wizards/ warlocks and armor

[fortunato]

quick question that has probably already been asked...

Is there a penalty for wearing armor and casting arcane spells?

If not I will house rule that...but if there is something I'm missing can anyone let me know?

thanks!

 

[Sitara]

No penalty. However they do have to take a feat and/or multiple feats to select the armor you want them to be in. Furthermore, they are encouraged to wear light armor because;

-less/no feat expenditure
-They add INT bonus to light armor for AC! (so a robe wearing wizard can have an almost similar AC to a plate clad warrior)
-Heavy armor give penalty of -2 to skills.
-There is no mage armor spell in the game. Mirror image has also been nerfed into utter oblivion.

 

[Mort_Q]

The only penalty is the number of feats needed to get the proficiencies to use it. No need to house rule it, unless it's just a flavor thing, as it is a suboptimal choice in 4e.