First, I'm picturing this in DND/PF.

So, short version, my idea is this. Major war in heavens/planes. At the climax, magic is thrown out of balance and explodes.

Repercussions in the world: as far as mortals can tell, all the gods are now dead. The spiritual blast was great enough to drop the clergy (divine spellcasters all gone or crazy). The magical detonation killed off the arcane spellcasters (arcane spellcasters also gone). The death of so many powerful minds sent a psychic backlash that killed off the psionic manifesters. What's worse, all magic items blew at the same time. At first, the dead were mourned and everything seemed to go back to relative normalcy. Then the waves of monsters hit. The monsters that were easily slain before now resisted the blows of even the mightiest soldiers. All seemed lost, but the monsters seemed content to stay in the areas they conquered. More time passed and all remaining clergy, all at once, gave one last divine prophecy before dropping dead. The prophecy spoke of the gods war, the death of the gods, the dark times ahead, and finally the coming of heroes on whom the future depended.

Cliché I know. Basically, the world was reset. Monsters all have damage reduction (magic) of at least 10 if not 15 (depending on their power and where they are). I'm picturing an old-style game world like final fantasy 1 or dragon warrior. Big quest to save the world. Perhaps there is a stash of magical lore that survived the damage, or some way to counter what was done to the monsters to give them DR. Maybe there's a way to bring the gods back or become the new gods.

As for the players, I'm seeing a gestalt game where at least one half of the char will have the means to create their own stuff or self enchant their gear. Incarnum, soulknife, etc. There would be no clerics or wizards, no one that required being taught how to do their class casting abilities or had those abilities granted by gods. Would also probably need some fine tuning for why the spontaneous casters/manifesters haven't saved the world already. Maybe they're just too uncommon now and so focus on protecting what remains of civilization. Knowledge of item crafting is gone, as all those who knew it died.

I tend to have a preference for pathfinder, as the lower tier classes are better built, but would need to include 3.5 so there are more options with incarnum and other things I probably can't think of right now.
This message was last updated by the user at 15:40, Sun 03 May 2015.

You had me until the items were destroyed. If that "perhaps" half way through your post is more definite, I might be interested. Although it dawns on me with Numenera's stance on plusses (the biggest one being +2 with further bonuses changing difficulty by a considerable amount) that system might be appropriate.

Although now I realize this is in GMs wanted, and I'll never run a gestalt game anyway.
This message was last edited by the user at 22:33, Fri 01 May 2015.

This is not so much a full-fledged concept as a general outline. That being said, I see two problems with leaving items intact.

First, magic items tend to be better than incarnum and other such item creation abilities from what I've seen. So players might be more motivated to replace their class abilities with magic items they find.

Second, i would prefer to keep the focus on the characters. Otherwise, anyone could have saved the world just by collecting enough magic items. For that matter, if magic weapons still existed, regular armies might have been able to deal with the monsters. Basically, the pc's unique ability to create or enchant their own weapons is what sets them apart and allows them to take the fight to the monsters.

If it is decided that we don't want to get rid of items entirely, perhaps rare ones are still out there hidden, or maybe "blueprints" can be found that would allow the pc's to mimic certain items using their class abilities instead of what they normally would create... Learning how to meld shape a cloak of the bat instead of typical incarnum, for example.