D&D 5E 5E Without Magic (PCs)

[Reynard]

Spinning out of another thread, I wanted to talk about 5E D&D without the inclusion of magic musing PCs. No wizards, clerics or warlocks; no eldritch knights or elemental monks. Just martials across the board.

What classes and sub classes should remain? What classes froms ources like Adventures in Middle Earth should be folded in? What kinds of non-magical player facing abilities and subsystems should eb included to make it fun to play?

On the GM side, what alterations do you make to common play elements -- monsters, traps, etc... -- to compensate for PCs without access to magic in 5E? What monster abilities need to be nerfed? What monster abilities become useless?

Note that I assume some amount of magic still exists in the world and PCs may even have access to some magic items (swords of ancient elvish make or whatever) but not "spell replacement" items like wands and potions and most wonderous items.

Finally, what sort of campaign would you enjoy if rule was no PC magic?

 

[zedturtle]

You're probably already aware of them, but BEOWULF: Age of Heroes and The Lord of the Rings™ Roleplaying are two systems to look at, at least to see my thoughts on how to do it.

Short answer, feats and widgets to allow very contained magical effects on the player side. Monsters need conventional ways to do area of effect attacks, or last longer in combat if they're going in solo against the PCs.

A 'rediscovering magic' campaign ala Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell seems like an interesting take on it to me.

 

[Reynard]

You're probably already aware of them, but BEOWULF: Age of Heroes

I keep meaning to give this a look.

and The Lord of the Rings™ Roleplaying

Is this significantly different than Adventures in middle Earth (which i think is about perfect for low magic epic fantasy 5E)?

 

[zedturtle]

Is this significantly different than Adventures in middle Earth (which i think is about perfect for low magic epic fantasy 5E)?

It's basically a chance for many of the folks who worked on the first 5e Middle-earth project to have a 'take 2' on it. I'm probably too close to it to give you an accurate assessment, but lots of folks have said that they're happy with the new rules. Of course, it's still the same setting and concepts (combat, councils, journeys), but it is only levels 1-10, and there are new Callings, rules for Nameless Things, the Eye or Mordor, and the focus has moved to Eriador, and the timeline has advanced. And Moria is on Kickstarter, with versions for both rules systems right now!

 

[TwoSix]

I would definitely be dipping into homebrew to add some class diversity.

First you need the nonmagic Fighter, Barbarian, Monk, and Rogue subclasses; exactly which ones to exclude is probably going to come to personal preference as to when certain preternatural abilities become "magic".

Then I'd look for a warlord equivalent, some kind of thinker/planner/sage type Int-primary class, some kind of non-magical Ranger (of which there are a million variants online), and maybe an inspiring/diplomatic Cha-primary type.

 

[Reynard]

It's basically a chance for many of the folks who worked on the first 5e Middle-earth project to have a 'take 2' on it. I'm probably too close to it to give you an accurate assessment, but lots of folks have said that they're happy with the new rules. Of course, it's still the same setting and concepts (combat, councils, journeys), but it is only levels 1-10, and there are new Callings, rules for Nameless Things, the Eye or Mordor, and the focus has moved to Eriador, and the timeline has advanced. And Moria is on Kickstarter, with versions for both rules systems right now!

Right. I just backed Moria for TOR2. I was just curious how different the Lord of the Rings RPG is than Adventures in Middle Earth (which I adore).

 

[WyrmworksDale]

You'd need to remove immunity to nonmagical attacks and skip anything that can go ethereal/incorporeal. I could see this working in a Sword & Sorcery setting, like Conan.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Spinning out of another thread, I wanted to talk about 5E D&D without the inclusion of magic musing PCs. No wizards, clerics or warlocks; no eldritch knights or elemental monks. Just martials across the board.
What classes and sub classes should remain?

Sub-classes would remain. The Champion, Battlemaster, Berserker, Assassin, Thief, and maybe to stretch the point the Open Hand Monk (but, really, Ki is arguably supernatural, thus 'magic').

On the GM side, what alterations do you make to common play elements -- monsters, traps, etc... -- to compensate for PCs without access to magic in 5E? What monster abilities need to be nerfed? What monster abilities become useless?

You could go full-bore 'realistic' world and not use monsters, just animals and people.

Ironically, even though casters are supposed to be limited/balanced by long adventuring 'days,' you'll need shorter days since the party has no magical healing/buffing to help them through the day or act as a safety valve, the party will need to avoid combat more often, and hunker down after fewer combats because they can't just twiddle someone back up with whackamole healing.

Note that I assume some amount of magic still exists in the world and PCs may even have access to some magic items (swords of ancient elvish make or whatever) but not "spell replacement" items like wands and potions and most wonderous items.

Healing potions, alone, would take you part of the way back to regular D&D if they were numerous enough. D&D, 5e especially, really is very dependent on magic, it's woven into the game at every level, one of the early paragraphs right in the PH spells that out in no uncertain terms.

If the PCs have no magic in a world of D&D magic, they're really kinda hosed. I'll note that, I've often encountered "low magic campaigns" over the decades, and they were invariably campaigns where magic items and NPC casters were extremely rare, not where PCs couldn't be casters (at worst casters might be 'persecuted' so PC casters would need to keep a low profile). That's the opposite of what you describe, and made for the casters giving the party a huge advantage as few of their enemies were able to cope with what they could do.

Finally, what sort of campaign would you enjoy if rule was no PC magic?

A hard-bitten mercenary company trying to survive in a politically unstable period.
Traditional pirates/musketeers fare, with swordfights and pistols, intrigue and treasure hunting.
The heavy-RP/infrequent-combat "intrigue" games people always talk about but rarely run.
You could even run mysteries, since you don't have detect this and divination that to invalidate the premise even murder mysteries since you can't just Speak With or Raise the Dead victim.
There's really no end to magic-less story, adventure, and campaign possibilities. The world, itself, is a varied place with billions of stories and no magic whatsoever, afterall.

But, TBH, not in 5e - 5e is overtly magocentric, without magic on both sides of the equation, it doesn't work. Indeed, not D&D, generally (other than 4e, of course, which is the odd D&D out in almost any blanket statement).
Games based on FATE, Chaosium BRP, Savage Worlds, PbtA, Burning Wheel, Gumshoe, even Hero or GURPS, would be far better choices. Indeed, there are so many games that'd be better for a no-magic campaign it's virtually impossible to choose one and pull together a few players who agree with that choice.

 

[nevin]

Gurps.

 

[Reynard]

Sub-classes would remain. The Champion, Battlemaster, Berserker, Assassin, Thief, and maybe to stretch the point the Open Hand Monk (but, really, Ki is arguably supernatural, thus 'magic').

You could go full-bore 'realistic' world and not use monsters, just animals and people.

Ironically, even though casters are supposed to be limited/balanced by long adventuring 'days,' you'll need shorter days since the party has no magical healing/buffing to help them through the day or act as a safety valve, the party will need to avoid combat more often, and hunker down after fewer combats because they can't just twiddle someone back up with whackamole healing.

Healing potions, alone, would take you part of the way back to regular D&D if they were numerous enough. D&D, 5e especially, really is very dependent on magic, it's woven into the game at every level, one of the early paragraphs right in the PH spells that out in no uncertain terms.

If the PCs have no magic in a world of D&D magic, they're really kinda hosed. I'll note that, I've often encountered "low magic campaigns" over the decades, and they were invariably campaigns where magic items and NPC casters were extremely rare, not where PCs couldn't be casters (at worst casters might be 'persecuted' so PC casters would need to keep a low profile). That's the opposite of what you describe, and made for the casters giving the party a huge advantage as few of their enemies were able to cope with what they could do.


A hard-bitten mercenary company trying to survive in a politically unstable period.
Traditional pirates/musketeers fare, with swordfights and pistols, intrigue and treasure hunting.
The heavy-RP/infrequent-combat "intrigue" games people always talk about but rarely run.
You could even run mysteries, since you don't have detect this and divination that to invalidate the premise even murder mysteries since you can't just Speak With or Raise the Dead victim.
But, TBH, not in 5e - 5e is overtly magocentric, without magic on both sides of the equation, it doesn't work. Indeed, not D&D, generally (other than 4e, of course, which is the odd D&D out in almost any blanket statement).
Games based on FATE, Chaosium BRP, Savage Worlds, PbtA, Burning Wheel, Gumshoe, even Hero or GURPS, would be far better choices. Indeed, there are so many games that'd be better for a no-magic campaign it's virtually impossible to choose one and pull together a few players who agree with that choice.

Interesting. I often see it mentioned that 5E is the least magic dependent edition. There are lots of mundane ways to get health back, and no one needs magic items even at higher levels. It hardly seems a no PC magic campaign in 5E would be impossible.