Wizards and Armor

[Arctic Wolf]

Encumbrance has been handled poorly in just about every edition of D&D. There's a reason most people (<-- I may be making this part up?) don't use it. I'd much prefer it be replaced with some common sense restrictions on armor and equipment use.

On a related note: Why is everyone in D&D always fighting with his/her backpack on? I'm struggling to think of any story/comic/movie/anything where the heroes intentionally go into combat wearing backpacks. (I feel like there's a relevant scene in the Mines of Moria in Fellowship, but I'm blanking.)

That is true. The way I deal with it which is kinda meh, is that the adventurers throw their bags to the side when combat starts. Usually everyone is my group keeps all their stuff in a pouch on their side if it is that important, like poisons, rope, and the like.

 

[blalien]

So, staves would be banned, as well?

By both hands, I meant the wizard needs one hand to hold an implement and another hand to wiggle his or her fingers around. I guess a feat that allowed a wizard to use a shield would be okay.

 

[kinem]

This is just an absolute of 5e (wizards cannot wear armor, a dwarf cannot be poisoned, elves cannot be charmed, reapers cannot "miss")

Sounds like I'll be skipping 5e

 

[SeRiAlExPeRiMeNtS]

This wizard can´t cast in armor is another of "let the wizard be powerful but hard to play" thing that I dislike from older d&d. To me the 4e solution is perfect, they simply needs feats to use armor.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I voted other because I don't really care whether it is spell failure chance (or disadvantage?) if casting in armour, or can cast in any armour as long as you are proficient or *something*.

I really dislike the principle of wizards can't cast in armour 'just because'.

Clerics are happily casting away in armour, and as has already been pointed out - chain or even plate wouldn't prevent anything other than the most contortionistic somatic gestures!

There was one early d20 game which had magic use generating a lot of heat in the caster so they had to wear minimal clothing to prevent heat-stroke. That was one way of doing it but I don't think the generic fantasy which is D&D (and yes, I think it is still pretty generic notwithstanding its own tropes) is a good place to introduce specific rules like that.

After all - if you have no magic casting in ANY ARMOUR AT ALL, I can't see many PCs taking the otherwise very interesting 'Magic User' theme which we've seen - which would be a shame. I think any class might benefit from having a couple of cantrips available to them

Cheers

 

[mlund]

Armor is not a magical force-field that's always providing the same level of protection no matter how you move around in it. Training in using armor effectively actually is important because every suit of armor has its strong and weak points. There are good angles to take a blow on and bad ones. The slope of layered plates or laminate is crucial if you know how to use it. Limited fields of vision is something heavy armor users have to train to compensate for. A character who is untrained with armor or just not strong enough to move freely in armor isn't going to get anywhere near the same protection.

I'd impose a -2 penalty to AC for untrained Medium Armor use.
I'd grant Advantage to attacks against untrained Heavy Armor users.
Casters in armor they aren't trained for are disrupted at all times.

Yes, you could game this at really low levels if you've burned all your 3-4 daily spells by throwing on a chain shirt or something and sticking to cantrips. It also makes the Dabbler option fine for other classes that have armor. "Armored Mage" as a theme would be pretty cool too. Feat-gain marks would unlock better and better armor - Level 1 Leather, Level 3 Studded, Level 6 Chain Shirt & Ring Mail, Level 9 Scale, Level 12 Splint + Chainmail, Level 15 Banded, Level 18 Plate.

- Marty Lund

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I've never been satisfied with the fluff explanations for it, but at the same time it's a trope that I want to preserve-- I want Wizards to have a hard time with armor, but for Warmages and Magi and Fighter/Wizards to have varying degrees of ability to cast spells in armor.

I don't want it to be impossible, and I don't want it to be a terrible penalty. I just want it to cost a non-trivial amount of resources to accomplish. (Sacrificing one caster level for a Fighter dip is trivial.) I want Bards and Bladesingers to wear light armor as a matter of course, and for an Eldritch Knight in plate mail to be an automatic object of fear and awe for his mastery of the arms and the arcane.

And I want heavy armor to actually be worth putting that level of investment into.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

"Difficult to cast" arcane spells in armor does not necessarily need to mean physical impediment. Nor does it need to be explicitly spelled out (though a list of several different possible reasons would not hurt). It's probably in the game for the classic "cold iron impedes magic" bit, with clerics immune because they are merely channelling power from their god.

In fact, the idea behind special materials negating the problem is building on those same "cold iron" sources. This is also one of the sources for the weapon restrictions on wizard, albeit clouded. They get to use quarterstaffs for obvious reasons, but get to use daggers without specifying that the dagger bit comes from a ceremonial caster dagger--you guessed it, made out of special materials and/or magically treated so that the cold iron doesn't interfere.

I'm for a generic drawback to casting in armor. Make it generic enough but chosen well, and you can rationalize it many different ways, depending on how you want the campaign to go.

 

[Abstruse]

I've never been satisfied with the fluff explanations for it, but at the same time it's a trope that I want to preserve-- I want Wizards to have a hard time with armor, but for Warmages and Magi and Fighter/Wizards to have varying degrees of ability to cast spells in armor.

The fluff's always made perfect sense to me, especially in the editions that specify that it's only spells with somatic components. If you can't move freely to do the proper gestures, there's a chance that the restrictions of armor might cause problems properly making the gestures. Like I said, I had a punk phase and a goth phase where I wore a lot of armor-like accessories and while I rarely had problems moving around in a leather jacket with metal studs all over it or with leather bracers on, I also got used to it and I can easily see how it could screw up if you had to do anything precise. And I also never wore gloves either.

Metal screwing with the arcane energies? Yeah, never understood that one especially when "leather" and "hide" are choices for armor that have the same restrictions.

As far as cleric spells being different from arcane spells, never bothered me either because I guess I just always accepted it. Divine spells are supposed to be the cleric channeling the power of his/her deity so I guess I just automatically accepted that they'd work differently.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Mages do not wear armor. Messes with their magic.

Period. Next topic.

What if the mages studied with elves? They seemed to have figured it out.