World Building Implications of PoW Only Classes [Pathfinder]

I'm working on world building a campaign setting wherein the only classes that exist would be PoW classes, non-magical martials (with or without PoW archetypes), and classes where maneuver progression has replaced any spell-casting capacity. The players are all full martial classes btw. There would limited (if no) access to magic items that replicate spellcasting fully (such as staffs, wands, and scrolls). I'm allowing potions for healing, which I'll probably extend in their scope. Monsters with casting would be rare, and unique, or would have their casting replaced with appropriate martial initiation powers. Right now I'm at the start of my world design, and wanted to probe you lot for inspiration and ideas. How would such a world look to you? Are there any ramifications of the proposed design? Thought, ideas?

Anyway, thanks!

Sounds like a good wuxia setting idea.

Lack of healing/restoration/resurrection is going to be a problem.

Are there going to be a lot of monsters, or will most opponents be other martial artists? Intangible monsters (especially undead) will be horrendously unbalanced. (So will anything that can fly.)

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Originally Posted by Arbane

Sounds like a good wuxia setting idea.

Lack of healing/restoration/resurrection is going to be a problem.

Are there going to be a lot of monsters, or will most opponents be other martial artists? Intangible monsters (especially undead) will be horrendously unbalanced. (So will anything that can fly.)

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I was leaning towards something Wuxia like. However, much of PoW is suitable for western fighting styles.

I'm planning on buffing healing potions to heal a lot more to make them more worthwhile (more tiers than CLW, CMW, and CSW), and resurrection would have to be something obtained in-game, but not impossible.

I think dueling should be a large component of the campaign and monsters would be secondary, but that will depend on what the players decide they want to do.
Flying might be a tad unbalanced, but I know one character is focusing on ranged already, so that should help. I'll need to make sure they have energy attacks or ghost touch weapons before throwing incorporeal enemies at them.

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Originally Posted by Arbane

Lack of healing/restoration/resurrection is going to be a problem.

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Depends on what PoW content you use.

The Medic PoW class (Divergent Paths: Medic) gets healing as a class ability, including raise dead / resurrection at appropriate levels.

Silver Crane (usually requires a swap in of some type, trait, archetype or martial group) and Radiant Dawn (free swap for any class, from Divergent Paths: Rajah) both supply healing. Maneuvers being effectively unlimited use, healing isn't so much rare as binary (either someone nearby has it, in which case everyone gets healing as needed, or no one has it).

Also: Radiant Dawn has a mid level maneuver (Noblesse Oblige) that can prevent a death that would occur, and their highest can bring back multiple characters at once. Caveats and stipulations apply to these maneuvers, but they exist.

Would you be changing the Mystic's Mystic Artifice ability? Normally they can make spell completion items just by making more spellcraft checks, which they already need to be good at to make magic items. You could just say that the proportion of mystics:nonmystics in your setting is lower than casters:noncasters in a standard setting

One thing to consider is what you would do about prestige classes like Bladecaster, mage slayer, battle templar, or awakened blade that add or progress casting or manifesting. Also class archetypes that add maneuvers without eliminating the casting/manifesting of the base class like psychic warrior, alchemist/investigator, warpriest/Inquisitor or rogue (Eldritch scoundrel stacks with hidden blade just fine). How would these classes be affected in your world?

A Wuxia world would be fun to play in. One thing that a lack of casters means would be that magic items would be harder to make without the required spells.

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Originally Posted by Ironsides

A Wuxia world would be fun to play in. One thing that a lack of casters means would be that magic items would be harder to make without the required spells.

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Yeh, OP might want to use the inherent bonus variant in PF Unchained. (Or just ignore it - if NOBODY has boost items, it should even out?)

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Originally Posted by Arbane

Yeh, OP might want to use the inherent bonus variant in PF Unchained. (Or just ignore it - if NOBODY has boost items, it should even out?)

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NPCs usually have a lot less wealth than a PC, and many animals/monsters don't have items at all. Pretty sure this would be unfavorable for the PCs.

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Originally Posted by Lotheb

Would you be changing the Mystic's Mystic Artifice ability? Normally they can make spell completion items just by making more spellcraft checks, which they already need to be good at to make magic items. You could just say that the proportion of mystics:nonmystics in your setting is lower than casters:noncasters in a standard setting

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That is something I'll have to think about.

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Originally Posted by Arbane

Yeh, OP might want to use the inherent bonus variant in PF Unchained. (Or just ignore it - if NOBODY has boost items, it should even out?)

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I was planning on using the inherent bonus of PF unchained, allowing magic items that add interesting abilities as one-of-a-kind rarities.

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Originally Posted by Elricaltovilla

One thing to consider is what you would do about prestige classes like Bladecaster, mage slayer, battle templar, or awakened blade that add or progress casting or manifesting. Also class archetypes that add maneuvers without eliminating the casting/manifesting of the base class like psychic warrior, alchemist/investigator, warpriest/Inquisitor or rogue (Eldritch scoundrel stacks with hidden blade just fine). How would these classes be affected in your world?

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Those archetypes/prestige classes would probably just not exist, or I'd have to houserule them differently if someone really wanted to play as one.

If you don't want any kind of magic item to be widely available then you should also consider banning or upping the prereqs on the Master Craftsman feat.

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Originally Posted by Arbane

Yeh, OP might want to use the inherent bonus variant in PF Unchained. (Or just ignore it - if NOBODY has boost items, it should even out?)

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If nobody has boost items, then the monsters win - their stats assume you have boost items. Game's built around that. And if the idea is to make magic items in general very rare, then the bonus progression gets bumped up a couple of levels to stay relevant. Personally, I do that anyway, just because I think the numbers are under-tuned.

I'd say give an honest look to Spheres of Might as well, it's a mostly (Maybe all) mundane book, that revises a lot of the mundane archtypes and makes them more viable, with more options to go wide instead of tall.

As others have said, some monsters are vastly more powerful then others in a no-magic/ low-magic world. I'd honestly do some research on an E6 game and see some of the limitations they have to apply due to having no access to certain types of magic. A lot of it will apply to you as well I think. Seems like it'd be a super fun idea though.

Doesn't the Veiled Moon discipline pack an assortment of anti-incorporeal Strikes/Boosts?

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Originally Posted by The Glyphstone

Doesn't the Veiled Moon discipline pack an assortment of anti-incorporeal Strikes/Boosts?

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Yes, and there are a couple other things scattered around in the other disciplines I believe.

Things initiating has covered pretty well:
Melee damage, ranged damage, varied weapons/fighting styles, personal mobility, debuffing/action denial, personal defense/self buffing, combat maneuvers.

Things initiating has covered ok (only one or two disciplines, only some parts or only specific classes):
Healing/condition removal, group buffing/group protection, alternate movement modes, skill usage, action economy manipulation, magic item creation, shapeshifting, energy damage, nonlethal combat, scouting.

Things that as far as i can find initiating doesn't cover before level 15 if at all:
Planar travel, longterm nonlethal enemy solutions, minion acquisition, logistics, terrain alteration, immortality.

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Originally Posted by CreepyShutIn

If nobody has boost items, then the monsters win - their stats assume you have boost items. Game's built around that. And if the idea is to make magic items in general very rare, then the bonus progression gets bumped up a couple of levels to stay relevant. Personally, I do that anyway, just because I think the numbers are under-tuned.

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It's trivial to optimise to the point that this is not the case. Not to mention, nothing forces you to use CR. Every party has a different power level: you're the best expert of the appropriate challenge, not some more or less arbitrary number. Thus, this isn't a problem in a real game. Just pick monsters of appropriate power level. Done. Not hard.

Same with incorporeals and stuff, who's saying incorporeals even exist? The game runs fine without them and if you so run them, you can just adjust the rules so that e.g. cold iron either works as Ghost Touch or hits them 50% of the time.

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Originally Posted by dascarletm

Thought, ideas?

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Do you know the old FASA game system and setting Earthdawn?

It used the very plausible and fascinating idea, that there're the mundanes and then there're the Adepts. Adept is a pretty old latin-based concept of someone being "knowledgeable about the mystic truth", originally coined towards alchemy and such.

Roughly translated to PF, the "Ascended" are mortals who explored the "mythic paths" and set the way how basically everyone could reach that goal, too, by following in their footsteps, but which is something that needs dedication and getting into the right mind-set to accomplish, something that holds back the general population from doing so. That means each PoW class is modeled around replicating the exploits of a group of "Ascended", while each martial disciple is replicating what an individual "Ascended" found out as a way to power.

The Earthdawn explanation is, that an "Air Pirate" is a kinda-sorta lifestyle, that is just incompatible with the life of a farmer, while an "Farm Adept" would fit, if such thing would exist, which does, but not above 6th level, translated to PF, same as with crafters and so on.

DSP ported all my favorite systems over from 3.5 to PF. Incarnum, Initiating, and Psionics.

However since they did all three, they didn't see any need to keep them isolated.

The Zealot class, and the Sleeping Goddess discipline tap into the psionic sub-system.

The Rajah class and the Radiant Dawn discipline (by far the strongest healing discipline) tap into the Akasha (Incarnumn redux) subsystem.

So you need to decide if you're doing a PoW only campaign or a DSP only campaign, or some carefully chosen mix.

My thoughts: Akasha is not disruptive at all, the only real thing to consider is that the Craftsman Vizier is a much more powerful craftsman than a Mystic. (On the other hand, I really like the Essence Forged weapons rules.)

Psionics Classes lie along a broader range of power. The Aegis and Soulknife will fit right in. The Psion and Wilder are directly equivalent to the Wizard and Sorcerer however.

So as I see it your option are:

Purity is all: Remove the Zealot, Rajah, Sleeping Goddess and Radiant Dawn.

Ignore it: Let the Zealot and Rajah keep their toys. It really only amounts to a little extra bookkeeping.

DSP All In: Allow everything DSP in. This will reduce the wuxia flavor a bit, and Psion/Wilder/Craftsman Vizier will be clearly on top of the power scale.

Carefully selected mayhem: Pick whatever you want from columns A, B, and C.

POW filtered: You could allow anything with access to Martial Maneuvers which is the Aegis and there are archetypes for Barbarian, Bard, Dread, Fighter, Kineticist, Marksman, Monk, Paladin, Psiwarrior, Ranger, Rogue, Soulknife, Alchemist, Investigator, Inquisitor and Warpriest.

So I have been working on world creation under a similar idea, where magic used to be all powerful but now due to changes in gods and the world magic is now very rare and difficult. Anyways here are some thoughts.

First off getting your hands on Iron Heroes and giving it a read through or a couple read throughs would be a good idea. As it is a game system based off of low/no magic or only the big bad has magic.

Second, overhauling the Heal skill would be in your benefit and shouldn't actually take much work. For example hitting 15 on a first aid check stabilizes the patient, hitting 20 heals 2xlevel of patient in hp, hitting 25 3xlevel and so on and so forth.

Third, magic items without magic becomes easier if you get away from the focus on spells. Instead just keep increasing the success dc's and turn making them into mini adventures where you have to go track down specific creatures or materials to make said magic item. For example, creating an amulet of health might require hunting down troll to use their blood and a dire lion for its heart as components to be used in the creation process.

Considering healing magic is something only certain classes get in default Pathfinder, I think I'd playtest how a group does with just a medic onboard rather than altering the baseline Heal skill system.

Noteworthy feats for a Heal focused character include Signature Skill (Heal) from Pathfinder Unchained and Healer's Hands from Planar Adventures.

I would note that if you'd like to keep any plot-level spell-effects such as resurrection or crossing the planes or if your BBEG needs to do something nasty like tear open the Worldwound or whatnot, there is the option of allowing these by way of occult rituals.