Design Journal Part 2: Magic

In a typical D&D game, magic is plentiful. In effect, magic has become a currency of its very own--bought, sold, and traded as easily as any other (admittedly expensive) commodity. That's a perfectly reasonable "common-ground" approach to the topic, establishing clear ground rules about how much it costs to get your buddy raised from the dead, to pick up a half-dozen healing potions, or to get your magic sword upgraded in power. Ignoring the subject in the core rules simply pushes the problem to the DM, forcing him to come up with his own system of pricing spells and magic items. Many (perhaps even most) DMs aren't ready to do that, particularly when you factor in the game's relative newness.

For the Bloodlines campaign, I pretty much treated magic as exactly as common as described in the core rulebooks. Characters could pay local wizards to identify loot, buy and sell their magic items, and so on.

That's all about to change.

Perhaps more than any other element of the game, it's the predictability and omnipresence of magic that I want to change in this campaign. In the Land of Umber, magic isn't an "open-book" topic. There aren't schools willing to teach would-be wizards, or friendly religious orders to train you in the divine mysteries. The secrets of magic are all but lost, and mere remnants of the mighty works of the ancients remain. There's no such thing as a friendly corner potion-seller, and the local smith's likely to offer you the same price for your +3 greatsword as he would for any other masterwork weapon--after all, how does *he* know it's "magical," and how could he prove it to a potential buyer?

In no particular order, here are some of the changes I'm planning to institute in regard to this goal:

Fewer Spellcasting Options

As mentioned last time, I don't want clerics to have a significant presence in the Land of Umber. They'll be mysterious figures of dark (possibly insane) power, not player characters. So no clerics, and probably no paladins either (though the possibility of a rare knight still dedicated to upholding a long-dead code of honor appeals to me a bit). Instead, druids will be the ones you turn to for life-affirming magics, but be careful: not all of them are friendly, either.

Next up: wizards. The idea of rigorous, book-learned magic is at odds with the themes of the campaign, so there's really no place for this class. Bards and sorcerers fit much better with a world of half-remembered legends, with their limited array of magical options.

On that topic, I'll be setting up all the spellcasting classes to spontaneously cast from lists of spells known like the bard (paladin, ranger) or sorcerer (druid), though the druid and sorcerer won't have the "hiccup" that the sorcerer experiences at 3rd level, delaying access to a new level of spells. This will force divine spellcasters to specialize as much as their arcane counterparts, rather than having a much wider access to spells of different varieties. I haven't yet decided if this merits giving those classes something else in return, but I think that the extra spells per day may be enough.

Oh, and spellcasters won't be able simply to pick new spells from the list, they'll have to find them somehow. Still thinking about how that'll work for divine casters.

Reduced Spellcasting Power

No character (PC or NPC) can have more than half of his class levels in "pure spellcasting" classes (such as bard, druid, or sorcerer). Every spellcaster will be a multiclass character. I foresee a few effects from this.

First and perhaps most obviously, spellcasters will have very limited access to higher-level spells. The 3rd-level "money" arcane spells (dispel magic, fireball, fly, lightning bolt, etc.) won't become available until the character reaches at least 10th level, and the big game-changing spells of D&D (teleport and raise dead) require 18th-level characters at a minimum. That's perfect for me--I want characters walking (or riding) from town to town, not teleporting, and death is going to be brutal and permanent. You can check out the preliminary math I've done on the subject of who gets spells when.

Second, the spells that characters do have access to will be less potent. With a lower overall caster level (vs. the opponents you're fighting) and a lower spell level driving the save DCs, these spells won't pack the same punch as in regular D&D. I'm not concerned about the save DC problem (with fewer magical effects around, the bad guys' saves won't be as good anyway), and I have a solution to the first problem: I'll allow class levels from multiple classes to "contribute" to your caster level, much like you accumulate base attack bonus or base save bonuses from multiple classes. This is an idea I came up with during my work on the Revised Player's Handbook (though it didn't make it into that book), and which coincidentally was discussed at some length on my message boards earlier this year. Currently, I'm considering using two progressions: +1/level for pure spellcasting classes (bard, druid, sorcerer) and +1/2 level for all others (barbarian, fighter, monk, ranger, rogue).  That's a more aggressive progression for non-spellcasters than I'd probably use for a core D&D campaign, but with the forced multiclassing of spellcasters it seems fair. Thus, while a Sor 3/Rog 4 won't have the same caster level as a single-classed sorcerer of the same character level (5 vs. 7), it'll be better than getting nothing at all from her rogue levels.

Rare Magic Items

The item creation feats fall into the category of "lost knowledge." No living person knows (or admits to knowing) how to craft magic items. Heck, there aren't even many who could confirm that an item was magical at all, much less what it did.

The magic items that exist are the only ones that will ever exist. There are probably still a fair number of +1 longswords lying (or being carried) about, but there might be only a single +2 keen falchion in the entire world. Healing magic, from potions to scrolls to wands, are carefully guarded and rationed treasures.

As a result, the campaign won't have any reasonable method to exchange cash for magic items or vice-versa. You can't buy a sheaf of scrolls for your next dungeon-crawl, sell the +1 sword you just pulled off the villain, or add new powers to your existing items. With no reliable supply, it's impossible to properly determine demand, and thus price. Sure, I'll buy that "magic shield" from you, it looks like it's crafted pretty well.  How does 80 gold pieces sound? No, sorry, I don't have any others to sell you.

Without an easy method to customize their array of magical equipment, characters will be forced to make do with whatever they find. Found a +1 mace, but you usually prefer the longsword? You'll be carrying that mace instead (or perhaps in addition to) your sword. (For that reason, I'll probably allow characters to change their selection of weapons for feats such as Weapon Focus each time they gain a new level.)

This raises an obvious question: what will characters spend their hard-earned gold on? I'll answer that with two words, and leave you hanging for the next column:

What gold?