How can he do that? [casting for non-casters]

[Dr.Orpheus]

I have been wondering what ways are there to use spells, spell-likes, or supernatural abilitys as extrordinary abilitys. I want to make a campain I have less magical by limiting what magic can effect, but would like to know what I should ban to keep my players from avoiding this by casting non-magical variations of there favorite spells. I know the shadowcaster can do this at at mid or high levels, but I know there are other ways.

[Amechra]

There isn't a non-homebrewed way, and the only real balanced way I've seen was for epic.

So, yeah...

(Ex) brings up the issue that the effect is nonmagical; casting a spell in an Ex manner would imply that A. you aren't using magic, and therefor cannot be casting that spell, or B., that reality suddenly decided that every Tom, ****, and Harry can crap fireballs and shoot lightning out of their noses.

[YouLostMe]

Tome of Battle is the generic "magic but it's not!" set of Ex abilities.

[Hanuman]

You're asking what the alternative casting systems are.
Psionic, truenaming, invocations, martial adepts, binding, infusing, ect.

[Dr.Orpheus]

There isn't a non-homebrewed way, and the only real balanced way I've seen was for epic.

So, yeah...

(Ex) brings up the issue that the effect is nonmagical; casting a spell in an Ex manner would imply that A. you aren't using magic, and therefor cannot be casting that spell, or B., that reality suddenly decided that every Tom, ****, and Harry can crap fireballs and shoot lightning out of their noses

I know it sounds weird when you put it that way, but there are racial features of some creatures that emulate spells, and are (EX) such as the umbral blot from (ELH). I know there are lower level examples as well but I can not think at the moment. I am also talking about class abilities that are (EX) but should not be


You're asking what the alternative casting systems are.
Psionic, truenaming, invocations, martial adepts, binding, infusing, ect.

I mean the abilities may not be effected by an anti-magic field or SR, because Psionic, truenaming, invocations, martial adepts, binding, infusing, ect. may not be magic, but some of them count as magic for the anti-magic field spell, and some creatures have PR just like SR for Psionics.

[Hanuman]

I mean the abilities may not be effected by an anti-magic field or SR, because Psionic, truenaming, invocations, martial adepts, binding, infusing, ect. may not be magic, but some of them count as magic for the anti-magic field spell, and some creatures have PR just like SR for Psionics.
Oh, "How do I skirt AMF."

[lothofkalroth]

You're asking what the alternative casting systems are.
Psionic, truenaming, invocations, martial adepts, binding, infusing, ect.

You forgot about poor, lonely incarnum XD

[Dr.Orpheus]

You forgot about poor, lonely incarnum XD

I actually learned about incarnum just a month ago and I find it quite cool but I have been banned from using it after my first incarnate

[Ziegander]

I have been wondering what ways are there to use spells, spell-likes, or supernatural abilitys as extrordinary abilitys. I want to make a campain I have less magical by limiting what magic can effect, but would like to know what I should ban to keep my players from avoiding this by casting non-magical variations of there favorite spells. I know the shadowcaster can do this at at mid or high levels, but I know there are other ways.

What are you trying to accomplish? A no-spells campaign? If that's the case, just eliminating any race or class that casts spells will do the trick (as well as NOT throwing spell casting or SLA using monsters).

A Shadowcaster cannot ever cast its mysteries as extraordinary abilities.

The only ways to cast spells as extraordinary abilities are to have spellcasting in the first place and are Forgotten Realms setting specific, so to be safe you can go ahead and ban all FR material as well.

Also ban the spelltouched feats (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/spelltouchedFeats.htm).

Also ban all potions, scrolls, staffs, and wands.

[Dr.Orpheus]

What are you trying to accomplish? A no-spells campaign? If that's the case, just eliminating any race or class that casts spells will do the trick (as well as NOT throwing spell casting or SLA using monsters).

A Shadowcaster cannot ever cast its mysteries as extraordinary abilities.

The only ways to cast spells as extraordinary abilities are to have spellcasting in the first place and are Forgotten Realms setting specific, so to be safe you can go ahead and ban all FR material as well.

Also ban the spelltouched feats (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/spelltouchedFeats.htm).

Also ban all potions, scrolls, staffs, and wands.

I only wish it were that simple. I don't want to get rid of magic entirely just make it less effective or more easy to resist, and I am not going to let my conniving players ruin it with there (SU) and (EX) stuff and disregard the laws of magic/reality. I was going to have objects with SR equal to hardness, and anti-magic fields would be a feature that is built in to most homes and public areas in most of the civilized world. I am not a believer in making the law enforcers always stronger than the PC's I roll for the highest level NPC like I am supposed to do before hand

[Ziegander]

I only wish it were that simple. I don't want to get rid of magic entirely just make it less effective or more easy to resist, and I am not going to let my conniving players ruin it with there (SU) and (EX) stuff and disregard the laws of magic/reality.

Hmm... well (Ex) magic doesn't exist for all intents and purposes. So you don't have to worry about that. It sounds like you are basically just annoyed with supernatural abilities not provoking AoOs and automatically bypassing spell resistance?

Or... what?

If the only goal is to make magic more resistible give all creatures a default spell resistance of like... 11 + 1/2 HD + Cha modifier (Cha modifier can reduce SR if negative). Then give people in armor (and shields) +1 SR per 5% of the armor's arcane spell failure chance. Oh, and go ahead and say that SR applies against (Creation) effects.

You could even go so far as to say that creatures with SR add their Cha bonus to AC and saving throws against called or summoned creatures.

After everything's got SR, you could rule that any supernatural ability that requires an action to use becomes spell-like instead and any passive supernatural ability (like Divine Grace) becomes an extraordinary ability, effectively removing (Su) abilities from the game.

EDIT: I have to advise against putting AMFs everywhere though. That's just going to completely piss your players off and no one will want to play a magic-user in your game again. Plus there are ways to cast in AMFs and throwing them around like candy is just begging your players to find those ways, and ultimately probably lots of other casting shenanigans that you don't want them using.

[Dr.Orpheus]

that sounds as good or better than any of my ideas so far, and my campaign starts tomorrow so I think that is what I will do.