You do need to consider that this limits non-caster characters in a game that already heavily caters to casters. In such a game either all PCs should be casters, or you should handicap caster PCs somehow. Or make full casters NPCs only. That last one is going to have the most literary feel.
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You do need to consider that this limits non-caster characters in a game that already heavily caters to casters. In such a game either all PCs should be casters, or you should handicap caster PCs somehow. Or make full casters NPCs only. That last one is going to have the most literary feel.
I don't know. The arcane spellcaster would have to devote a lot of resources to defense and survival.
Clerics and druids would have the better of two worlds.Obviously the character level would make a lot of difference, but the flying wizard with mirror image and a AC of 16 will see his mirror images disappear at an alarming rate against even a non specialized fighter using a bow at 6th level.
Sure, shield, armor and dex 14 would give you a AC of 20 for a few minutes, but those are 2 of your 5 or 6 first level spells for 6 minutes of good AC.
Most monsters don't use magic items, generally only humanoids use them, so the opposition don't change much.
The biggest problem are the incorporeal monsters that can be damaged only by magic items, but that simply mean that the spellcaster need to dedicate some spellslot to magic weapon or greater magic weapon and similar spells, limiting again their ability to use other spells.
As long as the spellcaster don't play "Me, me, me only" they will don't dominate the game.
This might be a campaign best run as an e6, which generally avoids the alleged high level power disparity between the classes that are unplayably bad and the ones that are overpowered and broken, whichever those are. I'd like to see it, with or without e6, because I dislike the flavor of magic everything at high level play.
Obviously, things like how to handle incorporeal monsters might need to be adjusted, but I can't think of too many things that just can't be done.
Just remember that armor class for martial characters would cap almost immediately while attack bonuses would still go up every level.
Incorporeal enemies and certain forms of DR would start getting a lot more powerful than they currently are in a game with no magic items.
Monks might also be a little bit more viable at higher levels, maybe. Lack of Amulet of Mighty Fists hurts a bit, but their attack dice get to scale naturally instead of having to rely on magic weapons, and their ki lets them break through the DR/magic and other things that other classes are now having lots of trouble with.
I don't know. The arcane spellcaster would have to devote a lot of resources to defense and survival.
Not really more than he already does. If you are relying on non-spell resources for your defense as a Wizard/Sorcerer You Are Doing It Wrong. Classes without Mirror Image/Invisibility/Mage Armor/Shield/Fly/And So On available to them is of course another case entirely.
Most traditional fantasy adventure stories you read there are no magic items, or very few magic items. In most cases only the hero and/or the villain are the only ones with a magic item.
Which seems kind of odd, considering that Tolkien's Hobbit and Lord of the Rings were rife with the things. You couldn't seem to adventure for more than a couple of days without finding a hoard full of magic stuff.
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I don't know. The arcane spellcaster would have to devote a lot of resources to defense and survival.Not really more than he already does. If you are relying on non-spell resources for your defense as a Wizard/Sorcerer You Are Doing It Wrong. Classes without Mirror Image/Invisibility/Mage Armor/Shield/Fly/And So On available to them is of course another case entirely.
But the use of those resource tax you less if you have scrolls, peals of powers, wands, staffs, items that increase your intelligence and so on.
Magic missile is a great spell with a lot of uses, but if I am limited to 5 or 6 first level spells and no magic items, I will rarely memorize enough instances of the spell to make it really useful (like an encounter in which you meet incorporeal creatures).
In a campaign where magic items are available a wand that cast MM at level 5 is a affordable item even a low-middle levels and has plenty of uses (from doing the last points of damage on a badly hurt foe to fighting the incorporeal adversaries).
My first level list of memorized spells would be something like :
Mage armor, Shield, Shield, Protection from Evil, Protection from Evil.
Mage armor and shield are must to get a basic armor class, so that I am nor reduced to a pincushion by 1 hd brigands.
Protection from Evil is great both for my protection and those of my companions. As some of them will have the will save as a bad save and no magic items to boost it, PfE is mandatory to protect them from enemies that relies on charming or dominating adversaries.
Magic circle against evil could substitute PfE after we have got a few levels, but it limit the party movement to 10' around the target creature if we want to benefit from the spell. Not healthy.
I've actually run a campaign like this, where magic items were at the very least absurdly rare, if not impossible to come by. The reaction of the party was to assume that magic would be overpowered. What they instead ended up finding that without devoting a great deal of their casting resources to defensive capabilities, the casters in question would quickly be overrun, and it was actually the more martial classes that ended up shining.
Usually I find that casters have to devote resources to defense because the DM knows that they're more powerful and paints a big target on them. For example, if I'm playing a wizard and see monsters with ranged attacks, I'm resigned to being the target of most of them just because wizards can do so much more in combat. So it's not a case of casters being underwhelming in-play because they need to devote time to defense. It's that casters need to be impeded because they can do more, leaving less attention to matials.
To use a sports analogy, if I'm playing the Miami Heat, I'm game-planning for Lebron James, not Mario Chalmers. If my plan is successful and I still lose because Chalmers scores 30 points while I've held James to 10, it doesn't suddenly make Chalmers better than LeBron.
And yeah, no magic items seems to favor casters a lot more, even if you restrict access to uncommon spell components and if you ban things like Scribe Scroll. A lack of magic armor will probably mean that martial characters are actually even squished than casters at higher levels when casters are riding their hour/level buffs and nom-casters have no equivalent.
This might be a campaign best run as an e6, which generally avoids the alleged high level power disparity between the classes that are unplayably bad and the ones that are overpowered and broken, whichever those are.
This. Also, in a typical E6 life cycle, you're less likely to have tons and tons of gold to spend on christmas tree decorations.
For a long-term campaign that's going all the way into the 12-20 range, you're going to want to adopt a system that gets noncasters the kinds of bonuses that they would normally get by equipping magical items. Otherwise they'll suck next to casters. Alternatively, you could just nerf casters, but that comes with two problems: first, it won't be fun for the casters; second, the party will be weak and you'll need to adjust their APL down.