D&D General A campaign without classes that use magic?

[dave2008]

Open Hand Monk and Berserker Barbarian are not too magicky nor supernatural level 1-6.

I find Ki and Rage, baseline for each class respectively, to be to magic-like for my taste (in this type of exercise), YMMV of course.

 

[dave2008]

YMMV and all, but every no-magic D&D hack I've seen is a kludge. It usually involves rewriting or outright banning most options that even look like magic, rewriting rests and healing, extremely limited monster selection and very limited treasure rewards. Every time I've seen it, it's ends up a lot of work to use what amounts to a crippled version of the game.

For my money, a dedicated low/no magic game like The One Ring or ASoIaF is easier, more complete and far more rewarding.

I would have the 12 class/subclasses I noted in post #24 No other changes needed. we do have some house rules we use in or normal (magical) campaigns that I would carry over, but the only change for a no-magic campaign would be to restrict it to non-magical classes (obviously). Easy done.

PS. This is basically my current group; except we have one wizard. Everyone else is a fighter or rogue.

 

[Laurefindel]

Yes, but I would think you need to replace the spells with something

Spells-as-abilities work well to a certain extent.

Pick one of the spells on the more "mundane" side (e.g. Hunter's Mark). Have that ability usable 1/spell slot/ long rest.

If you feel adventurous, pick an additional spell-as-ability at level 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th (assuming the game goes that far!) among "spells" you can cast.

for the ranger, hunter's mark and longstrider work best.

divine favor, heroism, and shield of faith work well for paladins.

 

[Remathilis]

I would have the 12 class/subclasses I noted in post #24 No other changes needed. we do have some house rules we use in or normal (magical) campaigns that I would carry over, but the only change for a no-magic campaign would be to restrict it to non-magical classes (obviously).

You allow tieflings? How about dragonborn, high elves, or forest gnomes? What about the magic initiate or ritual caster feats? Potions of healing in the equipment list? What happens when they fight a yuan-ti, a ghost, a vampire, a demon or other monsters with spell-like powers or immunity to nonmagical weapons?

 

[Fenris-77]

Intelligence and Charisma are next-to-unusable in a no-caster party. Even a rogue is going to want Dexterity then Constitution (because of the lack of healing). This means it's very hard to have a team "face" or team smart guy, making social interaction difficult. If I were you, I'd introduce some new class or subclass that lets you use Intelligence or Charisma in combat somehow, so that a build with those abilities as primary or secondary is feasible without being combat dead weight.

On the other hand there are going to be more manly fighter types too most likely, so more broad backs for a party face to hide behind. Also, with no spell casting, that face is going to get a lot of hero moments if he's the only CHA type in the party. Same goes for intelligence. Not being able to maximize a stat is not at all the same thing as it being useless, especially in the absence of magical equivalents.

The swashbuckler uses CHA in combat btw. He'd be great in a spell free game.

 

[jayoungr]

WHY does everyone on this board hate magic so much?! I swear there are threads about how to diminish or remove magic from the game at least twice a month...

However, if you're determined to do it, are you open to third-party classes and subclasses? Maybe we could recommend some that will help give your players more than the limited no-magic options in the PHB.

Oh, also, do you count psionics as magic, or are you up for having those in your game?

 

[Minigiant]

Spells-as-abilities work well to a certain extent.

Pick one of the spells on the more "mundane" side (e.g. Hunter's Mark). Have that ability usable 1/spell slot/ long rest.

If you feel adventurous, pick an additional spell-as-ability at level 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th (assuming the game goes that far!) among "spells" you can cast.

for the ranger, hunter's mark and longstrider work best.

divine favor, heroism, and shield of faith work well for paladins.

One thing I always wanted to do is replace spellcasting of ranger and paladin with an always one version of the more mundane spells on their lists.

 

[dave2008]

You allow tieflings? How about dragonborn, high elves, or forest gnomes? What about the magic initiate or ritual caster feats? Potions of healing in the equipment list? What happens when they fight a yuan-ti, a ghost, a vampire, a demon or other monsters with spell-like powers or immunity to nonmagical weapons?

That all depends on what you want. You can have or eliminate any of that as needed. It is a sliding scale. We find HD healing works for us mostly (since we don't have a dedicated healer) and I don't restrict races or monsters personally.

The OP mentioned they still wanted magic monsters and NPCs, so I am guessing no for player facing items and yes for DM/Monster/NPC.

 

[Minigiant]

WHY does everyone on this board hate magic so much?! I swear there are threads about how to diminish or remove magic from the game at least twice a month...

However, if you're determined to do it, are you open to third-party classes and subclasses? Maybe we could recommend some that will help give your players more than the limited no-magic options in the PHB.

Oh, also, do you count psionics as magic, or are you up for having those in your game?

Fantasy gaming has several subgenres.

D&D, being the most popular, often ends up attempting to emulate several genres despite only being really good at a couple.

It's often so hard to get a group that people would rather kludge D&D into something it's only okay at Rather Than run a game a hundred times better suited for that subgenre.

 

[atanakar]

It's often so hard to get a group that people would rather kludge D&D into something it's only okay at Rather Than run a game a hundred times better suited for that subgenre.

True. When it comes to Fantasy my players only want to play D&D. Not another game. At least they are tired of the D&D high magic fantasy mish-mash. So I can work from there to get a consensus.