Non-spellcasting, low magic world class balancing

[Luccan]

I've been working on a new idea in 3.5 for a world where spell casting doesn't exist in the usual sense. I should mention I have no idea if I'll be able to get anyone on board with the idea, but I've picked up toying with the rules as a hobby and I'd like some advice and assistance. Spell casting and Spell-Like abilities aren't at all accessible to players (or anything else), however, supernatural abilities are and eventually (for players and their foes), magic items will be too. Now, obviously, the easiest thing to do would be to remove spell casting classes, use the class variants for ranger and paladin found in Complete Warrior and move on. However, my goal with this is to not outright ban classes.

As an example of the idea here: while a druid might not cast spells, they can still turn into a bear and maul a guy. Druid's seem to stay the most on top of it relative to the regular non spellcasters (with so many extraordinary or supernatural abilities) and most Bard songs (at least in core) are supernatural, not spell like. Even the Cleric can get some use; by picking the right domains (for their abilities) and multiclassing as a ranger, one could build a convincing undead hunter. I even have ideas for replacing a few now unusable domain abilities. But what I can't figure out, is what to do with Wizard and Sorcerer. I'm considering tossing out Sorcerer all together, as the two are similar enough that without spell casting, the Wizard has class flavor I want to work with.

Basically, I'd recast Wizards as sages who have quite a bit of knowledge of magical devices, allowing them to use many of them without UMD (as they normally could) and as alchemists. The problem is, I'm stuck there. I'm almost certain it could be hugely unbalancing and even then, it wouldn't be useful until later, assuming the party was willing to fork over a ton of the magic items to the wizard. I'd like some help here: with my idea for the wizards as masters of the ancient lore of magic items and alchemy, what could I give them to balance the fact that they have no spells? And feel free if you want to comment about anything else I've mentioned here. As I said, I'm not sure anyone will ever play this if it does get balanced, but I'd like the opportunity to introduce the idea. And yeah, I know there's gonna be a ton more work to balance this when taking monsters and things into account.

Edit: Oh, and this is sticking to core only, since that will be enough of a headache by itself

[Crake]

It basically sounds like you want wizards to be artificers?

Also a wildshape ranger into master of many forms is significantly better than a druid without spellcasting.

[Luccan]

It basically sounds like you want wizards to be artificers?

Also a wildshape ranger into master of many forms is significantly better than a druid without spellcasting.

You are completely correct. I guess it was more important to mention, considering the headache I'm sure this will bring, I'm keeping it to core, which is why I'm not using artificers and why I'm not concerned about wildshape rangers.

[nedz]

I'm not sure sticking to core will help. A lot of the classes in core are all about spellcasting so these become pointless. E.g. your ideas about Wizard - how is that better than Expert say ? A Wizard without spellcasting has no use for the bonus feats available to the class, and gets very few skill points.

It might be a better idea to select what you want from a wider field and then ban everything else.

[Necroticplague]

I'm not sure sticking to core will help. A lot of the classes in core are all about spellcasting so these become pointless. E.g. your ideas about Wizard - how is that better than Expert say ? A Wizard without spellcasting has no use for the bonus feats available to the class, and gets very few skill points.

It might be a better idea to select what you want from a wider field and then ban everything else.

Sticking to Core at lest solves the very obvious problem of most nonmagic campaigns: the fact that it very strongly incentivizes templates to gain abilities you can't get from magic items or spells. No Cleric to act as a bandage box? Go Shadow or Feral, problem solved.No Flight? Winged Template. In the land without equalizing magic, the monstrous man is king. Core only at least solves this by not having almost any of the good templates.

[Luccan]

I'm not sure sticking to core will help. A lot of the classes in core are all about spellcasting so these become pointless. E.g. your ideas about Wizard - how is that better than Expert say ? A Wizard without spellcasting has no use for the bonus feats available to the class, and gets very few skill points.

It might be a better idea to select what you want from a wider field and then ban everything else.

The Wizard is... Actually a very good point. Anything I was thinking of for it, I could simply look to the Expert and apply those abilities. I was already thinking I'd have to improve many of the Wizards other abilities. I suppose in the end I'd essentially be designing a new class anyway. I'm going with sort of a sage feel, who better understands and uses the magic items and scrolls still found in the world and can be quite effective with some of the Craft [Alchemy] "mundane" items. The not strictly magic stuff. Not quite the Artificer with their create x number of magic items a day, but I would still need new class abilities. I'll have to think more on this one. What do you think about the lack of spells for the other characters? Obviously it weakens them, but how do they hold up to the regular non casters? The Cleric is obviously significantly weaker, but I'm considering giving them a lay on hands ability of some kind that they can eventually use to heal things like diseases, but I'm not sure. The Bard is also a lot weaker, even though it isn't a full caster, it still has a lot of spells and a few of it's songs are spell-like, not supernatural and without them, I'm concerned it might turn into a rogue with crappier skills who can buff. I'm trying to stick to Core as much as possible; it's what I know best and not everyone knows the other material

[SwordChucks]

You might consider taking the Archivist's Dark Knowledge and giving it to your sage wizards.

If you're taking spellcasting from bards, I'd give them more types of bardic performances to balance it out.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Use Pathfinder's Alchemist in place of wizards?