No Magic Campaign and Wizards

[RoboEmperor]

This is just a theoretical scenario. Note that this is not a dead magic campaign, meaning there isn't one giant dead magic zone encompassing the entire area. This is a scenario where absolutely no scrolls, magic items, spell material components, etc. are sold.

A lot of places can be potentially no magic. Like your boat crashed you awaken off shore of some viking civilization at war with other vikings, no magic. Just an example.

Focuses are just ordinary items (at least most of them) so they're buy-able or craft-able.
Eschew materials would get rid of all non-costly spell materials.

The main way of getting spells will be the 2 freebies on wizard level up, but how about prestige classes? If you prestige, you're screwed because you don't get 2 spells.

So starting at level 1, what are some ways to get spells and costly material components?

Once you hit 17 you have wish to make a spell book with 100 pages worth of spells for 5000xp cost, or a blessed book with 500 pages worth of spells for 6000xp.
You could planar bind efreetis, but I don't want to do anything cheap like free wishes.

That's all I got.

I thought you could use planar bound creatures to cooperate on creating scrolls, but RAW says you can't do that.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Important question. The question really: -why- is there no market for magic? Unless magic is brand spanking new to the setting altogether, it makes no sense. Seriously, like within the last year or so brand spanking new.

In any case, don't play a wizard in this setting. Go sorcerer instead. It'll serve you better in the overall and you can always play a wizard when your DM finds the mind he's clearly lost.

[Zanos]

Independent Research could help, but it's pretty expensive.

[Rubik]

Google for "Easy Bake Wizard." Dozens and dozens of extra spells known, and all without a single spellbook needed to hold them all.

That, and some other builds make spells known unnecessary. Shadowcraft mages, for instance.

Some PrCs grant up to a few dozen spells known, just for a level or two. Sandshaper, anyone?

[RoboEmperor]

Important question. The question really: -why- is there no market for magic? Unless magic is brand spanking new to the setting altogether, it makes no sense. Seriously, like within the last year or so brand spanking new.

In any case, don't play a wizard in this setting. Go sorcerer instead. It'll serve you better in the overall and you can always play a wizard when your DM finds the mind he's clearly lost.

It's a theoretical scenario, as in it's just in my head.

In this setting, magic isn't brand spanking new, it doesn't exist. So like, you're in Britain and you have magic, then you sail over to America, and are fighting the natives, but you're out of supplies! Type of thing. No magic, so you're the inventor.

Or you're a guy who traveled back in time before civilization found magic, and have to somehow face off the other very, very few magical time traveling wizards. Maybe he's the antagonist of the story?


Independent Research could help, but it's pretty expensive.

wouldn't work because you need an arcane library + material components for experimentation.

[Kelb_Panthera]

It's a theoretical scenario, as in it's just in my head.

In this setting, magic isn't brand spanking new, it doesn't exist. So like, you're in Britain and you have magic, then you sail over to America, and are fighting the natives, but you're out of supplies! Type of thing. No magic, so you're the inventor.

Or you're a guy who traveled back in time before civilization found magic, and have to somehow face off the other very, very few magical time traveling wizards. Maybe he's the antagonist of the story?

If magic doesn't exist then you're a mad man in a funny hat making weird gestures and talking to himself. Obviously magic does exist. Whether it always has can be questioned but clearly it does now. If it's been around for any length of time that can't be described as "very short" then a sector of the economy should already be building around it or have done so in the past.

As someone else mentioned, independent spell research can get you new spells without having to copy from another wizard's book or a scroll. Unless you're the -only- wizard in existence, seeking out others to share spells with can also work.

Material components are just mundane items until you weave magic through them so they should be easy enough to acquire normally. You need a pearl for identify? Go to a jeweler. An amber rod for lightning bolt? a syrup farmer. Two copper for speak with dead? Your left, rear belt pouch. Etc. Magic shops just gather together the esoterica for easy shopping and the sale of very minor magic items. They aren't strictly necessary for a spellcaster to buy basic components. Heck, most of 'em don't even have any intrinsic value beyond their capacity as spell components and should be easy enough to acquire for free, say the dead spider for web.

[A_S]

I can see a pretty fun campaign coming out of your "time travel" scenario, or something similar, where the PC's and the major antagonists are some of the very, very few (like, <20) people in the setting capable of doing magic. Come up with a good reason for most of the spellcasters to be highly suspicious of one another, and you go a long way toward establishing why there's little to no market for magic or magical stuff.

RAW, I don't think this would slow down wizards terribly badly. The 2 spells/level are really quite a lot, plus there's all the stuff mentioned (Collegiate Wizard, Sandshaper, [shadow] spells, etc.) to pad that out. And if more than one PC is a wizard, you can expect them to share spells and materials amongst themselves. Then there's the fact that mundanes would be hit much harder by the lack of magic items than the wizards would; you could definitely only run this campaign if all your PC's were high-tier casters.

I think it's a lot more interesting to think about the roleplay/setting implications of a world like this. Ever taken a look at Sepulchrave's Tales of Wyre (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?58227-Tales-of-Wyre) (a campaign journal that came to look a lot more like a novel as time went on)? It's not a low-magic setting at all, but there are only a very few spellcasters of extremely high level (high enough to cast 9th level/epic spells). All of them, including the one who's a PC, have the kinds of Contingencies-within-Contingencies and plans-within-plans going on that you expect from Tippy's campaigns, and they all know each other, and only ever collaborate in limited ways that advance their own goals. It's obvious to each of them that they're the major driving forces in how the world is going to turn out for the next several thousand years, so they're all very careful about giving any advantage to potential competitors, even ones they're currently aligned with.

Seems like a pretty fun way to play a game.

[Kraken]

Yeah, there's enough ways to get extra free spells with each wizard level that playing a wizard would have some additional taxes, but it'd still be very doable. You would need to be extra careful when choosing prestige classes, though. Some prestige classes specify they only grant additional spells known for spontaneous casters, others don't, though this can possibly be mitigated by taking spontaneous divination, depending on your interpretation.

[RoboEmperor]

Alright, so spell research is viable if and only if the material components used in the spell to be researched are also available. To justify 1,000gp per spell level for experimentation on material components that cost less than 1sp, I guess you can just say you bought and used massive amounts of everything around you and eventually it worked. But that still leaves the problem of needing a library for research.

I keep thinking using mercanes via planar binding to buy scrolls but, who can guarantee that those mercanes have the scrolls in their secret chest, available for you to buy. I guess you could have one mercane refer another mercane, in an endless chain until you find the mercane with the scroll you want, at which point I'd buy a scroll of wish and UMD it for a spell book.

I also wonder if mercanes can be a reliable supply of spell material components.

So that's another method of gaining more spells.

Oh and thanks for showing me those other wizards everyone. I am currently mostly interested in finding ways to get spells on the wizard instead of efficient builds, but thanks for showing me those, didn't know they were that good.


Yeah, there's enough ways to get extra free spells with each wizard level that playing a wizard would have some additional taxes, but it'd still be very doable. You would need to be extra careful when choosing prestige classes, though. Some prestige classes specify they only grant additional spells known for spontaneous casters, others don't, though this can possibly be mitigated by taking spontaneous divination, depending on your interpretation.

Yeah... exactly why I need more ways of getting spells on wizards. Otherwise I'll be forced to go wizard 20.

[Rubik]

Yeah... exactly why I need more ways of getting spells on wizards. Otherwise I'll be forced to go wizard 20.Any PrC that says it gives you additional spells known as if you'd taken a level in an arcane spellcasting class (and doesn't specify "sorcerer" or "spontaneous spellcasting" or some other non-wizard class) will give you your spells known as if you'd taken a level in wizard, so there's little worry there. Of course, there are ways to make wizards spontaneous, so using one of those can alleviate part of that problem, as well.

[RoboEmperor]

Any PrC that says it gives you additional spells known as if you'd taken a level in an arcane spellcasting class (and doesn't specify "sorcerer" or "spontaneous spellcasting" or some other non-wizard class) will give you your spells known as if you'd taken a level in wizard, so there's little worry there. Of course, there are ways to make wizards spontaneous, so using one of those can alleviate part of that problem, as well.

I don't think that's how it works. The 2 free spells is specifically a wizard class feature, and getting a PrC that increases your spellcasting ability and spells known (only applicable to spontaneous casters) just means your caster level, and spells per day increase normally. Unless I'm wrong.

[Kraken]

In the back of the PHB, in the glossary, "spells known" is defined separately for both wizards and sorcerers. Most importantly from this, we known that wizards do in fact have spells known. Anything that advances spells known without excluding the wizard in some way (typically by specifying a spontaneous caster) grants the additional free spells.

[RoboEmperor]

In the back of the PHB, in the glossary, "spells known" is defined separately for both wizards and sorcerers. Most importantly from this, we known that wizards do in fact have spells known. Anything that advances spells known without excluding the wizard in some way (typically by specifying a spontaneous caster) grants the additional free spells.

You're right, it's under "known spell". I think you guys are right! This gets rid of all of the problems I thought the wizard would have for prestige classing.

[JDL]

So basically this campaign is RAW but the Magic Item Creation feats don't exist?

Then pretty much all you're doing is screwing wizards out of buying scrolls of spells. However bear in mind there's another way to learn new spells aside from scrolls and levels: another wizard's spellbook.

Simply sprinkle enemy wizards into your bad guy list and make sure you note which spells they have in their spellbooks.

[RoboEmperor]

So basically this campaign is RAW but the Magic Item Creation feats don't exist?

Then pretty much all you're doing is screwing wizards out of buying scrolls of spells. However bear in mind there's another way to learn new spells aside from scrolls and levels: another wizard's spellbook.

Simply sprinkle enemy wizards into your bad guy list and make sure you note which spells they have in their spellbooks.

Magic Item Creation feats do exist, and you can craft them if you can get the materials. You just can't buy them, or buy magical materials. And enemies don't have anything magically unless they're part of the main antagonists of the plot who has access to magic.

[JDL]

Then your wizard gets Fabricate and takes 10 on his Craft: Magical Item Crafting Materials check each day to triple his stockpile of crafting ingredients. He collaborates with a Cleric/Druid to craft arcane scrolls of whatever spells occur on both lists and scribes them. Ditto with whatever Sorcerers/Bards he might meet. Not perfect but it'll get you pretty far.

Honestly, if the world has the classes and the feats, why aren't there any scrolls? Every wizard gets the feat for free, other classes can take it if they want. Even NPC classes like Adept can scribe scrolls.

[RoboEmperor]

In this case, you're the only wizard. Other enemy wizards are foreign, and very, very recent.

Taking 10 on fabricate is debatable, not like wizards need take 10 to get 20 DC on fabricate.

Crafting the "magical components" might not be necessary, as they might not need much crafting to justify the check. The problem would be finding the components rather than crafting them.

Also, I want to exclude all divine casters in this theoretical setting. "Just follow god! Here's proof that he exists" Now suddenly almost everyone is a cleric.

[ace rooster]

Then your wizard gets Fabricate and takes 10 on his Craft: Magical Item Crafting Materials check each day to triple his stockpile of crafting ingredients. He collaborates with a Cleric/Druid to craft arcane scrolls of whatever spells occur on both lists and scribes them. Ditto with whatever Sorcerers/Bards he might meet. Not perfect but it'll get you pretty far.

Honestly, if the world has the classes and the feats, why aren't there any scrolls? Every wizard gets the feat for free, other classes can take it if they want. Even NPC classes like Adept can scribe scrolls.

Whether you can take 10 or not with fabricate there is no way that fabricate can do that. Magical item crafting materials are not all the same material, and each casting of fabricate can only affect one material type. Also while there is no guidance on what crafting materials are (if you assume that gold is not the actual material) I would assume that generally their structure is not important. Fabricate only changes large scale structure, keeping the materials the same, so it cannot turn sulphur and spices into devils paste (completely made up example). It could turn a pot of devils paste into a statue made of devils paste (and maybe even triple the value), but this will generally be pointless for spell research.

Sorry, People trying to use fabricate as a replacement for craft checks is a pet peeve of mine. Fabricate is very useful, but has huge limitations.



Scrolls and items not being available does not have to mean that they do not exist. A wizards power is in his limitless spell list, so it is not unreasonable to expect them to be very defensive of it. Maybe have a houserule that you get a +5 to spellcraft and dispel checks against a caster that knows the same version of a spell as you (or a version you have studied well enough to copy), and suddenly wizards are much less open. In this setting scrolls would not be for sale, even if they are fairly common. Spellbooks would be well hidden and trapped.

Similarly if magic items can be studied for an advantage against the creator then you would not expect them to be commonly exchanged. Not sure exactly how to implement this, but it could be a start. If they maintain a connection to the creator then having items fade after the death of their creator would prevent the world getting bloated with them, and depending on how the connections work they might make casters reluctant to part with them. These type of things keep items in the world, but prevent magic marts existing.


Worth remembering is that the two free spells are meant to represent the fruits of research, and that NPCs are not able to just pretend that they have done it like PCs do, or decide what spells they end up with (beyond some nudging). A level 10 NPC might have fought hard to earn his 35 spells known, and would not have been able to metagame which spells they are. They might not part easily with them.

Just some thoughts. :smallsmile: