Arcane Spell Failure - Is It Silly?

[Norfleet]

Personally, the way I'd handle ASF were I to run a 3/3.5 game in the near future, would be to apply ASF to a mage casting a spell they aren't proficient in, and require the caster remove or forgo the use of his gauntlets for a spells with somatic components, and his helmet for a verbal component. What the hell kind of wizard wears a helmet, anyway?

 

[Spatzimaus]

Those are definately some interesting ideas.
Did you do anything for arcane magic?

Yes, lots, but that had nothing to do with the Somatic Failure part. We combined Wizard and Sorcerer into a single "Mage" class, removed the Bardic healing spells in exchange for weapon proficiencies, changed arcane magic to use both INT and CHA as prime stats (one for bonus spells KNOWN, the other for save DC)... it wasn't a minor change, and frankly I'm still not sure it was an improvement.

As for the homebrew, we're still finishing it; you could probably get something similar from the "Urban Arcana" d20Modern supplement. We're not ready to call it finished yet, but the basic idea:
There are six core classes, based on the d20Modern classes, one for each stat. It's not a direct translation; there's no "Defense Bonus" stat, and we're trying to make the whole Action Point thing go away.

Then, there are three "magic" classes, each of which is unlocked by a Feat. They're still "core classes", you just can't take them at level 1.
They are: Mutant (can do a small number of spell-like abilities at will, or have really pumped up stats; basically it's the Hero from 4CTF with some costs altered and a more exponential power curve), Wizard (a WIS-based caster very similar to the 3E casters), and Channeler (a drain-based caster; you can cast whatever you want, but the higher it is the more it'll hurt). Almost all PCs will want to be one of these three classes, just because they're more interesting than the more mundane stuff.

The part that's taking the longest is balancing the Channeler. Imagine a class that knows every spell, can refill its spell pool between combats, and could (theoretically) try to cast a level 9 spell at class level 1 (it'd almost definitely be fatal, but that's not the point). Not the easiest thing to balance. Maybe I should start a separate discussion thread for this class; it SHOULD be balanced with the 3E classes, so I suppose you could try inserting it into D&D directly...

 

[rootbeergnome]

What about Scarred Lands?

I personally like the scarred lands setting's explaination for arcane spell failure. In the scarred lands the energies generated from spellcasting create immense heat in the caster and so they are in danger of heat exhaustion, so they often do not wear armor. Some spellcasters wear very little clothing in this campaign setting. I don't run games in scarred lands, but I liked the reasoning behind the arcane spell failure in the setting much better than the lame "restricted movement" spell failure reasoning. Just thought I would throw in my two cents.

 

[Gez]

Here's the house rule that I'll adopt about ASF

Casting a spell in armor is a distraction, just like being hit or being in a hailstorm. So, it has to follow the same rule: Concentration check.

The DC is simple. 15+ASH+Spell Level. If you're not proficient with the armor, you also apply Armor Check Penalty.

ASH, or Arcane Spell Hampering, is just the ASF divided by 5 (to make it go from a d100-based roll to a d20-based roll).

For example, casting ray of frost while in chainmail: DC 21 (with maybe a -5 penalty on your Concentration check if you're not proficient with medium armor.
Casting meteor swarm while in half-plateC 32 (with a possible -7 penalty).

Armor ASH and shield ASH stack, so casting meteor swarm[/i) with half-plate and tower shield would be a DC 42. If you're proficient with neither, you get a -17 penalty.

The Combat Casting feat's bonus to Concentration checks would also apply to these checks.

A class like the Spellsword that grants an Ignore Spell Failure capacity would give instead a bonus to Concentration for casting in armor. Ignoring 25% would be, logically, a +5 bonus.

 

[HellHound]

I like ASF.

Full Plate Armor on a Wizard is RARELY a penalty, as they have the spells to counter the speed reduction, and a +1 Dex bonus is fine for most wizards... heck, for the ones with Dexs up to 17, mithral full plate handles the situation quite nicely. Combined with a fairly potent magical mithral shield, and AC goes through the roof.

All in all, I'll stick with ACF as is, althoug Gez's system is also somewhat appealing (as long as you don't see a monstrous race with a high Con running around, but even then, that'll mostly be NPCs.)

 

[Alchemist]

There are also materials that reduce ASF in the AeG, the best reducing by 20% at a hefty cost and 2x weight.

 

[JCD7]

There are also materials that reduce ASF in the AeG, the best reducing by 20% at a hefty cost and 2x weight.

This may not jibe with most people, but what bothers me about ASF is the lack of explanation behind it. If armor effected arcane caster for a reason then it would sit a-lot easier with me. The game puts forward no theory of how magic works in the first place, so disrupting it can be approached in a willy-nilly fashion leaving the rest of us to figure out how the rules as stated apply to any theory you'd like to put forward.
Just a minor gripe which also applied to previous editions of the game as well.

 

[Spatzimaus]

This may not jibe with most people, but what bothers me about ASF is the lack of explanation behind it.

I don't think there have been a lack of explanations. If anything, I think there have been too many of them, it's just that no one explanation covers all the problems people have come up with. They clearly just started with a few sacred cows like "arcane magic and armor don't mix" and then tried to rationalize it as well as they could. It makes for a balanced game system, but doesn't really do much for the immersion factor.

I've heard "it interferes with gestures", which explains why spells without a somatic component don't suffer. But, it doesn't explain about Clerics.
I've heard "they're not trained", which doesn't explain why multiclassing or armor Feats don't make up for this.
I've heard "it's an energy thing, inherent to the magic type", which doesn't explain the PrCs (and now in 3.5E, the core Bard) that can cast arcane spells in light armor without penalty.

No matter how you rationalize it, though, it's still a screwy system. Remember, randomness favors the bad guy, and ASF is all about randomness. Let's say the Wizard is wearing Celestial Chainmail (15% ASF). He has one critical spell memorized, and tries to cast it. If he succeeds, and he usually will, then the armor didn't penalize at all. If he fails, we're looking at a possible TPK; will he look at the situation and say "Well, it was my fault"? No, he'll say that the dice screwed him over.

Random failures are bad. Consistent penalties are good. It'd be so much simpler if they removed ASF altogether and rolled it into the other stats, making it a constant reduction the Wizard could plan for.

For example, make the Armor Check Penalty of the armor subtract from both your caster level (for the purposes of spell effects, SR, dispel checks, etc.) and your Concentration checks. Maybe Save DC, too. If there's no ACP, there's no reduction in power. This'd really explain why Elven Chain is so good for casters.

Of course, right now light armor is superior to heavy armor in general, even for the Fighter-types, so really high ASF isn't an issue.

 

[Kemrain]

And why do men have nipples?

I'm suprised that no one answered this one. Heh. Guess I get to.

Men have nipples because they develop on a fetus before the sexual traits of the child are apparent. Male nipples are underdeveloped, but still have the potential to lactate, even without breast size. Many hormones are involved in the stimulation of nipples, but they are secreted by the petuitary gland, not the ovaries, so even men can achieve this development. It doesn't happen very often, and if it's done on purpose it's a lot of work, but male nipples can be used for the same purpose as female nipples.

- Kemrain the 'Don't ask How I Know This'

 

[Silverglass]

I've heard "it interferes with gestures", which explains why spells without a somatic component don't suffer. But, it doesn't explain about Clerics.
I've heard "they're not trained", which doesn't explain why multiclassing or armor Feats don't make up for this.
I've heard "it's an energy thing, inherent to the magic type", which doesn't explain the PrCs (and now in 3.5E, the core Bard) that can cast arcane spells in light armor without penalty.

No matter how you rationalize it, though, it's still a screwy system. Remember, randomness favors the bad guy, and ASF is all about randomness. Let's say the Wizard is wearing Celestial Chainmail (15% ASF). He has one critical spell memorized, and tries to cast it. If he succeeds, and he usually will, then the armor didn't penalize at all. If he fails, we're looking at a possible TPK; will he look at the situation and say "Well, it was my fault"? No, he'll say that the dice screwed him over.

Random failures are bad. Consistent penalties are good. It'd be so much simpler if they removed ASF altogether and rolled it into the other stats, making it a constant reduction the Wizard could plan for.

<snip>

Of course, right now light armor is superior to heavy armor in general, even for the Fighter-types, so really high ASF isn't an issue.

The explanation why Clerics don't suffer from ASF and Wizards do does not need to be based on a rationalisation of Training or those you mention above. If you need a rationalisation they try this one :- Divine Spells and Arcane Spells are completely different spells even if they have the same name. An Arcane caster cannot cast a divine spell from a scroll and vice versa. Nor can a Wizard use a divine scroll to add a spell to their spellbook. Nowhere does it say or imply that the somatic component of, say, Protection from Evil is the same for a Wizard or a Cleric (and the former has a material component while the latter uses a divine focus). When it comes down to it they are different spells cast in different ways that have the same effects and have the same name for ease of use.

As the Wizard's arcane spell involve manipulating magical forces using their own skill it is not unreasonable to assume that the Somatic component of Protection from Evil would involve a precise gesture, that would be interfered with by the fact that the elbow joint of plate armour interferes with free rotation. The Cleric casts in a very different way (SRD "Unlike arcane spells, divine spells draw power from a divine source") so is it unreasonable to say that the somatic component is a simple gesture that does not need to be that precise as the magic is drawn from an external source. And there you have a justification for ASF applying to arcane casters but not divine casters.

As far as the Bard and PrC's go 3.0 introduced the principle of reducing ASF. But for this to be balanced there needs to be a trade-off. Bards have a smaller spell list and Spellswords lose caster levels, this seems a reasonable way of applying methods of reducing ASF (as are armour enchantments and feats), you pay a price for the ability to reduce ASF. A Wizard PrC that gave ASF reductions without a penalty would probably be unbalanced.

ASF is not randomness, it is a set chance of spell failure, if ASF was situational so in your example above it could range from 15% to 30% then this would be bad. But if that the above happened to my PC I would say it was my fault, I accepted a 15% chance of failure and didn't plan to handle it in life and death situations.

And Light armour is not better then heavy armour UNLESS your character has a high dexterity. If a PC doesn't put anything higher than a 12 into DEX then mithral full plate is 4 AC better than than a mithral chain shirt even with a +4 DEX spell or Item. In a 25-30 point buy campaign you have to choose where the high stats go so you don't see PC's with both 18 STR and 18DEX. The nature of the camapign and the character affects the balance between light and heavy armours.