Arcane Spellcasters and Armor

[theoremtank]

I have never liked the reason given why arcane spellcasters cannot cast in armor. That is, they have to make consice body movements in order to successfully get off their spell and armor inhibits movement. But the fact that a casters carrying capacity load does not affect his spell failure seems to contradict this idea.

Therefore I do want to come up with an alternate reason to motivate arcane spellcasters to not wear armor. Has anyone come up with realistic alternate reasons why arcane spellcasters would not want to cast in armor? I would love to hear these ideas even if it meant you had to tweak many other existing rules.

 

[da chicken]

Obvious:
All spells require a successful Spellcraft or Concentration check. Armor check penalties apply to this check.

 

[silvertable81]

They have to "feel the energies" they manipulate.
The way I heard it
Arcane magic is magic from outside yourself.
Divine magic is magic from the gods.
Psionics is the "magic" from within.

This being the case the armor is cutting you off from the energy flows.

New Feat; Enhanced flow sense
metamagic
When casting Arcane spells in Armor, you reduce your spell failure percentage by 10%, this feat may be taken multiple times, it's effects stack.

 

[DreamChaser]

Relics and Rituals from Sword and Sorcery explains it by saying that arcane magic produces a great deal of residual heat, enough that the wizard or sorcerer never has to worry about getting cold in normal circumstances while casting spells but any heavy clothing or armor will hold in the heat and cause them great discomfort, disrupting their casting.

I've never like the arcane spell failure rule. I see no reason that clerics and psions should be able to wear armor freely but wizards can't. I say ditch the spell failure thing for any armor they are proficient with.

DC

 

[Tonguez]

Folklore suggest that Magic and Cold Iron are not compatible and that Iron dampens/kills the flow of magic(hence Fey can not stand Cold Iron).

As most armour is made from iron/steel (at least partially) they dampen the flow of magic

Magic Items are enchanted whilst the Iron is hot (in the forge) and so do not incur this penalty.


Dreamchasers idea of Magic causing Heat is also viable imho (and could explain things like spellcasting causing nails to pop from word and cloth to catch on fire!

 

[Sixchan]

While I believe that arcane casters should be able to cast relatively easily in armour like other casters, I think there are limits. The idea of a caster clad in platemail letting off powerful spells just seems...wrong to me. I think beyond chainmail, it seems to much like Diablo to be D&D.

 

[seasong]

The current campaign I'm running (story hour in my sig) doesn't use arcane spell failure at all. Of course, armor's practically nonexistent in the setting .

With that said, however, I've always liked the idea of a spell caster in armor.

 

[Wolf72]

I always liked the iron disrupts arcane energy ... then again I guess non-metal armor could disrupt the fine movements needed to gather the arcane energy ... coupled with metal can create a significant barrier.