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Message: <blockquote data-quote="A'koss" data-source="post: 1691749" data-attributes="member: 840">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.</blockquote>

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