Aficionados of the d20 System won’t be surprised by my pointing out that there are certain areas where the game’s presentation isn’t backed up by the rules…or at least, could be backed up more.
Take, for instance, the druid. Presented as nature’s defender, eschewing civilization in favor of the pristine wilderness, the druid as presented in the rules only has a faint suggestion of the archetype that it’s described as embodying. They can’t use metal armor or shields, have small bonuses to Knowledge (nature) and Survival, can move through “undergrowth” without being impaired, and leave no trail in “natural surroundings.”
Their spellcasting, however, still works just fine in an urban area. So does their ability to wild shape. There’s no real reason they can’t have an animal companion in a town (although the DMG comments on the practical difficulty of this, that advice is near-universally ignored). If you don’t care much about two small skill bonuses, aren’t worried about being tracked, and don’t care too much that there’s no undergrowth to move through, you can play an urban druid with no real difficulty.
This is also the case for less direct presentations. For instance, there’s an expectation that practitioners of a given type of elemental magic would be in a matching environment, e.g. you’d expect a fire elementalist to reside in a desert or near a volcano. But with the way the rules work, you’re far more likely to find them in an arctic tundra. After all, most of the creatures you’d find in an extremely hot area are probably going to be resistant – or even completely immune – to fire damage, putting the elementalist at a disadvantage. Far better to be in an arctic area where the monsters have vulnerability to fire damage!
Now, we can’t call any of these “discrepancies” per se, since as noted before, this is more of an area where the game rules aren’t backing up the flavor text and associated implications as thoroughly as they could, rather than contradicting anything. Given that, what rules can we use to better support the themes and ideas being put forward? Ideally without having to rewrite any classes or impose cumbersome new rules?
The answer is to simply repurpose a few old rules, specifically those on planar magic traits.
A quick glance at that page makes it clear that this is actually an idea that’s been around for a long time. Two of the traits on that page – “dead magic” and “wild magic” – have been used in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting at least as far back as the days of AD&D 2nd Edition. Given that we don’t need to worry about the “normal magic” trait, being the default unless something says otherwise, we’ll instead turn our attention to the remaining three: enhanced magic (note that this is different in 3.5 and PF1), impeded magic, and limited magic.
Natural Areas of Supernatural Influence
The idea here is that, in various parts of the game world, these “planar” traits kick in, affecting the use of magic within their boundaries just as they would on other planes. Exactly why this happens can be for any reason the GM determines; it can be because of ancient magical accidents, certain planes being “closer” in certain spots, a divine blessing/curse, the lingering vestiges from the death of an arch-fey, or any other reason imaginable. The justification ultimately matters less than the consequences.
And those consequences are that there are certain areas where a combination of limited, impeded, and enhanced magic suppress certain types of spellcasting (and related magic items) and enhance others.
For example, suppose your campaign world has an arctic tundra called the Frozen Lands. When you get within five miles of its border, the impeded magic trait kicks in for all spells with the [fire] descriptor, forcing characters to make a Spellcraft check (d20 + the level of the spell) to successfully cast those spells. Once you cross the border proper, however, then things escalate, and suddenly you have to deal with the limited magic trait making it so that ONLY spells with the [cold] descriptor work! Even further in, the limited magic trait is complemented by the enhanced magic trait, giving [cold] spells the effects of the Empower Spell feat for free…which becomes the Maximize Spell feat once you reach the center of the Frozen Lands.
Creatively applied, this can lend a lot of color to your campaign world. Why don’t high-level druids just cast storm of vengeance on cities whose loggers don’t respect the woodlands? Maybe because metropolises have the limited magic trait against “primal” spells (i.e. spells and spell-like abilities cast by druids, rangers, and creatures of the fey type). Why is the heretical lich-lord still ruling his twisted country, but can’t seem to muster and invasion of the neighboring human kingdoms? Because his lands have impeded magic against all divine spells and the spell-like abilities of creatures of the outsider type.
While using magic traits in this manner can make for great world-building, be careful to keep in mind how “game-able” they are as well. Impeded magic usually has a narrower scope and can potentially be overcome with a skill check, whereas limited magic can be much broader and is a blanket restriction. Enhanced magic works for monsters and NPCs just as much as PCs. Make sure that you don’t send your party into an area where lots of their magic is negated and their enemies’ magic is enhanced unless you know they can handle it; there’s a reason why so few adventures take place in dead magic zones!
That said, judicious applications of magic traits can make your campaign world much more dynamic in how its supernatural heavy-hitters organize themselves, forcing the flavor text to work that much closer with the mechanics.
For a complementary change, also consider removing immunities in favor of resistances. That’s a bit more work, as it requires coming up with resistance values for all creatures with elemental immunities, but it solves other problems. A fire elementalist in an area where all fire spells are Maximized might be able to deal enough damage to overcome even a red dragon’s fire resistance!
Intelligence Check 