D&D 5E Help me design my next campaign - Low magic world

[StreamOfTheSky]

First of all...Jews from olden times as hippies? I'm not offended, it's just really funny. Have you read Sermon on the Mount or the Good Samaritan?

I'm kinda amazed. You're running a gestalt high-power game right now and your next will be this, correct? I'm planning the exact same. I love the gestalt, but man I'm gonna have serious burn out when it's over, all the work it takes to challenge the tricked out PCs. My next campaign will be low-level, low magic (possibly accomplished just by being low level), and gritty, with lower powered stats. Also war-focused, though I'm thinking of a Record of Lodoss War setting.

A lot of good advice already, I was especially interested in the UA reserve points and possibly wound/vitality points for the game.

For Tome of Battle, and this is coming from someone who loves the book: you're right, it won't fit. I don't mind the "flavor," but after a few levels the maneuvers do get kind of crazy, and will really stand out if magic is weak. I'm considering banning the adept classes and prestige classes, but allowing the maneuvers. That way, PCs can still take Martial Study (up to 3 times) and Martial Stance to learn some maneuvers. The fact they count as half Initiator Level will severely delay access to higher level maneuvers, too. In terms of the setting, such martial techniques are a nearly lost art, with few remaining with the capacity to evne master any of the disciplines any more. This at least leaves open the possibility of the rare NPC master who actually has adept levels.

Casters don't tend to overtake the other classes until level 6 or so, though even at level 1 cantrips like ghost sound, prestidigitation, and message can simply do things a non-caster otherwise can't (and are thus useful). What level are you planning to go until? The E6 (or E#, if you prefer a different level) variant rules might be useful to look into.

As far as arcane classes to allow, I just hate the duskblade too much to recommend it. I'd rather just take the work to power up the hexblade in that case. Give a second good save, use the shadow companion variant, make the curse class feature stronger, give more spells known and/or per day... whatever. Not sure about Bard, it carries a lot of its own distinct flavor that has nothing to do with arcane mastery. As Ark said though, arcanists at low levels will be the weakest classes in the game anyway.

For books to allow, I'm thinking of letting each player pick two besides what's in the SRD. Whatever's selected will be the books everyone can use. I'd still be able to say no to an entire book if i don't want it (No savage species! ever!), and ban the really broken things in line-item fashion (Wraith strike from Spell Compendium, for example). I'm used to allowing something like 3 dozen books, so this would be a rather big limitation to my group.

As for availability of magic, I'm not sure. Depends on the levels for how far you want to go. I'm considering just doubling the market prices of all magic items (which affects cost, time, and xp), adding a flat +2 or so to all CL requirements for item creation feats and items, and dropping the gp values of the most expensive items you can buy in towns/cities. So basically a +1 weapon is a rare and amazing find. Leaves open the question of items that would require very high level casters, like rings, how would they exist? I suppose they could just not be created any more and would be only the remnants of what a past higher-magic society left behind, buried in ruins and such. It's kinda cliche and a cop-out, but it would fit for the Lodoss backstory.

Hope any of that was a help, I'm mostly interested in this thread for ideas for my own future game.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Undead: you don't need to replace them. Use them as you would normally.

I don't think that a current lack of "dark casters" would significantly impact their numbers- they're not going to die off, after all- they have to be actively hunted and killed off. Worse still, "dark casters" would be the ones most likely to have become undead casters like liches...IOW, still capable of creating undead themselves. In addition, some non-caster undead types can spawn others of their kind.

PrCls: I'd say that you could do just fine limiting them to the ones in the DMG plus a select few, chosen either by yourself to reflect the nature of the campaign (the mage-hunter types would seem especially appropriate -http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-3rd-edition-rules/247737-suggest-feat-witch-hunter.html), or by limiting the players to ones that appear in the books they use. The Shadowbane PrCls also seem like a strong choice.

Hexblades: Personally, I hate 'em.

Bards: Why not use them? Some consider them underpowered (I don't), and in a campaign like this, they could really shine. Most people wouldn't associate bardic magic with the atrocities committed by the more powerful casting classes that spawned the cycle of assassinations. In addition, they'd be the ones telling and retelling the stories about the events that led up to the killings. And maybe, just maybe, some among their number might be the ones who do the cullings...

Bo9S: I don't care for this book.

Book of the Righteous: You might really want to find this book from Green Ronin. It has a system for generating Priests and (more importantly) Holy Knights for all kinds of religions and ethoi- no more cookie cutter Paladins! Downside- its a 3Ed book. Upside- converting it is simple, and from what I understand, it was updated to 3.5 as a PDF.

 

[dontpunkme]

Stream:
I don't mean ancient Hebrews are in any way Hippies and yes, I am well versed in the Good Samaritan and the Sermon on the Mount (thank you 8 years of Catholic School and being a Sunday school teacher for a while). But IMO, during the Crusades, the war was really between the Muslims and the Christians and the Jews were kind of outside of it, but harassed by both sides to some degrees. Hippies was definitely used more for the tree-hugging of the naturephiles.

And yes, you're definitely right, the gestalt campaign definitely is wearing me out as a DM. They're really is no easy way to challenge the classes without risking an outright TPK. I didn't make things any better by running a mass combat encounter that the players wanted to resolve as a real encounter (read: them in a small force of 100 or so trying to stop 1,700 enemies lead by a marilith, but the 15x15 battle mat covered in minis was quite the sight to see).

I don't tend to set predetermined levels before working up a campaign, but I would like to eventually cap things off somewhere around 10-12, but that could easily balloon to 15+ if the campaign is going well. But I plan on drawing out level advancement at some point to make the meat of the campaign take place at low-to-mid levels.

I do see the majority of magic items as the last great items of a age long lost (think King Solomon's ring, Moses' staff, Excalibur, and a whole litany of other mythical items from history). I'm debating going back towards a 2nd edition feel with magic weapons (remember the +1 swords that did a 1 point of fire damage as well). I also must admit, I miss the fun of days before every magic item had an identify spell cast upon it before use. You just can't get PCs to use cursed items anymore. For some reason this saddens me.

Danny:
Definitely some useful stuff to steal here, especially if I make the church the more dominant faction (after all, healing is more attractive to the common folk than a select company of people who can fly, throw fireballs, etc).

Ark:
Same as Danny and definitely some points to consider when detailing how the arcane side.

Danny:
I'll definitely be stopping by the FLGS to see if I can find a copy of the Book of the Righteous. I'm definitely going to be pulling material from a variety of 3rd party sources. As far as Hexblades go, I've never seen them in play so I'm not sure how lame they may be. Bards are definitely one of the classes I'm really on the fence about. I don't see it being an issue as my players fastidiously avoid bards (might have something to do with my ruling that you better back up those perform checks with player action i.e. perform: sign means the whole table gets treated to a song, perform: lute means bring your guitar, etc.)

Just a background note to all:
This campaign idea actually evolved when I was thumbing through UA and saw the Shifting Worlds bit. I started scribbling together notes on that and realized that as you shift world's deities and magic systems applicable on one world may not apply on another (i.e. Krynn and Faerun pantheons and source of magic: moons vs. weave) and realized spellcasters could get totally shafted. So I started hemming together classes that would be unaffected (power attack works equally well in Greyhawk or in Ravenloft). After realizing what a pain in the neck this would be to justify without revealing my campaign plans to my players, I started working on the Crusades-themed idea (thank you history channel and Templar Knight family ancestors).


On a side note, I definitely want to extend my sincere thanks to everyone who has given feedback. Please don't misinterpret this as me signing off this thread, I plan to continue posting, responding, and likely providing updates as the setting develops. While I do expect the game not to start until quite some time, I will be working on this as I have throughout the semester. But once again, thank you everyone so far and future posters, you guys are giving me a slew of ideas to use and I really appreciate it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

1) BotR is widely regarded as one of the better 3P products- you may be able to find a new copy, but a used copy may be tough to find...most of the people I know who have bought it have kept it.

I don't care for gaming PDFs in general, but this is one situation in which you might be better off getting that product in electronic form.

2) Have you ever played in the DarkSun campaign setting? If so, you might want to look into the whole Defiler magic thing as a contributing factor towards the fear and loathing most people have towards arcane casters.

3) Another good source for you to read would be Larry Niven's Magic Goes Away series of novels. In those stories, magic is powered by mana, which seems to be a non-renewable resource...because most of it is gone. Magic is possible only in certain places. I daresay these books inspired the wild magic/dead magic zones that appeared in certain D&D products.

 

[GrolloStoutfoam]

One option to no healing magic is a herbalism skill. That could even be the manifestation of Druidic knowledge rather than divine magic. Back in AD&D we used this article as no one wanted to play the cleric. (Well, I cannot figure out how to attach it but it was called Wounds & Weeds. Dragon#82, February 1984.)

Also, keep the undead. Low level undead will be much more challenging and creepy without a cleric to blast away turnings. Maybe used holy relics as a tool to keep undead at bay. A reliquary of a saint's finger bone.

Awesome premise by the way.

 

[dontpunkme]

Definitely a possibility to try. I have Alchemy and Herbalists (I think that was the title at least). I'll have to go digging through there and see what I come up with.