D&D 5E Mage Armor

[Klaus]

They're also front-line combatants who are supposed to be "tanks." Wizards are not.

Yet you can play an archer Fighter or a laser Cleric and not tank at all. By the same token, you should be able to make a Wyzard that likes to get his hands dirty.

Rogues are melee combatants and they can only wear light armor, so it's fair that they can use their primary stat for AC.

Are they? Rogues have access to decent ranged attacks (bows, slings, thrown weapons), after all. The Rogue is more of an *opportunistic* melee combatant, darting in, dealing damage and darting out. The ammount of "touch" spells a Wizard (chill touch, shocking grasp, ghoul touch, etc) suggest the same.

 

[Klaus]

Battlemages can go find some other trick. I see no reason for mage armor to stack with armor. The spell says armor in the name, after all.

The way I'd describe it, "mage armor" is based on the wizard's quickness of thought. He mentally reacts to danger by reinforcing his personal force field, in the same manner an armored character would twist and turn to maximize the protection of his armor. For a wizard, it'd be the same as a warrior who wears metal plates on top of chainmail.

 

[Falling Icicle]

Yet you can play an archer Fighter or a laser Cleric and not tank at all. By the same token, you should be able to make a Wyzard that likes to get his hands dirty.

Are they? Rogues have access to decent ranged attacks (bows, slings, thrown weapons), after all. The Rogue is more of an *opportunistic* melee combatant, darting in, dealing damage and darting out. The ammount of "touch" spells a Wizard (chill touch, shocking grasp, ghoul touch, etc) suggest the same.

I wasn't suggesting that you couldn't play a ranged fighter, cleric or rogue, only that those classes are designed to be able to fight in melee combat and be good at surviving it. Wizards, on the other hand, have always been fragile and best kept out of such close confrontations, at least by default. That doesn't mean you can't play a warrior wizard, it just requires sacrifices, like multiclassing, taking certain feats (like armor proficiencies), investing in Dexterity, and so on. If wizards could use their Int for AC, it would give them a very good AC without making such sacrifices, and I don't think that's appropriate.

 

[Klaus]

I wasn't suggesting that you couldn't play a ranged fighter, cleric or rogue, only that those classes are designed to be able to fight in melee combat and be good at surviving it. Wizards, on the other hand, have always been fragile and best kept out of such close confrontations, at least by default. That doesn't mean you can't play a warrior wizard, it just requires sacrifices, like multiclassing, taking certain feats (like armor proficiencies), investing in Dexterity, and so on. If wizards could use their Int for AC, it would give them a very good AC without making such sacrifices, and I don't think that's appropriate.

Well, a frontline Fighter or Cleric will have AC 17 (chain + shield), up to AC 19 (plate + shield).
A frontline Rogue will have AC 15 (leather + Dex 18), up to AC 18 (mithril shirt + Dex 20).
A Wizard right now has AC 10 or 12 (if he invests in Dex 14). If we go by my suggestion, he'd have AC 14 (Int 18), up to AC 15 (Int 20).

With DDN's flatter math, every point in AC difference is a huge gap. A wizard starting out 1 point behind a similar rogue is a lot, when you consider that even the frontline combatants can improve their AC by only 2 points over the course of their career. And the wizard will still begin 3 points behind a "tank", and end up 4 points behind.

And if we allow Mage Armor to stack with physical armor, this means the wizard will be able to invest one feat (presumably, Light Armor Proficiency) to have the same AC as a rogue. Sounds like a good (but not mandatory) investment for a feat.

 

[MoonSong]

Ok, a couple of thoughts.

I don't think Mage armor should add Int to AC, but for a very simple reason, this is a spell that sorcerers will need too (more so because sorcerers are actually meant to be melee combatants - very poor ones, but they have a melee vocation wizards just lack-), and sorcerers aren't speciffically known for being geniuses, having mage armor work on dex actually puts both on equal footing and puts less strain on sorcerers who are more mad by making wizards less sad.

Second the melee combatant arcane caster's niche belong to the bard, and always has -except when they weren't arcane but divine casters-, for a wizard to go there some sacrifices should be made, getting main stat to AC is just too much.

 

[Klaus]

(more so because sorcerers are actually meant to be melee combatants - very poor ones, but they have a melee vocation wizards just lack-)

Since when? Sorcerers started as a different-mechanic wizard in 3e. 4e made them the heavy-damage arcanists, but still very much ranged ones.

If you give wizards Mage Armor as an "Int instead of Dex" class feature, you can add the same for sorcerers and warlocks... if they lack other means of protection. If Hexblades begin with, say, Medium Armor Proficiency, then they don't need such an ability. Sorcerer armor proficiencies might vary by tradition.

And clerics that follow deities that don't give out armor proficiency (like the Arcanist, and IMHO, the Lifegiver) should be able to add Wis to AC (call it Divine Grace or something).

 

[MoonSong]

Since when? Sorcerers started as a different-mechanic wizard in 3e. 4e made them the heavy-damage arcanists, but still very much ranged ones.

If you give wizards Mage Armor as an "Int instead of Dex" class feature, you can add the same for sorcerers and warlocks... if they lack other means of protection. If Hexblades begin with, say, Medium Armor Proficiency, then they don't need such an ability. Sorcerer armor proficiencies might vary by tradition.

And clerics that follow deities that don't give out armor proficiency (like the Arcanist, and IMHO, the Lifegiver) should be able to add Wis to AC (call it Divine Grace or something).

Ok, in the original 3e phb, there were very little things that would send sorcerers into melee, however those traces were there:
-Starting equipment. Sorcerers were suggested to start with a spear.
-Proficiencies, spears, maces, sickles, morningstars, A sorcerer had incentives to go into melee and show off the variety of weapons he could use to the wizard

3.5. PHB: The original suggested sorcerer bonus feat was replaced with Combat casting
Unearthed arcana: Battle sorcerer variant, no melee wizard variant
Complete mage: Stalwart Sorcerer variant, no melee wizard variant.

4e. Sorcerers implements are melee weapons too.
Sorcerers get 1 melee at-will, Wizards get none
Dragon sorcerers are in fact gishes, with a strong melee basic attack and with strength to AC
All Dagger channelers are gishes too.
Sorcerers get lots of close burst and blast (as in be in the middle of th action) powers

[notranslate]Pathfinder[/notranslate]
A number of bloodlines grant melee attacks as bloodline powers.

As for making mage armor a class feature that grants Int to AC, cha for sorcerers and whatever for warlocks, no that would represent a very gamist and enforced needless simmetry, and that is without taking into account how it complicates multiclassing, or even natural character progression (does a white mage that gains armor proficiency lose the wis bonus to AC?) so no, just no.

 

[Stormonu]

Don't forget the Dragon Disciple PrC, which was very melee-oriented and geared more torwards the idea of a "dragon-blooded" sorcerer than a wizard.

 

[Klaus]

Ok, in the original 3e phb, there were very little things that would send sorcerers into melee, however those traces were there:
-Starting equipment. Sorcerers were suggested to start with a spear.
-Proficiencies, spears, maces, sickles, morningstars, A sorcerer had incentives to go into melee and show off the variety of weapons he could use to the wizard

3.5. PHB: The original suggested sorcerer bonus feat was replaced with Combat casting
Unearthed arcana: Battle sorcerer variant, no melee wizard variant
Complete mage: Stalwart Sorcerer variant, no melee wizard variant.

4e. Sorcerers implements are melee weapons too.
Sorcerers get 1 melee at-will, Wizards get none
Dragon sorcerers are in fact gishes, with a strong melee basic attack and with strength to AC
All Dagger channelers are gishes too.
Sorcerers get lots of close burst and blast (as in be in the middle of th action) powers

[notranslate]Pathfinder[/notranslate]
A number of bloodlines grant melee attacks as bloodline powers.

As for making mage armor a class feature that grants Int to AC, cha for sorcerers and whatever for warlocks, no that would represent a very gamist and enforced needless simmetry, and that is without taking into account how it complicates multiclassing, or even natural character progression (does a white mage that gains armor proficiency lose the wis bonus to AC?) so no, just no.

Despite what weapon proficiencies tell you, a 3e sorcerer had a pretty lousy melee attack (unless he invested in Strength). As for the variants, they were that, variants. Are we listing the Spellsword from Tome & Blood, or the Bladesinger, as well?

If Hexblades, Warlocks and some Sorcerers get at least Medium Armor Proficiency, there's no need for an extra defensive layer. Maybe a DDN storm Sorcerer will have effects that derive from Dexterity, so they have incentive to invest in decent Dex (and thus, also need no patch). As for the others, they'd need something to shore up their defenses without unfairly taxing their resources.

And not all gamist decisions are necessarily bad. That's how the cleric started out with bludgeoning weapons, as Gary wanted to curb their combat prowess to make up for their spellcasting and armor proficiency. So yes, just yes.

 

[ArmoredSaint]

I don't understand this push to have Wizards add their Intelligence to their AC. I am content that the Wizard should be a glass cannon. If Wizards can easily achieve an Armor Classes comparable to that of a melee class, then that makes wearing heavy armour less special; it would represent the Wizard coming too near treading on the Fighter's territory.

Mage Armor is perfectly fine as it presently is.