Still no updated FORSAKER?!

[Nightfall]

Right...

Eat cheese forsaker! And like it!

 

[Li Shenron]

I don't see any reasonable way this class could develop in game. In a standard D&D world, where magic is nigh-ubiquitous, a group of people who went around destroying one of the foundations of society to power their abilities is going to be put down very quickly as a threat to public order.

So you have never seen anyone playing a party of evil characters? That's clearly not nearly as hard as the forsaker scenario, but your comment just sounded like that.

Like others have said, a Forsaker simply doesn't fit in a typical party because others want to play spellcasters, or at least because others want to use magic items. It's not the mechanic which prevent this really (the forsaker pays the costs personally) but the concept itself of someone who believes that magic is a source of evil/wrongness. It's the same as a Paladin who cannot associate with evil characters, the Forsaker should not associate with magic-users (in the general sense).

This is typically very very unlikely to happen in a D&D game because (1) magic means power (to everyone except a Forsaker), and (2) magic means fun.

But it is certainly possible to setup a game where all PCs hate or mistrust magic and go together well. Eventually the real problem is that in this case everyone should be a Forsaker... otherwise those who don't take the PrCl (but still refuse to use magic for RP reasons) are going to be quite weaker than a normal PC.

Clearly the concept of such a game will never be popular enough so that WotC would expand on it. But if they did, it would definitely help if there were other character options to support those who shun magic [e.g. non-magic superior weaponry?]. For example, Vow of Poverty is already one of them. I guess that a VoP Monk and a Forsaker would go together quite well. Two PCs is still not enough, but it's already close to being a party...

Otherwise a DM could conceive some sort of compromise. Perhaps the Forsaker in this specific campaign does not hate ALL magic, but only certain magic, so to make it compatible with the party. E.g. if the party has only divine casters, then the Forsaker hates only arcane magic (but still has personal restrictions to ALL magic).
Or even more selectively, perhaps he has sworn to destroy all "evil magic" from the world, and has received both a supernatural blessing and a curse (that not even the "good magic" will work on him).
These are not trivial ideas, but with a little work and patience, they could make a Forsaker fit even into the typical D&D party.

 

[NilesB]

Another problem with the Forsaker is an effect of the way they need to destroy magic items in order to power their class abilities. As a Forsaker eschews magical healing to reduce bed rest and magical Transportation to reach adventure locales, a party with a Forsaker is going to necessarily have a faily long downtime between adventures. If a Forsaker smashes every magic item he recieves as loot immediately as befits the flavor of the class they are very likely to have lost access to their class abilities by the time it becomes relevant again.

Thus the Forsaker who hates magic above all else is strongly mechanically incentivized to hoard magic items.

 

[Nightfall]

cheese, the forsaker of all things non-meat!