New to 5e. A few questions.

[DiscipleofBob]

Got the 5e books for Christmas and while I'm still looking through them I thought I'd ask a few questions that I didn't immediately see answers to:

1) Compared to 4e, how does 5e work from a PbP style? Specifically does it require the map/grid as much as 4e did or is it possible to run games through descriptions alone? The need for a map was always the big obstacle in running a 4e game online IMO.

2) I enjoy homebrewed monsters, bad guys with class levels or appropriate copies, and abilities and traps that aren't necessarily completely spelled out in the book. 4e was simple in homebrewing monsters: pick a stat block of an appropriate level and role, change some stuff around and add fluff-appropriate abilities where needed, and call it a day. Peeking through the monster manual, it seems like there are an awful lot of enemies at less than or equal to 1 CR so I'm unclear as to how you'd create an encounter for higher levels, especially if I wanted to use higher level orcs or goblins, or add something like a dire bear.

3) I had this idea for a magic-less game a while back, but it seemed difficult in 3.5 with all the partial caster classes, and pointless in 4e. Would this be any more viable in 5e?

[Kane0]

1. Grids are less mandatory, more recommended. It can be done without much easier since things like flanking are optional and Opportunity attacks are only for leaving an enemies threatened area (ie right next to them or a little bit more with a reach weapon). You can do without the map and minis or improvise with a piece of paper and coins or other tokens with a piece of string or something for measurement. As long as your distances are sorted out things run smoothly enough.

2. It goes back to the 3rd ed approach, unfortuantely dropping 4e's convenient classification of foes. You will need to read through the Monster Manual a bit and get a feel for how they run and are designed. The good news is that bonded accuracy makes your job much easier in terms of the math involved with comparing an encounter to your party. Just set some basic numbers and add damage, HP and other unique abilities for higher challenge. Also keep in mind that large groups of mooks are more nasty in 5e due to bonded accuracy and HP attrition, and there arent any minions unless you make them.

3. Much more viable. 5e runs just fine without casters or magic items. Just make sure to take it into account of course.

[asorel]

One of 5th Edition's selling points is the viability of Theater of the Mind gameplay. I haven't tried it yet myself, but I've heard mostly good things from those who have. I can tell you that it would definitely be easier than doing so in 4th edition.
Bounded Accuracy means that the lower CR creatures can still be a threat in numbers even at higher levels, so they don't immediately become useless when the party levels up. Because of action economy, you would generally want to give a high-CR creature a few minions anyways. I know the DMG has a section for creating your own monsters. I haven't looked at it yet, but what I've seen on other threads indicates that it's fairly intuitive.
By default, 5th edition's balanced is designed to work with the players not having any magic items. There should be no problems running low magic campaign.

[Malifice]

3) I had this idea for a magic-less game a while back, but it seemed difficult in 3.5 with all the partial caster classes, and pointless in 4e. Would this be any more viable in 5e?

5th is the first edition in a while to support this just fine.

[DiscipleofBob]

Thanks for the responses.

A followup to 3. Are there magic-less variants of certain classes available? Which classes would need to be cut and which would need to be altered via homebrew or DM fiat to work?

[Kane0]

Barbarian, Fighter, Monk and Rogue have totally magicless options in the form of subclasses whereas bards, clerics, druids, paladins, rangers, sorcerers, wizards and warlocks will need to be changed or removed.

Edit: Fighters and Rogues can both choose casting as a subclass each whereas Barbarians and Monks can have pseudo-magical options. If you want absolutely no magic or magic-like abilities that is a bit different to low magic or the absence of magic items and would be significantly harder.

[asorel]

Thanks for the responses.

A followup to 3. Are there magic-less variants of certain classes available? Which classes would need to be cut and which would need to be altered via homebrew or DM fiat to work?

It depends on what you define as magic, and how severely you limit it. Is the monk's Ki magic? Are you removing both arcane and divine magic, or both?

Full casters would likely be cut completely or very heavily modified. There's no magicless variant for them. Rangers are half casters, but it's pretty easy to fluff their magic as being displays of skill in nature craft. You might have to slightly limit the spell list, but nothing too drastic. Paladins are probably out if divine magic is out. A heavily gimped Bard could work, if spells and abilities are refluffed as musical/poetic inspiration. The Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster subclasses for Fighter and Rogue are out as well.

[silveralen]

Thanks for the responses.

A followup to 3. Are there magic-less variants of certain classes available? Which classes would need to be cut and which would need to be altered via homebrew or DM fiat to work?

Most of them. This is a magic heavy edition player side.

Classes that, by default, can bypass magic: barbarian (mostly, totem has a couple rituals), monk (open handed), fighter (any but eldritch knight), rogue (any but arcane trickster).

Classes that are low on magic/spell like effects: the other archetypes of the above classes, paladin and ranger.

Classes that can have their magic explained as mundane abilities if the DM takes time to weed their spell list slightly: ranger, paladin, rogue (arcane trickster), fighter (eldritch knight, requires different restrictions than default), bard (struggles a bit at high levels). Totem barbarian may count, though his communing with nature gets handwaved at my table in much the same way animal empathy might have in earlier editions.

I've actually worked up full spell lists with explinations for final group for my personal usage, it isn't particularly hard, though some of the spells I allowed are very 4e/ToB in their flavor, being just barely qualifying as "not magic". It ranges from spells like shield as a parry or hunter's mark as the player focusing on an enemy, which are easy to handle, to spells like shatter as a warcry or vicious mockery as the bard taunting the enemy to the point it hurts them mentally, which stretch the line a bit.

It's very magic heavy on the player side, which makes the lack of magic items by default a little odd. Then again, I think the two might go hand in hand to a degree.

[DiscipleofBob]

The concept would be for completely magic-less, a world where there was magic, but no more.

Specifically the end of Final Fantasy 6 (3 on the SNES) where all magic is removed from the world.

It seems like it's not that viable in this edition with only a few classes being available. That's okay. It was a large stretch anyway in any other edition.

[silveralen]

That can work actually. Given FFVI tends to allow people rather exceptional abilities without magic, such as the bushido and blitz techniques, you could possibly get it to work, with homebrew.

The easiest way to handle it would be to keep a few of the classes with spells (such as paladin, ranger, and bard). And treat their abilities as something else. Paladin or Eldritch knight could be a master of bushido like Cyan, which allows him to have special almost mystical strikes and abilities of a very limited nature (daily recharge also makes sense given how long they took to charge....). Ranger could use technological devices like Edward, ones that take time to recharge and repair after usage. The more magical monks could fit for Sabin, while totem barbarian isn't a huge stretch from some things Gau could do.

Any full caster is probably out, though I think bard could work as well (though I can't think of a good analogy for FFVI, if it had a bard character I must've ignored them), if you limited it to a certain number of levels before needing to MC.

So I certainly think that could be done. Though it depends if some of the things I mentioned went away at the end of the game, idk tbh I never finished it fully.

[MeeposFire]

4e actually is probably the easiest edition for magicless. It is the only edition where the healer does not use "magic" while also not using items (though in 5e you could be a thief rogue with the healer feat and use healing kits). You can also have any party role filled up adequately (though not always in the best way) without using any actual magic.

In addition 4e is the easiest edition to avoid magic items if you use the inherent bonus system in the DMG2 and Dark Sun.

However 5e is better than most with a lack of magic items as its "bounded accuracy" system helps keep you in reach of your target value. The only "problem" is that warriors will deal half damage to damage resistant enemies and if they are immune then you will have to be clever to win. You could give all classes some option of damaging those enemies like the monk does or force them to be clever your choice.

[Ashrym]

Nonmagical is covered by champions, battlemasters, berserkers, thieves, and assassins as the classes as long as feats are available. My recommendation would be to stress the backgrounds because that's where a lot of your variety will be found in concepts and skills. Beyond that, it depends on how some spells and abilities are flavored.

A person could run a non-magical campaign without much difficulty following that basic system.