How would you do a non magic campaign?

[Jgosse]

No casters, very limited magic Items and spell like abilities.

How would you handle this game. I would still like to use a plus 1-5 on wepons and armor but just call that improved alloys and skills. What would this would be like and how careful should I be with encounters?

[j_spencer93]

actually done this around level 10 then. Really you just have to watch out for the stronger creatures unless your giving an excess of goods items to your players. Some of the stronger creatures SLA or SNA can really become problems.

[Darthor]

I don't think that is a good idea but.....

If you really want it, you need alternative healing methods or else the game is going to get pretty slow, don't use ability drain as it don't heal naturaly(or use with care). The characters are going to have way less resources to spend on a fight, use less powerful mobs but don't swarm them. Improve the Heal skill maybe?

I'm not sure if everyone will agree, but this would be the bigger problems on the games i usually play.

[prufock]

No casters, very limited magic Items and spell like abilities.
There is some grey between no magic and what you've listed here. For example, are supernatural or psionic abilities still in play?

This type of game certainly tears down the top two tiers of classes. Are psionics considered "casters" for this? If not, psion and ardent rule (assuming no spells means no spell to power erudite), while wilders and psychic warrior are pretty useful too. Binders have all SU abilities, I believe, so they'd be fairly powerful. Initiators are as powerful as ever. There are variants to replace paladin and ranger casting; rangers can be really good with shapeshifting variant.

You're really cutting down on available classes if you nix psionics and supernatural abilities. Initiators would still be very good, lower tier classes become more viable, assuming enemies and monsters lose their magical abilities too.

I'm fine with pseudo-"not really magic" items.

[Red Fel]

No casters, very limited magic Items and spell like abilities.

How would you handle this game. I would still like to use a plus 1-5 on wepons and armor but just call that improved alloys and skills. What would this would be like and how careful should I be with encounters?

First off, I'm going to assume that NPCs are subject to the same limitations on magic. Otherwise, this can turn into an extremely one-sided slaughter.

The problem is, pick up a Monster Manual. Any of them. Creatures without magic, (Su) or (Sp) abilities become increasingly scarce at higher levels. Sure, you can play these creatures without their big guns, but that breaks CR even worse than it already is. Let me give you an example: the Nalfeshnee (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/demon.htm#nalfeshnee). It's a CR 14 demon. Now, it has some combat feats - Cleave, Improved Bull Rush, etc. - but its big challenge comes from its abilities. Look at its abilities. Every single one is either (Sp) or (Su). Smite, SLAs, Summon Demons, True Seeing. Same with a Succubus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/demon.htm#succubus). A CR 7 encounter becomes almost a joke when you remove her powers.

And let's not forget vulnerabilities. How will you handle a creature with DR/magic? Will that just become DR/--, or will that DR vanish altogether? What about creatures with a vulnerability to a particular energy type, such as Fire or Electricity? Sure, some of that can be reproduced with alchemy, but not all, and not effectively. What about creatures that can regenerate, such as Hydras or Trolls? Without spells or magical weapons, you really can't overcome that ability easily. (Sure, you could use a torch, but it would be neither efficient nor easy.) Looking at Outsiders again, how will you overcome DR/good?

And what about tactics? Many monsters can fly. Most PCs cannot. Remove magic items and you remove flight. Look at a Black Dragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm#blackDragon), for example. Even at its youngest, it can fly with a 100 foot flight speed. The only people in the party who'll be able to touch it are archers. Dedicated archers, since its AC starts at 15, and only gets better from there. And you know how bad archers have it in D&D. That said, what's the point of flying? Look at its abilities. The only one without a non-magical descriptor is its ability to breathe underwater. (Speaking of, no magic items means that you rely on potions if you want to chase a Black Dragon underwater.) All it can do is engage in melee, so why even bother to fly?

Lastly, healing. Make no mistake - a low-magic campaign is extremely lethal. Magical healing is best healing, in D&D. Potions are ineffective both in terms of expense and impact. Worse, in-combat healing, weak as it was before, becomes almost nonexistent.

[Necroticplague]

With free feats. If there aren't any magic items, the players would all receive the benefits of both Sculpt Self and Vow of Poverty for free (without actually having to have the vow, so they can still have masterwork weapons, any landholdings, ect.). Between the two of them, that should give them all the normal benefits of magic items. Now, if things normally solved by magic items or casters comes up, its on them to have planned enough to have Sculpted themselves into being able to deal with it.

[Jgosse]

I was thinking keep CRs low and use numbers in most encounters and saving single more powerful encounters for special events.

[Vhaidara]

Free VoP benefits, modified to be unaffiliated with a specific alignment.

Heal skill can now actually recover HP (1 minute, recover equal to your check)

Some weapon enhancements can still be acquired (Keen, enhancement bonus, vorpal, defending to name a few). Elixirs from the wondrous item section are still allowed.

Those are the basics.

[Jgosse]

I was thinking of trying to shift all DRs to something that fits. Or just DR / 1-5. and in some cases they may encounter a devil or demon or something with limited magic. Humoid casters are gone but a rare being may exist with limited magic.

[Hiro Quester]

Perhaps you could have some limited use of buffing and healing by modified bard and/or druid.

Bard's inspire courage, heroics, etc. Perhaps modify some of the bard variants' debuffs, too, through music that causes fear effects, distracting melodies, etc. There's even a song somewhere that grants limited fast healing to allies. Gives the group options for dealing with situations that can make up for lack of magic.

Druid could still have an animal companion, call (rather than summon) animal friends to help. (one of the best features of magic is its versatility. The SNA spell for druids also adds this kind of versatility, depending on what kind f creature you call for: flier, grappler, swimmer, transportation, etc.) And Druid could have a way with healing plants, etc. Perhaps even wildshape for the balance to the PC who gets less combat/melee abilities.

[Honest Tiefling]

Or maybe just let the Healer in, no one else. Maybe a few other low-tier casters. If that doesn't work for setting reasons, I'd handwave temple healing as a form of herbalism and make a lot of healer's kits available for PCs to buy to add to a beefed up Heal skill.

One idea I was toying with for my own game was having most forms of Damage Reduction bypassed by hitting it hard enough, or having your attack roll surpass the AC by a certain amount.

[Jgosse]

Magical healing is one of the things I want to avoid the most. I want them to worry about any damage at all. All I will have is advanced healing while sleeping.

[madtinker]

If it were me, I would avoid most of the monster manual entirely, and use level-ed up animals for monsters. The NPCs would be subject to the same class and items restrictions as the PCs.

[fishyfishyfishy]

If I were trying to do a non-magic campaign I would use a different system entirely. D&D, especially 3.5/PF, completely breaks down when you remove magic. If this is something you are interested in doing I suggest you look into other RPGs.

EDIT: This thread might be of interest

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?388637-why-do-people-use-d-amp-d-for-things-it-just-isn-t

[EyethatBinds]

Run 2nd Edition.

[Jgosse]

If I were trying to do a non-magic campaign I would use a different system entirely. D&D, especially 3.5/PF, completely breaks down when you remove magic. If this is something you are interested in doing I suggest you look into other RPGs.

EDIT: This thread might be of interest

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?388637-why-do-people-use-d-amp-d-for-things-it-just-isn-t

It is easier to modify what you know then to learn something new.

[Segev]

With "no magic," are you excluding all the monsters that are not humanoids or animals? If not, what ARE you allowing in the way of creatures for your no-magic setting?

[Ravens_cry]

Play a Pathfinder Ninja.:smallbiggrin:
With limited magic to find me, and all my abilities either extraordinary or supernatural, plenty of skill points, and sneak attack, I'd have a very enjoyable existence being a thing of mist and shadows.

[LudicSavant]

No casters, very limited magic Items and spell like abilities.

How would you handle this game.

With a different system than 3.5e.

[Jgosse]

With "no magic," are you excluding all the monsters that are not humanoids or animals? If not, what ARE you allowing in the way of creatures for your no-magic setting?

It will be a case by case basis. I still want to use monsters like the grey renderer and maybe even werewolf but the more magical the creature the less likely I will use it. Elementals probably never going to use them.constructs depends on the base,iron yes stone probably not.

[Segev]

It will be a case by case basis. I still want to use monsters like the grey renderer and maybe even werewolf but the more magical the creature the less likely I will use it. Elementals probably never going to use them.constructs depends on the base,iron yes stone probably not.

So more "low magic" than "no magic," since constructs and elementals will show up.

I would make available to the PCs creatures they can tame that have relevant abilities. A pegasus mount for the melee fighter; a pet unicorn that can do healing magic.

If "healing magic" is too much magic, make it a "refreshing aura" that it has, and remember that hp can represent luck and stamina to turn dangerous blows into near misses.

Just never use creatures with ability-drain. IF you use poisons with such, have non-magical potions (alchemical, perhaps) that are not just good antitoxins, but curatives to specific poisons' ability-ruining effects.

You could make alcohol have "healing" benefits, going by the "luck and stamina and agility" explanation of hit points. Apply temporary debuffs for drinking it, but it does restore hp as you get more unpredictable and feel less of the tiredness you've earned.

[Gemini476]

The obvious and probably most effective answer is "have you tried not playing Dungeons & Dragons 3.5th Edition?"
Because really, there's a whole lot of good roleplaying games out there that handle low and no magic better than 3E. Including every single other edition of D&D. A lot of them are also easier to learn than 3E is, since 3E is a rather heavyweight game.
Personally I'm partial to Basic D&D, and there's a bunch of retroclones out there for free that copies those systems. I think the big AD&D one is OSRIC? Also, 5e has the basic rules out for free. For non-D&D there's also systems ranging from GURPS to Dungeon World in complexity, many more than I could mention.

If that's not an option for whatever reason, the answer is "lots and lots of house rules." Take a look at Warriors & Wuxia (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?205213-ToB-Setting-Warriors-and-Wuxia-PEACH) for some IMHO pretty good examples of house rules and homebrew for a low-magic game.

Also, E6 is always a decent option when talking about hacking 3.5 into a low-magic mild.

[dascarletm]

Hello and welcome to the world of low magic DnD! You may be called a fool for attempting this, but fear not for you have friends who have done it successfully before.:smalltongue:

I am currently running a low-magic/no magic game using pathfinder (it was originally 3.5, but we switched in the near past). The setting is more of a dark-ages time period, and magic is almost non-existent to the point where the majority of people call it myths. That isn't to say there isn't any magic, in fact I introduced a red dragon recently.

I basically refluffed anything that can be turned non-magical to be non-magical. +1-5 of weapon/armor is just superior masterwork, and any ability that could work keen, speed, etc.

Potions are just expanded alchemy.

Wonderous items are taken on a case-by-case basis.

DR/magic. Honestly I haven't even had them fight anything with DR/magic, besides the dragon. I might consider converting /magic to /+(CR/4)

The game has been great, and hasn't featured any hiccups along the way.

No/low magic games are fairly simple to do. If you are new to DMing I wouldn't suggest it, but if you have a good feel for it I say go ahead!

[Sam K]

It is easier to modify what you know then to learn something new.

You might be going from "modifying" to "cutting away over half of it". You're not just removing magic - you're changing some of the basic assumptions of the game. At mid (and def high) levels, it's pretty much assumed that death is a temporary issue and damage is healed at the end of combat (or at the very least, over night). Also, magic items is a big part of customizing your character. This holds true even more for mundanes that cannot pick spells. Finally, combat will be VERY deadly at higher levels because it's very hard to bosot AC without magic, and there are few mundane ways to mitigate damage.

That said, some constructive advice: start with VERY low difficulty and make sure your players understand that this game will "flow" differently. Even combat against scrubs will be deadly for them (because they can't recover lost HP quickly), and if you cause a TPK with a "simple" encounter, that can really frustrate players. Give players some breaks with re-specing so that they can try different things, since almost everything combat related will work differently than from a normal game.

My advice would still be to try out Conan D20. It's not that different from 3.5 as it uses mostly the same concepts: BAB, 20 levels, ref, fort and will saves, hitpoints and feats. The combat is a bit different as you have defensive stats (that scales with level, just like BAB), and armor grants damage reduction.

But if you're set on using 3.5, like I said, start carefully and be aware that you're changing more than you think. You'll probably do alright.

[Jgosse]

Hello and welcome to the world of low magic DnD! You may be called a fool for attempting this, but fear not for you have friends who have done it successfully before.:smalltongue:

I am currently running a low-magic/no magic game using pathfinder (it was originally 3.5, but we switched in the near past). The setting is more of a dark-ages time period, and magic is almost non-existent to the point where the majority of people call it myths. That isn't to say there isn't any magic, in fact I introduced a red dragon recently.

I basically refluffed anything that can be turned non-magical to be non-magical. +1-5 of weapon/armor is just superior masterwork, and any ability that could work keen, speed, etc.

Potions are just expanded alchemy.

Wonderous items are taken on a case-by-case basis.

DR/magic. Honestly I haven't even had them fight anything with DR/magic, besides the dragon. I might consider converting /magic to /+(CR/4)

The game has been great, and hasn't featured any hiccups along the way.

No/low magic games are fairly simple to do. If you are new to DMing I wouldn't suggest it, but if you have a good feel for it I say go ahead!
This sounds like what I was thinking about. The basic idea is that once there was magic but magic was hunted down and eradicated to the point that inate magical ability is no longer a thing.

[Denver]

Lastly, healing. Make no mistake - a low-magic campaign is extremely lethal. Magical healing is best healing, in D&D. Potions are ineffective both in terms of expense and impact. Worse, in-combat healing, weak as it was before, becomes almost nonexistent.

I strongly agree with your whole post, and as a current player in a low magic campaign, especially strongly agree with the quoted sentence above.

Though I will say that knowing you could die from a few lucky hits in a row does make combat much more exciting and seat-of-the-pants.
It also makes game sessions a bit of "ok, we fought, now we go and rest for 48 hours. Ok we're healed? We now go back to adventuring," with more than a few hat tricks in a session.

--

Currently playing in a campaign with a low magic setting, and for what it's worth, I don't think you would need to remove the weapon or armor enhancements. Instead, those items must be found or randomly and luckily encountered. There are no places to go to get enchantments on your already mundane items, which also helps give weapons and cheaper armors a throw away feel.

Another consideration might be to use weapon and armor damage. Granted, it puts a bit of work on the DM, but it also adds to the lethality and to the reality of a low or no magic setting. Now when the intrepid party makes it back to camp, they help each other to mend wounds and to mend arms and armor.

[Jgosse]

You might be going from "modifying" to "cutting away over half of it". You're not just removing magic - you're changing some of the basic assumptions of the game. At mid (and def high) levels, it's pretty much assumed that death is a temporary issue and damage is healed at the end of combat (or at the very least, over night). Also, magic items is a big part of customizing your character. This holds true even more for mundanes that cannot pick spells. Finally, combat will be VERY deadly at higher levels because it's very hard to bosot AC without magic, and there are few mundane I ways to mitigate damage.

That said, some constructive advice: start with VERY low difficulty and make sure your players understand that this game will "flow" differently. Even combat against scrubs will be deadly for them (because they can't recover lost HP quickly), and if you cause a TPK with a "simple" encounter, that can really frustrate players. Give players some breaks with re-specing so that they can try different things, since almost everything combat related will work differently than from a normal game.

My advice would still be to try out Conan D20. It's not that different from 3.5 as it uses mostly the same concepts: BAB, 20 levels, ref, fort and will saves, hitpoints and feats. The combat is a bit different as you have defensive stats (that scales with level, just like BAB), and armor grants damage reduction.

But if you're set on using 3.5, like I said, start carefully and be aware that you're changing more than you think. You'll probably do alright.
2 things you said stick out to me. Those are respecing and armore as DR. I believe making every one gestalt with fighter will help with customization and durability.and I believe there are rules for armor as Dr.

[Sam K]

2 things you said stick out to me. Those are respecing and armore as DR. I believe making every one gestalt with fighter will help with customization and durability.and I believe there are rules for armor as Dr.

Might just allow gestalt in general. Gestalt with fighter as one required class is pretty rough for barbs, paladins and other high hitdice classes as they do not get nearly as much from it as, say, rogues or monks (who, granted, need everything they can get). Gestalt does open up far more build options.

On the same note, I would advice to be generous with AFCs to allow further customization. In fact, gestalt mundanes in a low magic setting could get a pretty cool feel; remarkable (but non-magical) humans fighting the supernatural/mystical is a common theme both in legends and modern fiction.

[JDL]

As others have mentioned, the best way to give players a 3.5e game but reduce the impact of magic on later stages is likely best done using the E6 variant style of play.

E6 (3.5e Sourcebook) (http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/E6_%283.5e_Sourcebook%29)

Essentially players stop gaining levels at level 6, instead gaining additional feats. This limits the game to 3rd level spells or lower, which have limited potential to break a campaign seriously. This also reduces the spellcasters from having nigh infinite spells per day at later stages.

This still preserves the magical items available to players, though obviously those with requirements needing higher level spells than level 3 don't exist. As players get stronger they can challenge higher CR monsters, but it'll still be a challenge to overcome a tough fight.

Look into it. It's a good variant.

[atemu1234]

Magical healing is one of the things I want to avoid the most. I want them to worry about any damage at all. All I will have is advanced healing while sleeping.

No... just no. Players need to have hit points to survive; with 1 hp/hd/night, damage far outstrips healing.

[BWR]

Don't listen to the nay-sayers. Low-to-no magic D&D is perfectly possible, you just have to be a bit careful with the opposition. The basics have been covered by others, but they bear repeating.
If you give little to no magic to PCs but keep throwing the same types of enemies that their fully-magiced counterparts would meet, you will be TPKing them every encounter after a few levels. Enemies should be under the same sort of restrictions that the PCs are under, for the most part. When building encounters, look at whatever creature looks interesting and consider how you would go about beating it if you played a game with normal levels of magic. Remove all the magic options and see how easy it would be then. Feel free to throw difficult encounters with magic or supernatural abilities at the PCs, just remember that the effective CR is probably going to be quite a bit higher than you intended.

[ace rooster]

I would second the E6 route, as I don't think you will gain much after that, and balancing it would become more tricky after that.

I would hugely nerf the bab of monsters, so that you could use higher hd monsters without making AC useless. They can still get a decent attack from high str, which I think actually fits better. Their saves should probably get nerfed a bit as well, though the PCs would have very few ways to target them anyway, so this is probably less important. This can reduce the lethality of combat a bit, and makes bab a bit more special. If you tune it right, you can even hit the sweet spot where against some enemies sword and board is best, and against others two handers are better. The Cr system will have to be completely thrown out, but there is no way to avoid this after the massive change of getting rid of magic.

Suggesting that the mundanes have hunted down most of the magic users and magical creatures is akin to saying that the civilians of the real world have managed to hunt down anyone who builds or operates tanks. It simply is not feasable, or believable. Magic users causing a catastrophe the halts all magic is possible, as is magic just failing, but I certainly wouldn't have magic ceasing because of politics. Magic suddenly appearing is another option.

[Jgosse]

No... just no. Players need to have hit points to survive; with 1 hp/hd/night, damage far outstrips healing.

I was thinking of something more like con + level on a good night sleep. Half healing with a poor night. And with some one tending you get a %50 bonus.

[Sam K]

I was thinking of something more like con + level on a good night sleep. Half healing with a poor night. And with some one tending you get a %50 bonus.

I think you might do OK with that as long as you and your players are all ok with a game that is less combat intensive than standard D&D. One tough fight can essentially take out your party for a week; that might be a bit much for action oriented players, and ofcourse xp progression will be alot slower unless there are plenty of other ways to earn xp. On the bright side, it might encourage people to find different ways to overcome encounters.

[BWR]

I think you might do OK with that as long as you and your players are all ok with a game that is less combat intensive than standard D&D. One tough fight can essentially take out your party for a week; that might be a bit much for action oriented players, and ofcourse xp progression will be alot slower unless there are plenty of other ways to earn xp. On the bright side, it might encourage people to find different ways to overcome encounters.

Slow natural healing need not even be a major issue, or at least not a constant issue, so long as they aren't expected to do a lot of fighting all the time. There is little difference, game play-wise, between lots of magic to heal you up immediately after an encounter and downtiming until you are fully healed. But slow rate of recovery means that lower-level encounters can be more dangerous for longer, kind of like they weren pre 3.x. A bunch of goblins straight out of the MM aren't going to be too problematic for level 10 PCs even without any sort of magic, but if the PCs have to wade through lots of them over time, those few puny hits that get through every now and then begin to add up.
A goblin tribe attacking a village can still be a major threat even at higher levels.

[Necroticplague]

It seems ike low magic would drastically favor some templates. If magic is unavailable, energy damage becomes almost nonexistent. Thus, DR is more useful. If healing magic is rare, the ability to heal on your own becomes more valuable, increasing the usefulness of fast healing.Stat-boosting items being less common would also mean that using templates to get the stat boost becomes a better option.And if exotic senses can't be got from magic items, stealth is suddenly much more useful. So it seems like this environment would favor Feral creatures, Mineralized Warriors, Half-goristros, Dark Creatures, and Symbiots.

[Vhaidara]

Feral creatures, Mineralized Warriors, Half-goristros, Dark Creatures, and Symbiots.

I'm pretty sure that in a low-no magic environment, the only one of those you would get is Feral.

[Necroticplague]

I'm pretty sure that in a low-no magic environment, the only one of those you would get is Feral.

Derp, forgot about half-fiend SLA and Mineralized Warrior Earth Smite ability, bu whats wrong with Symbiont and Dark? Neither of those have any SLA or SU.

BTW, forgot a few: add Half Minotaur and Tauric to the list.

[Vhaidara]

Derp, forgot about half-fiend SLA and Mineralized Warrior Earth Smite ability, bu whats wrong with Symbiont and Dark? Neither of those have any SLA or SU.

I was more referring to getting the templates than their actual abilities. If there aren't fiends, you can't be half-fiend. Mineral Warrior requires a spell/contact with elementals. Dark has a connection to the Plane of Shadows that you probably won't be able to have in a low/no magic setting. I'm not as familiar with Symbionts, but they also seem like they wouldn't fit with a low/no magic setting.

[Necroticplague]

I'm not as familiar with Symbionts, but they also seem like they wouldn't fit with a low/no magic setting.

Your guess is as good as mine. This is literally all the fluff associated with the template:


A symbiotic relationship is a sort of benign parasitism, where both host and "guest" enjoy mutual benefits. The most successful partnerships bond the two creatures so tightly that they become virtually one.