Caster-less campaign?

[Curelomosaurus]

I love all the mundane and alchemical options in D&D 3.5, but I feel they get overshadowed a bit by magic items and spellcasters. So, I'm trying to figure out what D&D would look like with no casting classes or martial adepts (including psionics, invocation users, tome of magic, tome of battle, incarnum, etc) and limited magic items (only potions and scrolls are craftable; other magic items are effectively minor artifacts). Casting will be allowed through feats such as Shape Soulmeld and Magical Training, and rangers and paladins will be allowed using the spell-less variants in Complete Warrior.
Legendary items (War of the Lance) are also allowed, along with campaign-setting-specific base classes like the Noble and Master.

So far, we've discussed difficulties with healing, the need for carefully balanced combat encounters and non-combat solutions to encounters, the epicness of supernatural abilities and factotums, and how awesome the Truespeak skill becomes.

Note that I'm well aware this is not how 3.5 is normally played, and that other systems do low-magic better; I'm using 3.5 because I like how it works and the options it provides, and it's what my usual players are comfortable with.

If anyone has suggestions for what to consider when DMing such a campaign, ideas for new options that become more appealing, notes on unseen implications of lowering the magic/power level of the game, or the like, please speak up!

[Psyren]

I love all the mundane and alchemical options in D&D 3.5, but I feel they get overshadowed a bit by magic items and spellcasters. So, I'm trying to figure out what D&D would look like with no casting classes (including psionics, tome of magic, tome of battle, incarnum, etc).

Keep going - are artificers banned too? Invokers like Warlock and DFA? Truenamers?

Either way, "pretty boring" would probably be my answer, with a side of "maybe you should play something other than D&D."


Would magic item creation be possible via feats? What monsters would be much harder to beat? Etc.

You won't be creating magic items unless PF material is on the table for Master Craftsman to ignore spell requirements. Even with that, your options are pretty limited.

Harder monsters: Pretty much anything that isn't a humanoid or animal. It would probably be faster to list the monsters that wouldn't be harder.

[InvisibleBison]

Healing becomes much more difficult. In particular, there are a lot of monsters who inflict various non-HP harm that is either extremely difficult or outright impossible to remove without magic. Ability drain is the most common, but there's also things like mummy rot, chaos beasts' corporeal instability, aboleth slime, or petrification, all of which require magic to cure.

[Darg]

Well, paladins, rangers, and bards are casters. They might still be very capable in a casterless world considering their other class features. I also think a ranger/druid/beastmaster might be a phenomenal combo considering the lack of summons.

Either way, I wouldn't allow ACFs or other comparable things that step on the toes of another class in such a setting because you don't have the unbalancer that is magic to make it justifiable.

As for crafting, I don't see why you can't have casters with phantom capabilities. This allows a limitation on who can make certain items and can give a boost for certain classes considering the loss of casting. Druid can't cast spells, but the available spell list let's them qualify for crafting, that kind of thing. Also, without spells you'll have to do away with a WBL and limit more based on carrying capacity.

I think domain spells could possibly be allowable for clerics, but they only have the one domain slot. As for arcane casters, there really isn't much of a benefit to having them around considering that all their power is tied up in their casting compared to divine casters.

I think the biggest hurdle for a world like this would monsters with Su and SLAs. Their CR would probably inflate quite a bit.

[Efrate]

Play e6 maybe? Or find a better system. D&d falls apart very fast without magic. Especially without stuff like maneuvers, binding, soulmelds etc. You can ban tier and 1 and 2 classes and remove spells but leave the other subsystems and work with that. I'm running a PF game where akashic(incarnum), PoW(ToB) and very limited psionics are all there is for all non monsters and it's working well so far.

You still need to carefully watch encounters and likely fight a lot of classed humanoids because a lot of monsters are just a hard pass. You can fill some gaps with subsystems but not all. It is a lot of extra work for a DM.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I've done it, and thought it was a lot of fun. That game had a ban on all casting classes, casterlikes and SLAs; rangers were available without casting.

The adventure needs to be built from the ground up with this limitation in mind. You can't just drop people into an existing adventure and expect it to work seamlessly. By necessity the focus needs to be on finding character- and story-driven solutions to problems since you'll have fewer useful class features to work with. Most of the games I play and run involve the DM creating scenarios, problems and obstacles and the players working together to adapt and overcome; the casterless game was a much more collaborative, narrative style. Combat in particular started being a thing the characters did to protect themselves rather than a problem-solving tool.

[Psyren]

To be more helpful - I could probably make this work in Pathfinder, especially if 3rd-party material is allowed. I'd start with Automatic Bonus Progression, then allow Path of War and vet various archetypes for the gish classes that remove their spellcasting. Master Craftsman would probably be available to everyone for free.

I'm a bit too far removed from pure 3.5 to try and get this workable there though.

[Kayblis]

You have a few things to consider:
First, if you're banning all spellcasters, why are you allowing spell-granting feats(Bind Vestige, Shape Soulmeld, Devotion feats)? And why are you considering Factotum as a good option if it definitely enters the ban list?

Second, you will find that half the classes that are allowed will be useless, because they can't compete with the top melees and there's no magic to compensate. You already banned ToB even though it's not magic, so I assume you're banning any content that has efficiency above an arbitrary cut-out line. You'll have to define more clearly what is acceptable, or you'll soon start to ban Barbarian ACFs for "being too good".

Third, you'll have to rework the setting to consider this, and get rid of most monsters in the manuals. Not only rework the CR system, but actually get rid of most of the content.

I won't say it's not doable, but it'll be as far from 3.5 as Starfinder is. At this point I honestly recommend looking into another system if you don't like 3.5's main deal. It's no shame to go and play other games if you don't like the more famous ones, and you'll have a more functional product.

[Biggus]

Midgard Dwarves (FB p.124) become the most sought-after creatures in the world...

[Lans]

I think you can make magical items if you have a caster level from a spell like ability, but I'm not sure.



First, if you're banning all spellcasters, why are you allowing spell-granting feats(Bind Vestige, Shape Soulmeld, Devotion feats)? One idea is that magic is newish to the world or region the PCs are from, so the feats represent the little that they have been able to grasp so far.

[Edea]

Monsters/templates with normally-prohibitive level adjustments become a lot sexier as player character options.

[NigelWalmsley]

It seems like you need to more firmly define where exactly the line is on "no spellcasting". Are there spellcasting monsters out there? What about feats that grant SLAs, or PrCs like Shadowdancer?

[animewatcha]

Assuming only healing and status effect healing magic-ey thing. Profession herbalism ( or alchemy ) being skilled used.

Would DC 5 per normal spell level required be good in a caster-less campaign?
example. Concoction equivalent cure light wounds DC 5. Concoction equivalent to cure moderate DC 10. Etc. For status effects, similar scaling but adapted to spell level of earliest spell that can heal said condition.

[Saintheart]

Assuming only healing and status effect healing magic-ey thing. Profession herbalism ( or alchemy ) being skilled used.

Would DC 5 per normal spell level required be good in a caster-less campaign?
example. Concoction equivalent cure light wounds DC 5. Concoction equivalent to cure moderate DC 10. Etc. For status effects, similar scaling but adapted to spell level of earliest spell that can heal said condition.

Few random notes:
- Depends if you want to stay consistent with current DCs. Antitoxin, sunrods, tanglefoot bags and thunderstones are DC 25 in Craft. Antitoxin's just a +5 to Fort for 1 hour, sunrods are basically a light spell or maybe a continual flame, tanglefoot bags are entangle spells, etc. Doesn't quite gel with DC 5 for CLW, DC 10 for CMW.

- Since there's no magic items, that somewhat crimps the maximum skill roll you can make. INT- or WIS- heavy races become more significant since they're the ones who get boosts to the key skills. Masterwork tools are about the only boost you get.

- Say +4 INT +level +3 (max ranks) +2 (masterwork stirring spoon) +3 (Skill Focus feat) +2 (Apprentice feat). Alchemists will always take 10 since they'll always be brewing outside combat, so the level 1 alchemist can pull off Cure Serious Wounds potions without a dice roll (DC 15). The only real constraint is time; crafting items takes a week of work, albeit if you're constantly hitting the DC you might progress faster.

[Curelomosaurus]

No casters means all classes/PrCs with spells, invocations, maneuvers, utterances, powers, soulmelds, vestiges, mysteries, etc. don't exist. CoW Paladins and Rangers are fine, along with factotum, ninjas, swashbucklers, samurai, barbarians, monks, rogues, etc. Feats granting spells, SLAs, etc are fine, since they allow some level of magic and simultaneously force players to solve some problems without magic, a la Gandalf.

I know 3.5 isn't built for this, but I like the mechanics and options of 3.5, so I'm sticking to it even though other systems do low magic better.

Using feats like Magic Adept, Precocious Apprentice, etc, what are the highest level spells possible in something like this? IIRC the early entry handbook had something about this somewhere...

EDIT: To compensate for the lack of magic items, the master class from Dragonlance will exist. PCs can purchase legendary items from them that give up to +5 to hit or +10 to a skill.

[Psyren]

No casters means all classes/PrCs with spells, invocations, maneuvers, utterances, powers, soulmelds, vestiges, mysteries, etc. don't exist. CoW Paladins and Rangers are fine, along with factotum, ninjas, swashbucklers, samurai, barbarians, monks, rogues, etc. Feats granting spells, SLAs, etc are fine, since they allow some level of magic and simultaneously force players to solve some problems without magic, a la Gandalf.

I know 3.5 isn't built for this, but I like the mechanics and options of 3.5, so I'm sticking to it even though other systems do low magic better.

Using feats like Magic Adept, Precocious Apprentice, etc, what are the highest level spells possible in something like this? IIRC the early entry handbook had something about this somewhere...

Gandalf solved some problems WITH magic too. Pretty major ones at that :smalltongue:

To confirm - no PF material allowed?

[Curelomosaurus]

Gandalf solved some problems WITH magic too. Pretty major ones at that :smalltongue:

To confirm - no PF material allowed?

Yes, and PCs will be solving some problems with magic. Investing a few feats to bind Naberius or cast 2nd-level spells won't be a fix-all, but it's certainly useful.

No PF material, I'm not familiar enough with it.

[ZamielVanWeber]

One thing you missed is healing becomes a huge problem without reworking: the heal skill can only speed up healing during significant amounts of downtime, so any quest of "you have X time to do this" becomes extremely problematic. Great for building massive tension, but now even weak encounters can prove to be dangerous threats so the 4 CR encounter time table under that metric guaranteed for failure.

Reworking out of combat healing or being very careful with time/enemy management as the DM become critical.

[Kelb_Panthera]

One thing you missed is healing becomes a huge problem without reworking: the heal skill can only speed up healing during significant amounts of downtime, so any quest of "you have X time to do this" becomes extremely problematic. Great for building massive tension, but now even weak encounters can prove to be dangerous threats so the 4 CR encounter time table under that metric guaranteed for failure.

Reworking out of combat healing or being very careful with time/enemy management as the DM become critical.

Healing salve from Tome and Blood exists, presumably. MoF's Gnome artificer prestige class suddenly looks a lot better. As does Forsaker from masters of the wild.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Healing salve from Tome and Blood exists, presumably. MoF's Gnome artificer prestige class suddenly looks a lot better. As does Forsaker from masters of the wild.

And perhaps low LA templates with fast healing, like Feral. Necropolitan presumably becomes either impossible or less desirable.

[Quertus]

I love all the mundane and alchemical options in D&D 3.5, but I feel they get overshadowed a bit by magic items and spellcasters. So, I'm trying to figure out what D&D would look like with no casting classes (including psionics, tome of magic, tome of battle, incarnum, etc). Here's what I've got so far:

-The CR system falls apart.

-Monks, CoW paladins, soulknives, and ninjas go from "one trick pony" to "terrifying supernatural warrior", and monks and paladins are now one of the few sources of magical healing via Lay on Hands.

-Feats become precious, since most methods of casting (Bind Vestige, Shape Soulmeld, Devotion feats) require feat investment.

-Wildshape CoW rangers are epic

What other implications would there be? Would magic item creation be possible via feats? What monsters would be much harder to beat? Etc.

Sorry, but… I really just can't make any sense of your post.

Paladins have spell casting. Tome of Battle does not. Wildshape Ranger is super supernatural. The CR system… is already borked, but… bringing only Mundane characters demonstrates just how borked, and how important WBL is.

Speaking of,


Midgard Dwarves (FB p.124) become the most sought-after creatures in the world...

So, what can and can't they do?

[Psyren]

So, what can and can't they do?

They can craft any wondrous item, weapon, armor or ring without needing the prereqs IIRC.

[Curelomosaurus]

Sorry, but… I really just can't make any sense of your post.

Paladins have spell casting. Tome of Battle does not. Wildshape Ranger is super supernatural. The CR system… is already borked, but… bringing only Mundane characters demonstrates just how borked, and how important WBL is.

"CoW Paladin" refers to the paladin variant from Complete Warrior, which cannot cast spells. I'm excluding ToB because while I love that it lets martial characters stay powerful in a world of casters, they become rather OP in a caster-free world.

As for healing, I'm aware that it'll be much harder, and downtime will be built into adventures. Although spell-less paladins still get lay on hands and plenty of turning to fuel Healing Devotion, so it's not like magical healing will be entirely impossible.

[Quertus]

"CoW Paladin" refers to the paladin variant from Complete Warrior, which cannot cast spells. I'm excluding ToB because while I love that it lets martial characters stay powerful in a world of casters, they become rather OP in a caster-free world.

As for healing, I'm aware that it'll be much harder, and downtime will be built into adventures. Although spell-less paladins still get lay on hands and plenty of turning to fuel Healing Devotion, so it's not like magical healing will be entirely impossible.

So, it's a… "no casters, no strong classes" world. With only armor, weapons, Rings, and miscellaneous magical items available at magic item Wal-Mart. Well, that's not horrible for the muggles.

Healing, though? No casting means you can't heal petrification, Polymorph, vile damage, Wounding, permanent stat loss, loss of life and limb, blindness, deafness… you know, anything *permanent*, that "just resting" ain't gonna fix. Although maybe some "misc" items can fix some of that? Or does Healing Devotion help out with those?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Couple things;

What you've described goes -way- past casterless. Given the factotum's arcane dilettante feature, it's also inaccurate to say that there are no casters, even if the casting available is sharply limited.

On the arcane dilettante feature, it allows a factotum to meet all of the requirements for using crafting feats to make most items. It can be a poor man's artificer to populate most of the equipment from most sources. The midgard dwarf from frostburn can cover virtually all of what's left if they're included (ECL 12, IIRC, before class).

All in all, the game could easily look very much like one where the PCs simply chose not to play casters, rather than one where they were absent.

The most notable issue is the one Quertus just brought up; some things that are permanent unless removed are a lot harder to get rid of unless the players have the foresight and spend the cash to have those cures on-hand.



Here's an important couple questions; do you think your players would be interested in this and do they have the WBL op-fu to make it not a colossal headache for both sides of the screen?

[Curelomosaurus]

Couple things;

What you've described goes -way- past casterless. Given the factotum's arcane dilettante feature, it's also inaccurate to say that there are no casters, even if the casting available is sharply limited.

On the arcane dilettante feature, it allows a factotum to meet all of the requirements for using crafting feats to make most items. It can be a poor man's artificer to populate most of the equipment from most sources. The midgard dwarf from frostburn can cover virtually all of what's left if they're included (ECL 12, IIRC, before class).

All in all, the game could easily look very much like one where the PCs simply chose not to play casters, rather than one where they were absent.

The most notable issue is the one Quertus just brought up; some things that are permanent unless removed are a lot harder to get rid of unless the players have the foresight and spend the cash to have those cures on-hand.

Here's an important couple questions; do you think your players would be interested in this and do they have the WBL op-fu to make it not a colossal headache for both sides of the screen?

The players are fans of low-magic fantasy (we rarely have casters in our parties, even though we're decently high-OP), and combat is not going to be the assumed method of dealing with things. Monsters like basilisks, gorgons, etc. that inflict non-hp damage are going to be negotiated with, stealthed past, or run from, rather than faced head-on.

Also, Midgard Dwarves are still gonna be a thing, just not on the material plane (so their items will be very rare/valuable). What items can factotums craft on their own?

[Kelb_Panthera]

The players are fans of low-magic fantasy (we rarely have casters in our parties, even though we're decently high-OP), and combat is not going to be the assumed method of dealing with things. Monsters like basilisks, gorgons, etc. that inflict non-hp damage are going to be negotiated with, stealthed past, or run from, rather than faced head-on.

Combat not being the default decision doesn't mean it won't happen. That said, go nuts. I'm certainly not going to say you're doing it wrong.


Also, Midgard Dwarves are still gonna be a thing, just not on the material plane (so their items will be very rare/valuable). What items can factotums craft on their own?

The list of what they can't is probably shorter. They still have to take the feats but anything whose prerequisites can be found on the sorcerer/ wizard list are fair game since the crafting doesn't care whether the spell comes from a slot, item, or SLA.

[Unavenger]

You already banned ToB even though it's not magic
Paladins have spell casting. Tome of Battle does not.

I cannot quite believe that in a discussion where it's being taken as read that "Spellcasting" includes all of the other "Casting in disguise" systems, it's a serious point of contention whether or not it should include teleportation, conjuring fire, and throwing a weapon through several people only to have it return to your hand.



Anyway, given that you've only banned casting classes there are a few interesting options. For example, you can immediately graft all that banned psionics, truespeak and blade magic back onto your character - probably not all on the same one, but you can build a fighter who functions as a really bad initiator, a factotum who functions as a really bad truenamer as well as a really bad wizard, and... okay, you can essentially slap a 2-day first-level PLA on someone with a spare feat. The truespeak is kinda interesting because it allows you some healing and support buffs without really needing to lean into it to keep up with the DCs (because you don't care if it takes you five tries to heal someone out of combat - also allowing tools of legend for that sweet +10 helps) but it will bleed your feat selection dry and while a real truenamer can heal some of the nastier conditions you're likely to face, albeit very late, your build-a-truenamer... can only heal hit point damage.

Really, though, if there's a skill you're gonna want to invest in to pretend you're some kind of caster, it's definitely Use Magic Device. UMD rogue was already a thing, and either UMD rogue or UMD factotum is definitely the new king in town. Unless you make these items impossible to get their hands on - and for a factotum, they aren't - you're going to have a fake caster doing all the same kind of heavy lifting that would normally be done by a caster, only burning money instead of daily resources.

[Curelomosaurus]

I cannot quite believe that in a discussion where it's being taken as read that "Spellcasting" includes all of the other "Casting in disguise" systems, it's a serious point of contention whether or not it should include teleportation, conjuring fire, and throwing a weapon through several people only to have it return to your hand.


Yes. This is a big part of why I banned martial adepts- not only is shooting a 20d6 jet of flame from your sword somewhat OP, it's also waaay above the magic level I want.



Anyway, given that you've only banned casting classes there are a few interesting options. For example, you can immediately graft all that banned psionics, truespeak and blade magic back onto your character - probably not all on the same one, but you can build a fighter who functions as a really bad initiator, a factotum who functions as a really bad truenamer as well as a really bad wizard, and... okay, you can essentially slap a 2-day first-level PLA on someone with a spare feat. The truespeak is kinda interesting because it allows you some healing and support buffs without really needing to lean into it to keep up with the DCs (because you don't care if it takes you five tries to heal someone out of combat - also allowing tools of legend for that sweet +10 helps) but it will bleed your feat selection dry and while a real truenamer can heal some of the nastier conditions you're likely to face, albeit very late, your build-a-truenamer... can only heal hit point damage.


This is what I'm looking for- mostly mundane characters with a dash of magical power. Those who want to play as casters are going to be investing a lot into that and likely using a diverse mix of magical abilities (vestiges, utterances, etc) rather than just casting more spells. On the bright side, they'll have skillmonkey/warrior levels, so when magic can't solve a problem, they'll have other options.



Really, though, if there's a skill you're gonna want to invest in to pretend you're some kind of caster, it's definitely Use Magic Device. UMD rogue was already a thing, and either UMD rogue or UMD factotum is definitely the new king in town. Unless you make these items impossible to get their hands on - and for a factotum, they aren't - you're going to have a fake caster doing all the same kind of heavy lifting that would normally be done by a caster, only burning money instead of daily resources.

Hmmmmmm.
The one big issue I'm seeing with my campaign idea so far (beyond careful balancing of PCs and the threats they face) seems to be magic items. I want magic items to be rare and powerful, both to capture the feel of low-magic epic fantasy and to avoid "UMD factotum" overshadowing everyone else. What if I simply removed Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Rod, Craft Staff, Forge Ring, and Craft Wondrous Item (so scrolls/wands/potions are the only magic items available to make/buy)? Would that keep factotum fairly close to other classes' power levels?

On a tangential note, how useful would obscure, mystical skills (Lucid Dreaming, Autohypnosis, etc) affect the power of factotums? We've already covered the usefulness of Truespeak and UMD, but I'm curious about the others.

[Sinner's Garden]

It basically depends on how excessive your players feel. Autohypnosis can provide a nice temp hp buffer, but it requires epic skill checks, so it's not likely to be useful by the time you're actually benefiting from it. Lucid Dreaming can snap the game (and setting) in half with ludicrous ease, but it sounds like your players aren't inclined to do it, and it's obscure enough that you aren't just going to whip it out as a matter of course like you would magic item creation -- you'd have to set out to abuse it, really.

[Efrate]

I would remove craft wand as opposed to most other crafts. Rings and rods are much less abusable. Things like knock, fly, and the like available at will have more implications to alter and warp stuff more than something like a ring of featherfall or a rod of the snake. Wand and UMD are great because they offer anyone near limitless utility for some ranks and cha and wbl, and if you can craft the price itself is not a big deal.

[Quertus]

shooting a 20d6 jet of flame from your sword somewhat OP,

Spending your turn to do 70 damage? Hmmm… 2-handed power attack, 40 (extra) damage per attack, 4 attacks, that's 160 damage *just* from power attack.

I'm not seeing that jet of flame as terribly OP.

Not liking it thematically is fine. But it's certainly not a reason for a "Caster-less campaign" thread.

[Kayblis]

As I mentioned, are Barbarian ACFs banned too? Pounce is terribly overpowered when compared to a Commoner's charge. So are many Monk ACFs, with short cooldown Invisibility and permanent Blink.

If doing 20d6 damage(avg 70) by level 20 is "overpowered", I don't really know what to say to you other than "ban non-NPC classes".

As a sidenote, the remaining spellcasters like Factotum will benefit greatly from Chameleon, the PrC that gives you a floating feat. Change it to whatever crafting feat you need, craft high-level items, then change it back to something else when you go adventuring. You still have pretty much your usual spellcasting and can craft as a side business.

[Luccan]

Something I feel needs to be brought up: In 3.5 you cannot use the Craft (alchemy) skill, at least to make most alchemical items, if you aren't a spellcaster.

[Efrate]

I have played at many tables where spirit lion totem and shock trooper are banned. It's a quick and dirty and not fool proof but kneecaps the binary : I charge if I hit it's dead, if I don't I am useless.

Or just ban power attack. Some folks want 1d8 + 4 and nothing more as their power level.

I might suggest 5e however for this. With no feats or access to any magic items except for via quest per item. No crafting nor purchasing.

[Lans]

Spending your turn to do 70 damage? Hmmm… 2-handed power attack, 40 (extra) damage per attack, 4 attacks, that's 160 damage *just* from power attack.

I'm not seeing that jet of flame as terribly OP.

Not liking it thematically is fine. But it's certainly not a reason for a "Caster-less campaign" thread.

The jet of flame is at 15th level, only requires a standard action and can hit more than 1 person, and manuevers are called sword magic in the book.

[Curelomosaurus]

The jet of flame is at 15th level, only requires a standard action and can hit more than 1 person, and manuevers are called sword magic in the book.

This.

I'm aware there's powerful mundane stuff, but removing magic and maneuvers significantly narrows the power gap. Plus, as I've stated, this is for flavor as much as balance.


In 3.5 you cannot use the Craft (alchemy) skill, at least to make most alchemical items, if you aren't a spellcaster.

With no magic items, PCs are gonna have a lot more WBL to spend and likely won't need to craft things themselves. Plus, there are plenty of feats which grant casting for those who do want to craft their own items.

[Luccan]

This.

I'm aware there's powerful mundane stuff, but removing magic and maneuvers significantly narrows the power gap. Plus, as I've stated, this is for flavor as much as balance.



With no magic items, PCs are gonna have a lot more WBL to spend and likely won't need to craft things themselves. Plus, there are plenty of feats which grant casting for those who do want to craft their own items.

I'm confused, I thought the campaign wasn't going to have spellcasters. Is it just no PC spellcasters? Bend and break the alchemy crafting rule all you like, I personally hate it, but if you aren't planning to do so then who is crafting alchemical stuff for the PCs?

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm confused, I thought the campaign wasn't going to have spellcasters. Is it just no PC spellcasters? Bend and break the alchemy crafting rule all you like, I personally hate it, but if you aren't planning to do so then who is crafting alchemical stuff for the PCs?

He's clarified since the OP that there are no "caster" classes but the subsystems, including core spellcasting, are available via feats and items. Magical training from PGtF can get you past the ridiculous "must be a caster" restriction on craft alchemy.

[Curelomosaurus]

As I mentioned, are Barbarian ACFs banned too? Pounce is terribly overpowered when compared to a Commoner's charge. So are many Monk ACFs, with short cooldown Invisibility and permanent Blink.

If doing 20d6 damage(avg 70) by level 20 is "overpowered", I don't really know what to say to you other than "ban non-NPC classes".

As a sidenote, the remaining spellcasters like Factotum will benefit greatly from Chameleon, the PrC that gives you a floating feat. Change it to whatever crafting feat you need, craft high-level items, then change it back to something else when you go adventuring. You still have pretty much your usual spellcasting and can craft as a side business.

Yes, all ACFs are allowed, unless they grant spellcasting or the like. Yes, Pounce and Invisibility are great abilities, but so are things like Dungeoncrasher, Lay on Hands, and Slippery Mind in a low-magic world. There are always going to be powerful builds in 3.5, whether you're a martial monk taking Improved Whirlwind Attack at level one or a whisper gnome assassin who uses HiPs and Darkstalker to be nigh-impossible to detect.

As for the chameleon thing, chameleon is a casting class, so floating feat shenanigans wouldn't be a thing.