Let's Hear it for Wizard in Armor!

mmadsen said:
Certainly the iconic wizard is an old scholar, who wouldn't have much reason to be in armor or to be hardened by long time on campaign. That's reason enough for a typical wizard not to be wearing armor.

mmadsen said:
D&D definitely went overboard with the restrictions though. One of Charlemagne's Paladins, if I recall correctly, was a wizard -- not a D&D paladin or cleric -- who wore armor. Also, Gandalf, while he didn't wear armor, clearly wielded a sword.

So he was a Warmage, Duskblade, Battle Sorcerer or a Wizard willing to chance the spell failure (which IMHO, isn't that big a risk)

Gandalf took Weapon Proficiency: Longsword.

mmadsen said:
And that's before we get into more modern, less well-know fantasy.

I would love to see armor treated as fairly easy to wear for short stretches but unbearable for longer stretches, except by trained soldiers -- which would reflect real life while maintaining game balance.

Even in modern fantasy, I would say the all out spellcaster who wears full plate armor is a rarity. I think it is best handled in the manner that 3.5 did, with a seperate class or variation on the wizard/sorcerer and/or with the sacrifice of feats.
 

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Zander said:
1. D&D depends on iconic fantasy which itself draws on a shared aesthetic. The definition of "iconic fantasy" is being discussed in another thread so I won't dwell on it here except to say that more people are familiar with the image of a wizard in robes than one in full plate, and the game should encourage familiar images because generally that's what people like.
Erm, that's perhaps the reason why wizards can get armour with certain feats or something like that. From the sound of the quote, it doesn't sounds like a wizard will start with heavy armour proficiency. It's more of an optional route - if you want to get most of your spellcasting, you'll perhaps rather invest in spellcasting feats.
Also, Elric of Melniboné wants to speak to you. Alone. ;)
Zander said:
2. D&D has always relied on mutual dependence between characters to maintain party unity and hence the co-operative nature of the game. For this reason, each class had its own strengths and weaknesses. When you blur the class roles, you undermine the glue that binds parties together. Mix class roles enough and you get each character as a largely self-sufficient 'vanilla' superman without the need for anyone else.
So... Wizards only does these roles (controller, defender, leader, striker) to confuse us?

And how is that different from now? A cleric can walk around in armour, call down divine fire, smash enemies into bloody pulp and fix up himself. Or field an undead army.
And the druid walks around as a almighty spellhurling bear 24 hours a day, if he really wants to. With another bear as friend. With fire seeds.
Or the wizard just invests in a twilight mithral armour. Or gets some bracers of armour. Or casts greater mage armour, which lasts for hours. Or is simply unhittable, because he's freaking invisible, thanks to greater invisibility.

And note that, except for the last bit (twilight mithral armour), all of that is 3.5E core.

Cheers, LT.
 


Zander said:
Allowing wizards to wear armour is quite possibly the worst 4E idea so far and the one most likely to kill D&D. There are two reasons for this:

Before we get to your reasons, lets deal with your stated exaggeration. 3.0 and 3.5 both had means to make fully armored wizards. It didn't kill the game. Without dealing with that basic issue, it's hard to take the rest of your post at face value. You've started from a false premise.

1. D&D depends on iconic fantasy which itself draws on a shared aesthetic. The definition of "iconic fantasy" is being discussed in another thread so I won't dwell on it here except to say that more people are familiar with the image of a wizard in robes than one in full plate, and the game should encourage familiar images because generally that's what people like.

You can only play a fully armored wizard in 4.0 if you take feats to do it, as I understand it. Which means the basic wizard is the same iconic wizard in your mind. In addition, as cited pretty well before your post, there is plenty of classic fantasy that involves armored wizards. In addition, in iconic fantasy most wizards had staves, yet 3.0 and 3.5 did nothing to strongly encourage the use of a staff (and indeed made magic staves so weak as to be unlikely for most wizards). And yet, that somehow didn't "kill D&D". This edition is doing more to promote the use of iconic objects of power - wands, staves, and orbs. So, isn't it promoting the iconic image of the wizard better?

2. D&D has always relied on mutual dependence between characters to maintain party unity and hence the co-operative nature of the game. For this reason, each class had its own strengths and weaknesses. When you blur the class roles, you undermine the glue that binds parties together. Mix class roles enough and you get each character as a largely self-sufficient 'vanilla' superman without the need for anyone else. The game shouldn't promote that way of thinking unless WotC are hoping to turn D&D into a game of one DM and one player.

ALL evidence about 4.0 is that it is making the class rolls MORE distinct, not less. Indeed, it's one of the most frequent complaints about what we have heard about 4e that it makes the distinctions between rolls too much and doesn't allow enough blurring.
 

Lord Tirian said:
Erm, that's perhaps the reason why wizards can get armour with certain feats or something like that. From the sound of the quote, it doesn't sounds like a wizard will start with heavy armour proficiency. It's more of an optional route - if you want to get most of your spellcasting, you'll perhaps rather invest in spellcasting feats.
I hope it's true that it would pretty much not be worth it for a wizard to wear armour in 4E. But if it's really that hard to obtain, why have it at all?

Lord Tirian said:
Also, Elric of Melniboné wants to speak to you. Alone. ;)
I'm Simkin. I'm not worried about Eric of Manlyboloney. :) Besides, check out Imaro's post above.

Lord Tirian said:
So... Wizards only does these roles (controller, defender, leader, striker) to confuse us?
If they allow wizards to wear armour, then "yes".

Lord Tirian said:
And how is that different from now? A cleric can walk around in armour, call down divine fire, smash enemies into bloody pulp and fix up himself. Or field an undead army.
And the druid walks around as a almighty spellhurling bear 24 hours a day, if he really wants to. With another bear as friend. With fire seeds.
Or the wizard just invests in a twilight mithral armour. Or gets some bracers of armour. Or casts greater mage armour, which lasts for hours. Or is simply unhittable, because he's freaking invisible, thanks to greater invisibility.

And note that, except for the last bit (twilight mithral armour), all of that is 3.5E core.
The cleric turns, the druid becomes a bear, the wizard becomes invisible - all different.

For the record, I believe that there's already been too much overlap between other classes and wizards since 3.x. If you take a party of bards and clerics (with the right mix of domains), you can pretty much cast the same spells as a party of wizards of the same size and level, as there aren't that many spells in the 3.5 PHB that are exclusively for wizards.
 


Li Shenron said:
I think it's a quite good change after all. I think I know how it happened:

1) wizards cannot use armor, but... see 2
2) wizards compensate with Mage Armor or similar spells
3) Mage Armor becomes a must, the majority of 3e wizard have it
4) if nearly everyone has it... 4e turns Mage Armor into a feat
5) now the feat is a must, so why not just let them wear armor? the effect is the same, so let's just make it so that the feat allows you to not bother about buying armors
Yeah, I would say that this would be why, and honestly I do think that this change was long overdue especially when coupled with the decrease of the Christmas Tree Effect.
 

Mistwell said:
Before we get to your reasons, lets deal with your stated exaggeration. 3.0 and 3.5 both had means to make fully armored wizards. It didn't kill the game. Without dealing with that basic issue, it's hard to take the rest of your post at face value. You've started from a false premise.
3.x had the means but they weren't worthwhile; the cost was greater than the benefit. If that's also the case in 4E, why bother with it at all?

Mistwell said:
You can only play a fully armored wizard in 4.0 if you take feats to do it, as I understand it. Which means the basic wizard is the same iconic wizard in your mind. In addition, as cited pretty well before your post, there is plenty of classic fantasy that involves armored wizards.
I disagree that those are examples of classic or iconic fantasy. But I don't want to get drawn on what classic/iconic fantasy is because that would duplicate a thread that's currently active.

Mistwell said:
In addition, in iconic fantasy most wizards had staves, yet 3.0 and 3.5 did nothing to strongly encourage the use of a staff (and indeed made magic staves so weak as to be unlikely for most wizards). And yet, that somehow didn't "kill D&D". This edition is doing more to promote the use of iconic objects of power - wands, staves, and orbs. So, isn't it promoting the iconic image of the wizard better?
With regards to objects of power, yes indeed. But it seems to me that wands, staves, orbs etc are less core to the concept of a wizard than not wearing armour. Ask a random sample of 1000 teens and adults to draw a picture of a wizard and you'll probably get lots with objects of power (probably wands because of HP) but a fair number without. I doubt you would get many, if any at all, of a man in armour. How many of the 1000 would be a man in plate or other heavy armour with a wand, stave or orb, i.e. the 4E concept of a wizard, probably none at all.

Mistwell said:
ALL evidence about 4.0 is that it is making the class rolls MORE distinct, not less.
I hope that's true of 4E.
 
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Zander said:
I hope it's true that it would pretty much not be worth it for a wizard to wear armour in 4E. But if it's really that hard to obtain, why have it at all?
Because some like the concept. I hope that a armour-wearing wizard is as playable as a robe-wearing wizard - but due to his different choices, the armour-wearing wizard will probably get a more martial bent - otherwise, why bother with armour at all?
Zander said:
I'm Simkin. I'm not worried about Eric of Manlyboloney. :) Besides, check out Imaro's post above.
Actually, the 4E's wizard sounds much more Elric-ish... ;)

Zander said:
The cleric turns, the druid becomes a bear, the wizard becomes invisible - all different.
Well, all options are close to one-man army, if done right... (it was more about that comment).

The point is: It should be a viable alternative to the robe-wearing wizard, simply because some like the concept of fighter-mage or a more martial mage (Gandalf comes to my mind), these guys will need more armour - if they give something up in return, I'm fine with it. Additionally, it makes a wizard/whatever-multiclass easier... and more options are always fine, as long as one option doesn't outshine all other options.

If wizards in armour don't give something up (like feats, because they need to burn them on armour) and the armour-wearing wizard becomes the "best" wizard (i.e. a no-brainer), well then I'd also be very discontent.

Cheers, LT.
 

I like this change. It will take some getting used to. But since I liked the Diablo and Diablo II sorceror and sorceress casting in armor (limited only by their strength), I'll adapt quickly.

:)
 

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