Low Fantasy 4e

Characters

Inherent Bonuses

• Heroic Tier
  • Level 2: +1 attack, +1 damage
  • Level 4: +1 all defenses
  • Level 7: +1 attack, +1 damage
  • Level 9: +1 all defenses
• Paragon Tier
  • Level 12: +1 attack, +1 damage
  • Level 14: +1 all defenses
  • Level 17: +1 attack, +1 damage
  • Level 19: +1 all defenses
• Epic Tier
  • Level 22: +1 attack, +1 damage
  • Level 24: +1 all defenses
  • Level 27: +1 attack, +1 damage
  • Level 29: +1 all defenses

Cumulative Inherent Bonuses

• Heroic Tier
  • Level 2: +1 attack, +1 damage, +0 all defenses
  • Level 4: +1 attack, +1 damage, +1 all defenses
  • Level 7: +2 attack, +2 damage, +1 all defenses
  • Level 9: +2 attack, +2 damage, +2 all defenses
• Paragon Tier
  • Level 12: +3 attack, +3 damage, +2 all defenses
  • Level 14: +3 attack, +3 damage, +3 all defenses
  • Level 17: +4 attack, +4 damage, +3 all defenses
  • Level 19: +4 attack, +4 damage, +4 all defenses
• Epic Tier
  • Level 22: +5 attack, +5 damage, +4 all defenses
  • Level 24: +5 attack, +5 damage, +5 all defenses
  • Level 27: +6 attack, +6 damage, +5 all defenses
  • Level 29: +6 attack, +6 damage, +6 all defenses

Power Sources

Martial characters are the easy go-to for low fantasy settings, as their powers are based around physical strength and capability. It doesn't take much effort, if any, to make them work.

Arcane characters depend on the magic level in the campaign, but can work even if that level is close to zero. Spells can be reformatted and reskinned into potions and powders that are thrown like grenades or strewn like caltrops. Rather than being the wielder of immense mystical power, arcane characters are holders of rare knowledge. After all, knowing the right mixture of black sand and salt acid can create an effect just as potent as any fireball!

Divine characters have a mixture of physical attacks and mystic effects in their powers. It can be easy enough to keep to the physical for the most part, and reskin the other powers as needed. Invokers are quite difficult to work with, as their powers are all about channelling destructive divine power, but if you take a similar path to the arcane characters and have them use potions and powders, it's possible for them to work. Just avoid the powers where you literally summon angels.

Primal characters are a mixed bag. Barbarians are mostly a bash-and-smash class with a few weird effects separating them from martial classes, and effects can be reskinned. The druid's ability to shift into different animal forms can be interpreted as mixed fighting styles. But shamans work with spirits, and wardens transform into elemental forms. Reskinning those is possible, but can be more trouble than it's worth.

Psionic characters have as much individual variation as divine characters. Monks are possibly the easiest to work with, but ardents are also easily adapted. Try to stick to the physical, weapon-based attacks and reskin the effects. The psion is another candidate for the potions-and-powers treatment, however.

Shadow characters - that is, the assassin - can work if reskinned to be a more traditional assassin that uses garrottes and poisons rather than people's own shadows.

Races

Certain races fit more easily into low fantasy than others. Humans are the easiest to work with, and if all else fails you can reskin everything to be human. But different races can provide an interesting tapestry to a low fantasy world. The following are suggestions on how to make some of the stranger races fit in, visually and thematically.

Races like dragonborn and minotaurs do not necessarily have to be reskinned in order to fit with low fantasy, but their bestial appearance does set them aside from the other humanoids. Making them look more human, but perhaps with metallic skin or three fingers on each hand. Small cosmetic differences work when put together with cultural differences, so think about their society as well.

One of the major problems with some races is their racial powers. Teleportation powers especially can be hard to reskin due to their inherent in-game effects. Even powers like fire breath and temporary flight can be easier to explain away than being able to teleport past walls.

Living construct races - warforged and shardmind - aren't impossible to adapt to low fantasy, but when magic is rare it's hard to justify the existence of arcane robots and talking crystals.

Equipment

Adventuring Gear

A few items of adventuring gear are magical in nature, and do not fit well with low fantasy. Everburning torches are the biggest offender, but sunrods are just as out-of-place. Since the latter are a part of the standard adventurer's kit, replace them with two torches and reduce the cost of the kit accordingly - from 15 gp down to 10.

Magic Items

The whole point of the inherent bonuses is to ensure the characters do not need to be drenched in magic in order to survive. This does not mean that no magic items can appear in the campaign! Treat magic items as things of great power and importance, rather than commonplace tools.

Keep a watchful eye on weapons that do crazy things like teleport, spew fire, explode or summon demons. These might not fit in with the tone of a low fantasy campaign. However a little reskinning might make some work, although the summoning ones may perhaps need a bit of work. Again, it depends on the tone of the campaign.

If you are going to allow the item bonus on top of the inherent bonuses, stick to around +1 to +2 at most. Anything higher will break the game.

If you have something like Excalibur in mind, a potent weapon that should be wielded by a leader of men, try using a simple artifact (as outlined in Dungeon Master's Guide 1, page 164). Creating artifacts specifically for the campaign story is not too tricky: choose an existing magic item and build around it. Give it properties that provide interesting hooks for a character, such as the ability to speak and understand another language, bonuses to skill checks, or perhaps it can bestow visions upon the bearer.

Rituals & Alchemy

Rituals can be useful in a low fantasy game, but ruling out some of the more potent ones and reskinning others is a must. Cure Disease can be reskinned into medical skill rather than magical prowess, for instance, but Planar Portal isn't exactly something that fits in.

Alchemical items are similar, but there are very few alchemical items that match the high magic level of rituals like Raise Dead, so formulas can be restricted by the GM on a case-by-case basis as the game progresses. In any case, reskinning can cover a multitude of sins.

If one or more of the players has an alchemist or ritualist character, it is good form to provide them with enough materials for them to use their alchemy/rituals. Small stashes of components - like a bag of special powder, or a jar of potent acid - mixed in with treasure parcels is a good idea. Another solution is to have the character harvest what they need from the world itself - collecting herbs, fungi, salts and other natural components. Fallen enemies may also be a good source of components: make goblin eyes into components worth 5 gp, and perhaps a zombie's bones can be ground up into powder worth 15 gp. The rarer the beast, the better the component: a dragon's heart could be 500 gp or more.

If an alchemist/ritualist has a steady income of components, they will be a lot less reluctant to spend those components on things.

Wealth

Copper, silver and gold pieces are the standard generic names for the basic currency of D&D, with most everything being priced in gold with the exception of minor trinkets. Each coin is worth ten of the lower denomination, which is a very nice system but a little plain in terms of flavour.

Renaming the coins so it does not appear that vast amounts of gold exchange hands every day helps with the gritty nature of low fantasy. The following are some examples of naming themes.

• Arabic: fals (copper), dinar (silver), ashrafi (gold)
• English: penny (copper), shilling (silver), crown (gold)
• Greek: obol (copper), drachma (silver), talent (gold)
• Indian: paisa (copper), anna (silver), rupee (gold)
• Piratical: penny (copper), florin (silver), dubloon (gold)
• Oriental: zhu (copper), fen (silver), yuan (gold)

Precious gems or similar items can replace astral diamonds.

Copper coins are hardly ever used, except for very small things such as candles, so re-orientating the currency to turn silver into copper (and gold to silver, and then platinum to gold) can help make individual coins seem worth more at higher levels.

That way, an adventurer's kit goes from 10gp to 1gp, a longbow goes from 30gp to 3gp, and leather armor goes from 25gp to 2gp 5sp.