@Jet Fuel Johnny
Sorry, a question as I'm sitting here. How much magic in this campaign? I presume it's a fairly low-magic one, because nothing can fuck up the status quo quite like an intelligent spellcaster.
It's weirdly done.
We mixed in some power restraints from 1E. Now, full disclosure, my group knows that
barring extreme exceptions of BBEG with a Threat Rating of +3 or more that the spell rules count for the opposing side. (Threat Rating I stole from Shadowrun 1E and it works great) This, right off the bat, hinders spell casters.
We added back in the rules for learning spells. For Clerics, we went in hard on Domains and Subdomains as Forbidden Domains (usually the prime domain for the opposing God/Ethos), to put limitations on the Divine Casters of: Max 3rd level in non-domain, max 5th level in secondary domain, max for primary domain, cannot cast opposing domain without the "Forbidden Magic" feats. They have to roll on learning spells, if they blow it too hard, they can't learn that spell until they get a permanent (non-item) primary stat increase OR training from someone 4 levels higher who knows that spell and is a SPECIALIST in that spell school. Learning new spells either requires going up a level (in which case you try to learn 2), having a scroll, or getting a teacher. (Uncle Leo can help you out, he knows some burnt out mages from The War(TM) who will train Uncle Leo's favorite nieces and nephews)
There's been some side adventures of getting some scrolls or access to a spellbook to make some copied pages so that a mage can get the spells they should have at the level increase.
I also curate what spells I'll allow, since the God of Magic is known for being a spergy, petty, pedantic asshole about magic who threw a fit about the overgod giving war magic to the God of War instead of him and he's still in a butt hurt huff about it.
The second thing was: Spellbooks. Max of a hundred pages, 1-2 pages per spell level. Combine that with "Max Spells Known" and you put some limit on the power. The second thing is: All spells gained in play are subject to GM approval. ALL of them.
You can have a certain amount of spells per level in your spellbook that you can "know" and half again the amount that you "don't know", either because you don't research them or haven't figured them out, or whatever. Now, non-spellbook casters have other limits, mainly involving their bloodlines, so we had to do a little kludging to get it to work. Basically, their Patron acts as their spellbook, with kind of the same rules.
The players know this is a game all about who you know and who you blow, so Patron Bloodline Spirit or Totem going "Uh, I'm not teaching you that spell, because I don't want to today. Bring me wenches and pretzels!" or finding a scroll to learn off of it and the God of Magic going "No. Because my brother was given War Magic, and that's a spell that hurts people so you'll have to ask him because my father took those spells from me because my brother is his favorite and...." but the spell gives the player a +1 to roll to learn or research spells in that elemental and school category.
All casters have a "sigil" on their palms, and that sigil can be found on the echoes of cast spells with a Detect Magic, Read Magic, and a good Perception roll. Since the PC's are basically criminals, they gotta be careful with that, since nobles and the Guard and the bigger gangs like the Yaks, Tongs, and Mafia have people who can do that.
The other thing is the setting. You have to have a license for magic, and the PC's are largely running off forged permits. Throwing fireballs around will bring down the big time guard, usually backed by a War Wizard or two with a +2 Threat Level or better. Big flashy shit brings down the guards or the weird cultists.
The biggest part, is that the players are more interested in having fun and living vicariously in the setting than they are breaking it.
Now, as for magic outside the PC's?
It depends on where you are. It seems like every third elf is a low level druid (1d4+1 level, bare minimum stats) but then they used lots of "Green Mother Magic" during The War(TM) and most elves know showing anything better than what you can do with a 14 Wisdom or level 6+ gets you slapped into a collar and working in a garden on a noble's estate. The nobility have magic dripping off of them. To the PC's it seems like most of the noble ladies are mages (We are a proud and powerful people, says Noble Woman partially dressed as a prostitute) and they have magic items out the ass. Now, the problem is, these magic items are flashy and ornate and ostentatious. Not really the PC's style. Usually they fence the magic items they take off of the bad guys to Uncle Leo or Auntie and it ends up back in the hands of the noble family after Uncle Leo fences it to the guards who return it to the nobles for the reward and
everyone wins!
Merchants have low level mages (1d4+2) working in shops, guarding warehouses, stuff like that. They usually have cloaks and rings to provide protection, but again, embossed, monogrammed, inlaid, stitched, all that.
Again, fence it to Uncle Leo or Auntie and move on.
The guard, now there's the heavy duty magic. Magic armor, magic weapons, mages in the patrol squads (1d6+3 level) tricked out with war magic. Fighters tricked out for close combat (2d4+2 level, TR +1 or more) Ripping off a guard patrol or the like brings down The Big Boys(TM) who are going to show up in Full Field Plate or War Machine Plate, with 4-6 wizards, 2-4 clerics, rogues on the rooftops with magic bows and armor, TR of +3 or more, and a serious fucking mad-on. The whole block is getting an ass kicking. If they have to leave their towers they're bringing a WHOLE can of whup-ass with them and sharing it with everyone, and NOBODY wants that.
The Army, now there's where more heavy duty magic is, but again, there's seals on it, markings, and it's military equipment. Sure, the armor has racks of +2 Full Field Plate, +1 Superheavy class armors, +3 leather armor, but it's all military gear and instantly recognizable by the guards, so it's basically useless to the PC's. (They did make a HUGE score where they robbed a depot with fake papers and got away with 4 wagons of heavy wool blankets with warming spells, new(ish) boots with traction magic, and good cloaks with weather resistance, none of it marked yet. That was a highlight job right there)
But back to spellcasters.
The big thing is, we have "cinematic effect" magic, meaning it's less like whispering and wiggling your fingers inside your sleeve and more like Doctor Strange (even before the movies came out), which means as soon as that shit starts people start running screaming and The Big Boys(TM) start strapping on their armor and grabbing their cans of whup-ass.
Magic has to be licensed, and no PC wants to be sentenced to working for some noble family with a shock collar. Forged writs for little magic isn't that big of a deal.
Area of effect magic brings in the guards, the mob, the Yaks, even the Tongs and, worse, the Noble House Guard "Snatchers" sniffing around.
A "clever" mage can unbalance shit, just like someone can go down to the shopping mall with an M16, but it'll have the same results. The players know this and they'll try to explain it to new players, but there's always That Guy who thinks he'll go ahead and outsmart me and unbalance the whole thing. (We've had 2 interparty stabbings, both because of mages thinking they can crack off area of effect spells without worrying about people on the street, you know, the people that the PC's are the champions of)
The PC's get frisked all the time, usually going through gates and if they're in the nicer sections of the city, so they've gotta be careful there.
The witch is careful with their magic, because she hates swimming. She's more likely to use her hair to strangle someone or pin them in place. (I allow her to do non-lethal damage with her hair)
With the kludged mechanical issues with spells, the baked in setting restrictions, and the fact my normal players don't have their heads up their asses, magic hasn't been a problem.
As for the PC's, they've got magic items, but it's very thematic and setting fitting. For example, the Paladin of Gruumsh the Thinker has a chainmail bikini top that acts like a Chain Shirt +1 as well as giving her a +1 bonus on intimidate and bluff and diplomacy as well as an orcish double-axe (considered holy by the orcs) that halves an items hardness when she attacks. The witch has an Amulet of the Spirits that let her speak with dead 1x a week as well as get a +2 bonus to tell if someone is lying, as well as a choker that allows her to hold her breath in water for 2X the normal amount (Did I mention she hates swimming?). The rogue has a dagger that's +1 but when used to help climb it adds a +2 to their climbing checks and the rogue can stand on the hilt with one foot, as well as a cloak of crowd blending that makes it harder to track them in a crowd. The kobold is kind of hilarious, because the most magic he has is like a thousand magic locks on his lab door, a spear +1 that's on a trap inside his lab, and a spring loaded knife that pulls automatically to his hand and looks like a baby kobold licorice chewing stick.
They've had magic items that they've done the funniest things with. For example: The party gave the Orc's mother a magic broom that sweeps up for her, the kobold gave his clutch mother a fireplace full of magical coals that keep the sleeping room warm for the older kobolds in the house, the halfling gave his sister a pendant that lets her touch it and instantly clean her clothing, brush her hair, and redo her makeup twice a day, and they gave the dancing stripper coin girl in their favorite tavern a set of semi-precious stone studded and very 'pretty' shoes of dancing as well as gave the bouncer of their favorite majong parlor a +2 mercy truncheon because their mothers all play majong in that parlor. They usually donate their older potions of healing to the local hospices and the like.
I think, upon reflection, most of my magic problems are handled by having players that don't want to get in a pissing match or an arms race with the GM and just want to have a good time. They talk more about the time that one of the bad guys walked into the room and the Orc got back to back Nat-20's and knocked him fucking cold with a sucker punch than about getting a magic item.
EDIT:
I also forgot to mention that when we were brainstorming the setting and what the group wanted to do, we decided that feats were a good replacement for magic items, so the PC's have a few more feats than they should, so that helps balance it out.
But...
I didn't get their freakout over slavery because beyond "WIZARDS AND PAIZO SAID NO SLAVERY!" the slavery angle is that being a slave sucks, being a serf is better because a serf can't be sold and if they run away for a year and a day they are free, which is worse than being an indentured servant because then you work in the house or are field supervisors, then there's thralls and bonded servants.
The PC's are on some of the lowest rungs of society (Sure, they've been hidden by people when they were being chased by cultists, guard, or the like, but they're still barely above street thugs as far as the rest of the city goes) and can't institute meaningful change when the people with the power and the money want the status quo to stay, but they can help in little ways.
Slavery is what picks the orchards, tends the flocks and fields, does the public works.
Hell, the PC's have been sentenced to a week/month of slavery (usually when a player can't make a session) in the mines, the streets, the orchards and fields.
The rich slavers, we're talking the guys in silks with diamond jewelry and dancing girls, people care if they get killed because who knows who those maniacs might murder next, why, they might murder the humble shopkeeper! But the gangs who come down into The Hive looking for a quick buck by grabbing some refugees? Nobody cares what happens to them. (The PC's have made it so those groups are less and less likely to scout The Hive for free slaves because that's the one group you can get away with killing and shoving into a garbage bin)
But it's an exciting adventure when the PC's have to leave the city or The Hive and track down a merchant's sister who was grabbed by slavers and rescue her before Ravishment(TM) can take place and smuggle her into the city while the frustrated evil guy is yelling at his guards to find the PC's and the girl! Or saving a half dozen elven children who have shown talent with Green Mother Magic that were grabbed by an orchard owner or a merchant with greenhouses and spirit them away without leaving behind a huge pile of bodies.
And slavery is kind of baked in. For example: The orc's grand-mother was a comfort girl/breeder for the Drow Army war slaves and her mother was a camp slut for The Army for the latter half of the war. The kobold has relatives who were cannon fodder slaves during The War(TM) and even has a slave brand on his shoulder.
You might want to be careful killing cultists because they have lives outside of being cultists (depending on the cult) but slavers? You can slaughter them freely and nobody cares. Hell, even the guard just shrugs and goes "Looks like natural causes to me" when they find some slavers with their throats cut.
This push to eliminate "uncomfortable" or "triggering" things has gotten out of hand.
I lost a player because the party was trying to find out who was killing members of a nobility sex cult (orgies, naked parties, all that stuff) and they didn't approve of the rampant sexuality (even though it wasn't graphic, just mentions of it) and nudity involved. It was inteferring with the business with one of Auntie's "friends" who was supplying the drugs to the parties. There was no demon summoning or really nasty shit, just a bunch of bored rich nobles getting together and fucking, wife swapping, a little bondage, interacial sex, stuff like that.
The murderer turned out to be cultists from a REAL cult that was trying to summon up incubus and succubus who kept running over to the other cult to have a good time rather than do the "gross shit" the other cult was doing. (Who knew that controlling lust demons was really hard when you are baked out of your mind on drugs?)
Another player got pissed in the first half hour of playing because of the racism and got offended on behalf of everyone else despite the fact that either The War(TM) has only been over a few years or is still going on, depending on who you talk to, and it's organically starting to look like a divinely driven racial holy war.
The whole push now to "destigmatize" monsters is pissing me off too. No, you can't play an illithid. No, you can't play a bugbear. I draw the line. Orcs? Maybe. Kobolds? Maybe. Goblins? Hell no, those fuckers are vicious little arsonist chaotic hungry murder machines. Troll? Are you fucking kidding me with this shit?
It's not that I'm against "Freakshit", I'm against someone thinking that a Bugbear is fine to bring in.
They're looking like they're actively looking to remove the bad guys from D&D, which I object to. I like my Drow Matron evil Ft/MU/Cleric evil noble woman who hosts sex and drug parties and tries to convince people to worship her spider goddess and install a matriarchy in the city state.
Sorry, rambling today.
