What if there were no flowers...(D&D 3.5)

[SillyBee]

So, I have been kicking around the idea of running a campaign with a central point of character generation affecting the game.

To wit; There are no full casters in this game/gameworld.

How would this shape the functionality of the game world?

Let us assume that it is a standard, generic D&D setting with the common races and idioms/paradigms. The only exception is that there are no classes that exist which have full casting progression. Therefore no wizards/sorcerors/clerics/druids/archivists/et al.

Classes like bard/ranger/paladin/duskblade/etc. would exist.

What other considerations should be brought into play here?

What in-game reflections would this generate?

Would this mean it is by default a low-magic setting?

Any ideas, suggestions, or comments would be much appreciated.

[tyckspoon]

A lot of the world would stay pretty much the same, simply because D&D's default assumptions don't really pursue the ramifications of higher-level magic as it is (see also the Tippyverse and the world presented by Frank & K's Tome series for what D&D might/should be like if magic is properly integrated into the setting.) The biggest change would probably be that the overall magic item level should be lower (both in frequency and power), since there's no obvious crafting classes to make everything. You would also want to stay away from monsters with the "A wizard did it!" justification- fewer owlbears and their like, less rampaging oddities made of pure arcane power gone wrong, etc.

Overall you wouldn't end up with a low-magic setting, as such- D&D has far too many magical elements to get to that point without very serious changes. What you would get is a weak(er)-magic setting, where magic is not rare but is not particularly earthshaking.

[Woodsman]

A friend of mine (as well as an experienced D&D player), has suggested banning the Big Five as PC classes, or changing Druid to shapeshifter and replacing cleric and wizard with favored soul and sorcerer, respectively.

Artificer and archivist aren't hard to get rid of, being non-core. Changing the druid works well too. But I've been trying to figure out (flavor-wise) why clerics and wizards could be NPC-only. Perhaps you could think of something, Bee.

[Revanmal]

A friend of mine (as well as an experienced D&D player), has suggested banning the Big Five as PC classes, or changing Druid to shapeshifter and replacing cleric and wizard with favored soul and sorcerer, respectively.

Artificer and archivist aren't hard to get rid of, being non-core. Changing the druid works well too. But I've been trying to figure out (flavor-wise) why clerics and wizards could be NPC-only. Perhaps you could think of something, Bee.

A couple:

1. The only way to gain full casting progression is to be selected by some deity/demon/other-worldly thing and become its champion.

2. Full casting progression is only achievable through some rare ritual or rite PCs cannot complete.

3. Full casting requires such dedication and is so time-consuming, one could not adventure and study at the same time.

[Woodsman]

3 was the one I was going to go with.

But I like the others, too. Maybe make the classes sort of like PrC's?

[JoshuaZ]

For fluff explanations you could use something like how full casters are representatives of powerful otherworldly beings (that's sort of how Lord of the Rings explains wizards).

If one is concerned about magic being too powerful you can also just nerf their spellcasting progression to slow it down more so they don't ever get access to 8th and 9th level spells. You may want to look up the Ultimate classes. Some variants that might be worth looking can be found at http://www.liquidmateria.info/wiki/index.php?title=Ultimate_Classes

Reducing how common full casters are isn't going to change much since the standard D&D universe doesn't take largescale full casting (especially largescale full casting with easy item creation) to its logical conclusion. Removing or substantially restricting fullcasters will simply make the standard sort of vaguely medieval world more consistent.

[Lycanthromancer]

Are you wanting it for power/balance reasons, or flavor reasons?

Because if it's for balance reasons, go look at the tier list, ban tier 1 and tiers 5 and 6 (and the truenamer), and let the world run on tiers 2-4. Much better balanced that way.

[bosssmiley]

D&D world without full casters? That'd be "Iron Heroes" then. :smallwink:

Facetious mode off for a second; you'd probably end up with one of two extremes.

Option A: By This Axe I Rule
The world is low magic, and generally something like a standard dark pulp sword-and-sorcery world (REH, KEW, Leiber, etc). You'd have the ancient evils lurking in the forests/caves/ancient ruins, but getting away from an encounter with one with your life would be a challenge in itself. The chandelier o' gear would be a thing of the past. Obtaining even a single significant magic item, let alone a full array of precious loot drops, would be rare to vanishing point.

Option B: By This Axe I Suck
Without full casters to shore up the defences of the puny humans (clerical healing and buffing, wizardly blasting, summons and debuffs) the monsters rode roughshod over the common races. Welcome to a post-apocalyptic world that makes Dark Sun look like The Smurfs! :smalleek:

[Prime32]

Be careful with "low magic" settings. If no-one has magic items, the power of even partial casters can rise considerably.

[Xenogears]

I was actually thinking about doing something similiar to this myself (barring the fact that I haven't actually played DnD in about 2 years....) except instead of banning full casters I was just gonna say that no spells (or spell-like abilities) beyond about 3rd-5th(never decided which) level work. So if players wanted to be a Wizard they could they'd just have a ton of low to mid level spells instead of any high level ones.

This way we can still have a ton of magical items they just wont be the most powerful ones in the game.

[Eldariel]

I was actually thinking about doing something similiar to this myself (barring the fact that I haven't actually played DnD in about 2 years....) except instead of banning full casters I was just gonna say that no spells (or spell-like abilities) beyond about 3rd-5th(never decided which) level work. So if players wanted to be a Wizard they could they'd just have a ton of low to mid level spells instead of any high level ones.

This way we can still have a ton of magical items they just wont be the most powerful ones in the game.

I've had a great experience with a simple game of banning magic from PC use entirely. That mostly means all spells, spell-likes and most supernatural abilities (the thing isn't that magic doesn't exist, but rather that it's so rare that the PCs don't happen to possess it). With generous application of ToB all around the system (such as using many of the ToB-flavoured versions of the core classes such as Barbarian & Ranger), it works just fine, and while the PCs may not be able to stand up to CR appropriates, it's nothing little number skewing can't change (especially since such a settings mostly probably sees the PCs fighting against other humanoids under similar restrictions and animals/wild beasts with far fewer magical creatures, making them effectively easier).

[kjones]

Someone already mentioned Iron Heroes - I'll second that, it's worth checking out. It's far from perfect, but there are a lot of good ideas for anyone who wants to run a low-magic campaign.