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lord pringle
2010-11-25, 11:04 PM
a few years ago in my campaign world all magic stopped. the few salvagable classes have been favored soul (most gods can still give powers) Sorcerer (dragon's blood still runs within) and druid (forests still survived). Posters of the playground what else should have survived?

Kantolin
2010-11-25, 11:06 PM
Psionics?

Incarnum?

Binding?

Shadowcasting?

Truena..... Initiators from the Tome of Battle?

Arakune
2010-11-25, 11:06 PM
Athasian magic (this one is nasty), psionics, Artificer.

lord pringle
2010-11-25, 11:09 PM
Psionics?

Incarnum?

Binding?

Shadowcasting?

Truena..... Initiators from the Tome of Battle?

Incarnum Psionics and Initiators would work but the others rely on magic sources that no longer exist.


Athasian magic (this one is nasty), psionics, Artificer.

Not familiar with the first one.

Safety Sword
2010-11-25, 11:12 PM
Swords, arrows and nasty animals would still work :smallamused:

lord pringle
2010-11-25, 11:14 PM
All magic items and beings survived just not casters.

Psyren
2010-11-25, 11:18 PM
Binding should still work, their power source is literally outside reality.

Warlocks and DFAs are powered by blood like sorcerers, wouldn't they be exempt too?

lord pringle
2010-11-25, 11:19 PM
The being actually brought back the vestiges and killed them. DFAs?

WinceRind
2010-11-25, 11:26 PM
Sounds like Dragonlance' War of Souls trilogy =p

Sort of. Although not really.

If Divine powers are still there, wouldn't clerics still have it? I mean, it's granted by gods just as it is for favored souls.

In relation to druids, I'm fairly sure they draw their power from "nature" or actual gods in some cases, and said "nature" doesn't have to be a forest. You could have a cave-dwelling druid who's never seen a tree if you want, nature is nature everywhere.

And if it still remains as a resource, a lot if not all of the divine casters would still have their powers. Spirit Shamans are divine spellcasters who draw their powers from spirits, and honestly they aren't that far away from druids thematically. I assume that they'd still have their powers because they draw them from spirits or spirit world or something like that unless you're going to outrule that somehow. Which might bring in some metaphysical problems, but considering how vast and sometimes self-contradicting D&D metaphysics are, at last they wouldn't be alone.

So, um, yeah. I think spellcasters that draw their powers from some kind of a different source that is not divine or arcane in nature have already been covered.

Although I assume Truename magic would still work, although I don't remember the fluff on it very well. If it's anything similar to true name stuff from Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea fantasy series, it should work fine because true names would be like a fundamental part of the world. And any kind of magic that draws power from extra-planar beings (you mentioned gods and favored souls earlier...) should still work, so demons, Old Ones, and whatever could be a source.

Psyren
2010-11-25, 11:32 PM
DFAs?

Dragonfire Adept (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060912a&page=2), another invocation-using class like Warlocks (powered by Dragons instead of fiends/fey.)

lord pringle
2010-11-25, 11:33 PM
Sounds like Dragonlance' War of Souls trilogy =p

Sort of. Although not really.

If Divine powers are still there, wouldn't clerics still have it? I mean, it's granted by gods just as it is for favored souls.

In relation to druids, I'm fairly sure they draw their power from "nature" or actual gods in some cases, and said "nature" doesn't have to be a forest. You could have a cave-dwelling druid who's never seen a tree if you want, nature is nature everywhere.

And if it still remains as a resource, a lot if not all of the divine casters would still have their powers. Spirit Shamans are divine spellcasters who draw their powers from spirits, and honestly they aren't that far away from druids thematically. I assume that they'd still have their powers because they draw them from spirits or spirit world or something like that unless you're going to outrule that somehow. Which might bring in some metaphysical problems, but considering how vast and sometimes self-contradicting D&D metaphysics are, at last they wouldn't be alone.

So, um, yeah. I think spellcasters that draw their powers from some kind of a different source that is not divine or arcane in nature have already been covered.

Although I assume Truename magic would still work, although I don't remember the fluff on it very well. If it's anything similar to true name stuff from Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea fantasy series, it should work fine because true names would be like a fundamental part of the world. And any kind of magic that draws power from extra-planar beings (you mentioned gods and favored souls earlier...) should still work, so demons, Old Ones, and whatever could be a source.

all those work except clerics. every time a cropping of clerics pops up a plague hits. Clerics stopped existing.
EDIT dragonfire adepts are ok.

Urpriest
2010-11-26, 12:59 AM
I think you'd better explain the mechanism here first. Without knowing what caused magic to stop we have no way of knowing which classes make sense as remaining. How does magic work in your setting?

Hanuman
2010-11-26, 01:10 AM
I think you'd better explain the mechanism here first. Without knowing what caused magic to stop we have no way of knowing which classes make sense as remaining. How does magic work in your setting?
Seconded-- it first sounded like someone blew up the weave or killed Mystra and most of the gods, but then you said sorcs still worked...

As long as there are believers, there are gods with power and gods with power WANT to grant power to spread belief.

As long as the weave is intact and functioning then all arcane magic should be up and running, you can blow up parts of the weave or mess or tamper with it in some way, but it really sounds like you are wanting to run a magical post-apoc game where the weave have been blown up and considered unusable, and then augment it like the game or movie S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (movie is quite rare and called something different), which is why there are still magical monsters and such running around a very dangerous chaotic magic world where basically the entire world has the livewires of reality poking out through the holes causing mischief and short circuiting.

OK, here's a quick runthrough for your game:

Do these things still work?

Arcane Magic
Divine Magic
Spells
Incantations
Psionics
Powers
(Su) Abilities
Incarnum Charka Wheels
Manifested Abilities from ToB
Wonderous Items
Wands and Charged Items
Artifacts
Magical Creatures
Magical Life Creatures such as Elementals or Golems
Magical Experiments such as Abberations and Oozes
Undead and Extraplanars
Portals, Dimensional Pockets, Psiolic Items, Runes
Alchemical Items
Ect?

Warlawk
2010-11-26, 01:30 AM
Not familiar with the first one.

Athasian arcane magic could be a sticky subject.

It is arcane magic just as you know it in standard worlds, except with one glaring difference. There is virtually no weave or ambient magical energy in Athas to draw the magic from. It is drawn from living things. Instead of the Wizard, Athas has Defilers and Preservers. Defilers kill off the plant life in an area and at higher levels can actually damage people in the area by drawing on their life force to cast spells. This makes them generally hated by everyone since it's a desert planet and plant life is scarce and valuable, an area killed by a defiler is sterile for something like 10 years per spell level. Preservers draw their energy from the same lifeforces but do it in a different way that does not damage them. It is more difficult to do and this was represented in 2E by a slower XP level chart for preservers.

It is arcane magic, but powered by living things.

lord pringle
2010-11-26, 09:09 PM
Athasian arcane magic could be a sticky subject.

It is arcane magic just as you know it in standard worlds, except with one glaring difference. There is virtually no weave or ambient magical energy in Athas to draw the magic from. It is drawn from living things. Instead of the Wizard, Athas has Defilers and Preservers. Defilers kill off the plant life in an area and at higher levels can actually damage people in the area by drawing on their life force to cast spells. This makes them generally hated by everyone since it's a desert planet and plant life is scarce and valuable, an area killed by a defiler is sterile for something like 10 years per spell level. Preservers draw their energy from the same lifeforces but do it in a different way that does not damage them. It is more difficult to do and this was represented in 2E by a slower XP level chart for preservers.

It is arcane magic, but powered by living things.
what book?

Seconded-- it first sounded like someone blew up the weave or killed Mystra and most of the gods, but then you said sorcs still worked...

As long as there are believers, there are gods with power and gods with power WANT to grant power to spread belief.

As long as the weave is intact and functioning then all arcane magic should be up and running, you can blow up parts of the weave or mess or tamper with it in some way, but it really sounds like you are wanting to run a magical post-apoc game where the weave have been blown up and considered unusable, and then augment it like the game or movie S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (movie is quite rare and called something different), which is why there are still magical monsters and such running around a very dangerous chaotic magic world where basically the entire world has the livewires of reality poking out through the holes causing mischief and short circuiting.

OK, here's a quick runthrough for your game:

Do these things still work?

Arcane Magic Only sorcerers
Divine Magic No clerics
Spells Depends
Incantations what book?
Psionics Yes
Powers What book?
(Su) Abilities Yes
Incarnum Charka Wheels Yes
Manifested Abilities from ToB Yes
Wonderous Items Yes
Wands and Charged Items No
Artifacts Yes
Magical Creatures Yes
Magical Life Creatures such as Elementals or Golems yes
Magical Experiments such as Abberations and Oozes Yes
Undead and Extraplanars Yes
Portals, Dimensional Pockets, Psiolic Items, Runes Yes no 2 what books
Alchemical Items Yes
Ect?
responses in bold.
What happened was a wizard stole the god of seasons crown which let him get infinite stats and infinite levels and could shift his levels. He spent his time in his tower making spells. One of his spells got rid of all magic users except him. The cleric plague thing was one of his spells. He thought having no tier one classes left would make him invincible. He was killed by an epic level rogue/assassin variant without magic with a ring of invisibility.

Flickerdart
2010-11-26, 09:26 PM
As long as the weave is intact and functioning then all arcane magic should be up and running, you can blow up parts of the weave or mess or tamper with it in some way, but it really sounds like you are wanting to run a magical post-apoc game where the weave have been blown up and considered unusable, and then augment it like the game or movie S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (movie is quite rare and called something different), which is why there are still magical monsters and such running around a very dangerous chaotic magic world where basically the entire world has the livewires of reality poking out through the holes causing mischief and short circuiting.

Aside: The movie (Stalker) has very few explicit supernatural things. The book (Roadside Picnic) is the one where physics give up and go home.

On topic: Truenaming's fluff is that it taps into the fundamental fabric of reality; you can't disable it without blanketing the entire world in antimagic. Shadowcasters draw from the Plane of Shadows, so you're going to have to cut that plane off from the Material in order to stop them.

lord pringle
2010-11-26, 09:30 PM
Ok. Shadowcasters and truenamers still exist.

Sewercop
2010-11-26, 09:51 PM
What happened was a wizard stole the god of seasons crown which let him get infinite stats and infinite levels and could shift his levels. He spent his time in his tower making spells. One of his spells got rid of all magic users except him. The cleric plague thing was one of his spells. He thought having no tier one classes left would make him invincible. He was killed by an epic level rogue/assassin variant without magic with a ring of invisibility.


Don`t buy it. Say a god killed him. That I can believe. But an epic rogue WITHOUT magic killing a paranoid wizard with infinte levels?....hehehe You made my day :)

Zeful
2010-11-26, 09:53 PM
Sorcerer (dragon's blood still runs within)

No, bad. That was one freaking line in the class description. One. Freaking. Line!

Now moving on, from your responses it would seem like magic is still pretty much intact (given that nearly all classes still exist) just the practitioners all died off spectacularly.

Urpriest
2010-11-26, 10:00 PM
I'd advise just doing a Tier cutoff then, and/or thinking about the originating Wizard's priorities. What does the guy think is likely to endanger him, and what is he arrogant enough to let live? Remember, anyone capable of creating a cleric-killing plague would have a much easier time creating a sorceror-killing plague (familicide anyone?)

Flickerdart
2010-11-26, 10:10 PM
I'd advise just doing a Tier cutoff then, and/or thinking about the originating Wizard's priorities. What does the guy think is likely to endanger him, and what is he arrogant enough to let live? Remember, anyone capable of creating a cleric-killing plague would have a much easier time creating a sorceror-killing plague (familicide anyone?)
On the other hand, wizards think little of sorcerers. Clerics have the dedication to crusade against him and the wisdom to band together, but what's a bunch of dumb pretty-boys going to do, fumble some cantrips at him?

lord pringle
2010-11-26, 10:15 PM
He wasn't paranoid which is what killed him. He was too arrogant and believed that nothing could kill him since he killed gods. so he didn't expect a rogue to death attack him.

Hanuman
2010-11-26, 10:47 PM
What happened was a wizard stole the god of seasons crown which let him get infinite stats and infinite levels and could shift his levels. He spent his time in his tower making spells. One of his spells got rid of all magic users except him. The cleric plague thing was one of his spells. He thought having no tier one classes left would make him invincible. He was killed by an epic level rogue/assassin variant without magic with a ring of invisibility.

Ok, now I understand.

But it more sounds like you have just had issues with clerics and wizards in the past and can't figure out a way to ban druids and haven't had a bad time with artificers.

lord pringle
2010-11-26, 10:55 PM
It does? we're a pretty low optimization group and we usually go low level so...

Godskook
2010-11-26, 11:01 PM
Your wizard metagamed? That's kinda cheesy, imho.

Flickerdart
2010-11-26, 11:05 PM
Well he had infinite INT, why wouldn't he metagame?

lord pringle
2010-11-26, 11:07 PM
In game it was "only magic can threaten me and since there isn't any of that."

Warlawk
2010-11-27, 02:21 AM
Athasian magic is from Dark Sun. I don't think there has been an official release since the 2E box set and supplements. Above and beyond that, it really is moot for this discussion since Athas is a sealed crystal sphere that has no planar travel possible and no contact with the multiverse. There are no gods in Athas, clerical magic is elemental based. There is no way to move or communicate in or out of that setting.

Psyren
2010-11-27, 03:44 AM
Athasian magic is from Dark Sun. I don't think there has been an official release since the 2E box set and supplements.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/attachments/en-world-articles/45339d1283975831-review-dark-sun-campaign-setting-wizards-coast-dsc.jpg
:smalltongue:

FelixG
2010-11-27, 05:41 AM
I would note that Wizards would still work fine.

Sorcerers can craft Scrolls with which Wizards can fill into their lil black books :smallbiggrin:

Volthawk
2010-11-27, 06:22 AM
No, bad. That was one freaking line in the class description. One. Freaking. Line!

And all the draconic feats from Dragon Magic and RoTD, and the sub levels from RoTD, and dragons casting as sorcerers, and draconic-themed sorcerer only spells, and Dragon Devotee (Dragon Disciple lite, making you into a Draconic creature) giving Sorcerer casting (even if you never had it beforehand)...

Zeful
2010-11-27, 06:36 AM
And all the draconic feats from Dragon Magic and RoTD, and the sub levels from RoTD, and dragons casting as sorcerers, and draconic-themed sorcerer only spells, and Dragon Devotee (Dragon Disciple lite, making you into a Draconic creature) giving Sorcerer casting (even if you never had it beforehand)...

Your point? (tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FanonDiscontinuity)

Beelzebub1111
2010-11-27, 07:39 AM
Athasian magic is from Dark Sun. I don't think there has been an official release since the 2E box set and supplements. Above and beyond that, it really is moot for this discussion since Athas is a sealed crystal sphere that has no planar travel possible and no contact with the multiverse. There are no gods in Athas, clerical magic is elemental based. There is no way to move or communicate in or out of that setting.

http://www.athas.org/products/ds3

Hanuman
2010-11-27, 08:13 AM
In game it was "only magic can threaten me and since there isn't any of that."
Then all casters should be banned? At least anything with wish or miracle.

Why is it "wizards and clerics" who are banned, what makes them so special?

Warlawk
2010-11-27, 01:33 PM
http://www.enworld.org/forum/attachments/en-world-articles/45339d1283975831-review-dark-sun-campaign-setting-wizards-coast-dsc.jpg
:smalltongue:

Nice, I haven't really been following 4e since no one else in my group has any interest in it.


http://www.athas.org/products/ds3

I believe there was also a Piazo version, however... they were sanctioned 3rd party products which is not really the same as an official core product.

Quietus
2010-11-27, 02:16 PM
Your point? (tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FanonDiscontinuity)

Not valid. Fanon Discontinuity only exists if the fanon as a whole - or at least as a majority - has refused to accept the existence of a particular thing. DFA's are accepted as a solid class, the Kobold variants are widely known and have become almost expected in any Kobold build, and there's a lot of fluff and abilities drawn from the various "Dragony Dragon-ness of Dragons" books. Do we make fun of them because it's such an enormous fluffing of possibly the biggest fantasy fetish ever? Sure. But those books have in no way been rejected by popular majority, the way that say Complete Psionic has. Comp.Psi is a much closer match to Fanon Discontinuity than Draconomicon, Dragon Magic, or Races of the Dragon are.

Zeful
2010-11-27, 02:40 PM
Not valid. Fanon Discontinuity only exists if the fanon as a whole - or at least as a majority - has refused to accept the existence of a particular thing. DFA's are accepted as a solid class, the Kobold variants are widely known and have become almost expected in any Kobold build, and there's a lot of fluff and abilities drawn from the various "Dragony Dragon-ness of Dragons" books. Do we make fun of them because it's such an enormous fluffing of possibly the biggest fantasy fetish ever? Sure. But those books have in no way been rejected by popular majority, the way that say Complete Psionic has. Comp.Psi is a much closer match to Fanon Discontinuity than Draconomicon, Dragon Magic, or Races of the Dragon are.

Your Point?

I honesty don't care about "The Vast Majority" I never have and never will. The vast majority has been wrong before (This thread for instance (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165268)) so saying "they" have accepted something means less than nothing to me.

Urpriest
2010-11-27, 02:46 PM
Your Point?

I honesty don't care about "The Vast Majority" I never have and never will. The vast majority has been wrong before (This thread for instance (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165268)) so saying "they" have accepted something means less than nothing to me.

Except that you do, because you described your opinion with the term Fanon Discontinuity, which is defined as he described, and entails being part of a general consensus. So you claim to believe that many others have the same opinion as you about this. They don't.

Zeful
2010-11-27, 02:49 PM
Except that you do, because you described your opinion with the term Fanon Discontinuity, which is defined as he described, and entails being part of a general consensus. So you claim to believe that many others have the same opinion as you about this. They don't.

Only because they spit the original Discontinuity page into a disambiguation. Before they did that I would simply link it to get my point across.

So no I don't care about the vast majority.

Thiyr
2010-11-27, 02:51 PM
Your Point?

I honesty don't care about "The Vast Majority" I never have and never will. The vast majority has been wrong before (This thread for instance (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165268)) so saying "they" have accepted something means less than nothing to me.

See, the problem here seems to be that you seem to be trying to take your stance (Sorcerers don't come from being in some way dragonblooded) and are trying to apply it to a wider audience which doesn't share views. In troping terms, two different fanons are colliding. Whether yours is a fanon of one or not isn't the issue here. What "they" have accepted, as you put it, in this case does matter, then, because we're discussing what other people do with their game and their justifications.

Also, as a point of clarification, I take it all of these spells are for the most part persistent, like said plague, or did they just cause dying for a while and are now for the most part over.

And for the plague, does it just kill clerics, or does it kill those around them? If it is just the clerics, what about things that are disease immune?

Urpriest
2010-11-27, 02:53 PM
Only because they spit the original Discontinuity page into a disambiguation. Before they did that I would simply link it to get my point across.

So no I don't care about the vast majority.

Touche sir.

Psyren
2010-11-27, 09:58 PM
There are other sources of sorcerer casting besides dragons. Exalted Arcanist focuses on celestial progenitors for instance, and Fiend-blooded does the same for fiendish sorcerers.

However, dragons tend to get the most attention. Whether that means they are the majority of sorcerers or simply the most famous origin isn't clear.

Beelzebub1111
2010-11-27, 10:22 PM
Another origin is that when powerful wizards have kids, they can have some innate magical talent, at least in pathfinder. Including abberations (blessed by those from beyond the stars), Simply Chosen by fate, Elemental, and even Undead.

Zeful
2010-11-27, 11:03 PM
There are other sources of sorcerer casting besides dragons. Exalted Arcanist focuses on celestial progenitors for instance, and Fiend-blooded does the same for fiendish sorcerers.

However, dragons tend to get the most attention. Whether that means they are the majority of sorcerers or simply the most famous origin isn't clear.


Another origin is that when powerful wizards have kids, they can have some innate magical talent, at least in pathfinder. Including abberations (blessed by those from beyond the stars), Simply Chosen by fate, Elemental, and even Undead.

There is no such thing as a good Heritage class system. Anything it could do would be better done by feats giving the benefits, simply because it's more flexible.

Coidzor
2010-11-28, 02:10 AM
Well, going by the shown intent and spirit, archivists, druids, clerics, and wizards should've been axed. Wu Jen and Shugenja from Oriental Adventures and its update would probably also go the way of wizards and clerics to which they are respectively roughly analogous.

May or may not have thought to have axed the people who would be the only ones left to make magical swag or not, in which case both magewrights(NPC crafter-casters introduced in Eberron, not necessarily extant but then, no classes are necessarily extant) and artificers would've been considered for the chopping block. Otherwise they'd probably be dismissed along with the half-casters.

Probably would ignore paladins, rangers, hexblades, duskblades, and adepts due to their limited spell casting abilities. Also incarnum users due to their limitations and martial adepts due to them basically being fancier guys with sticks who can occasionally equal the half-casters without actually casting.

Not sure about bards, though I'm thinking no, but he'd definitely have realized sublime chords would be a problem if he went after all full-casters. So he might've axed them to prevent sublime chords from forming or just anyone who tried to become a sublime chord, depending.

I don't know whether shadowcasters would have been considered enough of a threat to axe or not due to a lack of system familiarity.

Psionics-wise, psychic warriors are perfectly fine as the prestige classes that give their own manifester progression, not terribly familiar with the system though, especially ardents, erudites, and spell-to-power shenanigans. Psions are described as basically psionic sorcerers that specialize like a wizard specializes in a school of magic though, and psionics is generally less powerful than magic but better able to blast out of the box and scale with levels.

grimbold
2010-11-28, 06:43 AM
is magic killed on all of the other planes as well?
that could affect several classes