How do you run a low magic campaign

[quiet1mi]

I am Doing an Oriental adventures campaign with low magic and I want to have many RP opportunities so I may show off Japanese culture and folklore to my payers. Is there any advice that I should heed? (Like not allowing bards, druids, paladins, cleric, wizard... because they are too good western archetypes not fit for a Japanese setting)

Experience wise the players are sort-of new to the game. (Understand the mechanics already but we have not played D&D enough where metagaming is an issue.)

One more thing I forgot to mention is that we are starting at level 1, and we are using the UA damage reduction version of armor along with the non-lethal version...(has not became an issue of being too powerful and the players understand both flavor wise why I did this and have not abused it mechanically)

[Stormcrow]

I'd argue that bards work fine in an asian setting and samurai are similar enough to paladins... as to low magic, good luck. It's an uphill battle in D&D.

[Skjaldbakka]

Remove Wizard, Sorceror, Druid, and Cleric. Rework Bard to fit the setting, it shouldn't be too hard (minstrels are nearly universal). The important next step is to take a good hard look at what magic items still exist after doing so. If you remove Bards as well, a +4 sword requires an epic level paladin or ranger to forge.

That is the easy solution. An even easier solution is to simply not supply the players with magical loot, and not provide them with places to buy magical gear. That way, any magic items they have are either made by PCs, or are plot-significant.

A really harsh way to do it would be to completely remove all the spellcasters, including removing spellcasting from ranger and paladin.

I would highly recommend allowing the Ranged Smite feat from BoED, as historically samurai were archers, and if you want paladin to map at all, there needs to be some justification for using a bow. Zen Archery is a pretty good feat to allow as well.

Another important thing to do is look for a fix for the Monk class. Monk ought to be a viable class in a oriental setting, but it isn't as written. Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3344726&postcount=1) is a good place to start.

I'm going to let someone else recommend ToB.

Also, as an aside, the druid class isn't western. The only western aspect of the class is the name. The druid class has not even a nodding acquaintance with the historical druid.

[Tura]

Also, as an aside, the druid class isn't western. The only western aspect of the class is the name. The druid class has not even a nodding acquaintance with the historical druid.
True, but they resemble very much the romans' (and particularly Caesar's) perception of them - minus the human sacrifices which, IIRC, were mentioned in that fluff/crunch mess of the the infamous 2nd Edition druid.
That said, they have no business at all in an oriental setting, I think.

[Lord Tataraus]

Low magic is very difficult to run. You need to especially tailor the game in one of many ways. You need to either 1) make all opponents normal races with class levels and thus are basically the same as the PCs, 2) be extremely careful when designing encounters and hope your players have good tactics, 3) throw the PCs magical loot that fits them (some groups don't like that), or 4) replace magical items in some fashion (My Mundane Item Enhancement System (http://www.rpghomebrews.com/mundane_item_enhancement.php) if your interested)

[Skjaldbakka]

Ah, so there are no shapechangers or nature oriented magic in oriental settings? Those are the essential elements of the druid class, and I for one see no problem with including them in an oriental setting. Except for the OP's desire for low magic level, of course.

[Tempest Fennac]

How was the 2nd Edition Druid infamous? Shapeshifters were a part of Asian mythology (Kitsunes are shapeshifting fox spirits). In regards to the lack of healing which your party will suffer from, have you considered using HP reserves? (If you don't know this rule, each character can heal themselves using a daily pool of points which is equal to their max HPs). If you include Bards, would they need an extra ability to replace their magic? (Admittedly, their singing can be classed as a form of magic).

[Skjaldbakka]

Yeah, you want to use Reserve HP (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/reservePoints.htm), Armor as DR (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm), and probably Damage Conversion (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/damageConversion.htm) as well, to mitigate the reduced amount of available healing. I'd recommend using Action Points (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/actionPoints.htm) as well, to help make up for the lack of magic in general.

[Tempest Fennac]

How do action points work? I've seen people mention them but I don;t know what they do.

[Kizara]

Consider replacing the Druid with the Spirit Shaman class and the wizard/cleric with the Wu Jen and Surjverga (or whatever it is) class...

Very oriental equivilent classes.

[Tempest Fennac]

The problem with those classes is that they are full casters which wouldn;t work in a low magic setting without being entirely re-written. Druids could be changed to accomodate this sort of setting by takin away their magic and giving them shapeshifting abilities earlier (would combining the Shapeshifter and Focussed Animal variants from page 39 of http://www.crystalkeep.com/d20/rules/DnD3.5Index-Classes-Base.pdf be balanced if they didn;t have any magic at all?).

[ZeroNumerous]

Ah, so there are no shapechangers or nature oriented magic in oriental settings? Those are the essential elements of the druid class, and I for one see no problem with including them in an oriental setting. Except for the OP's desire for low magic level, of course.

Yes, there are shapechangers and nature-oriented magic. But they're not used by humans. They're used by minor spirits and Kami, the latter of which the PCs should not have access to. Ergo, druids do not fit with a low magic setting unless they're playing a minor spirit.

Second: He said he's running an OA campaign, which means that Samurai already exist as a class, so Paladins and Rangers are gone anyway.

To The OP: My suggestion isn't running a low magic campaign, but instead run a low wealth campaign and/or jack up the prices on magic items but keep them. You can simply reflavor them as gifts or items from whatever minor/major spirits you wish, but you shouldn't remove them unless you want your PCs to only fight other humanoids.

Instead of running a low magic campaign, why not just give them 1/3rd or 1/4th the normal WBL?

[Skjaldbakka]

The presence of a Samurai class does not obviate the ranger class. In fact, if I recall the samurai from OA correctly, it doesn't do the historical samurai justice, being melee-focused class. Of course, I've only ever played OA once, and that a one-shot, so I may remember incorrectly. I don't recall samurai being a great class to play an archer on horseback.


Ergo, druids do not fit with a low magic setting unless they're playing a minor spirit.

I don't recall saying druids are good for a low magic setting. I said they are appropriate for an oriental setting. Or more specifically, that they are not entirely inapproriate for use in an oriental setting. I also in fact specified that they are not appropriate for a low magic setting.

I was also griping about druids in general, and how they are in no way related to the historical druids. Which is a not uncommon complaint from the old-fogey club.

[Tempest Fennac]

Would Dragon Shamans be allowed in this campaign? They don't (technically) use magic, and later on they could help with healing conditions (I know they are a weak class, so I was wondering if giving them full BAB with cumulative +1s to their breath attack's save DC every 2 or 3 levels would help them to become more balanced).

[Pronounceable]

Is there any advice that I should heed?


Don't use DnD. Really, that's the best advice for low magic.


That said, it may not exactly be feasible. E6 (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=352719) is probably the closest you can get to low magic within DnD.

[ZeroNumerous]

I don't recall samurai being a great class to play an archer on horseback.

Technically, neither is Ranger. Scout is infinitely better than both at playing a ranged attacking class.


I don't recall saying druids are good for a low magic setting. I said they are appropriate for an oriental setting. Or more specifically, that they are not entirely inapproriate for use in an oriental setting.

The sentence before the one you quoted addresses this issue specifically. The sentence you quoted is simply a statement that druids are not acceptable for a low-magic campaign, OA or not.


Which is a not uncommon complaint from the old-fogey club.

I miss 2nd Ed. Druid-lore. Where you had to kill other druids to level up.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

I miss 2nd Ed. Druid-lore. Where you had to kill other druids to level up.I have a sudden urge to convert my group.

[Roderick_BR]

Easy changes?

Avoid the normal full casters. Use the NPC class Adept as caster, preferably as an NPC. In these stories you don't see casters rushing into battle, running among hordes of monsters and armored warriors and fireballing/greasing/whatever stuff. They stay back and cast spells to help the heroes before *they* step into battle, or to cure them afterwards.

Give magic weapons only as treasures, preferably, make sessions where the main objective IS to get magic weapons from legends.
Allow players to spend money on potions, lotions, and others usable itens. You could have shamans (adepts) that sell potions and these things.

And for samurai, allow characters to use any warrior-type class, fighter, ranger, paladin, and (with some stretch) barbarian, and make them be samurai by social position. You don't need an actual samurai class.

[CASTLEMIKE]

Lot of good advice.

Limit suggested wealth. Use the NPC wealth by level guidelines and their types of suggested magical equipment as a guideline. No magic stores. Keep the game below level 14 if using full casting.

Keep the NPC Adept class and limit full casters to Wilders, Wujen style Sorcerers and Shugenka from Oriental Adventures it allows magic in the game but their limited known spell and power choices puts a break on most of the abuse.

[SofS]

If you're not too attached to the classes as they are, I'd recommend changing or replacing them for a low-magic campaign. Maybe you could consider starting with the generic classes (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm) and changing them as desired for your setting.

One thing you might want to try is replacing the standard spell system (which is quite flashy, as fantasy magic goes) with something else that fits the flavour you want a little more closely, if that is indeed what you want. If I remember correctly, the arts of magical types in stories from China and Japan like to focus on internal changes, like boosting one's abilities or healing through medicines or disrupting opponents' ki and the like. Also, I seem to recall the propitiation of spirits to be popular. If you like those, maybe you could add new skills or uses for skills and 5-level prestige classes for specialists to become more powerful.

Here's a possible framework for that sort of thing.
Craft (alchemy) - healing, energy effects, special medicines and poisons
Knowledge (arcana, nature, planar, religion) - summoning and interacting with spirits
Profession (herbalist) - healing, special medicines and poisons (more specialized to these areas than alchemy)
Spellcraft - identification and understanding of any magical practices

Hope this helps. Apologies if it is of no use.

[Craig1f]

One thing you could do if you want a medium-magic world, as opposed to low-magic, is make it so people only have access to magic items and spells from PHB and DMG, and maybe PHB2. Use luck rolls for everything else. If someone fails a luck roll for an item, it's not available, or has to be researched. Researching takes at least a week per item, and costs some money (maybe 25% of the value of the item or more)

Double or triple the cost of Belt of Battle, even once researched.
Double the cost of skirmisher boots.

Change teleport as follows ...
You can not teleport as a standard action.
Teleporting as a 1-round action deals 1d6 damage per 10 miles, up to 100 miles, and 1d6 extra per additional 100 miles. Subdual on a passed fortitude save. DC = 10 + the number of dice.
Teleporting over a minute decreases the fort save by 4.
Teleporting over the course of 10 minutes reduces the damage to a max of 2d6.

[Epinephrine]

I've run low magic, but never in D&D. GURPS can work well for it.

How would one run it?
Get rid of magic item brokers, they simply should't exist without many items to trade in. A very wealthy merchant dealing in rare treasures may have an item or two, but they are rare and expensive.

Remove one-shot items/charge based items of most sorts, as they tend to make magic cheap and available.

Remove creation feats, you don't want players scribing/making items constantly.

Bring in disadvantages to items, like artifacts had (have?). Make items require much more preparation to use; tie the magic to prayer in your ancestor's temple, which activates the item for a day; make it depend on being submerged in the sea for 8 hours; a brooch which can protect the bearer, but must be buried for a week to gain a day's charge.

Potentially remove caster classes; alternatively, limit caster classes to multiclassed characters, taking no more than 1/2 their levels as the caster. Multiclassing tends to limit casters, but since there are no full casters it isn't as bad.

Use ritualistic magic, insist on finding material components. If you actually need to have a snowball to cast a spell it's much harder to have one to hand. In return, make casting more spontaneous, provided you have the materials. Casters who can't throw a fireball mid-combat aren't necessarily weak, it makes the magic of a different type though. Kneeling beside the door, cutting oneself and letting the blood drip onto the lock, then blowing dust made from an executed thief's finger bones on it, the blood sparkles and seems to flow into the lock, which then clicks open. Stress out-of-combat magic, as it tends to be less flashy, but can provide substantial benefits.

If you want to stress out-of combat magic, consider lengthening buffs, perhaps adopting (to some extent) the GURPS system of casting -GURPS allows maintaining spells (often at a cost, but sometimes without), but each maintained spell makes penalises further casting. One could for example maintain a number of spells equal to your wisdom bonus as a divine caster. By taking buffing out of combat, making it ritualised, time consuming, and material dependent the caster isn't constantly throwing spells, but instead may ask everyone to gather in a sacred place, burn incenses and intone prayers, and then have the party protected for a longer duration, hindering all his other casting.

[elliott20]

If you're not keen on getting rid of magic entirely, but just want to prevent casters from stealing the show, consider this alternative: ritual magic.

Basically, all magical spells take time. Lots of it, in fact. You can't just whip up a forcecage spell in a matter of seconds. It now takes a deliberate amount of prep time to do anything of significance. By doing that, you effectively would take out most of the combat spells. It also means that there is less of a reason for a caster to cast a spell on the spot and would instead create little one use trinkets for the characters to use when appropriate.

No need to take out the paladin/ranger/barbarian class as those classes have mechanics that we can all easily find usages for. And as Rich has shown in OOTS, flavor can be tinkered with to fit the setting. As long as you keep that in mind, you'll be fine.

[nerulean]

Low magic using D&D is tricky. Very tricky. If you get rid of magic altogether, then there isn't really a lot of distinction between what characters can do, and if you want to leave it in but down-power it or make it less available, then you're going to hit balance issues.

One thing I will recommend is playtesting, and plenty of it. When I tried to run a low-magic setting, I nerfed casters too hard in the first place so they were incredibly boring to play.

If you want to run a decent length campaign in this setting, it's worth preparing at least a couple of play test sessions before you actually begin. Have several ideas for how you want to do things in advance before the sessions, and make sure your players know that the rules might be changing half way through. It's going to take a while for you and your players to find the best fit, and adaptability is probably the way to go.

[Pirate_King]

you should check out the Avatar setting in my sig, it's an entirely non-magical campaign setting with re-worked classes. You could just cut the bending classes. I've been trying to work out limited magic abilities granted by connections to the spirit world, but it would mostly be divination.

[Tsotha-lanti]

You lower CRs. That's pretty much it.

Alternatively, just get Iron Heroes, Conan d20, or any other d20 game where the base classes and character creation in general are already geared toward a game with no magic items. The D&D classes have way too few class features to be interesting in a low-magic or no-magic game.

I personally recommend Conan d20, because it is awesome.

[Mr. Friendly]

Well you want it to be Oriental Adventures and low magic right?

Step 1: Throw away D&D books.
Step 2: Buy Legend of the Five Rings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Five_Rings_Roleplaying_Game)
Step 3: Play and Enjoy

[valadil]

I've never actually tried this so I don't know for sure how it works out, but I think I've found a very non-invasive way to tone down casting in DnD.

Restrict material components.

If your players don't have access to sulfur, bat guano, eye of newt, brain of toad, etc they can't cast spells as frequently. When they do cast, it better be worth it.

The problem with this is that it is a huge burden on the players unless they really enjoy the beancounting aspects of DnD. What I suggest is combining most material components so you get down to 20 or 30 basic materials. Certain spells can have their own unique components too like identify's 100gp pearl or stone skin's diamond dust. Anyway, what you do is give your player an physical object representing the material component. A couple decks of cards could suffice. Say black deuces are bat guano, black threes are colored sand, black fours are seeds, etc. Just give those to the players when they get the components in question and have the players cash them in to you when they cast the spell. If you're feeling overzealous you may even want to print a list of applicable spells on each card.

The other thing I like about this system is that in a setting that isn't so much low magic as it is magic controlled, certain spells become contraband. Maybe you can't bring components for knock or invisibility into a certain city.

Oh yeah, it goes without saying that eschew materials is banned in this kind of low magic game.

[quiet1mi]

Well you want it to be Oriental Adventures and low magic right?

Step 1: Throw away D&D books.
Step 2: Buy Legend of the Five Rings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Five_Rings_Roleplaying_Game)
Step 3: Play and Enjoy

hmmm seems tempting in the respects that a friend of mine has wanted me to do this (even though he is not in the campaign) but my greatest fear is learning another system... if there was an SRD to it I would do it but otherwise I am forced to DND until my unreliable friends actually gives me the books

[Skjaldbakka]

I wouldn't throw away the D&D books. As good as Lot5R is, it is not a universal system. It is very much wedded to its setting. Also, D&D books still serve a useful purpose as cofee table dressing, writing surface, rolling surface, bookstop, emergency table leg prop, coaster, improvised bludgeoning weapon, and firestarting material.

[Hurlbut]

Yeah, you want to use Reserve HP (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/reservePoints.htm), Armor as DR (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm), and probably Damage Conversion (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/damageConversion.htm) as well, to mitigate the reduced amount of available healing. I'd recommend using Action Points (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/actionPoints.htm) as well, to help make up for the lack of magic in general.
Sorry but that does sound like the Iron Heroes rule set; at least some of the basic mechanics behind it except for that action points aspect.