old place and might have been the roost of dragons for millennia! -Why else would the castle take to flying?

Heh... maybe it got the dragons mad at it...?

 

[Turjan]

Anyone else come to the same conclusion? Am I making any sense? Anyone disagree?

I came to the same conclusion. I did not primarily want "low magic", but I'd like to have the magical back into my magic.

It's not only the D&D magic system that takes the fantastic out of lots of standard games. Why do you think we see always new races and subraces filling in the positions of "boring" elves, dwarves and gnomes? D&D demographics and pc-ness take the fantastic out of these races. They are just neighbours with a few peculiar habits. Your baker is a half-orc, so what?

I'm curious as to how some of you with low/rare magic campaigns correlate divine magic versus arcane magic? Do you stifle both, make both rare? Do town priests casts divine magic, or not? How do you handle some people having access to divine magic, and not all?

One way to solve this is to replace the cleric class by herbalism. You can either make NPC herbalists a source for healing potions or make herbalism a (class) skill for many PC classes. Using potions is still more complicated in battle than getting healed by a cleric, but I don't particularly like a high death rate with the PC's (I'm not really for "grim'n'gritty"), so there has to be a not too costly solution for me .

With much lesser availability of magic items than per RAW, fighters will be cut down in effectiveness. Wizards in turn have to say good bye to scry/buff/teleport and some other selected spells.

A frost brand has been left in a glacial for a thousand years. It begun as a perfectly ordinary weapon when it was dropped into an icy gorge. Now, with time, the blade has been changed...

I like this concept .