Low magic D&D worlds

[genderlich]

So, I'm building a world. I've been noodling around with the basic concepts of the setting for the better part of a decade; it's existed in its current form since last year. It takes place on a continent where two nations have been at war for 60 years, and as their national forces have dwindled, they've entered into a "cold war" where all the fighting is done by mercenary groups with shifting loyalties and grey morals. It's a very political setting with a lot of room for sandbox play.

I'm really happy with the concept as it stands right now, and I'm ready to flesh out the details, but I've hit a snag. I'm primarily a Pathfinder and D&D 5E player, which are high-magic systems; they assume that high-level magic exists that allows people to teleport vast distances, summon powerful creatures from other planes, resurrect the dead, and wipe out armies with a gesture. More so for Pathfinder than 5E, it also assumes that magic items are plentiful; every fighter has at least a +1 weapon by level 3.

But I've always envisioned this as a low-magic world with a Renaissance/17th century technology level (around the beginning of the decline of fully-armored knights), where mundane battlefield tactics and strength at arms determine the course of battles. I have a place in the setting for spellcasters, but spells of 4th level or higher and the presence of commonplace magic items just seem to warp the setting around them, forcing it to either bend to allow their existence or explain why they don't affect things more.

If I say that magic is rare, but every adventuring party has at least a mage and a priest, that hurts immersion. And if high-level magic isn't commonplace, then as soon as the party wizard hits 7th level they become one of the most powerful people in the world, instantly changing the game to be about these ultra-powerful PCs acting on the setting instead of acting within the setting. I've thought about making it an E6 setting, but I really want everything in the Player's Handbook to exist in the world somewhere so I'm not arbitrarily limiting player options, and I know at least one or two of my regular players aren't fans of E6 gameplay.

So, I want to ask--what low-magic D&D settings exist, and how do they deal with these issues? Or is there a way to account for powerful magic that maintains the validity of mundane armed soldiers as the driving force of wars and geopolitics?

[drunkonduty]

I don't know of any official DndD or Pathfinder worlds that fit the concept of Low Fantasy. In fact I'd say that all of them very High Fantasy.

As to how to bring your game concept to life I would suggest going for a different game system. Trouble with that is you have to learn a whole new system. Not to mention buy at least a couple of books. But if you do want to try then I suggest either GURPS or HERO System. GURPS requires less work up front (at least it did last time I looked at GURPS, which was many years ago.) I personally prefer HERO System as I like the flexibility. But I've had 20 years with the system and thus much time to get used to it.

You could try E6. I'm not sure your concern that a 7th level wizard would be one of the most powerful people in the world pans out in an E6 game. They'd be one of the most powerful wizards, yes. But if magic is limited it's more like being a very tall dwarf, not the be-all and end-all it is in standard DnD. You could also make it such that players can't play pure spell casters. They can play classes that have a little spell casting, like Rangers and Paladins. But Wizards, Clerics, Druids are NPCs only. That'd let you control how rare they are.

Just a few thoughts. Hope it helps.:-)

[GreatWyrmGold]

I'm personally fond of GURPS. If you keep to the corest of rules it's pretty simple, but if you dig into it you can make it work just about however you want. (Though it tends to break when you try to bend reality too hard.)

But if you want to stick to a D&D-like system, I'd suggest looking at d20 Modern and the Urban Arcana...sourcebook? You'd need to do a little tweaking to make it fit better in a quasi-medieval setting, but it'd be easier than chopping a ton of class features and whatnot out of 3./5e D&D.

[Tvtyrant]

So, I'm building a world. I've been noodling around with the basic concepts of the setting for the better part of a decade; it's existed in its current form since last year. It takes place on a continent where two nations have been at war for 60 years, and as their national forces have dwindled, they've entered into a "cold war" where all the fighting is done by mercenary groups with shifting loyalties and grey morals. It's a very political setting with a lot of room for sandbox play.

I'm really happy with the concept as it stands right now, and I'm ready to flesh out the details, but I've hit a snag. I'm primarily a Pathfinder and D&D 5E player, which are high-magic systems; they assume that high-level magic exists that allows people to teleport vast distances, summon powerful creatures from other planes, resurrect the dead, and wipe out armies with a gesture. More so for Pathfinder than 5E, it also assumes that magic items are plentiful; every fighter has at least a +1 weapon by level 3.

But I've always envisioned this as a low-magic world with a Renaissance/17th century technology level (around the beginning of the decline of fully-armored knights), where mundane battlefield tactics and strength at arms determine the course of battles. I have a place in the setting for spellcasters, but spells of 4th level or higher and the presence of commonplace magic items just seem to warp the setting around them, forcing it to either bend to allow their existence or explain why they don't affect things more.

If I say that magic is rare, but every adventuring party has at least a mage and a priest, that hurts immersion. And if high-level magic isn't commonplace, then as soon as the party wizard hits 7th level they become one of the most powerful people in the world, instantly changing the game to be about these ultra-powerful PCs acting on the setting instead of acting within the setting. I've thought about making it an E6 setting, but I really want everything in the Player's Handbook to exist in the world somewhere so I'm not arbitrarily limiting player options, and I know at least one or two of my regular players aren't fans of E6 gameplay.

So, I want to ask--what low-magic D&D settings exist, and how do they deal with these issues? Or is there a way to account for powerful magic that maintains the validity of mundane armed soldiers as the driving force of wars and geopolitics?

Dragonlance pre-gods returning is low magic, that is the closest setting I think. Few magic items, wizards are rare, hated and controlled by a council. No clerics, druids, or other casters.

[Mechalich]

So, I want to ask--what low-magic D&D settings exist, and how do they deal with these issues? Or is there a way to account for powerful magic that maintains the validity of mundane armed soldiers as the driving force of wars and geopolitics?

Without some sort of E6-style restriction (and even E6 isn't 'low-magic' it's just 'less-powerful magic'), there's really no way to square this particular circle. Dragonlance was never properly converted to 3e in an official way and relies on a particularly de-powered version of 2e to make its heyday work.

You can maybe, maybe perform a Dark Sun style cheat. Essentially, if you have immortal god-level spellcasters around somewhere, they ruthlessly dominate the setting and can be used as an excuse to sort of leach out all the powerful magic. Valuable magic items? All in the vaults of the god-wizards. High-powered magic-using monsters? Banished or in-hiding from the god-wizards. High-level spellcasters? All forced to swear loyalty to the god-wizards and stuck running experiments in their demiplanes. The god-wizards don't have to be actively interventionist in the game world. Wizards A, B, and C can come to an agreement where each one gets continents X, Y, and Z and they extract tribute but otherwise spend their time running giant magical particle accelerators in private sub-dimensions seeking the secrets of epic magic or some other BS and can't be bothered to care what the mortals are doing unless it overly jeopardizes the status quo.

The problem here is that a setting of this nature induces a very much legitimate sense of powerlessness and that nothing the PCs do can ever possibly matter. Many players find this sort of thing upsetting (which is why the first thing many GMs do in modding FR is kill Elminster).

[GreatWyrmGold]

You can maybe, maybe perform a Dark Sun style cheat. Essentially, if you have immortal god-level spellcasters around somewhere, they ruthlessly dominate the setting and can be used as an excuse to sort of leach out all the powerful magic. Valuable magic items? All in the vaults of the god-wizards. High-powered magic-using monsters? Banished or in-hiding from the god-wizards. High-level spellcasters? All forced to swear loyalty to the god-wizards and stuck running experiments in their demiplanes. The god-wizards don't have to be actively interventionist in the game world. Wizards A, B, and C can come to an agreement where each one gets continents X, Y, and Z and they extract tribute but otherwise spend their time running giant magical particle accelerators in private sub-dimensions seeking the secrets of epic magic or some other BS and can't be bothered to care what the mortals are doing unless it overly jeopardizes the status quo.

The problem here is that a setting of this nature induces a very much legitimate sense of powerlessness and that nothing the PCs do can ever possibly matter. Many players find this sort of thing upsetting (which is why the first thing many GMs do in modding FR is kill Elminster).

Oh, so when mortals try to control the lives of their followers, hoard the most powerful magic for themselves, and treat entire communities as pawns in their multiversal game it's an upsetting dystopia, but when gods do it it's okay. I see how it is.
This message was sponsored by the Athar.


...Anyways, that's all well and good for turning a standard D&D setting into a low-fantasy realm via in-game events, but that doesn't solve the issues of using D&D's mechanics in a low-fantasy setting.

[Catlike Ghost]

You sort of need to inherently rebuild D&D's class system from the ground up to make it truly 'low-magic'. You can do away with the full casters and the bard, use the non-spellcasting versions of Ranger and Paladin (from Complete Warrior, I think?) and introduce whatever other non-magical classes from other sources fit (Samurai? Knight? Ninja? Marshal?) but then you're left with, essentially, half of a class system. The game is balanced and designed with the idea that your players have access to at least the basics of both healing magic and combat magic.

This is not to say that it can't be done, but rather that there are a lot of hurdles to clear on the path to getting it done. As mentioned above, I do think E6 is a good starting point - especially if you apply those rules to the whole world, and don't include any creatures with a CR higher than 8 anywhere. That makes spells like fireball some of the most powerful ones availalbe in the setting, and takes thinks like resurrection magic off the table entirely, which might be perfect for a low magic (but not no magic) game?

[PaladinX]

https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questi...of-low-fantasy

This thread has a bunch of low magic systems to choose from.

[Tvtyrant]

Both D20 and 5E can be converted to low magic fairly easily. Check out D20 modern/variant magic on the SRDs Incantation system. Just remove normal casting from the game and add incantations for a more Supernatural/Buffy feel, and remove creatures that require magic to beat from the game.

5E doesn't require magic for most creatures, I would just take out spellcasting except for the Magic Intitiate/Ritual feats. Merge those together, you get a cantrip and 2 level appropriate rituals every time you take it and that is the world's magic.

4E with just rituals would be really good for this setting, except it is the ultimate Diablo/Christmas Tree of Magic Items edition.

[GreatWyrmGold]

This is not to say that it can't be done, but rather that there are a lot of hurdles to clear on the path to getting it done. As mentioned above, I do think E6 is a good starting point - especially if you apply those rules to the whole world, and don't include any creatures with a CR higher than 8 anywhere. That makes spells like fireball some of the most powerful ones availalbe in the setting, and takes thinks like resurrection magic off the table entirely, which might be perfect for a low magic (but not no magic) game?

I think it makes sense to keep creatures with CRs higher than 8 (though obviously they should be rarer). Going by 5e CRs, since that's the first list I found, you'd be leaving out aboleths, rocs, vampires, golems, most outsiders of note, and half of all young dragons (among others). The difference is that these turn from "threats that powerful adventurers can handle, no problem" to "threats that you need an army of powerful adventurers, or a cunning plan, to handle".