Quick Question: Wizard from D&D transports to our world. Can they still do magic?

[am181d]

I recommend waiting until the wizard has transported to our world, and then simply asking him.

 

[TerraDave]

It's up to you, but whatever you choose the SRD (or DMG or MotP) has you covered. In the description of the Planes there's a section for Magic Traits. This gives several options, of which the most relevant are:

Impeded Magic: when casting a spell you must make a Spellcraft check or the spell fails.

Limited Magic: some spells just don't work. (This can, of course, be combined with the above.)

Dead Magic: treat the entire plane as being under an antimagic field.

There's obviously no definitive answer as regards our world, so just pick the option(s) that work best for you.

I would spend some time thinking about:

-No magic or restricted magic, and what the restrictions are.

-Magic items? If you are really nerfing the casters, items should probably be affected. Note that you can still allow for working with less power, in some cases, erratically, etc.

-Differences between casters? Cleric vs Druid vs Wizard vs etc.

-Other "magic": is there a difference with spell like or supernatural abilities? Or things (fast healing, etc) that seem like that? Psionics.

-Ways to get magic back or make it work?

This is the kind of thing that can really shock players be fun for the DM, so its worth thinking about.

 

[TheWriterFantastic™]

If you're using d20 Modern to represent Earth natives, Urban Arcana provides guidelines for practitioners of Arcane and Divine magic in an Earth setting -- that right there would say that d20 system magic would be readily available for offworlders from a D&D setting.

 

[DMZ2112]

I feel like there's got to be a better canon source for this than Dragon, because there was a lot of this sort of craziness back in OD&D and AD&D1, but if there is a good resource I don't know it. I know Murlynd, from Greyhawk, is strongly implied to have come /from/ Earth, but I don't know if it is explicit and anyway, that doesn't really answer the question. Planescape is rife with oblique references to travel /from/ Earth, but it's quiet about the reverse.

Dungeon magazine has a few examples in the back catalog of Faerunian wizards traveling to modern Earth and back again, which non-canonically implies that they must retain some of their magical capacity here.

Tangentially, in the AD&D2 product Tale of the Comet, it's stated in the wrap-up that arcane PCs can travel to a world with no knowledge of magic and retain their abilities there, although this world is not Earth.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

I few things to decide to answer this question:

-In your world, what is the source of Arcane Magic? I know you mentioned Forgotten Realms Weave, I know that arcane magic source is specific to that campaign setting. Other campaign settings either claim a different source for arcane magic such as (Psi)SeveredHead's mention of thaumic field, some campaign settings grant no specific source of Arcane magic. Psionics specifically states being generated from the individual, divine magic comes from either nature or a deity, Arcane is often less clear. So, define this.

-Does Earth, the world we live in, have a source of arcane magic that a person with the right understanding can tap into? Since there is no public knowledge answer "Yes", the answer is either "No" or "that is uncommon, secret knowledge". This is a moot point, however, because you're going to play your fictional take on the world we live in, so you as the DM get to decide this.

-finally, I am going to answer yes, a Wizard would be able to use magic on Earth if he was transported here, for 1 reason. To my knowledge, conjuration spells cannot be used to bring a creature into an anti-magic field or dead magic zone. Therefore, if the Wizard managed to use magic to arrive on Earth in the first place, than magic had to function on the side of his arrival location. Therefore, magic works on Earth, or he wouldn't have been able to use magic to get to Earth.

 

[delericho]

FWIW, the Pathfinder adventure "Rasputin Must Die!" mostly takes place on Earth, and magic works just fine.

 

[a-d]

Related Question
Can god/desses still cast magic in an anti-magic field, dead zone, or on a planet where magic doesn't work?

I'd imagine there are examples for both yes and no, but do they lean heavily either way?

 

[Greenfield]

Actually the description of Anti-Magic in the rules makes that one very clear. The answer is "Yes". Anti-magic doesn't affect deities, nor impede artifacts.

 

[a-d]

Never? No god/dess has ever been cut off from their magic due to where they were without first being injured or altered first like the god/desses of the Forgotten Realms were?

Reason
Was trying to guess where magic might come from and why certain abilities work in an anti-magic zone while others don't, and had come up with a theory which also explained why a god in a scenario I'd heard about could shut down magic for everyone but them, but for it to be likely, god/desses would need to almost never lose their ability to use magic.

 

[Stormonu]

There's an area of the Outlands - a 1 mile area at the core of the outlands (if you follow Planescape lore) that can negate godly magic. Supposedly, it would also be possible to create a pocket demi-plane where deific magic would not work (good for say, trapping the god in question).

D&D tends to explain deity magic working because it's using "Epic" magic/magic seeds and thus is unaffected by "Mortal" magic of 0th-9th level/circle.

Also, in regards to "Earth" magic - there are many stories that present magic as a fading art - that at one time magic worked on our earth but as time passed, magic faded. Many of these stories allude to magic being strong up until the Middle Ages and started fading thereafter until it is all but gone by the 20th century. The reason? Often in the stories I read it's simply because people stopped believing in it or someone started killing the sources (such as dragons, faeries or the like).