The effect of no Mages

[TheElfLord]

So for flavor reasons I'm considering removing mages from my setting. I'd present the position as it is impossible to master all areas of the arcane arts so magical pratitioners must choose some to excell in and some to forgo. All wizards would therefore have to be specialists.

What, if any effects, both good and bad do you guys think this would have on a game?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

1) Magic Item Creation is going to be nerfed. They simply won't be as prevelant.

2) Outsiders won't be as frequent. Since not as many mages are summoning them, not as many will be around. This is good, because with few magic weapons running around, their DR/Magic is scary.

3) Clerics will be OMFG respected. You have a guy who can literally call down the wrath of his god in a tangable effect which is clearly not illusionary (Flame strike, for instance, or Slay Living, or Raise Dead for that matter). You don't have many casters who can do similar effects (fireball et all...) to show a counterbalance.

3a) By that same token, most people will run to the local temple when there's something big and scary showing up, and most people will be some kind of religious.

I had created a set of rules similar to what you are talking about. Basically, every Wizard had to be a specialist wizard, and take one additional prohibited school (except Evocation, which still only needs the normal 2 banned). I also prohibited PrC's with spellcasting progression. I then changed the Wizard's feat progression to a progression of class abilities, depending on their specialization.

[Dausuul]

So for flavor reasons I'm considering removing mages from my setting. I'd present the position as it is impossible to master all areas of the arcane arts so magical pratitioners must choose some to excell in and some to forgo. All wizards would therefore have to be specialists.

What, if any effects, both good and bad do you guys think this would have on a game?

Honestly, not very much. Many wizards specialize anyway, and a specialist can accomplish most of the tasks a generalist can. At most, you'll see wizards in your game lose a bit of versatility... and wizards are not exactly hurting in the versatility department.

[Sornjss Lichdom]

I agree whith Daulool

[tainsouvra]

What, if any effects, both good and bad do you guys think this would have on a game?

For the PC's, you'd see practically no difference, although it might annoy a Wizard-loving player or two just on principle even if it doesn't affect them much in-game. In terms of designing the world, I would argue that it would actually be slightly higher in magic items rather than lower, since there is going to be an increased demand among Wizards for items of each others' barred schools, and they are likely to be able to afford to buy/barter/commission the items they want.

[Moff Chumley]

To really make a difference in game, you would have to allow, say, one special school, in which you would get a fairly large bonus, two to three regular schools, in which you play as written, and one to two minor schools, in which you would take a penalty or, my preference, be restricted to one to two spell levels below your maximum.

[Murderous Hobo]

Mages will be more dependent on each other so you'll see more and better organized mages, considering being organized will have been very important to them they'll most likely also have a better control over other aspects of life.
In other words, the mages will be the one's running the show.

In governments and armies you'd have organizations with many non magic users supporting a small group of mages to let them work at maximum efficiency.

Because each mage will be in demand, power struggles will be low as the mages are codependent on each other. This will create a culture where diplomacy is used to find a mutual agreeable solution rather then one where people are scemeing.
On the other hand, people will also be going against people who are odd or stick above the lawn. It'd be a typical LG society.

---

It might also sweep the other way, with magic being a bit of a novelty item and divine power as the grand-can-do-all people will start to research how the divine power actually works.

Perhaps they would find ways to channel faith and use it as a form of replacement magic. It wouldn't be long until somebody declares himselves god with this new found power and you'd end up with a Pharao, albeit slightly more divine then the real thing.

On the otherhand, they could discover that they're part of a game (though they would never know the proper way to describe it) and start to develop spiritual techniques to come at peace with this idea that they are truly part of somebody else that controls their very existence and perhaps find ways to become able to actually influence things (I know some writers experience this when they are writing, their characters start to act independently from them).

[Isomenes]

This could work very well for you in terms of restricting magic use if you went hard-line about specialization, allowing wizards to use only spells spells that had their specialization in the descriptor (Cold, Fire, Mind-Affecting, etc.). In a campaign I'm beginning, we have elementalist wizards (earth, fire, air, water) and then necromancers, enchanters, illusionists.

Now, this requires a bit of spell creativity and outright invention--my enchanter initially knew only two cantrips (Daze and Lullaby) until I whipped up a few other cantrips suitable for the persona. Perhaps allowing more spells into the Universal category might help things a bit, but with restriction comes resourcefulness, and I have had fun so far with my mentalist.

[LotharBot]

My wife suggested this wizard nerf:

At each level, a wizard gets two "school points" which they can spend in any spell school. They can only cast spells of level X in school Y if they've spent X school points in school Y. (You can also tweak certain PrC's by reducing the number of school points available.)

Universal spells are automatically available. There's no UMD or use of scrolls or runestaffs to cast outside of your available schools. Spells per day remain the same. There's no such thing as a "specialist" wizard since most wizards will have some unavailable schools. As the game goes on, a wizard can keep 4 schools basically maximized. If they want spells from more than 4 schools, they'll have them at lower levels. So there's a very real tradeoff -- is your wizard truly specialized across these 4 schools, or does he generalize a little bit and lose access to the higher level spells from a couple of them?

IMO a system like this brings wizards much closer into line with sorcerers. They can still be "batman", they just have to be more picky as to which broken spells and/or combos they take, since they can't have all of them. It'll make it much more likely to have multiple wizards or a wizard and a sorcerer in a party, since they'll have different strengths. And, most importantly, it gives your players an interesting choice to make -- instead of getting virtually every spell, they have to pick and choose which spells they have access to.

[Paragon Badger]

I DMed a game where magic did not exist, but psionics did.

Thankfully, no one picked the Paladin/Ranger/Druid classes so I didn't have to tweak them. ;-)

But the psionics were relatively rare, as in like 1 in 100,000 people and it was feared or loved, depending on the nation. (Of course, one of the party members was a psion, but he hid his powers from the rest of the group until they got into a lot of trouble.)

The standard +1, +2, +3 items would just be replaced with exceptionally well crafted weapons. ;-)

I never liked how weapons in D&D only came in two non-magical flavors; normal and mastercraft...

Plus, you can make all sorts of non magical items home-brewed.

A specially designed pair of boots that increase your move silently? A white cloak that increases hide in arctic environments? A dazzling outfit that increases Charisma. Ect.

[Iudex Fatarum]

My gf and I are working on homebrewing a magic system where you can only choose one school but everyone in the world gets it, once they reach an honorable age (like 40 or so) they can gain a second school.

we are choosing based off elements. restricted magic is fun but what about restricted bredth to use but everyone has it too just it takes a lot of study to increase.