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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kinak" data-source="post: 5913301" data-attributes="member: 6694112">Yeah, sounds fun, as long as the players have been in enough D&D campaigns to see how you're playing against the traditional way things work.My natural inclination is to be a bit more drastic, though. I'd probably have the rules of magic just drastically changed, wiping the slate clean, then start the campaign immediately after that. So the old magical items have failed and the old casters have lost their powers. A new generation rises, including the 1st level PCs.With the ubiquitous magic even other classes might be in bad shape. Old generals who relied on magical war machines suddenly find themselves thrown back into the warfare of thousands of years ago.For flavor points, I'd pin the old magic as a rules system you're not using. So maybe the old magic was psionics or incarnum or name magic or something.Of course, a lot of people will believe it's an attack, even if that's not true. So the chaos at the beginning would be absurd. Wars flare up between old rivals, new casters are suspected of causing the problems or hailed as saviors, rumors of cures spread like wildfire, etc. etc.You have a world that's been thrown into turmoil, filled with civilizations either collapsed or on the brink. My natural inclination would be to reward players with the kernel of a kingdom.Let them carve out what area of calm they can and, as they succeed, have refugees flock to the area. Their growing kingdom can both serve as a reward and give them a place to spend their downtime.It also has the hidden benefit of giving the non-casters something to do in their downtime. Because, well, they need something to do during crafting time.I didn't see you mention which edition you're using but, traditionally, spellcasters don't have much need for magical items. Cutting out items will actually slant the game further away from the martial classes.As for fixing it, it depends a lot on your party's composition. If your party's all casters or no casters, you're golden. If you end up with one martial character, a surviving legacy weapon might keep them up to par. If you want to fix it before the players come in, I'd include some sort of inherent bonus system (ironically, sort of like Vow of Poverty) to keep martial characters up to speed. Then either don't include items with the basic pluses or don't have them stack with the inherent bonuses.At the very least, I'd substitute out the XP for something else. To go along with the kingdom-building I was talking about, maybe you channel essence from sites of power and use that in place of XP? So the Dragon's Heart Caldera produces 100 points of "Essence" (XP) a month that can be harvested and made into items.From a less rulesy standpoint, you could go the old-school path of requiring special components for stuff. Why do they call it a flametongue sword? Well, turns out it needs a red dragon's tongue. Good luck.Components can also play into kingdom-building. If your recipe for potions of cure light wounds requires mushrooms from a specific patch of forest, that patch of forest just became a point of strategic interest.Cheers!Kinak</blockquote>

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