What is it about "Low Magic?"

[Jacob_Orlove]

shirak: that kind of magic/nonmagic split is why fighters cannot have nice things. If you just switch to the mold of "everyone gets cool powers, and basically picks their own excuse" then the problem disappears entirely. One guy can totally kill people with magic spells, and another guy can use a sword--as long as the mechanical effects match, why should it matter which flavor you prefer?

[RandomCasualty]

1186520569[/unixtime]]shirak: that kind of magic/nonmagic split is why fighters cannot have nice things. If you just switch to the mold of "everyone gets cool powers, and basically picks their own excuse" then the problem disappears entirely. One guy can totally kill people with magic spells, and another guy can use a sword--as long as the mechanical effects match, why should it matter which flavor you prefer?

Well, in high magic and mythic settings, this actually works well.

When you're running low magic though, generally fighter types don't have nice things. I mean, not in the sense that they've got superpowers or what not. Conan doesn't fly, doesn't fire lasers out of his eyes and doesn't have super speed. So if you're trying to capture the flavor of low magic, trying to make fighters into superheroes tends to not work, at least not without turning the setting into a high magic or mythic flavor.

[Jacob_Orlove]

Batman and Captain America don't do any of those things either, and I could probably name a good 100+ others with a little research. I'd guess that less than half of all superheroes fly, and that's far and away the most common ability.

I'm counting stuff like "super good at fighting" as a superpower, though, since in settings like this, it would be. Laser eyes probably would not show up at all.

Admittedly, you probably end up with a certain amount of mythic flavor, but the other option is basically, like Frank said, to have all the PCs play at level 2.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

RC, I have to say, I hate your definition of low magic, as it seems to be "Since fighters can't do cool things, neither can anyone else."

-Des

[tzor]

1186513015[/unixtime]]Sweat would include technology, Arthur C Clarke disregarded. Yes we should all know his famous line, I won't repeat it here..

You mean any sufficiently advanced technology role playing game is just as broken as D&D?

Just think about all the ways you can abuse transporters and replicators in the ST universe, for example.

[JonSetanta]

1186520569[/unixtime]]shirak: that kind of magic/nonmagic split is why fighters cannot have nice things. If you just switch to the mold of "everyone gets cool powers, and basically picks their own excuse" then the problem disappears entirely. One guy can totally kill people with magic spells, and another guy can use a sword--as long as the mechanical effects match, why should it matter which flavor you prefer?

I'm leaning towards that too. Unfortunately many gamers despise 'classless systems' for whatever unfounded (read: emotional) reasons, and my own attempts at classless d20/D&D still have yet to find balance of any kind.
Biggest problem?
Those godforsaken spells! Damn them! Even a Hold Person on any warrior makes them too good at what they do, though if anyone can do the same it tends to lose it's cheapness... That, and even if Wizards.com CharOp-type gamers get a hold of every SoS spell in the book PLUS great defense, it all comes down to personal liking for each individual; some might even have countermeasures to specific types of attack, so the whole game becomes more like "Rock Paper Scizzors" than Resource Management or Rocket Tag (which is fun in first-person shooters, but boring fast)

So this brings me to agree with one of shirak's options.
#1, Nerf Magic.

Limit SoDs but mostly remove/alter them to Save or Suck and similar.
Death magic, for instance, can cause CON damage instead. Added up, it'll kill any living thing, but then again so does straight HP loss.
Saw an old K article on a topic like this, where K proposed altering the fundamentals of magical attacks (much to Frank's disliking, since SoDs are... well.. awesome.)

7. No weakness more terrible than what we would see in the effects of poison, disease, or acid/fire/energy damage.

So, for example, vampires would be poisoned by garlic(but not regular poison), and take energy damage from Sunlight as per fire, and acid type damage from holy water.

http://bb.bbboy.net/thegamingden-viewth ... r][br]This is related to discussion, as spells are the offenders in most magic-rated settings, high or low. Spells make or break any game, so why not standardize what they do?
Rather than apply K's idea to weaknesses, one would typify spells such as Finger of Death as [Death] type, which deals X amount CON damage, Disintegrate is [Fire,Light] a close approximation to nuclear energy, and Cloudkill is [Poison].

In a setting where anyone can cast anything, preparing for threats would be a lot fucking easier if all threats belonged in the same damned 20-30 or so categories!
Then from there, remove certain magic by [type] to tailor a setting to high, low, whatever.

[shirak]

I was speaking about D&D in general. If you want to go the Low magic way, you need to nerf magic. Make it so that it is the equivalent of a sword. Either each manabolt or whatever does the same damage as a sword or it takes as much time to fire off a SoD as it would take for the Fighter to kill the enemy by damage.

But, hey, in a high magic campaign I am totally picking the option of the Fighters doing magical things with their swords. Go Zaraki Kenpachi!

[RandomCasualty]

1186543704[/unixtime]]
Death magic, for instance, can cause CON damage instead.

On a side note, I personally hate the idea of ability damage and would prefer that mechanic was removed from the game entirely.

[TRQ]

Not everyone prefers "low-magic", but as someone who does, here's my definition and my reasoning.

In no-magic games, battles play out according to reasonable real world tactics, tactics which depend very much on positioning, terrain, and teamwork. We enjoy these kinds of tactics. We have experience with them (having at least played football or frisbee or sumo). We like cool battles of the past where one side used superior tactics to defeat another, even though the two had equal technology and "abilities" and personal strength. Not that people are entirely homogeneous... a football team requires people of many talents... but the key feature (I'd like to think) is the choice of plays and not just having the bigger superstar (hell, every team is full of superstars). It's an intellectual victory.

In core D&D, there are certainly tactics involved in battle, often many many more tactics than are available in real life. They're just different tactics. Tactics which we're unfamiliar with from our lives, which we haven't grown up appreciating. Tactics which do not involve positioning, terrain, or teamwork to any of the same degree, and which rely on the different abilities of one side compared to the other. Tactics which, in my opinion, just aren't as fun. The key feature is still choosing the right plays, but the superstars are so various and the tactics so dependant on their particular abilities that it seems more personal and less tactical.

One could make a similar argument about the economy. It's not that the wish economy is inconsistent. It's that the wish economy is totally different from the one we know, and doesn't reward people for the things that we typically feel like people should be rewarded for.

My definition of a low magic game would be one which tries to preserve the tactics and the way the world works from the no-magic setting, while adding the supernatural to add some variety without changing that general feeling. In other words, if everyone can fly then we've completely removed most aspects of terrain from our tactics; if someone can walk up walls a couple rounds a day then that does add some new and interesting tactical options, while not really changing the focus on terrain. In otherwords, I like to play games on a battlemap with a grid, where your position on the grid really makes a difference.

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bitnine did a great job classifying the things people talk about when they discuss the level of magic in a setting. As you can see, I believe it is tied to the power level (not the numbers or the sharpness of the sword, but the otherworldly abilities)... if people can do ridiculous things that bypass normal tactics or normal economies (like SoD or flight or wish) then one can't expect normal tactics or economies to exist in that world.

I fully recognize that in 100 years we'll all be flying with our personal jetpacks and fighting wars digitally and whatnot, and all these tactics will be gone from the real world too. Not that, in our gun-toting era, we find the tactics of the medieval world less interesting... and we find gunfighting interesting too. But I didn't grow up on tactics centered around flight and targetting people flawlessly from a distance regardless of cover, so they just don't feel right to me.

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On an unrelated note, my favorite low-magic campaigns have been those with merely magic equipment granting abilities, equipment like signature items which are essentially personal, customizable, and rare. (Each person has 1 magic item with a bunch of abilities, gets another when he reaches lvl 6, you get the idea). Seems more like those standard legends to me.