Armored Casting (New Skill)

[Combat Wombat]

Firstly, this is my first post 'round here. Howdy

I've been working on a new campaign for a while (who hasn't?), and my group and I would like to see the possibility of wizzies running around in armor. Here's an easy idea we came up with.

Armored Casting (Dex, Trained Only, Armor Check Penalty applies)
Exclusive Skill for Brd, Sorc, Wiz (Others don't need it)

A check is made every time you cast a spell in armor. Take the result of the check, subtract 10, and that is how many points is deducted from your Arcane Spell Failure (similar mechanic to Jump). You can't add to your ASF in this way.

Here's some example DC's for casting in armor with no penalty:

Leather DC 20
Chain Shirt DC 30
Breastplate DC 35
Full Plate DC 45

Assuming 18 Dex, MW armor, max ranks, skill focus, and Armor check penalty, a character rolling a 10 would need to be the following level to make those DC's.

Leather Lvl 1
Chain Shirt Lvl 12
Breastplate Lvl 19
Full Plate Lvl 29

The problem is making the skill useful enough for high level characters. By level 19 wearing a breastplate at the cost of a maxed skill and two feats (for proficiency in the armor) certainly isn't worth it when things like bracers of armor float about. A chain shirt at level 12 isn't hot either.

I've got some ideas about how to fix this, but I want to see what you guys have to say before I go slowing down any brains with my wacky ideas.

Questions, suggestions, comments, or snide remarks?

 

[Lily Inverse]

Actually, the feat penalty is negated (at the cost of delaying high-level spells by a level) by initially taking a level of Fighter, Ranger, or Barbarian (Personally, I'd go with Barbarian for the extra HPs and skills, or maybe Ranger and get points in Concentration and Spellcraft early on.)

 

[Uller]

Actually, the feat penalty is negated (at the cost of delaying high-level spells by a level) by initially taking a level of Fighter, Ranger, or Barbarian (Personally, I'd go with Barbarian for the extra HPs and skills, or maybe Ranger and get points in Concentration and Spellcraft early on.)

Taking a level in another class just to wear armor has the additional cost of not getting the high level spells as soon. That's a bigger cost than a feat, IMO.

CW, I've been mulling over this issue myself lately and I've come up with two answers:

1) Arcane Armor Enchantment. Each 5% reduction in ASF for magic armor counts as a '+1' enchantment. So +1 Mithral Chainshirt with 0% ASF would count as +3 mithral chain shirt for calculating the armor's value.

2) Armored Casting Feat

Armored Casting [General]
Prerequisite: Dex 13
Description: A character with this feat has trained at overcoming the problems associated with casting Arcane spells while wearing armor.
Benefit: A character with this feat who casts an Arcane spell with somatic components makes a dexterity check versus DC 3 to see if the spell fails rather and the normal Arcane Spell Failure check. The result is modified by the characters current Armor Check Penalty associated with the armor he is wearing or the ammount of encumberance he is under. This feat may be taken multiple times. Each additional application of this feat gives an additional +2 to the spell failure check. A character may "Take 10" for this check in non-combat and non-rushed situations where there are no distractions.

(You can adjust the DC up or down to make it harder or easier as you see fit).

I thought about using a skill, but I decided against it because that heavily favors wizards since they usually have _a lot_ more skill points available than sorcerers. Maybe make it a Cross-class skill for Wizards and a class skill for sorcerers? That might work.

 

[SableWyvern]

Oops. Completely misread the original. Most of this post now deleted.

Alternately, you could just suggest the still spell metamagic feat. That's 100% effective, at the cost of a higher spell slot.

 

[Kip the Bold]

Using a skill to reduce arcane failure is an interesting idea, but I think it would slow your game down considerably. Everytime an arcane spellcaster casts a spell in armor the player needs to make a roll and a calculation to figure out his new failure chance, and still has to roll for spell failure. That extra layer of complexity is unnecessary, I believe, and consumes a little too much time in the middle of a combat.
It would be simpler to create a feat that reduces arcane spell failure while wearing armor. Something sorta like this...

Casting in Armor
You have learned to cast spells in armor easily.
Prerequisite: eh...say Dex 13+, proficiency in armor
Benefit: Arcane spell failure is reduced by, eh..say -10%
Special: can take this feat multiple times, benefits stack.

you might want to tweak the numbers a bit, maybe make it 5% or 15%

[edited for spelling]

 

[Fenris]

Kip, Sounds good to me, as far as the interval, use the interval that the Spellsword PrC gets from T&B. There is the precedent and model for the feat. I don't have the book with me, but the PrC essentailly gets this feat several times not as a feat but a class ability that increases with level.

 

[Jerrid Al-Kundo]

There's a Feat like that in the Netbook of Feats, actually (Armored Caster, IIRC).

It's also -10% and stackable; I personally tweaked it to 5%, but it's a good Feat nonetheless.

 

[Fenris]

Jerrid, Why tweak it to 5%? I realize each 5% is essentially 1 AC. So leaving it at 5% makes it equivalent to dodge in that it grant a +1 to AC (though to all attacks). Iwas thinking of using it at 10% but not allowing it to be taken multiple times. Since I don't want casters running around in lots of armor. Thoughts?

 

[mikebr99]

Jerrid, Why tweak it to 5%? I realize each 5% is essentially 1 AC. So leaving it at 5% makes it equivalent to dodge in that it grant a +1 to AC (though to all attacks). Iwas thinking of using it at 10% but not allowing it to be taken multiple times. Since I don't want casters running around in lots of armor. Thoughts?

Good question...

It is already a general feat, so a wizard can't take it as one of their bonus, and you also have to buy the armour feat before these anyway... So, by 6th level, a human Wizard could be casting in full plate, at the expense of 4 feats (out of 5).

 

[Jerrid Al-Kundo]

Because of a change made to a few other classes; Druids being most notable. In a game closer to Core, 10% is probably fine. Thus my remark, "it's a good feat nonetheless."

I was just following up on Kip's remark about using a 5% to 15% range more than anything else.

However, for non-stacking, I'd up it to 15%; As a one-shot, that doesn't strike me as overpowered.