How can I adapt D&D 5e for a no-magic environment? I want to make magic something mysterious and rare...

Play another system. Seriously, you will spend a lot less time to learn it then to adapt D&D to do something it isn't design to. I was in the same situation once, I had a fantasy setting kinda low magic, sorcery was outlawed and I didn't want wizards flying and blowing shit up. D&D just didn't work the way I wanted so one day I gave RuneQuest a try and it was one of the best decisions in my life. D&D is a pile of garbage, people only play it because they don't know any better.

Just use Riddle of Steel or something. 5e does Swords and Sorcery style fantasy great, but isn't what you're looking for if you want no-magic. Using 5e for no-magic would be like using Shadowrun to run a Bronze Age technology game.

The skeleton for such a system is there, it just requires a bunch of homebrew to fix the finer details.
It would essentially be a variant system at that point, though, so you're still right.

I'm a fan of 5e but I agree with what's been said.

Even in the no-magic world of Dark Sun they cheated by introducing psychic powers everywhere.

You don't, retard.
Look in the DMG, and under Assumptions of the Game World section.
Magic is explicitly in there.

Play a different system.

Stop trying to make DnD into something it isn't. DnD is not a generic all-purpose fantasy system. DnD is for adventures going into dangerous environs and getting into six to eight encounters per day.

use the gritty realism rest variant. so casters take a week to refill spell slots

Youd probably be better off going with WHFRP

By picking different, more suited for it game. D&D works for D&D setting, end of topic. Want to play anything else - pick better-suited game.

You mean on the same page it talks about building your own campaign world, where magic might be super-rare?

That leaves you with two kinds of fighter, two kinds of rogue and one barbarian. Not exactly robust.

So what system is best at "like d&d but no magic"?

DnD4e, use the inherent bonuses rule, only allow martial-ish classes.
That's literally as close as you can get.

If your character classes are Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, Warlord? That's a full, viable party that works.

You can make nearly every type of fighting guy from a Battlemaster, so I have to call bullshit on that.

Just take the battlemaster as the only available class, give them more options (enough to cover roguishness) and roll with it.

No easy magic = no magical monster around every corner

I'm skeptical of those claiming adapting D&D would be a disaster. If playing a warrior isn't boring with casters, I'm not sure why it should be boring without them. A game of RQ6 or GURPS would be just as repetitive without magic if all you did was roll dice at enemies.

It might seem paradoxical, but roleplaying and non combat abilities should be foregrounded more in this scenario, since each character doesn't get a mechanical niche to distinguish themselves (and no, everyone having a different weapon like the ninja turtles does not count).

I do think it'd be important to get out of the D&D mindset, where it's assumed you'll crank through a half dozen encounters a day.

You want to make INT and WIS dump stats, I guess?

>what are Perception and Investigation checks

Try Iron Heroes or Fatal. I played in a couple of iron heroes games and ran one. The only magic using class is basically gamble that your magic doesnt backfire when you try something cool. Implied low magic setting. Also all the martial classes play and feel unique.

Mike Mearls once wrote a 3e-based game called Iron Heroes where all the class were different fighty types.

It was alright.

It also makes you wonder why he hates martials so much now and doesn't give them any interesting abilities.

Whats with all this silly anti-D&D?

All you need to do is restrict the classes and options to the non-magical ones. That's it.

You can still have a diverse party of fighters, rogues, and barbarians, and if you like you can refluff the other classes a bit as well.

Really simple, and works quite well.

The only solution

You replace your copy of 5e with a copy of 4e and the Dark Sun setting.

Badly

Really, who are you guys, and what's with this bad joke you're trying to tell? It's not psrticularly funny.

DnD is fine at what it does.
Low magic is not something it does well.

That said, I am a big fan of refluffing. But DnD5e doesn't make it easy. 4e or Strike, you might have a case.

As it is, if you have a party of fighter/rogues/barbarians, get used to 90% of battlechat being "I move up and attack", because for some reason they thought some classes should be given interesting tactics and not others.

(Battlemaster doesn't count as 'interesting tactics', because 90% of the time the right answer is 'I use trip attack')

You also have to not utilize 4/5ths of the monster manual, for being magical creatures who are resistant or immune to nonmagical weapons.
Enjoy your humans and humanlike humanoids vs. humans and humanlike humanoids: the campaign
Dungeons but no dragons

I'm the pic related user, and this is one of those situations where "stop playing D&D" meme is not a joke, but a real answer.
D&D simply CAN'T work without extensive, high power magic, because it's integral part of the system. You just can't toss out 1/3 of the game and expect from the rest to work, because it fucking won't.
Meanwhile, there are DOZENS of games that are written exactly for what OP asks.

So why not try any of them instead of pointlessly reinventing the wheel?

>How can I adapt D&D 5e for a no-magic environment? I want to make magic something mysterious and rare, like Tolkien does.
Make magic unheard of and feared by the wider world, but realize that adventurers are by their very nature exceptional and let them play whatever. Run the social ramifications of any magic use as fitting the setting.

You're exaggerating, and that doesn't really work in a discussion.

5e is a solid system for non-magical campaigns, and as a default I personally run it as a extremely low-magic campaign where magic is rare. It's a big system, so even if you only end up using a portion of it you still have a lot of material to work with.

The big thing to keep in mind is that a DM isn't an automaton. If the party consists of four fighters, he adjusts the battles to make them exciting for four fighters. It's really that easy.

>How do I play no-magic environment
>Play high-magic environment, just keep it for the party

DND4e works fine with martial only classes, but you must use the inherent bonus rules.

DnD3e works OK with Tome of Battle classes, but you need to houserule easy healing in somehow.

Anything more complex than that, or any other edition... playing something else is 100% the best answer.

>Tome of Battle
>not magic
It's literally called "blade magic." It's right in the name.

I'm not going to jump on the D&D hate bandwagon, but I will bring up a game called Barbarians of Lemuria.

It's really simple, and designed for swords and sorcery (you can play a sorcerer, but the game doesn't revolve around them). It might take a couple days for a GM to get really well versed in the rules, but I taught it to a group of new players by walking them through character creation and rolling right into play. It's about as light as Basic D&D, but all the mechanics players need to know are in plain english.

Bullshit. I did it and it was fun. With 3.5 no less. Not perfect, but using a system everybody already knows can be a virtue under certain circumstances.

>'I use trip attack'
>a whole class based around that bully in the 4th grade who thought it was funny to trip people
>the second time he attempts it, an orc hooks his leg and knocks him flat and the mighty battlemaster starts crying

No matter how exciting you make battles for four fighters, it's still four fighters, which means 90% of battle will be "I attack."
Sometimes you might get real fancy. "I trip." "I disarm." "I shove". That's always an exciting one, shoving. Actual interaction with the combat space!

But it's just not suited overall.

Additionally, something like 50% of the monsters in the MM are resistant to mundane weapons.

Requiring the GM to 'make battles exciting' also means they need to do extra work, because now they can trust the CR system even less than the mess it's currently in.

The point of having a system is so you do LESS work, not more.

>works fine
>but

user, you are shooting yourself in the nads. Stop doing that. There are games out there with no "buts", just being a low/no magic fantasy and being just fine as they are
Why D&D players are so fucking afraid of playing anything else than D&D? No, really, no bashing, sincere question. Why?

>It was fun
>3.5
Oh Jesus, it's the "refluff PF" maymay...

Shadow Hand, Desert Wind, Devoted Spirit, and kinda-sorta Stone Dragon are the semi-magical schools.

Don't pick any of them and it works out fine.
As long as you fluff Devoted Spirit and Stone Dragon appropriately, you can keep those too.

No, it's not a good answer, because that's not what the question was, and the "right" answer is a lot simpler than "use a different system than the one you're asking about as if that system couldn't do it easily".

I can tell from the OP that this was a silly bait thread to begin with (the image, Tolkien as no magic, etc), but really, 5e is still a D&D, which means it's a large enough system that even a third of it still makes it a large game.

I agree with you, and I'm the guy you're responding to. Most DND players need to leave their comfort zone and play something else.

BUT DnD4e in the Dark Sun setting is explicitly meant for this sort of thing as an explicit option. That's why the inherent bonus rules showed up in the Dark Sun setting book - to replace magic item bonuses.

You're still exaggerating. And, even 50% of the monster manual is still an incredible amount of monsters, if you even need to use monsters rather than just using NPC's.

And, it takes very little for a DM to adjust the standard expectations to match a no-magic campaign. Have you really never DM'd before?

I don't believe I did any houseruling or adjusting, aside from not including creatures that directly required spellcasting to defeat. IIRC the few times I threw something at them with DR that prevented them from defeating it with weapons, they would use wrestling, fire, etc.

The group wanted to roll up three martial characters, so I went along with it. They enjoyed domain building, managing followers, and chandelier swinging... so they just used the parts of the rules they thought were fun.

Just because a game isn't D&D doesn't mean it's good (or suitable to what the group wants). So given finite time and attention, it might make more sense to go with the mediocre option and jump right into play.

I mostly GM games other than DnD, although I had a short 13th Age campaign before I decided I didn't like GMing DnD-style combat.

I still enjoy playing it though, and have been playing DnD on and off for quite a while now, including two ongoing DnD5e campaigns.

And I'm telling you that being a fighter or barbarian or rogue is boring as fuuuuuck for everyone who's tried it. Our 'fighter' player switched to playing a paladin as soon as they could.

Paladin's a great DnD5e class. Monk and warlock are alright too. If only they were all designed around that balance point.

user, I don't give a fuck about edition wars. If someone asks me for a game capable of upholding low/no magic, I won't tell them "try D&D", it's that simple. If you seriously think it's about editions and not just the game being not good as anything else than heroic high fantasy - sorry to disappoint you.

As someone who's played extensively as a fighter and a little as a rogue and run games for fighters and rogues, I can earnestly reply by saying you are exaggerating.

It might be because you had a particularly bad DM, because I really can't see your claims as anything except hyperbole.

Why do people insist on using D&D for games its not meant for? Are you that afraid of learning a new system?

>Implying average D&D player is capable of playing anything else after roughtly 4 months of exposure

That's not what they asked, system-war-kun.

And, you're still pretending 5e isn't really easy to use for no-magic games. Other games may be designed exclusively without magic, but 5e's core ruleset is versatile enough to run a no-magic game without facing any major hurdles.

So, please, stop pretending to be above anything.

Unfortunately I cannot exaggerate actual experience. I can tell you, with a straight face, that when I played a fighter it was boring in combat (I enjoyed myself in conversation, but that's not something affected by DnD rules), and we had a barbarian later and they were bored in combat, and we have a rogue and they're quite interesting and devious and they're also bored as fuck in combat because of the limited options.

Meanwhile, when those same players played casters or even just characters with varied abilities, the game was enjoyable.
One definition of what makes a game fun is 'a series of interesting decisions'. Some classes have fewer decisions, and are less fun.

And there are games out there that are good and that DO let nonmagical people make interesting decisions.

>And, you're still pretending 5e isn't really easy to use for no-magic games
I never said a single word about ANY edition of D&D, you obnoxious cunt. My entire point is how you shouldn't use D&D for playing non-D&D setting.

If anything, stop pretending that the only game you ever played is also the best game to run everything with it. Variety exists for a reason. Sticking with single game and changing anything in it or avoiding/adding rules to make it work with different setting, when there is better suited product for that already is simply counter-productive.
Here, let's try an example. You've got your nice semi-truck, great at delivering stuff to shop. Now if you install benches in the back, it would make also a great transport for people. Sure, a bit windy, but hey, it can work!
Or you could use a small bus. Or just regular car for that. Both better suited and not requiring any works.
Given how games are MUCH cheaper than even used cars - yeah, go figure.

It just sounds like you have different preferences. You prefer casters. That's really it.

I know people who prefer rogues over casters. Likewise with fighters. They enjoy the options they have (including the ability to improvise) while not really enjoying the spell system. That's their personal taste.

And, exaggeration includes trying to use your personal preferences and experiences to make blanket statements.

>You all are wrong
>I'm the only one right
>Leave me alone with my favourite game

Actually, it's fine by me, here, take your D&D. But don't ask questions how to refluff it. Ever. Just play it.

You're still pretending D&D isn't versatile, and your hate boner for it is showing through.

If someone asks how to adapt something that can easily be adapted, why pretend it can't be adapted? It just sounds like you don't really appreciate how easy it is.

Oh, so I was talking to a troll. Should have known.

>pretending D&D isn't versatile
I have nothing to pretend. The game is NOT versalite, it's that simple. Let's see
>Absolutely unable to support non-combat party
>Unable to be anything else than high fantasy
>Unable to seriously support ranged combat
>Unable to support any other setting than relatively low tech ones
>Unable to have any other magic than high-power one
And so on and forth.
Here goes your "versality"

>If someone asks how to adapt something that can easily be adapted
Different user, but what for exactly? Why should you rework half of the game only to produce in the end inferior and home-made version of already existing game (or even games)? It's very simple - if some shit already exists and is tailored for specific setting, you pick it and use it.
Have you seen any "refluff Cyberpunk 2020" threads, so you can play it as steampunk game? How about "refluff Call of Cthulhu" to get action-adventure game with cinematic combat out of it?

Yet we constantly have "refluff D&D" threads, with entire section of fa/tg/uys completely unable to graps how futile and simply pointless it is. It's like hammering nails with a cooking pot. You can, sure. But why not use hammer?

DnD is less versatile than many popular games (popular being relative - obviously DnD is a Starbucks chain, as compared to a local coffee shop).

Savage Worlds, Fate, GURPS, these are somewhat versatile games. DnD is quite rigid in comparison.

It's not reworking half the game. It's usually just selecting a few options and working with a particular style.

It's a good system and it's versatile. No need to pretend it isn't out of some bizarre hatred.

>It's a good system and it's versalite
>If I will repeat it for another 94 times, it will became true

Will we get ANY counter arguments out of you or there is no point waiting?

>Inb4 "HURR THOSE ARE MODULAR GENERIC GAMES DURR"

WFRP, being a fantasy-themed game with pretty specific rules tailored for the setting is also much more versalite than DnD, so you can easily apply it to any game you would like to play.

What argument will work on a hater-troll?

Any, really. Because so far you've provided none, just repeating like a mantra "It's a versalite game, it's a versalite game, it's a versalite game".
Truth is - you can't prove the game is versalite, because it's not. Those anons: already pointed out why.

So it's not as much as "hater-troll", as simple truth. The game isn't even versalite in the field of "standard generic medievalesque fantasy", because it can only support high fantasy with lots of heroics in it properly.

If you're going to deny the obvious and demand people to explain it to you, can you really fault them for reasoning that you'll deny whatever they will tell you?

It's versatile. How else do you want this explained to you? Want me to run you through a million-and-one diverse campaigns in every genre imaginable? I suspect not, because all you're really here for is some weird internet political posturing.

Other games have their strengths (as well as weaknesses), but that's no reason to act like there's anything wrong with D&D and adapting it to suit your needs if you like the core system. It all just comes down to you hating what's popular, and you might as well spend your time avoiding D&D threads rather than rushing to them in order to make a fool of yourself and your obsessive hatred.

>still can't provide one measly counterexample to the provided arguments

D&D is not versatile. It works for high power magic dungeon crawling. That's it.

You make these sort of ridiculous claims and expect to be taken seriously. That's why it's fair to call you a poor troll.

Not that user, but it's not a ridiculous claim to say that D&D has a rather rigid core system. Like, character prowess in everything is tied to levels for a starter.

I'm still waiting on that counterexample to 's examples.

4e being 4e you can easily refluff a number of the magic welding classes into non-magic ones. A friend of mine once played a cleric fluffed into a non-magic healer, throwing out kind words and commands like a warlord, and applying bandages and tossing handmade potions instead of shooting healing beams, etc

Counter examples to claims that can be easily dismissed?
You put too much value in your opinions.

Please, you poor troll, you're making silly and ridiculous claims and expecting people to treat you like you've got points worth discussing. This is hardly an argument, and more of just me explaining that you can't expect people to take you seriouslyjust because you act so serious while being so ridiculous.