I just noticed this homebrew section / I have a homebrew spell exclusion idea

[Blightersbane]

I wanted your thoughts on campaign settings "exclusionarys". I would like for you to take into consideration the ramifications of the following campaign limitations. How would they effect everyday life of casters and mundanes? How would religion as a whole be effected?Churches and temples? The sales or manufacturing of magical items.

1) gods are fighting with one another vying for power and position, more than your typical campaign. There is no such thing as a "uninvolved" god, unless the god is dead or dieing. The stronger a kingdom that worships a god is, the more population it has, = the more populous that worships = the stronger the god. If another temple or church is accepted in town then both will be weakened as they will share the populous....hence the gods are vying for your support. A gods strength is directly a reflection of the amount of people worshipping the deity. Religions are at least competitive and suspicious of each other, charging tariffs to travel thru areas, and thats the Lawful good ones!  Most are at least antagonistic, most are unwelcoming & combative vs each other. Some attack upon 1st site. As a result it is very unlikely to ever encounter a cleric alone or traveling without guard. There is a active price on heads of clerics and you would be a fool to wander in to a town praising a different god than theirs. You would soon be burned at the stake or hung, maybe even tortured publicly...ALTHOUGH GODS AND RELIGION PLAY A BIGGER ROLE YOU WONT SEE TO MANY TRAVELING AROUND

2) Spells or powers that offer long ranged communication such as "anywhere on this plane" do not exist. Spells that have long ranged instant travel, astral travel, teleport either dont exist, or are severely gimped. Only the gods have such abilities. Turning ethereal, or going to astral plane is very dangerous for mortals. Traveling these planes is thought of as eventual suicide, as you are attacked almost immediately by inhabitants of these planes.  As a result of this wizards will have to rely upon more meatshields and information circuits. As they no longer can ask for help from others far away nor do they have a quick escape spell like teleport. They must rely upon more conventional means of travel, eg. boat or beast.

3) Kingdoms are very watchful for threats, both foreign and domestic. A known caster that makes items that is caught selling can be instantly tried for treason and killed....eerrr captured and forced to be kings magical maker. You see wizards/witches/sorcerers any spell caster making magicals will be taxed, heavily! Spellcasters will usually be placed in a "secure environment" = enslaved and held prisoner in castle!
If you are seen casting spells you better be a known friend or you might be labeled a threat and killed. Maybe find yourself burning at the stake next to your cleric friend, using his soap box as kindling!

4) no wish, no limited wish, no true resurrection, no alter reality etc etc  high level spells are there but the game breakers....only for the gods!

[phaedrusxy]

I think all of those sound perfectly reasonable except no Limited Wish, Wish, and Alter Reality. The first two are highly over rated and have prohibitive XP costs. Most of the abuses you hear about them is from getting them for free by enslaving a creature who has them as a SLA, and that's easily "fixed" by making very nasty in game repercussions for doing such a thing... Alter Reality is already a divine ability, and hence limited to the gods, and so doesn't need fixing in the first place.

With the magic items, you'd have to be careful to make sure to hand out enough magic items to keep the non-casters happy/viable. They're much more dependent on them than casters are. This could be easily done by having some kind of uber powerful/ubiquitous magical "Utopia" in the past that cranked out a bunch of them, and then was destroyed, resulting in a bunch of them lying around (in trap and monster-filled dungeons, of course!). Then just make sure you ask your players to make a "Wish list" for items, and draw the loot from those lists rather than just giving them a bunch of random crap.

I think such a world would be a lot more fun and interesting to play in than the standard D&D settings like FR and Greyhawk. (And I'd still play a caster. )

How would bards, paladins, rangers, etc fit into this?

[Blightersbane]

objective is not to gimp or nerf casters here. They are still the rare and powerful. They have access to all spells but the game breakers are gone, reserved for the gods. The long distance travel and communications are nerfed/gimped or gone. I have altered this campaigns world several ways. Its a kingdom based campaign with less adventuring and little dungeon play.

Sorcerers have to be trained to get a magical making feat. Most colleges, wizards are reluctant to do so, alignments must be closely matched etc. But sorcerers never use any spell materials. They have no clue nor are they interested in spell casting materials. Each Sorcerer has its own thoughts, gestures and words used to cast spells some might use prayers thinking the spells are gifts from their god(s). As such it is nearly impossible to counter spell them unless you have been watching and know that particular sorcerer. They make excellent adventure & travel types

most wizards dont travel around, but very rarely, its not safe, not to mention all the spell research and experiments require a lab...NOT a back pack! Adventuring?? is for the suicidal & insane.

alchemist dont exist nor does any firearm class, now there are wizards that specialized in potions ref to as alchemist, but the class is just to  hokey to even imagine.

Clerics..oh boy heres a problem. In your home town, or in a city where they worship same god, your awesome, in fact your probably one of the most popular people in town. You wont have to pay for almost anything, ever! You are looked up to and revered. Traveling to areas where they worship other gods starts to get dicey! to out right hostile and dangerous. If you worship, lets say Pelor, and yo travel to a Kord worshipping town. Here you decide to get up on a soap box on street corner and start praising Pelor and all his greatness. Now remember these are chaotic good people not evil or neutral, they are good aligned! You will get the shit kicked out of you, be imprisoned, probably fined, and then transported to towns outskirts and let go. IT ONLY GETS WORSE FROM HERE, THESE WERE GOOD GUYS AND WHY YOU WERE NOT PUBLICLY DISEMBOWELED!