Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Darthmoe Sep 06, 2014 3:16:44	Background Info   I am going to be starting a restricted magic campaign.  The game is actually a steam punk setting that revolves around a war between eleves (who have almost complete control over magic) and humans who have started to gain the upper hand in the war with technology (muskets, zepplins, cannons, bombs and that sort of thing).  In any case the story is basically a 1700s pirate themed game but with airships and steam punk instead sails.  The players fight for the human side so magic is restricted for them and for this reason I wanted to make non-magical variants of both the Ranger and the Paladin.   In order to replace the Ranger's spell casting ability I gave them a Sneak Attack that starts at 1d6 at level 4 and increases by an additional 1d6 every 4 levels after that.  The Rangers also gain Evasion at level 7.   For the Paladins I replaced their spell casting with a more limited form of the Fighter's Battle Master Superority dice.  At level 3 the Paladin would get 2 Superority dice, but after this point his superority dice increase at the same rate as the Battle Master.  So basically the Paladin plays his whole career with 2 supority dice less than the battle master.   The Paladin is also more limited in the number of manuvers he learns.  He learns 2 manuvers at level 3 and learns 1 additional manuver at levels 7, 10, and 15.     So I guess the question is does this seem like I am even in the right ball park, or are major adjustments needed?
#2 Captain_Kobold Sep 06, 2014 4:14:05	Off the top of my head, almost all of the Paladin's abilities are supernatural. Everything other than Fighting Style is magical. You'd probably be better off just removing them and using Fighters.   Ranger is trickier. Spellcasting and Primeval Awareness are magical, and technically so is the Beast Master Archetype. (But that could likely be refluffed.) Giving them sneak attack fits fairly well.
#3 Macv12 Sep 06, 2014 6:40:27	I'll assume you already thought of this, BUT, just in case. It's not extremely hard to reflavor magic as mundane abilities.   The Ranger is especially suited to this. Things like Alarm, Animal Friendship, the various volley-type spells, etc. can easily be considered non-magical. The cool campaign flavor just gave me an epic vision of the arrow spells being the alternate firing mode of some steam-powered gun firing railroad spikes or something. Cure Wounds is touch-range anyway and could be a medicinal thing, or you could cut it if you don't want insta-healing powers. Some effects might not work, but many should.   It seems like you've offered Sneak Attack to make up for Hunter's Mark, but I'm not sure it compares well. Hunter's Mark works multiple times per turn and doesn't require positioning tricks. The balance probably shifts at higher levels though. The Ranger does offer some unique and compelling stuff outside of spells, so I could see making a Ranger under these rules.   The Paladin is a bit different. I'm with Captain_Kobold here. What's the draw of playing a Paladin under these changes? It seems like they have the same defenses, weapons, and styles as a Fighter mostly, but an inferior version of one of its paths, and the lack of smites tanks their offense. Channel Divinity would presumably be removed for the same reason as spells? And it would be strange for them to suddenly sprout wings and start flying around at high level when they didn't have any magic until then.   If the auras, smites, and channel divinities remain, I don't know why spells couldn't. Paladins also get a lot of self- and weapon-buff powers that could conceivably be attributed to non-magical effects. I like the idea of a "paladin" with glass tubes of bubbling alchemical fluid that explode in fire and flashes of light and such when released.   Without extensive reflavoring, I'm not sure how a Paladin could be salvaged.
#4 Darthmoe Sep 06, 2014 13:27:38	Very good points that I never though of! To make it simple I'll just call it alchemy and change magic very little. Most of the magic like abilities I really wasn't going to touch anyway or change for example Smite just would have been a really motivated hit but the mechanics were not really going to change. How would you go about treating alchemy diffrently from magic though because true magic is supposed to be better in this campaign setting. Yes it's mostly a flavor thing but there should be some form of mechanical argument to support that. Of the top of my head I am thinking higher component costs for alchemy and possibly longer casting times just to illustrate the point that it is a little bit inferior to magic. Wizards are an NPC only class in this game so I might also give a couple extra spell slots or something. Also in this setting magic probably never has component costs. Of course the fact that this game basically has only secondary on one side (the side that uses alchemy) vs. The side that actually has true wizards alchemy is already going to look a bit inferior anyway. I am thinking that alchemy has a component cost of 10 GP X Spell Level (thhis price subject to change) plus any additional component costs needed for the spell. In contrast magic is a 100% free and never even uses components. I liked the idea of a Ranger with a sneak but don't want to mess with the balance too much. So will probably forget about the whole thing.
#5 Thoughts_My_Aim Sep 06, 2014 13:43:00	Second those who suggest refluffing the Ranger as non-magical. The Paladin is a bit more explicitly "I draw on holy power" though, so I'm not quite so certain how well it would stack up to make them non-magical.
#6 dungeondude Sep 06, 2014 20:20:11	Over in in the PLAYER HELP forum, there is a thread on pre-generated characters.   Someone did a awesome job, creating a non-magic ranger using just the basics! VERY cool!  [really, just a fighter, but again sweet]   Check out this link, it may give you some additional ideas.   http://community.wizards.com/comment/50977606#comment-50977606
(Reply to #4) Macv12	Darthmoe wrote: