why the attraction to "low magic"?

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

So, like, when Frodo put the ring on and turned invisible, could he have made Gandalf do a little dance or something?

No. The One Ring had no power over the elven rings, one of which was worn by Gandalf. (The Ring of Fire, in fact. Ever wonder why Gandalf was so good at fire magic?)

If you have a party of high level magicked up pc's fighting same, or even high CR monsters and take away all the magic items etc wouldn't it sort of even itself out? They'd still be able to wail on each other with impunity.

No they wouldn't. They would hardly ever miss in combat, and treasure means a lot less to monsters than to classed characters. Plus, the save DCs of monster abilities...

Granted, I've never tried but often wondered. It would seem to be sort of the same with less paper work and calculators.

Believe me, I've tried it and been on the receiving end of it. I can only conclude that a proper low-magic setting has to have it's own non-classed monsters.

Note, it's not D&D 3/3.5 that causes this "items define the character" problem. That's been in D&D since the beginning. heck my old 2e character felt lost when he lost his vorpal longsword of killing. Thank the gods he got it back...

Heroes wouldn't need gear if they had powers that did all the things gear lets you do.

Maybe, but 3e made it worse by quantifying how much magic you had to carry on you. I recall trying to run low-magic 2e; there were no balance guidelines (not that this was a good thing), and I only called it low-magic because I had so few other campaigns to compare it to.

Don't put magical shops into your campaign. No magic is for sale at any price.

If you do this without making large changes, then the non-spellcasting classes will get shafted though. This is why a few game companies produce low-magic settings, where the work of changing the classes is (hopefully) done for you already.

Has anyone read any Forgotten Realms novels? Maybe Elminster in Myth Drannor had 3e levels of magic, but in no other novel could I find characters so covered in magic items. Not in the Erevis Cale Trilogy, not in any of the Drizzt books, not in most of Ed Greenwood's books, not in the Danilo books... none of them. Never mind saying DnD doesn't match the old fiction, it doesn't even match it's own fiction!

 

[Ed Cha]

I like to run my campaign starting with very low magic (no magic items until say 3rd-level, even then just potions or scrolls) and then gradually going up to higher power magic. Most magic weapons and devices are unique and possess several qualities, usually unlocking at higher levels or when something happens like if a hero does a good deed or finds enlightenment. Magic should be rare and... "magical".

 

[GlassJaw]

Did the DM in question give some clear idea of the type of characters he would find acceptable? And, if so, was is possible within these guidelines to make a character you would have enjoyed playing? If yes, then there should have been no problem with the character design part of the game. If no, then you probably would not have been a good player/DM match anyway.

This is what it really came down to. A lot of these campaign changes (we had played a more traditional campaign previously) were made with a "it's my way or the highway" ultimatum. I chose the latter. Unfortunately, the departure wasn't as smooth as I would have liked. Oh well. Live and learn.

Don't put magical shops into your campaign. No magic is for sale at any price.

I do like the idea of magic shops but I prefer them to be more like "trinket" shops. Shops that sell low-level potions and scrolls I have no problem with. The players might be able to find a low-level wand from time to time. Items above that just aren't sold in towns and villages and even if you are in a huge city, you have to find some "connections" before you can find where they are sold.

I do play in the Realms but I make the Red Wizards a bit more mysterious and shrouded. Most of the players in my campaign are somewhat new to FR so I can keep a lot of things secret. They don't know who the Red Wizards are yet (even though they've seen some of their markings). They certainly don't know that they sell magic items. I don't treat the Red Wizards as the Wal-Mart of the Realms. The enclaves are only in the shadier cities of the Realms and they don't operate out in the open. They usually have political or guild protection and most certainly have the local politicians in their pockets. On top of all of that, membership or permission is required to enter the enclaves and to purchase items.

 

[A'koss]

I have reworked many of the rules to support the style of campaign we're building now. I don't think it would be fair to call it a low magic setting per se, but certainly a lower magic one.

When changing the rules I always did so with an eye on...

1. Improving high level play. We all love the *idea* of high level play, however, the style of play core 3e presents, the tactics, and so on didn't reflect the kind of cinematic style that we wanted to see at those levels.

2. Game balance, particularly inter-party balance and *especially* high level gaming balance. A lot of power disparities between characters and classes I wanted to address. Many changes were geared towards making it easier to predict PC levels of power at all levels.

3. Fun. Every group is different but we didn't want to go low, low magic route because casting spells is fun. If one of our a players wants to play a spellcaster he doesn't want to go through 30 levels wielding unreliable, possibly self-destructive power. I've paired back or altered a great deal of the magic in the game, but where I've done so, I've always given back in other ways. For example, the wizards IMC (called Talists) are far more warrior-like and far better equiped to be in the front lines. Most of their offensive magic requires some sort of attack roll to be successful or to be the most effective. Most damaging spells have the option of being used in conjunction with a melee attack as well. That gets the player more involved and combat a little more exciting - even though they don't wield quite the same raw power (magically) as their 3e counterparts. Magic items are certainly more rare (PCs can't make permanent items, but can find those lost from Ragnarok), but they tend to have more flavor and they are all unique. I like to create magic items that have several small functions that relate in some way to it's history, rather than just one function or one big function. That said, for the very powerful, you can certainly acquire singularly powerful items - but I try to tie those into the storyline.

4. Rules that not only support the style of the setting but keep the setting from imploding on itself. We love flying mounts, ships, exploration, exotic locations for cities (cliffsides, tree-towns, nomadic mobile towns, etc.) so a lot of magic that would not support this style of setting went away - Teleport-style magic, magical flight, most scrying and powerful divinations are largely gone or at least removed from easy PC access. There are now specific magical (portals) / holy sites and unique individuals (seers) PCs would have to go to in order to have access to at least some this kind of magic - not easy. I also wanted to reduce role-crossovers, especially between magic and rogue abilities. Stealth and subterfuge should be the forte (but not necessarily the exclusive province) of the rogue alone, so, we made adjustments to accomodate that.

This is really just the tip of the iceberg, but gives you some insight as to the thought process going on here.

Cheers,

A'koss.

 

[DragonLancer]

Its not just characters having magical treasures. Its how magic is shwon in the setting played.

---
Wizards paid by the city watch to wander around casting detect invisiblity to find invisible thieves.

Clerics casting Speak with Dead on every murder victim.

Continual Light spells acting as street lamps.

Every army is going to have dozens of powerful mages or clerics, thus making castles and defences pointless.

Need that nifty +5 longsword? Lets go down to the market and pick a couple up cheap.
---

The list can go on quite a way. This sort of average-high magic destroys the fantasy illusion IMO. Thats why I prefer low-magic.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Four pages of replies, and nobody's mentioned Grim Tales yet?

You wouldn't believe the amount of self-control it's taken so far, neither.

Wulf

 

[mmadsen]

Because Achilles didn't wear a pair of magical gauntlets, a magical cloak, a magical pair of boots, a magical sword, a magical suit of armor, a magical shield, a magical spear, a magical tunic, 2 magical rings, a magical neckalce and 2 ioun stones.

No, but he was dipped in the River Styx, which I imagine gave him the capabilities of half of the things you mentioned. He was also a "giant among men".

That's just it; a mythic character can be powerful and can even have a handful of powerful magic items, but he doesn't have a laundry list of magic items -- and he certainly doesn't have a list of items that he sells, then replaces with better items.

Even the most "wahoo" of mythic characters have only a few items. Perseus, for instance, has a mirrored shield, a sharp sickle, winged sandals, a helmet of invisibility, and a magic sack (to hold Medusa's head). Thor, a Norse god, has a magic hammer, belt, and glove -- and some magic goats to pull his chariot.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I'm a fan of low-magic because I've played enough high-level adventures where spellcasters turn every combat into a superheroes RPG leaving little for rogues and warriors to do. Nearly every combat at that level of the game with base D&D is turned into "which side's spellcaster gets the spell off first."

For all of D20's cachet that it was a system that was balanced, high-level play certainly was not given enough attention. I remember the conversations at the GenCon debut by all of WotC's R&D designers that "wizards weakness at early levels and power at high levels" did not count as balance as it did in early editions. Well, they didn't fix it either.

I can't recount how many times I've seen PCs encounter "Save or Die" spells or spell-like abilities. That ain't low-magic.

What D&D most needs is someone to give good guidelines on how to do high-level but low-magic adventures in D&D.


Regards,
Eric Anondson

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Need that nifty +5 longsword? Lets go down to the market and pick a couple up cheap.

I despise the whole concept of the "magic shop" for anything beyond spell components, and even those would only be in large cities. But when I try to do the setting like that I get complaints from those weened on the various FR CRPGs. They think a village of 400-800 should have a store that sells magic swords and armor, wands of fireballs, etc. And they get pissy and say I'm trying to screw them when I say that isn't the way things work. It makes me yearn for a setting or game that doesn't have those assumptions built in. Even now that we are playing 1e I find the assumptions of D&D are still there, hell they have always been there it's just more ingraned into the way the system works now. Magic items out the wazoo and they are for sale at the local Wiz-Mart. Maybe I'll look at Conan D20 or a GURPS fantasy mini-campaign and see how it works. My brother is the worst offender. He's the only other long time D&D player in the group and he has always been a power gamer because every campaign has been set that way that he has played in. He looks back on his first AD&D gaming with rose colored glasses when the DM allowed everyone to wear chainmail under platemail and everyone had an AC of -8 by 7th level, and +4 swords were falling from the sky. He thinks I should do things like that as well. How do you break someone who thinks power gaming is the only way to play?

 

[mmadsen]

Don't put magical shops into your campaign. No magic is for sale at any price.

If you look at the prices of magic items and the wages of common folk, it's clear that no normal person can afford magic. Only wealthy aristocrats and plutocrats have the wealth to buy magic items, and it's not clear that they'd pay that kind of money for what they get. Certainly healing magic would find a market. And warrior-aristocrats would buy magical arms and armor for themselves, even if hiring more soldiers would be a better use of that money.

But who's going to go to the magic shop with thousands of gold pieces to buy whatever's on hand? And who's going to run a shop full of millions of gold pieces' worth of merchandise? All of it just sitting there, getting no use. Really, a magic shop is an arsenal, requiring its own magically protected castle full of soldiers to protect it from theft.