Non-magical classes

[Yora]

Also excluding pseudo-casters like psions and binders, half-casters like bards and hexblades, and other classes that use lots of supernatural and spell-like abilities like paladins and ninja.

There don't seem to be that many.
Core has barbarian, fighter, ranger, and rogue. And that's even a bit generous towards rangers.
And otherwise I remember knight, scout, samurai, and swashbuckler.

Out of about 120+, that's not a lot. Did I miss any one?

[SamBurke]

Factotum is pretty non-magical.

Ranger has spells.

I'm presuming that alternate forms of magic still count, here (Psionics, etc)

ToB comes to mind, of course.

[BowStreetRunner]

Crusader, Swordsage and Warblade from ToB use maneuvers that are normally extraordinary but can sometimes be supernatural.

Factotum gets spellcasting, so would be magical.

Edit: Marshals use Auras that are Ex, not Su or Sp.

[Eldan]

Warblade, I guess. Or at least, it can be built that way.

[Zombimode]

Also excluding pseudo-casters like psions and binders, half-casters like bards and hexblades, and other classes that use lots of supernatural and spell-like abilities like paladins and ninja.

There don't seem to be that many.
Core has barbarian, fighter, ranger, and rogue. And that's even a bit generous towards rangers.
And otherwise I remember knight, scout, samurai, and swashbuckler.

Out of about 120+, that's not a lot. Did I miss any one?

Well, to be fair, there are "only" 50something true base classes, the others are mostly variants or specials like NPC classes and the Ghostwalk stuff.


Ranger is fairly magical overall, so I woudn't could it.
Warblade is non-magical most of the time. Depends on the maneuvers, but most Warblade maneuvers are (Ex).
Other then this, I got nothing (Factotum casts spells, so its out).

I guess its easier to come up with some new supernatural power source then trying to base a class arround hiting stuff that isn't already accounted for by classes, PRCs and feats.




Edit: Marshals use Auras that are Ex, not Su or Sp.

Right, good catch.

[Diovid]

ACFs for the Ranger (Champion of the Wild) and Paladin (Holy Warrior) make them less magical.

You also forgot the Marshal and the Ninja.

[BowStreetRunner]

ACFs for the Ranger (Champion of the Wild) and Paladin (Holy Warrior) make them less magical.

You also forgot the Marshal and the Ninja.

As a matter of fact, if you take the Champion of the Wild ACF, then the Ranger will have no Su or Sp abilities, just Ex.

So the list of classes without Spells, Spell Like Abilities, or Supernatural Abilities would be Barbarian, Fighter, Rogue, Knight, Samurai, Swashbuckler, Scout, Marshall, Ranger (Champion of the Wild), and possibly Crusader and Warblade if you take no Su maneuvers or stances.

Swordsage has only one Su ability.

[Draz74]

and possibly Crusader and Warblade if you take no Su maneuvers or stances.
Interesting fact: neither of these classes even have any [Su] maneuvers on their list. You'd need to use Feats or Items or something to access any [Su] maneuvers or stances, and at that point, it's not the class that's providing magic; it's something any character could have taken.

Yes, even the Crusader, who is often thrown into the same category as the Swordsage as a "magical" warrior, is completely [Extraordinary] by RAW.

Of course, both of these classes have maneuvers that are kind of ridiculous for [Ex] abilities -- I would houserule them as [Su] abilities if I were the DM, because otherwise they break my suspension of disbelief. The two worst offenders being Lightning Throw (Iron Heart 8) and Strike of Righteous Vitality (Devoted Spirit 9). But at least these are high-level effects that won't come up in most games. (Depending on exactly how your campaign handles the Hit Point abstraction, all the Crusader's healing maneuvers might or might not run into this problem, which is definitely something for the DM to at least look at.)


Swordsage has only one Su ability.
It also has a lot of in-class [Su] maneuvers. Yes, it can be built to avoid all of them with its maneuver selection ... but I can understand why the Swordsage is considered, overall, a magical class.

EDIT: So I guess the overall list so far is something like:


Fighter
Rogue
Barbarian
(Variant) Ranger
Swashbuckler
Samurai
Scout
Marshal
Warblade
Crusader (RAW on healing maneuvers)
Knight
Commoner
Warrior
Expert
Aristocrat

[nedz]

There's a Non-Spellcasting Paladin variant in CWar p13

[Diovid]

There's a Non-Spellcasting Paladin variant in CWar p13
I thought the CWar Paladin and Ranger variants gave up spellcasting for a few Su and Sp abilities. The CC Paladin and Ranger variants are better for removing the magical element since they exchange casting for feats.

[BowStreetRunner]

I thought the CWar Paladin and Ranger variants gave up spellcasting for a few Su and Sp abilities. The CC Paladin and Ranger variants are better for removing the magical element since they exchange casting for feats.

Besides spell-casting, the Paladin has other 8 class Features that are either Supernatural or Spell-Like abilities. The Ranger only has Extraordinary abilities besides their spell-casting. The CWar variants give Su and Sp abilities, while the CC variant gives bonus feats.

So ultimately the CC variant Ranger is the only one that eliminates spell-casting and only has Ex abilities remaining.

[Slipperychicken]

Of course, both of these classes have maneuvers that are kind of ridiculous for [Ex] abilities -- I would houserule them as [Su] abilities if I were the DM, because otherwise they break my suspension of disbelief. The two worst offenders being Lightning Throw (Iron Heart 8) and Strike of Righteous Vitality (Devoted Spirit 9). But at least these are high-level effects that won't come up in most games. (Depending on exactly how your campaign handles the Hit Point abstraction, all the Crusader's healing maneuvers might or might not run into this problem, which is definitely something for the DM to at least look at.)


(Ex)traordinary Abilities may break the laws of physics. Although they are not magical, they are not bound to our world's rules, either. The maneuvers presented in Tome of Battle are not a contradiction. Not to mention how different the laws of physics are in D&D anyway, like alkaline solutions not hurting and even healing, terminal velocity being completely different, and housecats' claws seriously threatening the average person.

For some examples of (Ex) abilities violating "common sense" or "real world limitations": Regeneration is (Ex) and is in blatant violation of real-world laws, Countless monsters explicitly produce spell effects as (Ex) abilities, and Lantern Archons can apparently fire lasers as (Ex), and many others appear from just skimming monster and class entries. Don't get me started on the Tarrasque's Carapace (how does your thick shell reflect pure force?).



SRD; Extraordinary Abilities (Ex)
Extraordinary abilities are nonmagical, though they may break the laws of physics. They are not something that just anyone can do or even learn to do without extensive training.

[Doc_Pippin]

Hmm to the best of my knowledge... (which isn't all that good)

Aristocrat
Barbarian
Spell-less variant of Ranger and Paladin
Commoner
Fighter
Rogue
Scout
Samurai (And maybe dragon variant)
Noble
Monks if you take all of the right ACF
Thug variant of fighter
warrior
Knight
Warblade
Swashbuckler
Marshal

Thats all i know of
and some of the racial class levels like thri-kreen

[Jeff the Green]

If you count racial paragons as base classes, dwarf, half-orc, halfling, and orc are completely nonmagical, and human, elf, and half-elf are nonmagical if you didn't previously have spellcasting.

[nedz]

If you count racial paragons as base classes, dwarf, half-orc, halfling, and orc are completely nonmagical, and human, elf, and half-elf are nonmagical if you didn't previously have spellcasting.

I was thinking about these, but I don't think they count as base classes ?

[HunterOfJello]

It's worth noting that there aren't "about 120+" base classes in the game.

There are about 80 base classes listed in the Base Class Reference & Tier Information (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=11714.0) list and that list includes lots of ACF class listings and a large number of classes from alternate sources that are hardly ever used.

There are also a number of classes that almost no one ever plays, which should be excluded from that list too. A few examples include the Divine Mind, Healer, Lurk, Soulborn, and Magewright. I've never seen a single build even suggested for any of those classes before.


Do the majority of the classes in this game have some sort of magical ability? Yes. Do you need magical abilities to take down dragons? Well, yeah. How else are you going to do it?

[Kelb_Panthera]

(Ex)traordinary Abilities may break the laws of physics. Although they are not magical, they are not bound to our world's rules, either. The maneuvers presented in Tome of Battle are not a contradiction. Not to mention how different the laws of physics are in D&D anyway, like alkaline solutions not hurting and even healing, terminal velocity being completely different, and housecats' claws seriously threatening the average person.

For some examples of (Ex) abilities violating "common sense" or "real world limitations": Regeneration is (Ex) and is in blatant violation of real-world laws, Countless monsters explicitly produce spell effects as (Ex) abilities, and Lantern Archons can apparently fire lasers as (Ex), and many others appear from just skimming monster and class entries. Don't get me started on the Tarrasque's Carapace (how does your thick shell reflect pure force?).

While this is true, I can see Draz's point.

IMO, all of the 5th level devoted spirit stances should have the SU tag. I also agree that strike of righteous vitality is just a bit too much for a non-magical ability, though the other healing strikes are okay. I disagree with lightning throw, it doesn't even necessarily violate physics. I've had too many thrown knives bounce back toward me to think that making it happen deliberately shouldn't be possible. I also think that shadow hand's teleportations should include the SU tag, and I haven't seen anyone disagree with that one yet.

The rest of the maneuvers that aren't tagged are okay, even though many of them do tell physics to sit down and shut up.

[Slipperychicken]

While this is true, I can see Draz's point.


If (Ex)traordinary meant "completely within the bounds of real-world physics and possible for an ordinary real-world human", I would agree too. But it is not, and all kinds of bizarre feats* incompatible with real world physics are within the bounds of (Ex). The Tome of Battle maneuvers are consistent with the game's treatment of the (Ex) tag**.

*Examples provided in my previous post.

**With the exception of the Shadow Jaunt maneuvers, although I'm pretty sure some monsters have (Ex) teleportation too.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I don't mind physics being violated. A FB can violate physics with a punch without even getting into anything cheesy.

What I have a problem with is stances that manipulate the laws of probability on a level beyond anything else in the game, a strike that hits so hard it makes everybody on your team feel 110% better, and maneuvers (that aren't even listed as strikes, boosts, or counters) that allow you to momentarily slip between the material and shadow plane and back again. These things go way beyond extraordinary, and as such, I feel they should be tagged as magical.

But this is just a personal opinion. YMMV.