Low Fantasy / Low Magic / Swords & Sorcery using BFRPG?

[jmhimara]

Hi folks,

I'm curious, has anyone tried to run a low-fantasy Swords & Sorcery style game using the BFRPG rules? If yes, how did you modify the rules to better fit a low-fantasy setting?

Did you get rid of spellcasting classes completely? Or did you modify the magic rules to make spellcasting more dangerous?

[Dimirag]

I haven't, but I can think some options.

For armors you can remove them and use the defense bonus from the combat supplement, or remove some of the higher protective armor and increase the AC value of the remaining ones unless you want a more lethal game.

Magic is where more options start to appear:
You can go with dangerous magic, divine magic only or no magic at all.

For divine magic only, you can let Magic Users be some kind of Priest class. I would reduce their magic caster level at half their level, or even lower for both clerics and magic users. And I would add some extra abilities in compensation for this reduction, specially some healing skill.

For no magic at all, either remove religious classes or add even more skills, depending on the presence of religion in your setting.

[Tazer_The_Yoot]

I like the idea of magic existing in a low-magic setting but being a long, ceremonial process whose effects don't immediately take effect. The requirement for specific material components is a given in a setting like this, and they're naturally consumed in the ritual. I also have a personal preference for most such magic being almost Biblical in nature. Plagues, Divinations and the like. So more Clerical spell set than Magic-User spell set. Or perhaps such a setting would have neither Clerics nor Magic-Users but only "half-casters" like Paladins who don't get spells until high levels.

[Seven]

I think that in a Low Magic setting, you cannot have the Magic-User at all.
You simply use the fighter and thief and the cleric becomes the priest/sorcerer as required. The extra hp and fighting abilities will be needed.

Tweaks on the magic system are very setting dependent.
Maybe, there's a lot of summoning. Not a lot of combat spells.
Maybe a lot of spying, charming, invisibility and the like.
Maybe some magic item does most of the work. Maybe it's human sacrifices...

[Chris Brady]

You need to play with the Healing rules.

[daryen]

What is meant by "low magic"?

If you do Tolkien-esk low magic, then there are no clerics and magic-users do exist, but are *only* NPCs.

If you do Ice Age low magic, then clerics exist, but have a more limited spell list and the spells take much longer to cast (minimum 1 turn). There are no magic-users. (This doesn't have to be technology restricted, either, BTW. This is just the most common setting for such shamanistic style magic.)

If you do summon-magic, then there are no clerics or magic-users, and instead there are rituals for summoning, and the summoned beings (from whatever source or sources) do the actual magic.

If you do unreliable magic, then you have to figure out what the penalties you want to impose are and how to fine tune them to have an effect but not just make people avoid the magic classes. (If you make the restrictions too onerous, you move from "low magic" to "no magic" because no one is going to bother.)

If you do "the same, but less", then you can do something that allows characters to gain magic, but at a significantly reduced rate. (For example, use the spell progression table for the Adept NPC class from the 3.5 SRD. Or even the Ranger/Paladin spell progression table from the 3.5 SRD.)

Or you can do magic item only low magic. There are no clerics and no magic-users (aside from maybe a few relatively inaccessible NPCs that serve as patrons and the occasional source of magic items). All magic is purely provided through magic items.

So, really, the very first step is defining what is really meant by "low magic" as it can go in so many different directions.

And, once you've finally decided on that, you still have several issues you have to then figure out:
- Healing (as mentioned multiple times above). When your character starts with a maximum of 11 hit points (fighter with 18 con) but most likely only has 5 or 6 (fighter with 13 con). (I won't even mention thieves ...) They can literally die from a single blow from an opponent. You *have* to figure out how to make those first levels survivable.
- Monsters. Once you get past your goblins, orcs, and ogres, most monsters start gaining magical effects. Even monsters that are supposed to be low-level threats become incredibly dangerous, if not TPKs. You will have to massively curate your menagerie.
- Magic Items. With no easily accessible magic, magic items become your player's magic lifeline. In most low magic settings I have ever read, it is always an NPC magic-user, or some special magic weapon/item, (or both) that allows for the day to eventually be saved. Again, you must carefully curate these items.

But the first question is always going to be: What do you mean by "low magic"?

[Seven]

Conan is my idea of low magic and I'm not talking about the movies.
The Lanhkmar setting was (is) low magic.

I played some MERP, back in the days, and there was plenty of magic in that.

[daryen]

Conan is my idea of low magic and I'm not talking about the movies.
The Lanhkmar setting was (is) low magic.

I believe that both of these can fall under what I called the "Tolkien-esk" low magic where there can be magic-users, but they are all NPCs.

I played some MERP, back in the days, and there was plenty of magic in that.

Can't help with that; just with the books (and movies). And there the only magic-users were NPCs. (In my view, Gandalf was an NPC, not a PC.)

Regardless, feel free to change the description from "Tolkien-esk" to "Lanhkmar-esk". You get to the same example I was going for.

But, still, the base question remains the same: "low magic" has lots of different variations. Which is being looked for, as some are more easily attainable than others.

[Seven]

That's fair.

Low magic means few magical items.

The PCs probably get a healer of some kind, because it's a pain otherwise.
How that gets resolved depends on the setting.

I don't usually play with critical hits and fumbles, but it works really well in low magic.
It's hard to down a dragon in low magic without scoring that critical hit on the missing scale.

[daryen]

For a Lanhkmar or Conan style low-magic setting, I guess I recommend this:
- No magical PC classes. Just Fighter and Thief. (And various combinations thereof.)
- There are Magic-Users and Clerics, but very limited and only as NPCs. They can be either patrons, one-off encounters (good or bad), and BBEGs.
- Have some pivotal magic items that are powerful, but rare. These are special and might be near-artifacts. Bonus points if it scales with the user so they can use it from almost the beginning.
- Make almost all other magic items consumables that are occasionally found as loot, but more often provided by patrons - with strings attached!