Flavour suggestions - making spells nonmagical

[KyleG]

So I'm playing a warforged open hand monk and I want some suggestions for reflavouring cleric spells to be less magical or more enhancements to myself when I take a cleric level including v, s, m aspects. Word of radiance is fairly easy to make as an enhancement, guidance im thinking a pressure point type thing, or unlocking chakras or other bs and in not sure about the third cantrip. 1st level spells are guiding bolt, shield of faith and detect magic and i get thunderqave but im not sure what else to pick up and I want them to be not cast as such. This isn't magic, its system upgrade.

Im also torn between observant and fey touched the latter being harder to justify if I don't want to be magical.

[sayaijin]

So I'm playing a warforged open hand monk and I want some suggestions for reflavouring cleric spells to be less magical or more enhancements to myself when I take a cleric level including v, s, m aspects. Word of radiance is fairly easy to make as an enhancement, guidance im thinking a pressure point type thing, or unlocking chakras or other bs and in not sure about the third cantrip. 1st level spells are guiding bolt, shield of faith and detect magic and i get thunderqave but im not sure what else to pick up and I want them to be not cast as such. This isn't magic, its system upgrade.

Im also torn between observant and fey touched the latter being harder to justify if I don't want to be magical.

If your DM is okay with it, I would lean into the terminator/iron man/robot trope. Guidance could just be your character scanning using your augmented reality HUD. Same with detect magic. Guiding bolt can be a laser. Fey touched gives you misty step, which means you have to switch to very advanced sci-fi - your character can literally teleport using science.

[Bundin]

If your DM is okay with it, I would lean into the terminator/iron man/robot trope. Guidance could just be your character scanning using your augmented reality HUD. Same with detect magic. Guiding bolt can be a laser. Fey touched gives you misty step, which means you have to switch to very advanced sci-fi - your character can literally teleport using science.

As Arthur C. Clarke said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I've played an artificer with a reskinned Cape of the Mountebank (Dimension Door 1x/day). It was a backpack-type metallic contrapion that would go BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ *faint light from left to right* *teleport*, with the faint smell of brimstone replaced with a faint smell of ozone (think the smell of a copying machine in a poorly ventilated room). Is it mechanical? Is it magic? Does that even matter? The machine spirit works in mysterious ways, hail the Omnissiah!

[KyleG]

How would you flavour verbal and somatic components? What other first level spells could be reflavoured? Chances are I'll only use shield of faith and detect magic by ritual but ive always loved command.

[Matt4]

For Command I'm thinking maybe nanobots? That you send inside your target's brain forcing it to follow your orders.

Don't know about somatic, but as for verbal components just say something like "Initiating protocol X-20-B42: raising protective force field (Shield of Faith)".

[PhantomSoul]

How would you flavour verbal and somatic components? What other first level spells could be reflavoured? Chances are I'll only use shield of faith and detect magic by ritual but ive always loved command.

Maybe some sort of hypnotism à la Fringe (I think that TV show had hypnotism triggered by blinking lights at some point).

One thing to make sure to discuss with your DM if you haven't already (even if they may not end up being relevant): how your "meta-non-magic" magic interacts with other mechanisms that care about things being magical. Is the science close enough to magic that you see the normal mechanical effects of resistance to magical effects, counterspell, dispel magic, anti-magic, etc. As mentioned about, also check whether components need to be compensated, and how things work for components vs. a focus.

[sayaijin]

Verbal - "ACTIVATING LASER BEAM"
Somatic - Part of your robotic body shifts like iron man's nano particles
Material - fusion reaction materials ("Great Scott!!!")

Just really lean into being a robot that uses technology to do everything "magical"

If you ever get spirit guardians, it's a sphere of plasma energy that hurts things around you. Revivify is the kind of healing power in the movie Elysium.

[KyleG]

Great ideas with the nanotech. As its only a one level dip im capped at 3 cantrips, 6 spells known + 2 from sc. And only 2 castings. Shield seems most sensible everything else is niche. Think my 3rd cantrip will be toll the dead, and I make a sound only the target can hear.

[Bundin]

How would you flavour verbal and somatic components? What other first level spells could be reflavoured? Chances are I'll only use shield of faith and detect magic by ritual but ive always loved command.

Verbal already exists in all digital assistants many people have in their homes nowadays. Somatic can be pushing buttons on a remote control unit you have strapped to your arm / stuck to your palm, or simply pointing a targeting laser from your fingertips.

For Command, I'd go with murmuring the message in a microphone, having it replayed from a speaker. The 'magic' is a brainwashing command added to the audio from the speaker in ultrasound / infrasound. That also fits the will save: it makes more sense to be able to resist an audible message than a nanobot swarm that just crawled up your ear.

[Intregus182]

You can also check out the 5e star wars free books. They refluffed the spells as tech. Not sure if you want the fluff to be that level of tech but you might get some good ideas

https://sw5e.com/