Wizards in armor: why not?

The sorcerer character class in Supplement V: CARCOSA is to a large extent modelled on Elric. Sorcerers can wear armor, are just as good at fighting as are fighting-men, and can perform sorcerous rituals.

So I prefer them in armor!

Strangely enough, I think all classes should be discouraged from using armor.

Armor simply wasn't worn day to day (AFAIK), it was a soldier's thing and worn when combat was anticipated. It's hot, restrictive, heavy, and (it can't be emphasized enough) expensive! I think there should be some penalties associated with the wearing of chain and heavier armor, though perhaps mitigated somewhat (or completely) for the fighting men to represent training.

I personally think there should be more fighters that just have a helm, breastplate and shield, rather than a bunch of fully suited knights running around. Or even those with a leather harness, a loin cloth, and a mighty two handed axe.

One reason armor was so cheap was that knights in their castles would challenge strangers (i.e. the party) to a joust. The loser forfeited his steed and his armor!

It's all there in v.3.

And obviously, the price point of plate was revised in AD&D -- if the prices in OD&D don't sit righg\t with you, simply change them!

I think that it really is a matter of game balance. If wizards can use armor and swords and everything else, why wouldn't everyone want to be one? I think that some of the "magic can't work around all that metal" type explanations were clearly an attempt to use logic to defend what was an issue in game balance.

In literature, there is usually a single protagonist or a small band of protagoni (?) and the author makes up the rules as he goes. No attempt at balance is made and the story progresses as the author desires. Some RPGs are like that and some gamers play that way, but most seem to prefer some sort of guildlines that don't change from scene to scene at the author's whim. And if you do that usually some form of balance is desired so that no single character can do everything by himself but instead relies on the overall skills of the party.

One of the things about 2E AD&D I didn't like was when the rules involved "character points" where wizards could give up magic schools to gain cleric-style healing. I'm not a big fan of skill systems becasue then fighters tend to grab thief-like skills. Characters tend to blend together as jack-of-all-trade types instead of distinct classes.

That's why my wizards don't wear armor or use swords.

Your campaign may vary, of course. :-)

I appreciate the balance argument, but I don't think D&D actually uses this balance very well. At low level, when mages are weak and their spells don't do very much, they also get crappy armor class and are easy to kill. At higher levels, they tend to have bracers, rings of protection, defensive spells, etc. etc. so their AC is only a couple points behind the fy-tors anyway. (The reduced hit points work somewhat better in this regard IMO. I suppose you can still make an 'every little bit counts' argument though.)

Well, there are lots of ways to skin a cat. Just mulling over what to do in My World...

A couple of thoughts on this. First of all, in OD&D the classes start similar and grow apart. So at Level 1, all three classes have almost identical hit points (Fighting Man gets +1), and the same To-Hit column. The Magic-User has horrible armor class, but hopefully the others can’t afford the greatest armor, either. The Magic-User does have one spell. Probably the biggest difference will be in what magic items they can use, when they find them.

My second thought is that there IS game balance in the fact that the Magic-User is extremely mortal at lower levels and extremely powerful at higher levels. (This accurately reflects the literature, too.) So the player has a choice when creating a character. Start out especially strong/useful and later plateau (Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit), steady start and finish (Fighting Man, Cleric), or start out weak and finish strong (Magic-User).

Good point, Falconer. A different kind of balance, but it does deserve the name.

Maybe iron impedes spellcasting?
Perhaps it acts as an arcane insulator that impedes the flow of mana?
To work at its maximum potential, magic requires organic material as a conductor. That's what the robes and the wooden staffs are for.

I think the Discworld books by Terry Pratchet explained something similar to this.

I've mentioned an idea before (but I don't think it's too popular) to give classes a base "AC" equal to whatever the best armor allowed to them would be... the catch is, they need not wear armor. They would get the effective AC based on class alone.

The way it would work is, if our Conan type fighter decided to wear armor, then every "miss" against him in combat would be described by the DM as the blow glancing off his mail, helm, or whatever. If he was down on his luck and currently wore no armor, as Conan often was, then the "miss" against him would be attributed to his panther-like reflexes and keen barbarian senses.

Likewise, HP loss (since we can all agree HP are an abstraction) could represent fatigue or light wounds to the unarmored character, or dented armor and bruises from the impact to the character in mail.

In my opinion, this method would keep it "fair" - the classes and their traditional differing ACs would be preserved - while also adding some of the flair of the Conan-style S&S adventures many of us want to use for our games.

The major pitfall I see is magic armor, since nobody would want to forgo it and go unarmored if it was available. But maybe that's not a problem after all... depends on the campaign style. I can't see Conan running around in magical armor, but it would be up to the DM whether or not such things were commonly found in his game. Magical bracers and the like could probably replace armor if the DM preferred the Frazetta-style look for characters.

Does anyone see problems with this method from a game balance standpoint that I don't?

Arduin allows magic-users to wear leather armor. I always thought this was a nice middle ground but I have never applied it in a D&D game. Also, at 5th level, Arduinian wizards can wield magic swords.

This is actually a pretty clever idea, although I'm not sure I would want to do it this way in my game.

After all, the "all d6 damage" philosophy of the original 3 brown books is set up with a similar type of style in mind.

I've seen several posts where folks suggest weapon damage as a function of class (maybe fighters do d6+1 for example, just because they are fighters) so why not have AC be class based as well.

I would be more inclined to tweak it a little, for example saying that there is a certain base AC which is class based and then some minimal effect for armor added on top of that base AC. This makes a fighter in platemail more powerful than a fighter in leather armor.

For example, a fighter in platemail and shield is AC 2. What if the "base AC by class" was something like this:
Magic-user = base AC 9
Thief = base AC 8
Cleric = base AC 7
Fighter = base AC 6

Then modify like this:
Leather or shield = 1 AC better
Leather+Shield or Chain = 2 AC better
Chain+Shield or Plate = 3 AC better
Plate+Shield = 4 AC better

So a magic-user with Plate+Shield would only be AC 5 while a fighter with Plate+Shield would be AC 2.

Just a thought. Feel free to EXALT me for it. ;D

Isn't a magic-user in armor a fighter/magic-user?

I handle this a lot differently than anything mentioned so far. I allow humans to multiclass and add +1 to any single stat, and think this pretty much balances humans against demi-humans.

Thus, a human M-U that wants to wear armor need simply multiclass, since I treat all F/Ms as though they are elves (who are allowed to cast spells while in armor).

Never read Pratchet but Tim Powers "Stranger Tides" posits the idea of a strong link between iron and magic and that cold iron acts as an inhibitor. While I have incorporated Powers iron inhibits magic rule in my campaign most standard D&D worlds aren't designed that way and clearly don't consider the consequences. In any case the D&D rule predates the books.

This doesn't work in low attribute bonus games, but if you're playing later AD&D, hackmaster, 3e, etc., you can have unarmored characters add their charisma bonus to AC. So if you're hot you can fight in the buff effectively and be that Frazetta idol, but if you look more like the rest of us you'd better keep that chain shirt buttoned.