Spell-Less Classes

[brass]

A bit of bugbear of mine has been the fact that a lot of 3.5 classes cast spells. Has anyone else used the spell less versions of these classes.

I myself am working on a spell-less Bard for pathfinder.

[ewancummins]

A bit of bugbear of mine has been the fact that a lot of 3.5 classes cast spells. Has anyone else used the spell less versions of these classes.

I myself am working on a spell-less Bard for pathfinder.

I have not. I do agree that 3.5 is chock full of spellcasters.

You might look at the knight and the scout as base classes. They make nice additions to the roster of playable classes, IMO.

[steveflam]

Monks have no spells. Assassins IMO shouldn't have any as well.

[Lovecraftforever]

Warrior? Soldier? Loremaster? Goon?

[cure]

I agree and would be interested in seeing the results of an attempt to address the matter. For my part, I have two non-spell using, non-magical prestige class projects afoot: chiurgeon & mad scientist.

[Jester of the FoS]

One trick I'm fond of using is going through expanded spell lists (the Spell Compendium is essential for this) and picking decent spells for some non-spellcasty classes and turning them into 1/day (and eventually 2/day) abilities.
Classes like rangers and paladins work nicely with this.

[steveflam]

I agree and would be interested in seeing the results of an attempt to address the matter. For my part, I have two non-spell using, non-magical prestige class projects afoot: chiurgeon & mad scientist.

Can you find those in MoTrd?

[cure]

I agree and would be interested in seeing the results of an attempt to address the matter. For my part, I have two non-spell using, non-magical prestige class projects afoot: chiurgeon & mad scientist.

Can you find those in MoTrd?

No, there are being built from scratch. Or more precisely, the chiurgeon class is wholly inspired and significantly endebted to that proposed for 2e by Wyatt in one of the Books of S. The mad scientist is from scratch. Primative version of both have been posted in the forum in the past. But one of the problems that is being ironied out was subterrean influence of spellcasting still lurking about the latter and competing, I suppose, with magical healing in the case of the former.

[steveflam]

Hmmmm a chirurgeon could work without any spellcasting abilities.

Try maybe knowledges in medicine and anatomy? Good dexterity..... kind of late here and tired but that is a start, no?

[cure]

Hmmmm a chirurgeon could work without any spellcasting abilities.

Try maybe knowledges in medicine and anatomy? Good dexterity..... kind of late here and tired but that is a start, no?

Things have advanced since this, but it is at least highly suggestive:
http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/foru ... =chiurgeon

[cure]

Hmmmm a chirurgeon could work without any spellcasting abilities.

Try maybe knowledges in medicine and anatomy? Good dexterity..... kind of late here and tired but that is a start, no?

Here is the updated intro to the prestige class:

"CHIURGEON

The chiurgeon staunches bleeding, drives out disease, and reattaches, or even replaces, lost appendages by means of unprecedented insight into corporeal mechanics. The "miracles" worked by members of this prestige class are not god given. They are not born of the harnassing of energies from without or within. Chiurgeons are not clerics, are not arcane spellcasters, are not psions. Their astonishing results are feats of advanced biological knowledge. Very often these results are also feats of dexterous hands capable of exploiting that knowledge. However much or little respect chiurgeons may have for other traditions that tend to the injured, sick and dying, they pursue their vocation with the conviction that it is built upon superior knowledge of the treated subject. The chiurgeon, as opposed to the village wise woman or the divine healer, is the master of a body of science, not the credulous instrument of a tradition. And the chiurgeon, as opposed to the most educated scientist of the arcane, is a mechanic of the body. Even the necromancer, who could conceivably be every bit as much a scientist, cannot boast of a comparable knowledge of the treated subject, for the necromancer would exercise mastery not over life but rather death. The chiurgeon then stands alone as the scientist of corporeal mechanics.

The science of corporeal mechanics was largely pioneered in Lamordia where chiurgeons are mostly esteemed both for their cutting-edge research and as the land's principe source of medical treatment. Chiurgeons can also be found in university medical research departments and in the large and small cities, and even the towns, of advanced lands such as Borca, Dementlieu, Mordent, Noso, Paridon, Richemulot, and parts of Darkon. Outside of the university, however, chiurgeons suffer from a poor reputation. Practitioners of other forms of healing openly brand them butchers and those with the wealth or connections to secure aid from priests tend to repeat the accusation. Chiurgeons offering their services to the poor at greatly reduced rates, or even for free, enjoy a somewhat better reputation, at least among that class. Still, ugly rumours and lurid stories lend even the most upstanding chiurgeon a sinister cast. And not without reason, for chiurgeons conceive of themselves not as healers but as medical researchers. Their growing obsession with the advancement of their science is the other side of their diminishing respect for the norms and traditions of a community and of the well-being of its members taken individually. Chiurgeons are prone to concluding that they are not at the service of patients and of society, rather but it is society and patients who exist - or at least should exist - in the service of their science. Such an attitude, and its accompanying behaviour, is more likely to be noticed and challenged in small, tight-knit, traditional communities. Thus few chiurgeons engaged in advanced research venture into the more backward lands, taking seriously the threat of death by pitchfork. In Falkovnia, however, chiurgeons are readily conscripted into the army where they can easily spend the rest of their lives enjoying, by the abysmal standards of that land, a degree of security and comfort. There is also some demand on ships, particularly those sailing out of Ludendorf, for chiurgeons.

Chiurgeons are not to their last atheists. A chiurgeon may see the work of divine healers as complementry and thus have no bone to pick with the gods. That tends to be the exception not the rule however. A chiurgeon with a kind word for a cleric or a cleric with a kind word for a chiurgeon is a rare bird. Three factors foster this mutual antipathy: the scientific arrogance of the chiurgeon that is every bit the equal of the theological arrogance of the cleric; the rivalry between the chiurgeon and the cleric for clients and ultimately adherents; and the differences of class between the majority of their respective clients.

Chiurgeons hold to a less uniform opinion of magic. Where magic is studied and taught as a science, chiurgeons are likely to recognise it and its practitioners as engaging in a valid scientific endeavour, albeit one wholly unrelated to their own. Such places are conceivably as narrowly circumscribed as the walls of the University of Dementlieu and of the Brautslava Institute, which do, however, produce a significant nunber of chiurgeons. Where magic is derided as obscurantist superstition, chiurgeons are likely to heap scorn upon it and those claiming to be its practitioners. Such is the case of Lamordia and its chiurgeons. Where the reality of magic is admitted but its practice is held to be an obscure, even unnatural art, chiurgeons are likely to see it and its practitioners as, at best, untrustworthy and as, at worst, a dangerous threat to the proper order of things.

Experts most readily and most frequently become chiurgeons. Aristocrats who become chiurgeons often enjoy the luxury of not having to open a public practice for the financing of their research. Rangers have ready access to the prestige class and make for worthy country or travelling doctors with a thoroughly vicious, but well trained, animal at their side. Although clerics, druids and paladins also have ready access to this prestige class, none is dispositionally suited to it. Rogues do not have ready access to this prestige class, but there are features of each class that complement the other and would make for a worthy serial killer or a physician doubling as the torturer in a thieves' guild or on a pirate ship."

[alhoon]

I removed the spellcasting abilities of rangers and instead gave them minor extraordinary abilities (Their choice) that would kinda offset the spell loss, useable in a similar fashion.

For example, at 4th level, they get stealthy feat and can cover their tracks while moving in normal speed. At the level when they get 2nd level spells they get a +4 competence bonus to all saves vs element attacks to represent the loss of "resist elements" and a +4 to heal checks when using herbs etc.

Essentially think of 2 spells or something the character would have memorized (or in case of PCs, just ask) and give a skill bonus, feat or extraordinary ability that does the same thing.
It also gives greater variety to the ranger class, as some rangers would have the "longstrider replacement" ability (i.e +10' speed like barbarians) while others would have the "speak with animals replacement ability" of +4 to handle animal checks and wild empathy checks (or just a plain spell likeability to speak with animals a few times per day. )

[Ail]

That is nice for Rangers, and that was one of the classes I'd like to replace spells in, Alhoon. But do you have any suggestion for Bard, for example? Or is a spell-less bard just a plain old rogue, almost?

[cure]

Or is a spell-less bard just a plain old rogue, almost?

It dependents. Does his/her singing still enchant, inspire courage, and the like? If so, then still a bard, not a rogue. If not, a rogue and/or expert. Were I to attempt to take the spellcasting out of the bard, I would keep the effects from the singing and probably even increase them in various ways. Then I would turn to the tacitcs employed above in respect to rangers.

[brass]

The spell-less bard I'm working on for pathfinder, will be getting life talents every 3 levels related to different paths in life. Still working on the talents themselves but here is the outline of the class feature. I'm aiming for a power level just above Star Wars Saga Talents to compensate for the loss of spells.

Life Talents (Ex): At 1st level and every 3 levels thereafter an adventurous bard gains a Life Talent. Each life talent has a descriptor from the following list; Explorer, Pirate, Romantic, Savage and Scoundrel. Life talents will often have a prerequisite number and/or type of other Life talent you must have taken before you gain access to them.

Explorer Life Talents
Explorer talents never have a type of life talent as a prerequisite. They are often abilities that a bard in any path of life can find useful.

Pirate Life Talents
It’s a pirate’s life for me! Pirate talents are all about the call of the sea and ship board life. Often Bards who specialise in these talents become ship captains.

Romantic Life Talents
Romantic talents are often about focusing all your charisma at one target, be a virgin queen or a simple farmer. Such victims of cupid arrow often walk around in a daze thinking of nothing but the bard.

Savage Life Talents
Savage talents are more at home in the arena of tribal warfare and in the advisory life of a village elder. Such bards are often consulted and protected by barbarians.

Scoundrel Life Talents
Scoundrel life talents are often related to the inappropriate obtaining of other peoples wealth or property. In short bard who take such talents are often con-men and charlatans with a twinkle in their eyes.