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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silverglass" data-source="post: 1139789" data-attributes="member: 14071">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.</blockquote>

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