How would one go about forbidding all magic?

[Malphegor]

So I was wondering lately, is it possible to make a wizard who is forbidden from casting any spells from any spell school? You’re still a wizard on paper, but you are incapable of casting even a cantrip of the specific schools of magic?

So far I’ve got

Specialist Wizard (lose 2 spell schools)

Red Wizard of Thay from Faerun (lose 1 spell school)

Wizard of High Sorcery from Dragonlance (lose 1 spell school).

So far that’s 4 out of 8 possible schools removed from the picture, assuming skills, alignments, and feats work out to build this abomination of all I hold dear.

Are there any other ways to forbid an extra spell school as I’m drawing a blank in my searches.

Goal is to make a wizard who is incapable of casting a spell despite technically being able to by all the laws of magic and biology. Their research just pigeonholed them to the point where they’re basically useless, and they’re adventuring to figure out what does it mean to be a wizard who can’t wizard?

[Doctor Despair]

There are some prestige classes you missed like Incantatrix.

You can also have them use Disnunction on an artifact and fail the will save to lose all casting ability

[Thurbane]

Be a Karsite?

You can also have them use Disnunction on an artifact and fail the will save to lose all casting ability

Hmm, that might be an interesting way to build a D&D version of Rincewind.

[flappeercraft]

Changeling WIzard for Dual Specialization makes you give up 3 schools instead of two

[Brackenlord]

There are eight schools of magic, a Changeling Wizard from Thai, with Racial Emulation feat.

Dual Specialization in illusion and transmutation gives up three schools (can't select divination).
Conjuration, Enchantment, Evocation.
Focused Specialist one additional prohibited school (can't select divination).
Necromancy.
Incantatrix requires abjuration as a non-prohibited school, Focused Studies gives up another school (can't select abjuration or divination).
Illusion.
Red Wizard Enhanced Specialization one additional prohibited school, following the PHB rules (can't select divination).
Abjuration.

It's a little dysfunctional giving up one of the schools that you are specialized since the PHB rules mention giving up other schools, but by RAW Incantatrix might be able to do it and Red Wizard can give up abjuration later.

You keep transmutation and divination, very much a capable wizard still.

[ShurikVch]

Focused Specialist (Complete Mage) have 3 prohibited schools

Also, if you're OK with 3rd-party stuff - Secrets of the Phoenix (Legend of the Five Rings) have Green-Green-White Nezumi, and among their racial traits is:

Non-Magical: Green-Green-White Nezumi have no talent in magic of any kind, and can never gain a level in any spellcasting class.

[Doctor Despair]

Focused Specialist (Complete Mage) have 3 prohibited schools

Also, if you're OK with 3rd-party stuff - Secrets of the Phoenix (Legend of the Five Rings) have Green-Green-White Nezumi, and among their racial traits is:

Imagine being a wizard Reincarnated as a GGW Nezumi. Gee, thanks Mr. Druid, but I think this condition is more crippling than the dead condition. XD

[Seward]

There are eight schools of magic, a Changeling Wizard from Thai, with Racial Emulation feat.

Dual Specialization in illusion and transmutation gives up three schools (can't select divination).
Conjuration, Enchantment, Evocation.
Focused Specialist one additional prohibited school (can't select divination).
Necromancy.
Incantatrix requires abjuration as a non-prohibited school, Focused Studies gives up another school (can't select abjuration or divination).
Illusion.
Red Wizard Enhanced Specialization one additional prohibited school, following the PHB rules (can't select divination).
Abjuration.

Ok this is a very good start, although it looks like divination will be hard to lose. Lets look at it with spells slots. I think with dual specialist though you can actually ban both of those schools and nuke your bonus spell slots, as follows....

L1 Dual specialist Transmutation and Illusion (ban evocation, conjuration, enchantment)
L1 Focused Specialist (Transmutation) ban illusion

L6 L5wiz/L1 Incantatrix (after iron will and L3 and L5 metamagic feats + appropriate skills)
Focused Study (Illusion) ban Transmutation

Basically you are down 1 spell slot vs a normal wizard and can cast only divination + whatever school of magic you deem most worthless. Plus other specialization school benefits from your various classes are wasted. This only works because of the dual specialization Changeling provides, letting us choose one specialty and ban the other, as each prc or variant lets you choose only one specialized school, not both, which frees the other for banning.

L7 L5wiz/1 Incantatrix/1 Red Wizard (with L6 feat Tattoo focus and bonus L1 Incantatrix metamagic feat)
Enhanced Specialization (illusion or transmutation) ban either Abjuration or Necromancy

We qualify for Wizard of High Sorcery only after getting Spell Focus somehow, probably at level 9. So take some filler levels of Red Wizard and/or Incantatrix.

Now lets see, Wizard of High Sorcery (must be grey or black, because Red Wizard can't be good). Both of our school specializations are in Grey magic (illusion and transmutation), so pick one and ban whatever we didn't ban with Red Wizard (abjuration-white or necromancy-black).

The wizard probably needed to be a planar traveller between L7 and L10, as Wizard of High Sorcery is a Dragonlance setting thing, and Red Wizard is strictly Faerun (and Incantatrix is supposed to be as well, although it at least lacks a setting specific organization). Also given Changelings are supposed to be Eberron, there might have needed to be some travel between L1 and L6 to Faerun.

Now we're a wizard who is short one spell slot vs a generic wizard at each level and can only slot divinations. Short of going with intelligence 9, I don't see a way to fix that (and you could still use wands of divinations even then). None of the "ban a school" options above allow divination, so whatever else somebody comes up with has to find an answer for that.

[Biggus]

Hmm, that might be an interesting way to build a D&D version of Rincewind.

So he'd have no magic but the HPs, feats and saving throws of a level 17+ Wizard? That would go a long way to explaining how he's survived so many dangerous situations...

[Seward]

So he'd have no magic but the HPs, feats and saving throws of a level 17+ Wizard? That would go a long way to explaining how he's survived so many dangerous situations...

And Wealth by Level. Yes.

Honestly the "divination only" guy could work pretty well. There isn't a lot of offense in divination but Moment of Prescience, for example, would explain a lot of Rincewind's plot immunity.

If it wasn't for the fact that I can't imagine a GM allowing Red Wizard and High Wizard of Sorcery on the same character AND a party who would tolerate a wizard becoming more and more useless as he levels (actually he'd remain quite potent till he got restricted all the way down to divination, all spell schools are powerful, if narrow) I think I'd rather enjoy this one in play. It would be a fun challenge to remain useful as your spell lists narrowed but your spell slots and metamagic got increasingly powerful.

Hmm. Without changeling I could still get down to divination and the focus school and with human or strongheart halfling you can meet all the requirements by level 7.

L1 Wizard1 Focused Specialist (ban 3 schools not divination) Scribe Spell(b) Spell Focus, Tattoo Focus
L3 Wizard3 Metamagic Feat
L5 Wiz4/Wizard of High magic1 (ban school by alignment)
L6 Wiz5 Iron Will, bonus metamagic feat
L7 Incantatrix (ban 1, not abjuration or divination), bonus metamagic feat
L8 Red Wizard (ban last school other than divination)

Note that to be a red wizard you have to be from Thay. Not sure how that works with Wiz of High Magic, but they have no similar restriction. I assume the Changeling build above they fake it somehow, where this build is probably legal if you jaunt to Dragonlance prime material long enough to join the organization.

Note also Red Wizard can still use spells they knew prior to banning, including spell trigger items etc. So you need to either not take those spells at all, or burn those pages of your spellbook to truly get the effect.

That's actually pretty damn interesting, and with one school, any school, you could remain relevant and of course you aren't trashing all those bonus spell slots and class abilities. Maybe someday that'll be something to do in an Iron Chef challenge, with the right secret ingredient, and those challenges tend not to sweat the PRC fluff too much.

[Jervis]

So I was wondering lately, is it possible to make a wizard who is forbidden from casting any spells from any spell school? You’re still a wizard on paper, but you are incapable of casting even a cantrip of the specific schools of magic?

So far I’ve got

Specialist Wizard (lose 2 spell schools)

Red Wizard of Thay from Faerun (lose 1 spell school)

Wizard of High Sorcery from Dragonlance (lose 1 spell school).

So far that’s 4 out of 8 possible schools removed from the picture, assuming skills, alignments, and feats work out to build this abomination of all I hold dear.

Are there any other ways to forbid an extra spell school as I’m drawing a blank in my searches.

Goal is to make a wizard who is incapable of casting a spell despite technically being able to by all the laws of magic and biology. Their research just pigeonholed them to the point where they’re basically useless, and they’re adventuring to figure out what does it mean to be a wizard who can’t wizard?

Have 9 Int

[Jack_Simth]

Have 9 Int

Sub-10 Int is probably the only way to dump the universal spells, yes.

[RNightstalker]

Have 9 Int

Or less...or use a monster with no intelligence score at all if one of those exists.

[Seward]

Sub-10 Int is probably the only way to dump the universal spells, yes.

It still gives you full access to wands though. Banning schools bans those too.

So you may still want the progression that bans everything except divination. AND sub 10 intelligence to bring all magic down to wand use of divination spells.

The lower the intelligence the less chance they can sneak scrolls in on you. Fox Cunning would let any PHB race other than half-orc activate L2 scrolls, although I guess if you don't take any spellcraft and don't prep read magic they can't force you to decipher them.

[ShurikVch]

Or less...or use a monster with no intelligence score at all if one of those exists.

That gave me the idea: Cauldron Spawn template (Dragon #340) grants the Mindless SQ:

Mindless (Ex): Although cauldron spawn have an Intelligence scores, they are treated as mindless creatures for the purposes of spells of the enchantment school.

Thus - build an ultra-focused Enchanter - and slap on the Cauldron Spawn template...

[Jervis]

It still gives you full access to wands though. Banning schools bans those too.

So you may still want the progression that bans everything except divination. AND sub 10 intelligence to bring all magic down to wand use of divination spells.

The lower the intelligence the less chance they can sneak scrolls in on you. Fox Cunning would let any PHB race other than half-orc activate L2 scrolls, although I guess if you don't take any spellcraft and don't prep read magic they can't force you to decipher them.

in that case, take VoP and Forsaker levels

[Gemini476]

Hmm, that might be an interesting way to build a D&D version of Rincewind.

If you really want to do this, you can look at his canonical GURPS Discworld stats and find out how they handled it there - and it turns out to be through Magery 1 (No Spellcasting) [3], with a little Delusion ("I AM a wizard, and that's important, whatever people think") [-5] added on. And 12 Int, because that's not as required for magic as in D&D.
Magery 0 lets you see Octarine, know that magic items are magical (and operate them), have a general "sense" for the supernatural, and notice things other people don't.
Magery 1 usually lets you cast spells in addition to that, but for Rincewind this just means that he has an easier time learning his Thaumatology skill (i.e. theoretical magic, mostly just academic).

In D&D terms, this would mean something along the lines of having Spellcraft, Use Magic Device etc. but not actually having the ability to cast spells himself (without external forces changing that fact, like in Sourcery).

One easy way of enabling this, then:
Human Wizard 1
Trait: Spellgifted (INSERT SCHOOL HERE) +1 Caster Level when casting spells of that school, -1 Caster Level when casting spells of other schools.
School Specialization: Banned schools: INSERT SCHOOL HERE
Level 1 feat: Run
Human bonus feat: Skill Focus (Survival)

Fun fact: spells have a minimum caster level to be able to cast. While the specifics may be arguable, I feel it safe to assume that zero is below the minimum caster level. Future levels should be taken in non-Wizardly classes - probably including Survivor, eventually.

[D+1]

So I was wondering lately, is it possible to make a wizard who is forbidden from casting any spells from any spell school? You’re still a wizard on paper, but you are incapable of casting even a cantrip of the specific schools of magic?

Be Rincewind.

[Seward]

in that case, take VoP and Forsaker levels

VoP doesn't work. Somebody could loan you a wand, you could use it and the only consequence is you lose the VoP benefits. You aren't incapable of using the wand.

Foresaker has pretty much the same problem. It is a code of conduct. You can still cast a spell or use a wand and the only consequence is lost of Foresaker class abilities.

Also this challenge assumes wizard1-20 by implication at least. We want to reach a point where it is mechanically a wizard in every way except it is banned from spellcasting. <10 int mostly accomplishes this, but it is a lot more boring than the "specialize it out of existence" exercise we attempted earlier.

[Jervis]

VoP doesn't work. Somebody could loan you a wand, you could use it and the only consequence is you lose the VoP benefits. You aren't incapable of using the wand.

Foresaker has pretty much the same problem. It is a code of conduct. You can still cast a spell or use a wand and the only consequence is lost of Foresaker class abilities.

Also this challenge assumes wizard1-20 by implication at least. We want to reach a point where it is mechanically a wizard in every way except it is banned from spellcasting. <10 int mostly accomplishes this, but it is a lot more boring than the "specialize it out of existence" exercise we attempted earlier.

Uh, Planar Wizard + Alignment spell rules maybe? You can make all of your wizard spells have a alignment descriptor, just need to find a way to make it say you can’t cast spells of X alignment

[Seward]

Uh, Planar Wizard + Alignment spell rules maybe? You can make all of your wizard spells have a alignment descriptor, just need to find a way to make it say you can’t cast spells of X alignment

<looks up planar wizard>

Planar Spellcasting (Su): A 10th-level planar wizard learns to channel planar energy through her spells. Upon gaining this ability, the wizard chooses to make her spells anarchic (chaotic), axiomatic (lawful), celestial (good), or fiendish (evil). Her spells gain the indicated alignment descriptor. The wizard can choose any of the four options, regardless of her own alignment

Hmm...problem is the wizard can choose any of the 4 alignments. Is that choice made at levelup, or when prepping each spell.

If it is fixed at level up and if all spells must then get the good descriptor than maybe there is some PRC out there that forces you to not cast any good spells if evil, but unless it absolutely prevents it (like clerics being absolutely unable to prepare or cast cleric spells opposite their alignment) I don't think it works, even if all the "ifs" around this ability fall in favor of forcing the spells to all be aligned.