Two small house rules for a low magic setting without completely rewriting D&D 5e

[supergoji18]

A while ago I posted about deciding what classes to keep and what classes to cut for a low magic campaign I was making. In the time after that post I realized something: I was wasting my time. I spent so much time trying to reinvent the wheel that I never realized how easily I could simply polish the old one and make it good as new. I came up with two small house rules for any 5e campaign to make it more friendly toward low magic settings, without completely rewriting the entire system. One is implementing a variant rule from the DMG, the other is one I thought up myself.

1. Use the Gritty Realism rest variant.

2. Casting spells of 6th level and higher gives the caster 1 level of exhaustion.

With both of these rules in place, it will take a spell-caster a full week to recover from casting powerful magic like Earthquake and Control Weather. It also helps to curb the problem of spamming spells in a low magic campaign.

Is this perfect? No, of course not. But I think this is an easier solution than rewriting 5e rules or cutting out large parts of it as I see many people do when they try to run a low magic campaign.

Thoughts?

[sophontteks]

Give casters something in exchange. Considering its balanced now, you are hurting that balance with the change. Something positive they can get at around the time they get higher magics.

[Foxhound438]

I feel like a low magic setting would best be done with a low level game. Skip the exhaustion altogether by never getting higher than level 10, even if you have to hard cap character level there.

Also, gritty realism is kind of tricky, it's really best for a more narrative-focused game that isn't going to try to cram 5 encounters into every 24 hours, so you can break up the fights with more in-game time without having rests between every encounter. It does make sense for a low magic game, in my opinion, but it wouldn't be as much fun if you're all of a sudden having like 30 fights to spread your 6 spell slots across.

[8wGremlin]

Bards, Clerics, Druids and Divine Soul Sorcerers will also benefit, as they have access to the level 5 spell Greater Restoration, which can reduce a level of exhaustion.

[supergoji18]

Give casters something in exchange. Considering its balanced now, you are hurting that balance with the change. Something positive they can get at around the time they get higher magics.

how about spell point variant for more flexible casting?

[Lunali]

Bards, Clerics, Druids and Divine Soul Sorcerers will also benefit, as they have access to the level 5 spell Greater Restoration, which can reduce a level of exhaustion.

Though that does mean effectively adding 100gp to the material cost of every 6th level or higher spell.

[Man_Over_Game]

I'd just change it to this:

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Upon spell cast, roll 1d10 (10 being 0, so it's more like 1d10-1). If you don't roll higher than the spell level that you cast, you get 1 level of "spell fatigue". Cantrips count as level 0.

Spell Fatigue works exactly like exhaustion, except it is reduced on each short rest and removes 2 stacks on a long rest. This can stack with exhaustion effects.
------------------------

Works on all levels, fairly dangerous to be abused, and can be relieved with some effort.

To compensate, make almost everything resistant to non-magical sources, or have almost everything be vulnerable to magic.

Players should have manageable, but serious, short term issues that they can resolve. The issue with Exhaustion is that it takes a long time to remove, and it's not feasible to get rid of it constantly, especially for primary casters. It's a good mechanic, but it shouldn't come up so often that players can't deal with it.

[stoutstien]

Just ban full casters in this setting.

[GaelofDarkness]

I'd just change it to this:

------------------------
Upon spell cast, roll 1d10 (10 being 0, so it's more like 1d10-1). If you don't roll higher than the spell level that you cast, you get 1 level of "spell fatigue". Cantrips count as level 0.

Spell Fatigue works exactly like exhaustion, except it is reduced on each short rest and removes 2 stacks on a long rest. This can stack with exhaustion effects.
------------------------

Works on all levels, fairly dangerous to be abused, and can be relieved with some effort.

To compensate, make almost everything resistant to non-magical sources, or have almost everything be vulnerable to magic.

Players should have manageable, but serious, short term issues that they can resolve. The issue with Exhaustion is that it takes a long time to remove, and it's not feasible to get rid of it constantly, especially for primary casters.

This is really intriguing. Have you run this at a table? How did it work out?

I like the idea of a risk element that's not too severe but scales with difficulty.

[Man_Over_Game]

This is really intriguing. Have you run this at a table? How did it work out?

I like the idea of a risk element that's not too severe but scales with difficulty.

I haven't, I'm sorry. This is literally just something I pulled out of my head right now.

I can say that a 10-30% chance of getting a weaker exhaustion effect each turn for casting a spell would be pretty detrimental.

Alternatively, another way you could do it is by reducing the number of spell slots restored per rest.



Ask yourself, if you don't want your wizard to cast spells, what do you want him to do instead?

[DanyBallon]

What if caster needs to make a fatigue roll like Man_Over_Game suggested, but only when they cast a spell which level is above his spellcasting attribute modifier. i.e. a 7th level wizards with 17 Int, trying to cast a 4th level spell would need to make a fatigue roll (4th level > to Int +3 modifier)
While on the other end, usig it’s 4th level spell slot to cast a 3rd level spell wouldn’t need any fatigue roll.

Or you could just handwave the roll and give an exhaustion level, when they cast a spell above ther spellcasting attribute modifier.

Doing so allow spellcaster to use high level spell but at a cost.

If you find this too harsh, you could say that having help from other spellcasters can give you a +1 to your spellcasting attribute modifier when checking for fatigue.
i.e. a high level wizard with Int 20, gather the help from 4 other spellcasters an set them at cardinal points in order to cast a Wish spell.

Such a scenario could still be plausible in a low magic setting. As low magic, means that magic is rare, high level spellcaster are even more rare, and a gathering of powerful wizard, is something to be afraid of.

[Pex]

Just ban full casters in this setting.

Or use a different game system.

It's a hard lesson to learn. A house rule here and there is fine, but if you feel the need to write your own House Rules Handbook to play the game or forbid half of it from being used, you're playing the wrong game. Maybe Fantasy Warhammer or GURPS will suit your gameworld better.

I know, I know, there's no One True Way, but like the Ship of Theseus paradox, if you change enough of the rules are you really playing the same game?

[Nifft]

It seems to me that within 5e there are 5 major divisions of spells:

Cantrips: these should work all-day without limit.

Level 1-2 spells: these are small-ish effects, amenable to low-magic without risk.

Level 3-5 spells: these are big guns; maybe usable 1/encounter before you start to risk repercussions?

Level 6-7 spells: game-changer; maybe 1/day before risk?

Level 8-9 spells: plot-level, always come with risk.

-- -- --

If you're using Gritty Realism, then I'd suggest allowing a night's rest to remove up to 1 level of Exhaustion (roll for it; roll something Berserkers are good at), and a week's rest to remove ALL levels of exhaustion (no check, just get them all back). This is also to make Berserkers playable.

[Laurefindel]

I came up with two small house rules for any 5e campaign to make it more friendly toward low magic settings, without completely rewriting the entire system. One is implementing a variant rule from the DMG, the other is one I thought up myself.

1. Use the Gritty Realism rest variant.

2. Casting spells of 6th level and higher gives the caster 1 level of exhaustion.

Thoughts?

I like it; I wouldn’t change a thing. However, and I’m sure this has been said several times, this changes the «*expected*» play of D&D, so your players need to be on board with these rules.

One question however; does casting a 6th level + spell cause an exhaustion level, or is it spending a 6th level + spell slot?

‘findel

[No brains]

How will you adjust the availability of material components? Penalizing 6th-level spells with exhaustion makes Greater Restoration, a 5th-level spell that removes exhaustion, look extremely tempting. Expect diamonds to be hoarded by players to get over your nerf.

You should also ban warforged, who are immune to exhaustion. You probaby shouldn't allow players to pick them.

Also, never use liches, even as villains, unless you specifically want players to covet their immunity to exhaustion. A player that's willing to sacrifice souls for convenient casting will become a murderhobo in the extreme.

[Keravath]

The biggest issues I see with your suggestions is that they significantly impact the game balance.

Using the gritty realism variant will strongly benefit short rest based characters since they will get their resources back on a daily basis. Fighter, monk, warlock will all benefit in proportion.

The main reason for this is that many tables don't use the 5-6 encounters/day with two short rests. Often 1-2 encounters followed by a long rest is more the norm. However, the gritty realism variant with 1-2 encounter/day essentially turns into a series of encounters separated by short rests. If you try to throw 5-6 encounters/day at a party using the gritty realism variant they will likely die since they will run out of ways to restore hit points.

Here is the text on the gritty realism variant:
"This approach encourages the characters to spend time out of the dungeon. It" a good option for campaigns that emphasize intrigue. politics. and interactions among other PCs. and in which combat is
rare or something to be avoided rather rhan rushed into."

On the other hand, applying a level of fatigue/high level spell cast will essentially cripple high level casters especially in the gritty realism variant where it will take one WEEK of rest/level of exhaustion to remove it.

Perhaps just using the gritty realism variant would reduce the magic use sufficiently for your purposes?

------------

On the other hand, if you want everyone to play fighters then have them play fighters and make casters and magic so rare that they are never seen.

(However, I once played in a campaign that sounds similar to this for 3 or 4 sessions ... the party were guards at the castle ... it felt very realistic and medieval ... we drank, played cards, trained, guarded, did some patrols, perhaps encountered a bandit or poacher ... and honestly it was one of the least fun D&D experiences I've ever played ... I am not sure whether that was due to the lack of wonder involved in a low magic setting, how the DM chose to implement it, or just the fact that real medieval life was typically boring or deadly ... you usually died when stuck with a sword with no magic or modern medicine to fix you up).

[ad_hoc]

2. Casting spells of 6th level and higher gives the caster 1 level of exhaustion.

You want to play high level D&D but also be low magic?

The sweet spot of the game is already designed to be levels 5-10. Most campaigns don't get past that, but you are looking to play high level while wanting a low magic setting? That doesn't make any sense to me.

[ad_hoc]

The biggest issues I see with your suggestions is that they significantly impact the game balance.

Using the gritty realism variant will strongly benefit short rest based characters since they will get their resources back on a daily basis. Fighter, monk, warlock will all benefit in proportion.

The main reason for this is that many tables don't use the 5-6 encounters/day with two short rests. Often 1-2 encounters followed by a long rest is more the norm. However, the gritty realism variant with 1-2 encounter/day essentially turns into a series of encounters separated by short rests. If you try to throw 5-6 encounters/day at a party using the gritty realism variant they will likely die since they will run out of ways to restore hit points.

1-2 encounters per long rest is definitely not the norm. Those games are completely broken so they're not worth talking about. All of the published adventures are designed around 6-8 encounters per long rest so we should talk about that.

And the variant doesn't need to impact balance. It's mainly just a narrative tool.

It also doesn't need to exactly be 24 hours/7 days just because it is the example given in the book.

[sophontteks]

1-2 encounters is not the norm. Maybe 1-2 combat encounters, but on those days you are likely running several non-combat encounters, which are still encounters, and still require resources.

It would be a very, very boring day to have only one encounter from morning till bed time. I couldn't imagine. Well, I can try.

Dairy of an adventurer
"Today we crossed a bridge. One of the ropes broke, but our wizard cast feather fall. Still we were pretty shaken and decided it best to camp for the night. Some of the others complained that it was still morning, but I wagged my finger at them. I shouted 'We best not get carried away my eager companions.' Ah to be young again."

Anyway, its all just a misunderstanding of what an encounter is. They don't mean how many times you see combat.

[GreyBlack]

A while ago I posted about deciding what classes to keep and what classes to cut for a low magic campaign I was making. In the time after that post I realized something: I was wasting my time. I spent so much time trying to reinvent the wheel that I never realized how easily I could simply polish the old one and make it good as new. I came up with two small house rules for any 5e campaign to make it more friendly toward low magic settings, without completely rewriting the entire system. One is implementing a variant rule from the DMG, the other is one I thought up myself.

1. Use the Gritty Realism rest variant.

2. Casting spells of 6th level and higher gives the caster 1 level of exhaustion.

With both of these rules in place, it will take a spell-caster a full week to recover from casting powerful magic like Earthquake and Control Weather. It also helps to curb the problem of spamming spells in a low magic campaign.

Is this perfect? No, of course not. But I think this is an easier solution than rewriting 5e rules or cutting out large parts of it as I see many people do when they try to run a low magic campaign.

Thoughts?

So a point that was once made to me is that, in order for low magic to be the order of the day, you don't haveto make any changes to the classes orthe mechanics. If there are 3 paladins in your party, then there could be only 3 paladins in the world: the PC's. Same thing goes for wizards, clerics, druids, etc. They could, quite literally, be the only spellcaster of this type in the region, maybe even in the world.

Players can play anything they'd like. The world might just be a bit more down to earth.

[Maelynn]

Upon spell cast, roll 1d10 (10 being 0, so it's more like 1d10-1). If you don't roll higher than the spell level that you cast, you get 1 level of "spell fatigue". Cantrips count as level 0.

Spell Fatigue works exactly like exhaustion, except it is reduced on each short rest and removes 2 stacks on a long rest. This can stack with exhaustion effects.

I'm so going to steal this idea. Not for my setting in general, but it would make a great environmental effect for a specific quest. Like a ward created by Mage Slayers around their base, or an effect that lingers in a tower after a magic experiment went wrong...

[NinaWu]

Tough on casters who, unlike martial classes, will feel the effects of both rule 'adjustments'

[fbelanger]

Low magic? Restricting casting of spell of level 6 or more don’t feel low magic for me.

[Laurefindel]

Low magic? Restricting casting of spell of level 6 or more don’t feel low magic for me.

Its mostly the gritty realism variant, which benefits short-rest classes a puts a damper on long-rest classes, that makes it low-magic-ish.

It appears to me that the OP wants a low(re) magic setting but still want high level play, and that even at those high levels, "high-magic" still comes at the cost of great resources.

Personally (and this is more anecdotal experience) I find that high-level play becomes challenging to DM in a low magic campaign, mostly because PCs have a huge amount of hp, and adversaries have reduced access to magic (i.e. less monsters you would typically find in a high magic campaign). How many challenges fit for a 15-20th level adventuring group can you cram in a long rest period before it stop being consistent with your low-magic setting? At a point it becomes difficult...

[DanyBallon]

In my opinion, low magic settings does not equal no high level spells or high CR monsters, it means that magic is so uncommon that most people never saw a spell other than a few magic trick and that magical beast or monsters are mostly a myth. Think Hobbits living in the Shire prior to the events of LotR, the only magic they seen was a few tricks from Gandalf and maybe an healing balm or two. Even the tales from Bilbo were thought to be an invention.
Using the Shire as a setting could be considered a low magic settting while still having the possibility to encounter high magic.
It’s all relative to the point of view of the character.
Going with the OP house rules will only assure that spellcasters and high level spell will be be less appealing, thus, there would be less spellcasters overall.