So, what am I supposed to do now?

[Corbin Jenkins]

So, a friend is GMing a campaign, only there's a catch...well two catches. First, he has introduced some sort of steam-powered firearms. Now, I'm cool with that; I like steampunk. The second catch is that there's no magic. None at all. No casting of any sort and he's only allowing the core books. I'm starting to get bored of playing fighters, I suppose rogue is a possible (if unenthusiastic) choice, and at level four, I'm doubting a barbarian can close before being filled with whatever his guns are firing. That and my monk just asploded.

[Glyde]

Encourage him to add to his setting by putting in homebrewed classes, or alternate ways to cast magic (Such as Geomancy, or technology so advanced / worked on that it resembles magic.)

I remember when I ran a custom steampunk setting, there were additional classes and feats that I introduced to make it more interesting. Riflemen and Engineers were a big hit (Gunners with a lot of cool abilities for shooting folks, and someone who used scattergun type AOE weapons and grenades.)

[Burley]

So, a friend is GMing a campaign, only there's a catch...well two catches. First, he has introduced some sort of steam-powered firearms. Now, I'm cool with that; I like steampunk. The second catch is that there's no magic. None at all. No casting of any sort and he's only allowing the core books. I'm starting to get bored of playing fighters, I suppose rogue is a possible (if unenthusiastic) choice, and at level four, I'm doubting a barbarian can close before being filled with whatever his guns are firing. That and my monk just asploded.

K... I have a comment, and a question.

Comment: LAME!

Question: Are the players allowed access to these guns? I'd like to know what the stats are that they'd take out a barbarian. Unless, y'know... your GM has chopped the rules into bite-size pieces, threw them away, and is doing whatever the junk he wants...

[Tengu_temp]

No caster classes, or no magic items at all? In the second case, you're screwed. In the first, the game will only be very boring. Pity it's core-only, you could play something from ToB or a Factotum. Psions aren't technically casters - maybe you could try being one.

[Storm Bringer]

May I suggest you ask the DM to look into the D20 Modern setting and rules? it seems that if he doesn't like magic/wants to play a setting without it, striaght DnD is really Not The Game For Him.

I believe their is a D20 modern SRD out thier, so it wouldn't even cost any money...........

[Mr.Bookworm]

May I suggest you ask the DM to look into the D20 Modern setting and rules? it seems that if he doesn't like magic/wants to play a setting without it, striaght DnD is really Not The Game For Him.

I believe their is a D20 modern SRD out thier, so it wouldn't even cost any money...........

http://ca.geocities.com/spike_fightw...d/srdhome.html

Here you are.

[Starshade]

Sounds as your DM is underway to remake D&D into something else, if he intend to make a magic free world, he got to replace the magic user classes with something. Inventor, Apothecary, Engineer, or something.

My first idea would be to sugest adapting a non-magical equivalent to some known class, as remaking Eberron's Artificer to non-magic, and let there be a class feature to make steampunkish clockwork automatons as a class feature, chemical "potions" and gizmos instead of magic, and introduce Psions, etc.

Or adapt to something else, as D20 modern? Why does your friend use D&D, for the first off, when there is so many more modern RPG's to use?
If he decide to make a RPG from scratch, and want to use D&D its ok id think, problem is D&D relies on magic to fill the class role niches, so of couse you get problems with no magic.

[Jimp]

Here's the official link to the D20 Modern SRD:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/msrd
It also has the Arcana and Future sourcebooks.

[Sucrose]

I'd recommend that your DM try out the Iron Heroes supplement. I've not played it myself, but it's supposedly chock-full of completely nonmagical classes, who supposedly are able to hold their own without any fancy equipment.

It also has quite a bit more variety for combat archetypes.

Edit: If he's not up for that, you may want to start as a Ranger; decent stealth, full BAB, and some useful nature-y skills that feel like they'd work pretty well in a nonmagical world. Sorry for not answering your actual question before.

Edit2: Obviously, you would need to either get him to agree to give you something (maybe sneak attack progression starting from level 4, or full animal companion progression) in exchange for your lack of spellcasting, or just multiclass out before it became an issue.

[FMArthur]

Maybe he's just planning to introduce magic to your world partway through the campaign. It doesn't seem to make any sense that he'd want to run a no-magic campaign using only core.

[Swordguy]

Main question: was the DM upfront about this at the start of the game? And did you still agree to play knowing this?

If so, cry more. You knew the conditions of the game when you chose to play. Even better, how about trusting your GM to take those limited classes and make an interesting game, rather than depending on varied mechanics to make it interesting?*

As long as the GM was upfront about what he is and isn't using at the start of the game, you don't have an intrinsic right to use any class or item. He's free to modify the setting if he wishes. For further information, see Single-class Campaigns. We did them all the time in 2e...


*If he didn't tell you up front, then your GM needs a boot upside the head.

[Corbin Jenkins]

His wording was...vague. Looking back, almost deliberately so. He left me with the impression that it was going to be low-magic, not no-magic. As for not using d20 modern, I don't know; especially as d20 modern was the first pnp rpg he ever played.

[RagnaroksChosen]

I'd say play some thing odd.. like a fighter build that doesn't make any sense...

or a halfling fighter that specialises in a sling...

or multiclass to hell take one of each of the core classes that arn't casters.