Arcane Spell Failure - Is It Silly?

[Norfleet]

I've been thinking about the Arcane Spell Failure thing, and have come to the conclusion that it is, quite frankly, silly and makes little or no sense.

First, a look at the underlying premise, that armor impedes the motions needed to cast spells. In most cases, armor is designed to impede motion in as minimal a manner as possible for the protective value provided, because people who wear it are generally engaged in life-or-death struggles where the ability to avoid being splatted is paramount. Having worn body armor before, I speak from experience when I say that for any normal range of motion commonly associated with fighting, armor has little or no effect. Gauntlets could significantly impact a wizard's ability to cast spells, as finger motion is definitely reduced greatly by them, but one can remove gauntlets and helmets without the total loss of armor value. (Do wizards suffer ASF for wearing gauntlets without armor?)

It could represent the inability to perform such actions in armor due to lack of training: But a wizard is now able to purchase armor feats, which *IS* the training, so he CAN be trained in the use of armor.

So, what sort of motion is required to cast a spell that is being impeded by this, and only part of the time, randomly, rather than in any sort of deterministic manner? Is the mage required to engage in extreme feats of contortionism? Apparently not, because having a high dexterity is not an associated requirement with being a mage, and having a low dexterity, which would likely prevent the kind of contortionism that armor would prevent, does not have any associated ASF.

So the big question becomes: Is ASF simply an illogical mechanic held over from previous editions, where wizards could never wear armor, and couldn't learn to USE armor? And why do men have nipples?

 

[Afrodyte]

I think ASF probably has more to do with the precedent set with previous editions than it does with any sort of "balance" issues armor-wearing arcane casters raise. Part of me wants to apply penalties to wearing armor only to those not proficient at wearing it. So the Armor Check Penalty would only apply to wearing armor that the character is not proficient in. I'm not sure if I would still use Arcane Spell Failure for arcane casters, but if spellcasting were handled the same way as skill checks (though "ranks" would be caster level, and modifiers would be from the relevant casting attribute), I would apply the Armor Check Penalty for casting spells requiring somatic components.

But, it would seem that the best way to balance casters with fighting classes when removing ASF is to give options for armor aside from increasing AC. One of the things that I would have liked was a feat that helped reduce or remove the Armor Check Penalty for certain armors as well as one that increased the Maximum Dex Bonus for particular armor types.

I'm not sure, but I think nipples are simply a mammalian trait. As far as men having nipples, I think they're adorable and make them look much more complete than they would without them.

[snip racy sex comments]

I mean, look at a Ken doll if you want to know what I'm talking about.

 

[FrankTrollman]

The game balance concern is that what happens game mechanically when you are not proficient with your armor is that you apply your Armor Check Penalty to your attack rolls.

Now I don't know about your Wizards, but I'll make an attack roll.... never. As long as I have Web or Charm Monster, I'm just not going to make any attack rolls. Not one.

So obviously there has to be some other incentive to not wear armor you are not proficient in when you are a spellcaster. It can't be the normal attack roll penalty, because spellcasters don't really make attack rolls. So they made it a chance for spells to fail - because spellcasters do cast spells. All the time, in fact.

However, this has been seriously undermined by the Shugenja. Since Shugenja are technically divine casters, they jolly well don the Great Armor any way. And they still never make attack rolls, so they are home free.

The way it should work is that there is simply "Armor Spell Failure" - and if you are not proficient with your armor you should experience that. If you are proficient with that, the problem should go away entirely.

That's just game balance speaking. From the standpoint of flavor - you'd have to go with whatever you wanted the flavor to be. I can't really evaluate that.

-Frank

 

[Tywyll]

Personally, I think that ASF is simply a hold over from earlier mechanics. I can't think of many justified arguments for it, other then perhaps that the Somantic components might be akin to Yoga or something, require full body motion (but the description of that never says so).

Perhaps wearing armor should simply act as lengthening the time required to cast the spell? Say a wiz in armor casts standard spells as full actions?

From a balance perspective, it worked in old systems, but with stacking armor spells, a wiz can easily out do his companions in overall armor ability namely, mage armor and shield provided a rediculous AC in 3.0, and though this has been fixed in 3.5, they can still hit an 18 without Dex, 20 with Prot from Evil. Granted, some of these are temporary, but after you get above 3rd level, 1st level wands are so easy to create/buy that its not an issue in a standard game at all.

With that being the case, I don't see how wearing armor is such a big deal anymore.

Seems like another sacred cow to me.

 

[Silverglass]

Well the justification is that in the mythology and fiction that spawned D&D mages are invariably the ones in robes, so it is an archetype.

The ASF does not necessarily imply that armour prevents yoga-like contortions, which would not tie-in with the cast times. It rather seems to imply that what is required during spell-casting is absolute precision on smaller movements. This is certainly something that would be affected by a few pounds of metal on your arm.

Also the restriction of earlier additions has been radically overhauled. It used to be that a wizard in armour would not cast spells period. Now armour just interferes with the casting of spells (and only those with no somatic component). With special materials and armour enchantments from some of the splatbooks it is eminently possible for an arcane caster to cast spells wearing some armour types, you just have to spend the time and cash to get this.

 

[Li Shenron]

I agree with the other posters: ASF looks like one of the axiomatic rules that form the basis of the 3ed mechanics, and are not necessarily realistic or meaningful.

What should have been done IMHO, is to give a (costly) option to a PC to improve his situation regaring ASF, just as she can improve his proficiencies or actions she is not trained in from the beginning. I haven't check all the WotC books of course, but so far I remember only Mithral armor and Arcane Armor Proficiencies (from Mongoose's Quintessential Wizard).

3ed ASF is however far better than the previous edition's rules. I just think D&D should be a game free from hard limitations, and instead there should be always an option - for the appropriate cost - to circumvent a limit (unless the limit comes from religion, alignment or other oath).

 

[pyk]

The ASF to me implies that the motions an arcane caster makes are different from the motions a divine caster makes, and those motions are more difficult in armor.

And there is at least one feat that allows acane spellcasters to disregard all ASF, it's called still spell. Which does a lot more than ignoring ASF.

As for Arcane spellcasters and attack rolls, you don't cast any ray spells? Most of those is a ranged touch, which is an attack roll. The only ray I can think of off-hand that doesn't is Magic Missile.

As far as RL body armor goes, this is D&D armor, which does not follow RL rules.

 

[Aaron2]

Well the justification is that in the mythology and fiction that spawned D&D mages are invariably the ones in robes, so it is an archetype.

What about the robe wearing priest or holy man archetype?

I certainly have ditched the ASF for shields. Its silly that you can be lugging around your companion's dead body and have no ASF, but if you hold a dinky buckler you do.

Using Still Spell essentially puts you two levels behind non-armor wearing wizards. If you take another level of fighter, that's three levels behind. To me, being one level behind (because you took a level of fighter and I don't use ASF) is sufficient penalty for the advantage of wearing armor.


Aaron

 

[Silverglass]

What about the robe wearing priest or holy man archetype?

Aaron

Fair enough, what I wrote was unclear as it implied robes = mages where what I wanted to imply was archetypically mages = robes (e.g. Merlin, Morgana, Jack Vancian wizards, etc).

 

[bret]

Gauntlets could significantly impact a wizard's ability to cast spells, as finger motion is definitely reduced greatly by them, but one can remove gauntlets and helmets without the total loss of armor value. (Do wizards suffer ASF for wearing gauntlets without armor?)

No, they don't.

Regardless of logic, guantlets are not armor. They are a weapon. Look at the equipment tables, they are listed with simple weapons and give no AC bonus. When they list armor, they list an armor check penalty and ASF %. Neither appear near guantlets.


Sorcerers are actually proficient with Guantlets, so this can make a difference.


As for the rules for ASF in general, yes they are silly. They are a holdover from previous editions of DnD. If you want a reason for people to wear light armor, do it through weight/carrying capacity restrictions and penalties for not being proficient in using it.


If you wanted to, there could still be a reason to have the magus wearing only a magical robe, especially if you made certain protective enchantments only applicable to robes. At first level, have Mage Armor transform a robe (focus). At higher level, give Magic Vestments to wizards (with an appropriate change in special effects) and restrict it to robes (doesn't work on armor), there would be wizards who chose the much lighter and comfortable robes over heavy armor.