I must say, I do like what I see. I've been reading this over for a few days. Mulling over ideas, and contemplating various combinations. One thing I'm caught up on is the feat Battle Caster from Complete Arcane, in addition to ARMORED ARCANIST (LIGHT).
Would those two feats stack, and thus make the tree of Light->Medium->Heavy null and void, or would it merely focus on that one school of magic and thus make that very tree redundant?
Interesting observation. To me, there are some differences between Battle Caster and the Armored Arcanist feats (the focus on a single school of magic being one).
I could imagine re-writing the feats with different pre-requisites and expanding the schools of magic to which they apply. Or, I could imagine adding an Improved Battle Caster feat (if it doesn't exist, already) and simply give the Warcanist the ability to ignore Arcane Spell Failure when wearing light armor in place of the Armored Arcanist (Light) feat.
The reason that I didn't do that is because I wanted each Warcanist to have the option of being a little different. Especially different from the Warmage (from Complete Arcane) or the Mageblade (in Arcana Evolved). It's, also, part of the reason why the Warcanist gains more bonus feats than a Wizard. It helps a Warcanist that really wants to focus on casting spells in armor do so. But, it doesn't force a Warcanist to follow that path for every school of magic.
The differences between Battle Caster and Armored Arcanist are subtle. On page 75 of Complete Arrcane, it says that Battle Caster's benefit "does not extend... nor does it apply to spells gained from spellcasting classes other than the class that provides the ability to cast arcane spells while in armor." To me, that is important enough of a statement that I'd have put it in the prerequisites for the Battle Caster feat or have made it a special to draw attention to it.
To me, that means that the even if, for example, a Warmage could possibly combine the two in this manner.
1. Warmages start with Armored Mage, allowing them to ignore Arcane Spell Failure percentage while wearing light armor.
2. The Warmage takes Battle Caster, allowing her to wear Medium Armor while ignoring the Arcane Spell Failure percentage while wearing medium armor.
3. In order for a Warmage (with the Battle Caster feat) to combine the Armored Arcanist (Heavy) with his ability to ignore ASF while wearing medium armor to cast spells from one school of magic, the warmage would still need to meet the pre-requisites of Armored Arcanist (Heavy) which are Armored Arcanist Light and Medium along with the relevant armor proficiencies. But, that's not really combining or stacking, is it?
To me, as written, Battle Caster does not stack with the Armored Arcanist chain. However, that doesn't mean that the AA chain couldn't be re-written to allow it to stack. It's all up to what house rules that you and the people you game with want to use. For me, I'll keep them separate for the different flavors that they provide.
I really enjoyed this question. I thought this thread was long forgotten. As I mentioned via PM, I've not playtested this class or these feats, yet. I did my best to try and think through as many scenarios as I could when I designed them and I think they are pretty well balanced for most standard 3.5 d20 games.
Hope to hear from you, again.
Thank you!
