Wizards and Armor

[Greg K]

Option 1 or 2 with two being my preference for the default and one being for certain settings. That stated, for option 2, I would want to see the following:
1. Wizards do not start with armor proficiency
2. The wizard must spend feats to gain proficiency in armor
3. To avoid end running around #2 by dipping, if armor and weapon proficiency come from classes, the armor and weapon proficiency from classes only apply to starting characters and represents their training prior to level one. Multi-classing does not, automatically, grant any new proficiency in the armor and weapons of the new class.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think armored casting should just be a theme. Seems especially appropriate for elves.

I think the problem with that idea is that it is too one-note for a theme, which will be a defining aspect of the character. It also knocks out other potentially interesting themes.

Not saying it couldn't be done, but I don't like the idea which is often suggested of many special-purpose themes.

Cheers

 

[was]

I prefer the ASF rules, though I often adjust the percentages upwards a bit to make them less severe. However, I think enforcing encumbrance might offer a better check against abuse. Since IME many casters use Strength as a dump stat, I can't see them running around casting in plate mail using those rules.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I think the problem with that idea is that it is too one-note for a theme, which will be a defining aspect of the character. It also knocks out other potentially interesting themes.

Not saying it couldn't be done, but I don't like the idea which is often suggested of many special-purpose themes.

Shouldn't be a theme, but should be a part of several appropriate themes (e.g. spellsword). It is too narrow for a theme, but it is not too narrow as one feat mixed in with several other related abilities in a theme.

 

[Herschel]

I like the 4E system where wizards certainly can wear armor, but it's expensive to build a character to do so and you have to make other, heavy sacrifices to do so.

 

[AlioTheFool]

This is one of those issues with tons of legacy baggage. The reason Magic Users couldn't use armor was pretty much a game balance one. MU's were artillery - they aren't supposed to get up into the fight. Clerics were, so, they got armor. The primary focus was pretty much entirely gamist and then all sorts of flavour reasons were piled on top to make it more interesting.

The question to me is, are those game balance underpinnings still valid? Why is the wizard being limited this way? What is he getting in return for lowered survival chances. In AD&D, he got fantastic cosmic powers at higher levels. In 3e, the same thing mostly applies as well. A high level wizard is one of the most powerful classes in the game.

But, do we want to keep this style of balance - balance over the long term where you have weak-->strong character classes? If not, then the main justification for no armor goes away. If a wizard is (more or less) on par with every other class at every point in the game, then this limitation isn't really doing anything.

EXACTLY! I've always maintained that the 4e ideal of making everyone equal without making someone broken is the right way to go. There is no reason to cripple any class when you can just as easily make all classes just as strong as the supposed "strongest" one.

If your not wearing robes, you are not actually a wizard, you are just some fighter/mage hybrid.

If wearing Robes is an obviously sub-optimal choice for arcane casters, that would have the effect of almost completely removing wizards from the game.

Maybe in *your* game that is true, but in *my* game that's not the case. Even if we say that it then *is* some fighter/mage hybrid, so what? There is a theme a fighter can take right now that would allow her to cast magic. So do we not see that as the same thing? Or is this another example of "get rid of the wizard so my sword and board are in the spotlight"?

Despite the very good points in this thread, I am still not convinced...

I guess I just don't like seeing wizards running around casting spells in heavy armor.

Those who have no problem with that, I suppose also would not mind seeing monks throwing flying kicks in heavy armor, rogues sneaking and disabling traps/locks in heavy armor, druids walking their pets in the bush in heavy armor, rangers tracking foes in the wild in heavy armor, etc...?

Those aren't any more unrealistic than a fighter in a suit of armor being able to do the things they do in D&D. We have all seen suits of real armor before, correct? They were hard to walk in, much less fight in. Yet we suspend disbelief for them.

That's the great thing about fantasy, it's not meant to be even remotely real.

Like fighters doing whirlwind attacks and other fancy sword maneuvers in heavy armor?

BINGO.

Not the same thing...

I'm certainly willing to hear your argument why. Know, however, that it would take some pretty solid arguments, given what I've already written above, to convince me of your position.

 

[Dausuul]

I'm with Klaus. It's silly to set up the restriction and then add mechanics to bypass it. Basically, there are three positions to take here:

1. Armored wizards should either not exist, or be punished for existing (i.e., they are a severely sub-optimal choice).
2. Both armored and unarmored wizards should exist as viable options.
3. Unarmored wizards should either not exist, or be punished for existing (i.e., they are a severely sub-optimal choice).

If we're going with #1, let's just ban spellcasting by wizards in armor, period. No spell failure chance, no proficiency requirements, it simply can't be done. Don't put in trap options to sucker inexperienced players.

If we're going with #2, then adding restrictions and ways to get around those restrictions is a Rube Goldberg solution to a problem that can be addressed much more simply. Armored wizards have higher AC than unarmored, but have to carry a lot more weight and spend money on armor. Find a way to get that tradeoff into balance--where it's not a foregone conclusion that you want to do one or the other--and the problem is solved.

As I said above, I favor using a spell like mage armor to bring the unarmored wizard's AC into the competitive range, but I could imagine other solutions too.

(#3 is the easiest of all, but I don't see anyone advocating for that.)

 

[Steely_Dan]

1) We have all seen suits of real armor before, correct? They were hard to walk in, much less fight in. Yet we suspend disbelief for them.

2) That's the great thing about fantasy, it's not meant to be even remotely real.

1) Not I, as armour was not as hard to walk or fight in as some would have you believe.

2) Again, not I, with no realism whatsoever, it has no grounding, and becomes silly, IMO.

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm certainly willing to hear your argument why. Know, however, that it would take some pretty solid arguments, given what I've already written above, to convince me of your position.

I'm not trying to convince you... I just thought that Whirlwind Attack doesn't require precise movements, it's more like a huge swing around you a couple of turns, at least in my mental image. I think there are a bunch of combat feats in 3ed which don't work in heavy armor, Spring Attack being one of them.

 

[mlund]

I think the "Disrupted" rules are an easy-to-use model and we've already got rules about using armor untrained in the play-test. Put them together and you've got something working out of the box - untrained armor gives you penalties as already described and it also makes you perpetually Disrupted. Feats will exist to grant proficiency and some sort of armored mage theme is pretty much self-starting from there.

Meanwhile other arcane classes developed to use certain forms of armor can just come with the proficiency built in - like Bards, Warlocks, or Warmages.

Want to make Elven Chain awesome? Make it's property be that it requires no proficiency to use effectively. It isn't like Bilbo or Frodo were ever trained in using armor anyway.

- Marty Lund