D&D General What do do when a setting doesn't have magic?

[Flamestrike]

That’s nine whole classes you can’t play out of twelve.

Barbarian, Rogue, Monk and Fighter are the only non magical classes in the PHB, and of those classes at least 1 archetype from each in the PHB is capable of casting spells.

And Monks and some Barbarians can fly, turn ethereal, walk on water or similar, and Fighters are capable of nocking and fire an arbelest 8 times in 6 seconds, so there is probably some magic in there as well.

 

[akr71]

Even if 5E functions well without magic, there are games out there other than D&D. Another game might give the OP what they want more than trying to shoe-horn 5E into the space you are looking for.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

As others have said, you can do it, but there already are games that do this much better.

That being said, if the players want to play 5E, and you don't have unusually large party I think there is enough options that you can perfectly feasibly run a campaign without the options starting to feel stale. The large number of subclasses means that characters of the same base class can still be pretty distinct.

And of curse you can remove magic from some classes without it being terribly difficult to rebalance them. Like an easy solution for rangers would be that they all get a pet but no spells, and beastmasters get more powerful pet.

 

[Laurefindel]

I know that the totem barbarian technically does magic and is therefore eliminated of no-magic martial classes, but it lives very well without its three spells that, I’m willing to bet, dont see that much use in most games.
It’s a bit of a bummer to skip the 10th level feature, but the archetype remains good even without that. (In a pinch, 10th level could grant a second 6th level totem feature)

 

[Ath-kethin]

Lets say you find a setting you want to set your next DnD campaign in, but it's a setting with no magic. A good half the classes use magic, so so how do your address this? Do you just add magic, just not include wizards? Don't worry too much about the answer. It's a discussion not a actual problem to solve.

5e works beautifully as a low magic or no magic game; it's all I've ever run with it and I frankly see no reason to run it any other way.

Certainly, some assumptions needed to change in my games, and players/PCs need to approach many situations quite differently. But there is a host of literature that approaches settings from this perspective, which can be a great guide.

When I run 5e, I use the Primeval Thule setting as a baseline, integrating aspects of the World of Xoth. It's very Sword & Sorcery, very Conan/Fafhrd & the Mouser esque.

I ban all full casters except warlocks and all magic-using subclasses of other classes. As others have noted, this approach leaves plenty of character class/subclass options. In my games monks are a goblin tradition, which adds some interesting background to any character that wants to follow that path.

I DO allow the Ritual Caster feat, as well as Magic Initiate and the feat chain stemming from it that was in one of the playtest packets. I also add the Ritual tag to Magic Circle (why wasn't it there already?).

Now, I don't go NO magic (obviously from the above), and I still have some magic items, but my approach is that any item with a name (i.e. Flame Tongue) is unique and there is only one of them in the world. More generic items (arrows +1) are non-magical, so they might still provide an attack and damage bonus but do not bypass damage resistance/immunity.

I've run three campaigns this way since 2015, with a total of 11 players, and the campaigns were awesome. The biggest was Tomb of Annihilation, which was also the only "official" one I used in its entirety, and all were roaring successes both in my opinion and according to the players in them

Especially if you've already put a bunch of money I to 5e books, there's absolutely no reason to pick up a different game to do what you want here. It works fine.

 

[Umbran]

Your characters will be severly limited on what they can do to affect an obstacle...

On the other hand, depending on what is meant by "no magic", the obstacles may tend to be rather mundane, such that you don't need that huge magic toolbox to address them.

And that can be a good thing - it reduces the amount of time the players spend on "how do I address this," and they can spend more on "what do I choose to address, and why?"

 

[GMMichael]

Lets say you find a setting you want to set your next DnD campaign in, but it's a setting with no magic . . . It's a discussion not a actual problem to solve.

So you're looking to play some Dn? That could be fun!

. . . You could probably even include the ranger class and just drop the spells . . .

Edit: Actually, without magic there might be far less need to call for saving throws. I might end up replacing the fighter's indomitable with brutal critical as well.

I don't think that I saw this in the thread yet...but throw out the full casters and try some reskinning on the others' spells. Here's an example, probably inspired by Aragorn and his Big Adventure:

2nd Level Ranger Spells	Reskinned
Animal Messenger	Animal somehow understands you, and you attach a note to its collar
Barkskin	Any number of reasons to become less hit-able
Darkvision	"Ignore" other senses to gain more vision
Find Traps	Rangerly intuition
Lesser Restoration	Herbs. Good ones.
Locate Animals	Rangerly intuition
Locate Object	Rangerly intuition
Pass without Trace	Mad skills
Protection from Poison	"Old shaman prayer" said to be protective
Silence	Special stomp that upsets eardums
Spike Growth	Whisper to the plants...plants are natural, right?

@cbwjm: interesting thought about the saving throws. Since they're just proficiencies used in high-risk situations, you could offer the PC a new proficiency in a skill instead of taking the feature as-is. Then record that choice for future reference...

 

[Baron Opal II]

My measure for low- or no- magic fantasy gaming is the movie The Thirteenth Warrior, and I think just having fighters, rogues, and maybe some altered barbarians and rangers would work just fine for that.

 

[Ancalagon]

D&D and 5e functions with no magic. Very well.

However due to how much you must cut, the modus operandi of the party members will be so narrow it would border on that of a TV killer. Your characters will be severly limited on what they can do to affect an obstacle unless the DM is very very permissive.

You will be hammering a lot of nails because all you have is hammers.

Why?

Are humans in the real world this limited because they don't have magical spells? Orcs in the way? Sure you could fight them. But you could negotiate with them, intimidate them, trick them, spook them, bribe them, sneak around them, lure a monster to fight them, find another way where there are no orcs... and that's after thinking about it for 30 seconds.

 

[Minigiant]

Why?

Are humans in the real world this limited because they don't have magical spells? Orcs in the way? Sure you could fight them. But you could negotiate with them, intimidate them, trick them, spook them, bribe them, sneak around them, lure a monster to fight them, find another way where there are no orcs... and that's after thinking about it for 30 seconds.

People can do all of that.

D&D player characters become more and more saddled by the focuses of their classes as they level.

It works fine at low level vs appropriate obstacles. When you get higher up, you can slowly morph into a hammer if your DM doesn't keep threats under you.