D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5] Anti-Magic Universe

[Particle_Man]

So assume that the entire universe (multi-verse? all planes, anyhow) is all an anti-magic zone, but otherwise it is 3.5 D&D. What follows? What would a DM need to do to adjust? What would players need to do to adjust? Could the game still be fun? Could it still have its "D&Dness"? I assume that some classes would be fairly useless, for example. Healing would be a much slower affair. Some monsters would also be weaker, however.

 

[Empirate]

Most monsters would actually become a lot stronger by comparison. Try to take down a Hill Giant without any magic whatsoever, at level 7. 'Twill hurt. With magic? Tasha's Hideous Laughter (2nd level spell), and you're good. Taking on a dragon at any level of the game? Friggin' impossible. See, you can't fly, they can. End of story, even without a breath weapon.

Many monsters would also become completely irrelevant. If there's no way to summon or travel planes, Outsiders simply won't be found on the Material plane ever. Same goes for Elementals.

Still other monsters would become weak to the point of irrelevancy, as well. Many Aberrations, like Beholders or Mind Flayers, would revert to cannon fodder the instant magic is turned off. So would anything else relying on non-bodily special abilities.

Basically, anything that's scary because it's big and strong would become a lot more scary. Anything that's scary because of (Su) or (Sp) special abilities, or outright spellcasting, can as well be left out of the campaign, because it's become pointless.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Unless, of course, it's magic that allows giants to ignore the square-cube law and other elements of non-magical physics. In which case, the universe is one of (some) humanoids and many creatures that could otherwise be found in nature at some point in history.

 

[Visigani]

In such a world bards, fighters, barbarians, rogues, rangers and monks would come out squarely on top.

Wizards would be aristocrats or experts that focused on alchemy such as tanglefoot bags and guns. Or bombs.

D&D has everything the real world has... there's zero reason why someone couldn't invest a car and presumably power it with gasoline... if they had the right technology and resources.


There are plenty of nonmagical ways to disorient/hold/stun people, do mass damage, and with advanced enough tech... disintegrate them.


This means that the Wizards choice of skills becomes infinitely more important.


However, the end result of all of this is just non-magic magic.


Your real goal should be a low powered "mystics" campaign. Rather than psionics... call them mystics... limit their power points pool and the powers they have access to... anything flashy is right out. Clairsentience with some telekinesis and Telepathic powers mixed in is probably best.

However, give them a great many skills to compensate (we're effectively rebuilding the beguiler here in some respects).


This allows for an extremely low magic campaign, without making the "flavor" of the class entirely useless. i.e. you can still be a "wizard" style class even in a campaign as limited as this is in supernatural effects.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Is there a place for dieties here? If so, what do you call what they do if not magic? How limited are they if they cannot grant divine power? Are they more involved becuase they are the only ones who can do anything like "Magic", or are they neutered and simply watch from their realms?

It matters little about the rest of the multiverse & planes if you have no way to get to them, short of dying. Without ressurection magic, no one comes back to tell the tales of the other places. So only one plane to play on.

unless you plan to add technology, travel is limited to the speed of horses. Therefore kingdoms are more isolated, communication, politics, etc is limited to more local places.

Do incorporial creatures exist? Are there undead and if so, what animates them?

With less monsters to fight, I could see more Humanoid on Humanoid combat opportunities increase as an alternative. Your players party can still encounter road bandits, tavern brawls, assassin guilds, bounty hunters, city guards, get into all sorts of trouble with groups of people of various kinds.

By removing magic, you're taking out many, many varieties of possible encounters and therefore are limiting options for imagination. The DM needs to work a little harder at keeping an interesting story and adventure going because he or she is painting the world with many less colors on the palet.

It's doable, but I personally wouldn't have as much fun playing it.

 

[kitcik]

In such a world bards, fighters, barbarians, rogues, rangers and monks would come out squarely on top.

They would all, except the bards, be slaves to my Warblade...

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

They would all, except the bards, be slaves to my Warblade...

Oh, would ToB clases still have all their Manuvers, at least the (ex) ones? then I'd have fun playing in this universe.

 

[Visigani]

Oh, would ToB clases still have all their Manuvers, at least the (ex) ones? then I'd have fun playing in this universe.

I would be very leery of allowing ToB classes in such a campaign. I mean why play anything but them... and why play a low magic (or no magic) campaign at all if you're going to include them.

 

[Dandu]

There would be absolutely no way to kill a Tarrasque.

 

[jefgorbach]

it sounds essentially like Earth!

The absence of spells reduces "wizards" to travelling carnivals practicing slight-of-hands and similar stage-craft and eliminates all but +1 masterwork items without properties as ALL true magical items because the underlying spells required during crafting simply fail.

Likewise gods, planes, and their assorted creatures/etc exist but without any means of moving between planes become merely mental exercise for sages.

The same holds true for most monsters as their various inherent magically-related abilities and properties cease to exist; with few obtaining sizes larger than modern creatures. Dragons, for instance, become at best elephantine-sized lizards incapable of breath attacks or flight as both are reflections of their innate magical nature.
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