Arcane Spell Failure

[Uller]

If this has been discussed before, please point me to the appropriate thread. Otherwise...

I've never been real found of how difficult it is for arcane spell casters to cast in armor. I think it should be somewhat difficult based on the armor and I think reducing this difficulty should not be easy, but it should be possible.

So here is what I propose:

1) Do away with Arcane Spell Failure % chances.

2) Instead, anytime an arcane spell caster casts a spell while wearing armor, do an Arcane Failure check with a d20:

DC = 2 or 3(see below) or possibly slightly higher(4 or 5 at most)
Check = d20 + Dex Bonus + Check Penalty for armor(and shield) worn.

Given a caster with an average dex and normal armor, the percent chance of failure is the same or 5% less if the DC is 2, the same or 5% more if the DC is 3. The better a character's dex heavier the armor he can wear and cast without punishment. Include the fact that heavier armors have a rather low max dex bonus, it becomes increasing difficult to get around arcane spell failure for those armors. Given a DC of 2 and Masterwork Fullplate and a +1 dex bonus, the % chance of failure is 25%(gotta roll at least a 6). Make it Mithral(max dex 3 and check penalty of -3) you get a 5% failure rate. Adding a shield makes it worse.

Optional: Create couple feats...something like Armored Casting: +2 to Spell Failure Checks. Maybe also Improved Armored Casting: +4 to Spell Failure checks. With these feats, it would be possible to completely eleminate spell failure for even the heaviest armors.

Implications: For casters with a decent dex, Mage Armor and shield are less "must have" spells because the caster can don some simple armor, especially if they are bards or multiclassed and have an armor proficiency. Pure casters like wizards and sorcerers will still be unlikely to wear medium or heavy armor as it it still requires some serious feat costs and they'll still need a good dex.

In my mind, this makes Arcane casters/Fighter-types a more viable options, especially Fighter/Sorcerers since now if the character has a decent dex, he doesn't have to waste as many prescious spell slots on defensive spells, particularly at low levels.

Edit: Oh yeah: And Take 10 would be allowed for non-combat and non-rushed situations. This avoids such sillyness as "I take off my armor so I can cast without failure..." Take 20 is obviously not possible since failure still results in loss of the spell.

 

[Jack Daniel]

I've been using check penalties instead of AF% for a long time now.

 

[Jack Haggerty]

Why not make it a Concentration check?

 

[Uller]

Edit...forget the chart...I'll post it later...

Why not concentration?

2 reasons:

1) Concentration is a skill. It can easily be increased to the point that spell failure is rare or the rule would become much more complex(plus I would assume the combat casting feat would give an additional +4). You could make a new skill I guess...

2) Somatic components are defined as precise and measured movements and gestures. IMO, one's skill at making such jestures is based more upon dex than con.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Okay, this is obviously a major thing here, but I wanted to post this here for a while now. A while back me, along with some DMing friends, tried to make a modified version of 3E for a custom world. Among other things, no Wizard class (see below).

Anyhoo, this whole "casting in armor" thing was a big sticking point. If arcane and divine casters are all using somatic components (gestures), why is one penalized for armor and the other isn't? If it's just training, then why is a multiclass Sor/Clr still penalized when casting as a Sorcerer? If it's NOT just training, then why?

So, we tweaked the whole concept of magic. Basically, IMC there are four fundamental types of magic: Arcane (Sor/Brd), Psionic (Psi/PsyW), Divine (Clr/Pal), and Natural (Dru/Rng). Arcane and Psionic (or Blood and Mind magic, or Chaos and Law magic) are innate; you're either born with the talent or not; Elves favor Sorcery (being more Chaotic) while Gnomes favor Psionics (being more Lawful in my world). Divine is given by a god (so you have to act as he'd want you to), but anyone can learn it. Natural is drawn from the world around you (and thus not subject to the whole good/evil debate as no one is monitoring your actions), and anyone can learn it.

There were some nice advantages to this, like allowing multiclasses within a type to combine (i.e., a Cleric/Paladin combines caster levels and spell lists/slots while a Cleric/Druid couldn't). But we're interested in the Arcane Failure part here.

In the Netbook of Feats is:

Armored Caster
Arcane Failure is reduced by 10%. This may be taken multiple times.

So, what we did was change "Arcane Failure" to "Somatic Failure". Everyone is subject to it now, except Psionic casters since they don't use gestures.
Arcane classes are treated the same as before. (Well, I also changed the Bard class a bit, removing the healing spells but giving a few free feats from a very limited list, including Armored Caster and weapon proficiencies)
Divine classes get free Armored Caster feats at various levels; Clerics and Paladins each get 2 or 3 spaced out over their levels. This represents the training they go through.
Natural classes don't get free Armored Caster feats, but for them all organic ingredient armors (leather/wood) have Somatic Failure of 10% less than listed (no negative numbers), while inorganic armors (metal/crystal) have 10% higher than listed. Really exotic stuff that doesn't easily fit into either category is unchanged. The reason is, beyond the difficulty of doing gestures in heavy armor, the magic itself doesn't flow through you as easily if you're in metal armor, while organic armors actually help focus it.

So that's it. If your Druid puts on platemail, he casts with a horrendous failure rate, but he's not cursed for the day because he doesn't answer to a higher authority. If your Bard wants to cast without failure, he can learn.
This is somewhat of a nerf of the Cleric/Paladin/Ranger classes, but I tweaked them a bit too, especially how Domains are handled.

 

[hong]

If you really don't like arcane spell failure, why not just get rid of it altogether?

This won't give mages any better AC than they can get already via mage armour and/or bracers of armour. You might, however, want to change the shield spell to give a reduced bonus to AC. Heck, you might want to do that anyway; +7 AC is huge as it is.

Mages don't get into close combat because they're not wearing armour. They don't get into close combat because they have d4 hit points, no armour and weapon proficiencies, pissy Strength, and no combat feats. All in all, they're better off at the rear.

 

[TheFlamingRheo]

In truth my DM has almost always armored used the casting feat, in fact he even created a fighter/sorcer prestige class that gains the feat. Thay are a group of warrior elves who fly perytons.(FRCS)

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I would expect to see a lot of wizards wearing mithral breastplates or chain shirts (armor check -1 and 0 respectively) and using darkwood shields (armor check 0). With Cat's grace, any reasonably constructed character would be making that DC 5 dex check on a roll of a 2 or 3. With a good bonus fromcat's grace, that would be a roll of 1 or 2.

Add in a shield spell (which, as a cover bonus stacks with AC from armor and a shield) and you're looking at AC 27 to 29 before enhancement bonusses on the armor, deflection bonusses, or natural armor bonusses. Now, this is quite possible under the core rules but a character has to either:
1. Deal with spell failure from 15 to 20% (mithral shield and armor)
2. Give up spellcasting ability by taking spellsword levels
3. Take divine spellcasting and Geomancer levels.
4. Take levels in Bladesinger (web enhancement version)

Now, whether this is good or not depends upon how advantageous you think the fighter/wizard class combo is already. (And whether or not you want to deal with multitudes of wizards wearing magical mithral chain shirts and darkwood shields for a much higher AC than they would normally have). If the class combo is weak, then powering it up a bit won't hurt balance (although the spellsword class would be worthless). If the class combo is balanced or powerful already then this will seriously unbalance your game.

 

[Uller]

I would expect to see a lot of wizards wearing mithral breastplates or chain shirts (armor check -1 and 0 respectively) and using darkwood shields (armor check 0).

Probably not pure wizards or sorcerers. For a pure wizard to wear armor and use a shield, he'd have to spend TWO feats to be proficient in light armor and shields or multiclass. Either way, seems a fair price to pay to me. I just don't see that happening very often. I think this rule would mostly effect bards and multiclassed wizards and sorcerers.

With Cat's grace, any reasonably constructed character would be making that DC 5 dex check on a roll of a 2 or 3. With a good bonus fromcat's grace, that would be a roll of 1 or 2.

2 or 3? That's a 5-10% failure rate. Seems about right for a character with high dexterity, mithral armor and proficiency in armor.

Add in a shield spell (which, as a cover bonus stacks with AC from armor and a shield) and you're looking at AC 27 to 29 before enhancement bonusses on the armor, deflection bonusses, or natural armor bonusses.

I've seen wizard characters achieve this anyway. Mage Armor + Shield + Protection from Evil + Cat's Grace = AC 25. With a 14 dex you could get AC 27. An armored wizard can replace exactly one spell from this list with actual armor, but again, he must be proficient with that armor, so we are looking more at Fighter-type/Wizards and bards(and bards don't have a shield spell).

Now, this is quite possible under the core rules but a character has to either:
1. Deal with spell failure from 15 to 20% (mithral shield and armor)
2. Give up spellcasting ability by taking spellsword levels
3. Take divine spellcasting and Geomancer levels.
4. Take levels in Bladesinger (web enhancement version)

Only option 1 is core rules(PHB, DMG, MM). Everything else is not. My group doesn't use any splat books and I don't think that is going to change anytime soon.

Now, whether this is good or not depends upon how advantageous you think the fighter/wizard class combo is already...

Personally, I've found such characters built with the core rules to be lacking. Which is why I want to give them a little boost by freeing up one or two spells(or magic items) to provide a little variaty. Since 3e came out, EVERY bard and wiz(or src)/fighter-type character in my group has had mage armor(and shield for non-bards). It would be nice if these characters had another option to get a good AC(to compensate for their poor hp) and take some different spells for once.

Also, I'm not too concerned with players running amok on my game. Only one of my players is really a serious power gamer and he really isn't all that interested in any arcane-spell casters. But there are three of us that like fighter/wizard types but we've all generally stayed away from them because we feel like you gotta waste a couple of those prescious spells on boosting AC before you can even think about some more interesting spells...

Anyway...at this point we are actually leaning towards a rule like this...

Armored Casting [General]
Description: The character is trained in casting arcane spells while wearing armor.
Benefit: If a character with this feat attempts to cast a spell while wearing armor, rather than make an arcane spell failure check in the usual, he may instead make a d20 check. DC = 3. result = d20 + dex bonus* + Armor Check Penalty. This feat may be taken more than once. Subsequent applications of this feat give a +2 bonus to the spell failure check. In non-combat/non-rushed situations, the character may Take 10 for this check.

* note that the character's dex bonus is affected by the armor worn and his encumberance...So a character in full-plate with a 16 dex only has a +1 dex bonus.

This feat is really the best of both worlds...it ensures that _ALL_ spell casters must pay a price(a feat) to be able to cast in even the lightest armor without failure(or heavier armor with a reduced chance of failure). So even a bard with a +3 dex must take this feat if he wants to wear studded leather and a shield with no problems. If they want heavier armor, they need to take the feat multiple times(or they could just take Still spell and cast weaker spells...fair trade, IMO).

Edit: Also note that the feat is a [General] feat...so Wizard/Fighters have limited number of feat slots they can actually use for this. At first level, they can take it at most once(twice if human) and can't boost it again until they are at least 3rd level.

 

[Shaele]

Some good stuff here.... just a quick comment. We had similiar issue in our campaign, and introduced the following feat.

Armored Casting
Prerequisite: Ability to cast arcane spells
Benefit: Reduce arcane failure by 10% (not per piece of armor, but total for that character).

... then we gave it to bards as a free feat at 1st level (to get around the logical inconsistency of an arcane caster with armor feats). It seems a fair tradeoff - fighter/wizards can only really wear leather or padded without failure (or a mithryl chain shirt, if they can make one).