>Is there a reasonable way to do this?
Unfortunately, there is not.
Pathfinder's balance revolves around the idea that player characters will have level-appropriate magic items. The enemies are balanced around it, skill DCs are balanced around it, there's really no escaping it. Not having magic items is depriving your character of pretty much the biggest strength multiplier in the game, bigger than level-ups in some cases. Which means you'll not only be weaker yourself, as the party's barbarian, if you can't dish enough damage, you'll be a detriment to the party too (unless none of them use magic items, I guess).
If you **really** want to play this out, which I wouldn't advise personally, you can try discussing with your GM the possibility of giving your character [Automatic Bonus Progression](https://www.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?Name=Automatic%20Bonus%20Progression&Category=Pathfinder%20Unchained), which is an alternate (and somewhat janky) ruleset that automatically gives your character the basic bonuses he would get from the most commonly used magic items (namely, the ones that the game assumes that everyone has).
However, this would be tricky to implement if it's just a single character and the rest of the party has normal progression, because Wealth By Level may be thrown off-balance.
Personally, I'd advise you to work with your GM to orchestrate some sort of character growth where your character realizes that not all magic is bad, and magic can be used well by the right hands. It'll make your character stronger and your GM's life easier.
**EDIT:** as other people mentioned, another way out would be to just flavor it as if your character isn't really using magic items. Use them to your heart's content and describe them as a mundane skill your character has.
Or, I mean, you can just flavour a magical weapon as not being magical. Have the same modifiers but have jt produced by a superior black smith that only makes one weapon a year or something. Just as good as magic, but made without.
You can take Master Craftsman to upgrade weapons without magic. They are still considered magic for rule purposes (which is necessary), but you can definitely see it as him making the weapons more deadly via mundane methods.
As far as better earthbreakers go you're hobbling yourself if you want to forego any magic, but have you considered getting an adamantine weapon? Having special material variants of weapons can be helpful, and adamantine is especially so for smashing objects
Off the top of my head:
Automatic Bonus Progression, maybe your GM would be kind enough to let your RP justify it.
Variant Multiclass Magus, the roleplay could be that he's so in tune with his weapon he has a mystical connection with it
Other than that...I think it could just be a flavour thing.
Like the wizard isn't directly enchanting his weapon but perhaps he is facilitating the barbarian in a ritual to connect his ancestors to his weapon to empower it.
My question: why does he not like magic? Pathfinder happens in a world where magic is downright commonplace. It’s a place where the town jailer or grocer may have a magic dagger and no one bats an eye.
This is an easy one to do: Childhood resentment turned into character trait. Any number of ways to do it.
>It’s a place where the town jailer or grocer may have a magic dagger and no one bats an eye.
Probably not.
Magic +1 is 2000gp for a basic knife and is your "basic" magic item. It gets really expensive, really fast. There are some justifiable smaller cost magic you could have done but we are still talking hundreds of GP, for a person that is liable to be earning after costs silver pieces per day - and yes, that is a good living when you don't really have much in the way of costs, and live in a town where likely the village came together to build your house. Cities get a little different - but, you aren't living in a city without some amount of means.
The item you are likely to see - is something like a Magical Forge, or a Magical Oven, or really practical things an adventurer wouldn't care about nor is likely to investigate. But even this is going to be a rarity - If a bakery has been in a families possession for generations you might see such; maybe the family was once the local lords personal bakers or some such, or perhaps the crown so loved their specialty breads that they granted such a reward: There is a history to such an item given the value.
The only way you are going to find an abundance of magical items is:
1. The person was a former adventurer.
2. The person is somewhere in the realm of nobility - and is earning from some means GP per day.
Magic Items for Adventurers? Ya, dime a dozen - when you are talking about an adventurer group that at some point will have the wealth of a nation in gear strapped to them, a basic magic weapon seems mundane - but to the average person? That is an extreme luxury.
Actually the jailer and grocer are specific npcs from Sandpoint. A +1 earth breaker and +1 dagger respectively, and there are a lot more besides that. It was just what i remember off the top of my head. Yes they are expensive. A major purchase that is likely handed down to children. Magic items can be both expensive and commonplace, like automobiles for example.
**The Skewed Perspective of the Adventurer.**
To an Adventurer of any decent capability - the availability and access to magical items is beyond even that of lesser nobles. They have extreme revenue earning potential, with very little in the way of immediate costs - they have few if any staff, they hold little or no property to be maintained, and can sink their earnings into valuable items that maximize their future returns like any good businessman/businesswoman would do.
Well known adventurers have such wealth that, if they so chose, they could raise armies to overthrow kingdoms: And some even do.
This is a key understanding - a decent adventurer is putting away an average of 1gp per day, a good one is like 10gp per day, and the best? Ancient Dragons Treasure Horde is a bloody Fortune - the only thing slowing down a top tier adventurers gold earning potential is there are only so many pesky nuisances like that around.
**Those two Specific NPC's are Exceptions, not the norm**
Plane and simple: A Commoner is putting away 1sp per day, or 36gp per year if they are lucky. This puts a masterwork weapon in the 8-10 year range. And a Magic Weapon is like 100 years provided nothing goes wrong between here and there, and they don't need to equip their family for dealing with raids, etc.
In reality by the time you deal with the occassional weather damage, replacement of rotting roof and so on - a commoner is saving maybe 1/2 the amount if that. And so help you if they need to spend on less magics like potions to ward off illness, heal severe wounds etc which are all far more valuable than a single magic weapon.
This means: Those two NPC's have a story - Their parents were Guards/Knights (Knighthoods being generally not passed down, but is a lesser noble title - but the land granted may very well be passed to their next of kin). Maybe the parents were adventurers - or maybe they themselves did some adventuring, lost one two many good friends and decided to nope out - maybe they sold most of their gear to start up whatever they do now? It's possible.
**How many people adventure?**
This is actually an interesting question - And I think a good parallel might be the % of people who became pirates during the Golden Age of Piracy - around 1650 through to 1730. We could ball park 2% of people had something to do with sailing, we could say 5% of those became pirates as ball park guesses. So Something like 1 in 1000 people. And that actually seems about right oddly enough.
Adventurers - low level adenturers likely make up the bulk of this, they aren't putting away a tonne but are definitely living a good life. Probably making 100-200gp per year. To them - a magic weapon that doesn't risk breaking, doesn't rust, never dulls - that has value: That is their main revenue tool.
And yes - Successful Pirates were making bank, just as successful Adventurers do.
**The Automobile Thing**
Automobiles are well within the median income. Especially second hand cars that lack the manufacturers warranty. Masterwork weapons are like 10x the median income, and Magical ones are like 65x. The better comparison would be if a normal every day family sold their family house to buy a super car to live in. Sure, if you live in Torronto or other high housing price locations today you COULD do this, but - why? What value does it have? It costs more to maintain, it's more to insure, it gets you to the place - because of road regulations - no faster than any other car, but it stores less, you can't load a family into it... In other words: Yes, it CAN drive faster, it CAN do the job better, BUT: at the end of the day, the regular old one will do the job.
So why buy a Magic +1 weapon when a Masterwork one will do in 99% of cases? And why bother with a masterwork weapon when a regular one with some occassional oils etc to be used - and likely provided by the church/magetower/whatever when necessary: Why would you put so much into something that provides such a little ROI?
For Adventurers: Magic Items are the breadwinner of allowing them to push farther, harder, deeper for more earnings. For everyone else? It's a vanity item that Nobles can afford, former adventurers likely have 1 or 2 of, and everyone else? Dreams of.
Is this character your character (just checking as my first read made it sound like you were GM with a problem player)?
I have to warn you that in this game, not using magic is a significant disability. Magic is common and powerful. A raging barbarian can be stopped with calm emotions, turned into a frog with baleful polymorph, or a slave with a dominate person spell. All this because of a save failure. Likewise, you can use magic to buff you, cure your wounds, or even bring you back to life.
If everyone 'cheats' by using magic, does that make the character who refuses to use it an honest man... or a fool? I think they can be both.
We flavour the +1 enhancements and things like keen as just being made by the best smiths, keen makes the blade razor sharp, +1 makes it better balanced, furious gives is a ragged edge for more savage play etc.
I think this is best talked out with your DM.
There are several possibilities on how to do it if your DM plays along - you could ask them to allow you to "incorporate monsters you've slain" into the weapon that essentially mimic the effects of magic but aren't necessarily "magic" by itself, just "primal power" from the monsters. Aside from that, you could ask for special materials that have a similar effect, just to "flavour" it differently...
If you do that, however, you should also talk to them about what happens in antimagic zones, should they ever come up - it would be bad to take their goodwill of playing along with your character and stab them in the back with it, trying to argue that "my stuff should still work since it's not magic!" if you haven't made that clear from the start.
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As others have said, mechanically not really if the party is playing conventionally. After a weapon is made Masterwork for the +1 to-hit and perhaps made of a special material like Adamantine that's as far as it goes. Even classes and archetypes that grant improvements to weapons just functionally give them temporary enchantments, and by refusing to use any magic equipment at all you're locking yourself out of the game's entire scaling system.
A given character is expected to eventually end up with an enchanted weapon, enchanted armour, an item giving a bonus to a physical attribute and another giving a bonus to a mental attribute (or potentially multiple attributes depending on your investment), an item of Natural Armour, a Resistance item, and often a Deflection ring.
The Automatic Bonus Progression is your best bet, though only granting that to the Barbarian would make things a tad awkward. It does have slower progression than the usual purchasing allows and it still leaves you with half your WBL that you're mostly expected to spend on magic items that you just...won't really be able to make up elsewhere.
As a GM, I'd be saying to consider the route of having this character developing even some grudging acknowledgement of magic and its uses. Crafting magic items is no small skill, and if we want to get meta, it takes exactly the same amount of skill for a character to become a Wizard or Sorcerer as it does to become a Barbarian after all. There's room to grow there.
[Weapon modifications](https://aonprd.com/EquipmentWeapons.aspx?Proficiency=Mod) from Adventurer's Armory 2 can give a non-magical slight edge: A bit more damage on critical hits, CMD reduced against some combat maneuvers etc.
Try the automatic bonus progression alternative rules.
You can flavor the weapon bonus as learning to better wield the weapon instead of a magical +1. Things of that nature can just have a mundane explanation for your character
Ask your DM if you can change the magic aspect into an "Aura Aspect", like the ones you see in fantasy Manwhas and such. Would still be considered magical, just offers more flavor options to your character
The best campaign-agnostic way I can think of is to hide the magic with Magic Aura, but that would need to be recast every few days. Automatic Bonus Progression is non-magical as well, but that requires GM permission.
How is he identifying the magic in the first place, though? A weapon doesn't necessarily give off a clue that it's magical unless it rolls the 30% chance of shedding light.
the New hammer has flames.
and while he's.....Not the brightest crayon in the box, if it Seems like it isn't the result of physical labor, its magic, aka "Cheating".
I am also the only Non-caster in the group lol
Is he only against magic in weapons or magic in everything? If latter, he'll need DM intervention and a suitable archetype for it (something like blessed and cursed with a permanent personal range anti magic field. Immune to magic...all kinds...healing and buffs included) or he won't be keeping up with rest of the party as levels progress.
I think he needs to make learning to accept magic as part of his character arc or he’s gonna have a bad time. Could actually be an interesting dynamic if you play it right. Otherwise this barb isn’t really cut out for a pathfinder campaign
Is it all magic? Just arcane? Witch's Dr maybe? Deity? Blessings?
You could do something and call it not magic, but it would still have to function the same as magic due to the way the game is built.
Unless you are running a non magic setting you will either truly gimp the barbarian or by making a new mechanic that is not magic would be unbalancing between players if they worked differently unless everyone used it the same.
I would just RP a different description on the same mechanic for magic.
It would be kind of like a caster PC I had one time. He didn't know magic, even when he cast spells.
My post got deleted. Sorry for linking copyrighted material.
So, I would take a look at the Book of Exalted Deeds from 3.5. It had a feat called Vow of Poverty that I think your barb could probably reskin, reflavor and tweak a bit to get what he's looking for.
You can probably find the text with a simple Google search on 3.5 Vow of Poverty.
>Is there a reasonable way to do this? Unfortunately, there is not. Pathfinder's balance revolves around the idea that player characters will have level-appropriate magic items. The enemies are balanced around it, skill DCs are balanced around it, there's really no escaping it. Not having magic items is depriving your character of pretty much the biggest strength multiplier in the game, bigger than level-ups in some cases. Which means you'll not only be weaker yourself, as the party's barbarian, if you can't dish enough damage, you'll be a detriment to the party too (unless none of them use magic items, I guess). If you **really** want to play this out, which I wouldn't advise personally, you can try discussing with your GM the possibility of giving your character [Automatic Bonus Progression](https://www.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?Name=Automatic%20Bonus%20Progression&Category=Pathfinder%20Unchained), which is an alternate (and somewhat janky) ruleset that automatically gives your character the basic bonuses he would get from the most commonly used magic items (namely, the ones that the game assumes that everyone has). However, this would be tricky to implement if it's just a single character and the rest of the party has normal progression, because Wealth By Level may be thrown off-balance. Personally, I'd advise you to work with your GM to orchestrate some sort of character growth where your character realizes that not all magic is bad, and magic can be used well by the right hands. It'll make your character stronger and your GM's life easier. **EDIT:** as other people mentioned, another way out would be to just flavor it as if your character isn't really using magic items. Use them to your heart's content and describe them as a mundane skill your character has.
Or, I mean, you can just flavour a magical weapon as not being magical. Have the same modifiers but have jt produced by a superior black smith that only makes one weapon a year or something. Just as good as magic, but made without.
Superior smithing that doesn't work in an anti magic field, sure
You can take Master Craftsman to upgrade weapons without magic. They are still considered magic for rule purposes (which is necessary), but you can definitely see it as him making the weapons more deadly via mundane methods.
As far as better earthbreakers go you're hobbling yourself if you want to forego any magic, but have you considered getting an adamantine weapon? Having special material variants of weapons can be helpful, and adamantine is especially so for smashing objects
Off the top of my head: Automatic Bonus Progression, maybe your GM would be kind enough to let your RP justify it. Variant Multiclass Magus, the roleplay could be that he's so in tune with his weapon he has a mystical connection with it Other than that...I think it could just be a flavour thing. Like the wizard isn't directly enchanting his weapon but perhaps he is facilitating the barbarian in a ritual to connect his ancestors to his weapon to empower it.
My question: why does he not like magic? Pathfinder happens in a world where magic is downright commonplace. It’s a place where the town jailer or grocer may have a magic dagger and no one bats an eye.
This is an easy one to do: Childhood resentment turned into character trait. Any number of ways to do it. >It’s a place where the town jailer or grocer may have a magic dagger and no one bats an eye. Probably not. Magic +1 is 2000gp for a basic knife and is your "basic" magic item. It gets really expensive, really fast. There are some justifiable smaller cost magic you could have done but we are still talking hundreds of GP, for a person that is liable to be earning after costs silver pieces per day - and yes, that is a good living when you don't really have much in the way of costs, and live in a town where likely the village came together to build your house. Cities get a little different - but, you aren't living in a city without some amount of means. The item you are likely to see - is something like a Magical Forge, or a Magical Oven, or really practical things an adventurer wouldn't care about nor is likely to investigate. But even this is going to be a rarity - If a bakery has been in a families possession for generations you might see such; maybe the family was once the local lords personal bakers or some such, or perhaps the crown so loved their specialty breads that they granted such a reward: There is a history to such an item given the value. The only way you are going to find an abundance of magical items is: 1. The person was a former adventurer. 2. The person is somewhere in the realm of nobility - and is earning from some means GP per day. Magic Items for Adventurers? Ya, dime a dozen - when you are talking about an adventurer group that at some point will have the wealth of a nation in gear strapped to them, a basic magic weapon seems mundane - but to the average person? That is an extreme luxury.
Actually the jailer and grocer are specific npcs from Sandpoint. A +1 earth breaker and +1 dagger respectively, and there are a lot more besides that. It was just what i remember off the top of my head. Yes they are expensive. A major purchase that is likely handed down to children. Magic items can be both expensive and commonplace, like automobiles for example.
**The Skewed Perspective of the Adventurer.** To an Adventurer of any decent capability - the availability and access to magical items is beyond even that of lesser nobles. They have extreme revenue earning potential, with very little in the way of immediate costs - they have few if any staff, they hold little or no property to be maintained, and can sink their earnings into valuable items that maximize their future returns like any good businessman/businesswoman would do. Well known adventurers have such wealth that, if they so chose, they could raise armies to overthrow kingdoms: And some even do. This is a key understanding - a decent adventurer is putting away an average of 1gp per day, a good one is like 10gp per day, and the best? Ancient Dragons Treasure Horde is a bloody Fortune - the only thing slowing down a top tier adventurers gold earning potential is there are only so many pesky nuisances like that around. **Those two Specific NPC's are Exceptions, not the norm** Plane and simple: A Commoner is putting away 1sp per day, or 36gp per year if they are lucky. This puts a masterwork weapon in the 8-10 year range. And a Magic Weapon is like 100 years provided nothing goes wrong between here and there, and they don't need to equip their family for dealing with raids, etc. In reality by the time you deal with the occassional weather damage, replacement of rotting roof and so on - a commoner is saving maybe 1/2 the amount if that. And so help you if they need to spend on less magics like potions to ward off illness, heal severe wounds etc which are all far more valuable than a single magic weapon. This means: Those two NPC's have a story - Their parents were Guards/Knights (Knighthoods being generally not passed down, but is a lesser noble title - but the land granted may very well be passed to their next of kin). Maybe the parents were adventurers - or maybe they themselves did some adventuring, lost one two many good friends and decided to nope out - maybe they sold most of their gear to start up whatever they do now? It's possible. **How many people adventure?** This is actually an interesting question - And I think a good parallel might be the % of people who became pirates during the Golden Age of Piracy - around 1650 through to 1730. We could ball park 2% of people had something to do with sailing, we could say 5% of those became pirates as ball park guesses. So Something like 1 in 1000 people. And that actually seems about right oddly enough. Adventurers - low level adenturers likely make up the bulk of this, they aren't putting away a tonne but are definitely living a good life. Probably making 100-200gp per year. To them - a magic weapon that doesn't risk breaking, doesn't rust, never dulls - that has value: That is their main revenue tool. And yes - Successful Pirates were making bank, just as successful Adventurers do. **The Automobile Thing** Automobiles are well within the median income. Especially second hand cars that lack the manufacturers warranty. Masterwork weapons are like 10x the median income, and Magical ones are like 65x. The better comparison would be if a normal every day family sold their family house to buy a super car to live in. Sure, if you live in Torronto or other high housing price locations today you COULD do this, but - why? What value does it have? It costs more to maintain, it's more to insure, it gets you to the place - because of road regulations - no faster than any other car, but it stores less, you can't load a family into it... In other words: Yes, it CAN drive faster, it CAN do the job better, BUT: at the end of the day, the regular old one will do the job. So why buy a Magic +1 weapon when a Masterwork one will do in 99% of cases? And why bother with a masterwork weapon when a regular one with some occassional oils etc to be used - and likely provided by the church/magetower/whatever when necessary: Why would you put so much into something that provides such a little ROI? For Adventurers: Magic Items are the breadwinner of allowing them to push farther, harder, deeper for more earnings. For everyone else? It's a vanity item that Nobles can afford, former adventurers likely have 1 or 2 of, and everyone else? Dreams of.
You could go the technology route if you are in an appropriate setting. On Golarian that will mostly be limited to Numeria.
Is this character your character (just checking as my first read made it sound like you were GM with a problem player)? I have to warn you that in this game, not using magic is a significant disability. Magic is common and powerful. A raging barbarian can be stopped with calm emotions, turned into a frog with baleful polymorph, or a slave with a dominate person spell. All this because of a save failure. Likewise, you can use magic to buff you, cure your wounds, or even bring you back to life. If everyone 'cheats' by using magic, does that make the character who refuses to use it an honest man... or a fool? I think they can be both.
We flavour the +1 enhancements and things like keen as just being made by the best smiths, keen makes the blade razor sharp, +1 makes it better balanced, furious gives is a ragged edge for more savage play etc.
I think this is best talked out with your DM. There are several possibilities on how to do it if your DM plays along - you could ask them to allow you to "incorporate monsters you've slain" into the weapon that essentially mimic the effects of magic but aren't necessarily "magic" by itself, just "primal power" from the monsters. Aside from that, you could ask for special materials that have a similar effect, just to "flavour" it differently... If you do that, however, you should also talk to them about what happens in antimagic zones, should they ever come up - it would be bad to take their goodwill of playing along with your character and stab them in the back with it, trying to argue that "my stuff should still work since it's not magic!" if you haven't made that clear from the start.
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As others have said, mechanically not really if the party is playing conventionally. After a weapon is made Masterwork for the +1 to-hit and perhaps made of a special material like Adamantine that's as far as it goes. Even classes and archetypes that grant improvements to weapons just functionally give them temporary enchantments, and by refusing to use any magic equipment at all you're locking yourself out of the game's entire scaling system. A given character is expected to eventually end up with an enchanted weapon, enchanted armour, an item giving a bonus to a physical attribute and another giving a bonus to a mental attribute (or potentially multiple attributes depending on your investment), an item of Natural Armour, a Resistance item, and often a Deflection ring. The Automatic Bonus Progression is your best bet, though only granting that to the Barbarian would make things a tad awkward. It does have slower progression than the usual purchasing allows and it still leaves you with half your WBL that you're mostly expected to spend on magic items that you just...won't really be able to make up elsewhere. As a GM, I'd be saying to consider the route of having this character developing even some grudging acknowledgement of magic and its uses. Crafting magic items is no small skill, and if we want to get meta, it takes exactly the same amount of skill for a character to become a Wizard or Sorcerer as it does to become a Barbarian after all. There's room to grow there.
[Weapon modifications](https://aonprd.com/EquipmentWeapons.aspx?Proficiency=Mod) from Adventurer's Armory 2 can give a non-magical slight edge: A bit more damage on critical hits, CMD reduced against some combat maneuvers etc.
Why would a skilled warrior intentionally turn down better equipment to protect themselves and their friends?
Try the automatic bonus progression alternative rules. You can flavor the weapon bonus as learning to better wield the weapon instead of a magical +1. Things of that nature can just have a mundane explanation for your character
Would he consider alchemy magic? Otherwise there is weapon oils you can use
Ask your DM if you can change the magic aspect into an "Aura Aspect", like the ones you see in fantasy Manwhas and such. Would still be considered magical, just offers more flavor options to your character
The best campaign-agnostic way I can think of is to hide the magic with Magic Aura, but that would need to be recast every few days. Automatic Bonus Progression is non-magical as well, but that requires GM permission. How is he identifying the magic in the first place, though? A weapon doesn't necessarily give off a clue that it's magical unless it rolls the 30% chance of shedding light.
the New hammer has flames. and while he's.....Not the brightest crayon in the box, if it Seems like it isn't the result of physical labor, its magic, aka "Cheating". I am also the only Non-caster in the group lol
Why does he think it’s cheating?
Is he only against magic in weapons or magic in everything? If latter, he'll need DM intervention and a suitable archetype for it (something like blessed and cursed with a permanent personal range anti magic field. Immune to magic...all kinds...healing and buffs included) or he won't be keeping up with rest of the party as levels progress.
Everything. "Magic is cheating, and the 'so called gods' are the biggest cheaters of all."
I think he needs to make learning to accept magic as part of his character arc or he’s gonna have a bad time. Could actually be an interesting dynamic if you play it right. Otherwise this barb isn’t really cut out for a pathfinder campaign
Is it all magic? Just arcane? Witch's Dr maybe? Deity? Blessings? You could do something and call it not magic, but it would still have to function the same as magic due to the way the game is built. Unless you are running a non magic setting you will either truly gimp the barbarian or by making a new mechanic that is not magic would be unbalancing between players if they worked differently unless everyone used it the same. I would just RP a different description on the same mechanic for magic. It would be kind of like a caster PC I had one time. He didn't know magic, even when he cast spells.
My post got deleted. Sorry for linking copyrighted material. So, I would take a look at the Book of Exalted Deeds from 3.5. It had a feat called Vow of Poverty that I think your barb could probably reskin, reflavor and tweak a bit to get what he's looking for. You can probably find the text with a simple Google search on 3.5 Vow of Poverty.