Spell level

[DanMcS]

What level would you put an improved version of mage armor at?

Say it gave you an armor bonus of +8.
What about one that gave you a variable bonus, like +1/caster level, maximum 10?

 

[Zad]

Complete Arcane includes a spell that is an improved version of Mage Armor. Level 3, +6 bonus, 1hr/level duration. That's a useful indicator.

 

[DanMcS]

Complete Arcane includes a spell that is an improved version of Mage Armor. Level 3, +6 bonus, 1hr/level duration. That's a useful indicator.

Sweet, just the kind of information I needed. Thanks!

 

[Thanee]

There's also an Improved Mage Armor, which scales with level, in one of the FR books and various others, but it has only a 1 min/lvl duration, which is rather bad.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Anony Mouse]

The psionic power inertial armor is the equivalent of mage armor, providing +4 AC for 1hr/level. As with all psionics you can boost it by using more power points. For every +2 power points it gives a +1 AC.

If your not familiar with augmentable powers, every 2 powerpoints you add to the cost is in effect making it a power of one level higher. you can only spend a maximum number of power points equal to you psion level. and all powers of a given level have a cost equal to the minimum character level needed to use that power (1st=1, 2nd=3, 3rd=5, 4th=7....)

So at 3rd level you can use it as a 2nd level power +5, at 5th you can use it as a 3rd level power +6... etc etc. this seems to be fairly consistant with Zad's comment from the complete arcane.

mage armor is very useful for the low level pc. but what if the bonus offered was +1AC/spellcaster level. it seems to me that this would be balanced

 

[shilsen]

mage armor is very useful for the low level pc. but what if the bonus offered was +1AC/spellcaster level. it seems to me that this would be balanced

So a 10th lvl caster would get a +10 to AC and a 20th lvl caster would get a +20? Hmm, how do I phrase a response? I think I've got it:

Didn't your mama tell you not to smoke that stuff before you post on ENWorld?

 

[DanMcS]

mage armor is very useful for the low level pc. but what if the bonus offered was +1AC/spellcaster level. it seems to me that this would be balanced

I would probably cap it something like the damage dice; +5 for a 2nd-level spell, +10 for a third, probably no more than that.

 

[Doomhawk]

I think allowing more higher-level versions of Mage Armor would be fine... 5th level for +8, 7th for +10, and 9th for +12 sounds fair to me. It also follows an established precedent (Inertial Armor).
Giving +1 per caster level seems like it would be too weak at low levels, and too strong at high levels, even with a cap. Consider a 10th-level wizard: his 3rd-level Mage Armor spell would give +10 AC if he used the +1/level version; which is better than Bracers of Armor +8, a 64,000 gp item. His entire character wealth is less than that!