Why Don't Wizards Wear Armor?

[calithena]

Rethinking this old chestnut. I don't want them to be able to wear it in my D&D game, as per the rules, and I need some flimsy pretexts.

I guess it has to interfere with spell casting in some way. How? And how in particular for leather armor etc.?

I suppose the 3e solution where it just messes you up a little is somewhat plausible, so long as there aren't feats and the like to get in the way. You could have the spell failure percentage as a fixed thing. But, unlike 3e, I want it to be consistent with plate armored elves casting spells with impunity. So why does elf magic work fine with all kinds of armor and human magic not, esp. if they are considered using more or less the same kind of magic?

[coffee]

Because all the other magic-users would laugh at them. Seriously. It would severely downgrade their effectiveness at ever getting training, higher level spells, items identified, curses lifted, that sort of thing. It's one of those customs with the force of law.

Anyway, that's what I have at the moment.

[bigjackbrass]

Training, perhaps. Maybe elves who choose to wear armour have a more martial background and so know how to wear it effectively, a cultural distinction. For an untrained person armour is hugely restrictive: generally hot, uncomfortable, clumsy; and simply wearing it like clothing isn't what should provide the full armour class, you need to know how to keep its weaknesses from the enemy and use it to deflect blows rather than simply absorb them. Wizards need full movement available to them.

Or perhaps elven magic is actually entirely distinct from other magic, similar ends reached by different means, and the non-elven magic requires a free interaction with magical energies, a bit like picking up radio signals. Armour, or even very heavy clothing, could interfere with that.

Professor Barker describes magic on Tékumel rather nicely in his novels, showing magic-users mentally reaching out to manipulate nodes of energy. Iron disrupts the energies, with potentially serious, even fatal, results, so magic-users on Tékumel avoid any amount of iron, even in the form of jewellery or iron keys. Mind you, it's a rare metal on that world, so that's easier to do than for your average D&D wizard. Obviously that doesn't help with regard to leather etc, but there's always the fact that many wizards may well be snobs, looking down on "manual labourers" like fighting-men, which ties into what coffee said (above). Wizards simply don't do that, it's what makes them a white collar class Their robes or whatever are effectively badges of office, signs of their status as professionals. If a barrister turned up in court wearing board shorts and a tie-dyed shirt he wouldn't last very long. Make the professional aspect of wizards something of importance in your world, perhaps with some of the flavour of 19th century scientists, so that magic-users correspond with others of their type and occasionally have to re-register with their societies, engage in seminars etc.

[tetramorph]

What if it is just that no magic-users wear armor in the classical legendaria: legends, novels, movies, that the original game tried to engage.

Like good wargamers, they wanted to fairly believably engage a world.

Less seriously, higher lvl MUs are so powerful, how else are you going to get 'em? A kind of early, simple, "game balance" (and they did care about this, just a little).

[Scott Anderson]

Letting them wear armor, especially if you use encumbrance and sneaking rules, is a wash. Let them do it.

[Finarvyn]

Several reasons:

(1) Game Balance (okay, so it's metagaming...)

(2) Metal messes up magic energy (perhaps even leather armor has metal fasteners?)

(3) Spellcasting requires complex gestures; armor messes up the movements.

[waysoftheearth]

You can let wizards wear armor, sure, just don't let it affect their AC. That's for fighters.

You can let wizards use swords and spears too if you like, but always as a normal-man with a normal weapon

[sepulchre]

As hit points subsume the effective use of armor, I see nothing wrong with letting them wear whatever armor suits them. Like Waysoftheearth allowing them the use of swords and spears as a normal man is also a ruling I embrace.

[Porphyre]

There is already a thread of discussion going about this question: odd74.proboards.com/thread/2652/wizards-armor-why

It's more oriented about "game-design" than a "in-universe" justification however , if this is what you were asking for.

The whole "iron interferes with magic" interpretation is enticing, because it has some resonance with legend and myth, but this raises other questions : how are magical armor and weaponry created? Do they all need some special alloy? If you allow dual class characters (FM/MU) must they forfeit alla armor to cast spellS?

The most confortable expla,nation would be the need of gestual components to magic that armor would hinder if not properly trained : clerics aren't precluded to cast spells because their magic only needs faith and a prayer. Characters having both fihting and spell casting ability (liike elfs or a dual classed Fighter / magic user) can cast spells because their training enables them to accomplish the complex gestures required "in spite" of the armor .

[Deleted]

Feb 15, 2015 15:01:22 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

What if it is just that no magic-users wear armor in the classical legendaria: legends, novels, movies, that the original game tried to engage.

Wizards in fiction are hardly vulnerable to a common thug. They always have some sort of magical defense either to repel the attacks, conjure a force field, or heat the weapon so the assailant has to drop it, etc. In Chainmail, Wizards are harder to hit than super heroes to reflect this magical protection. Wizards don't wear armor in fiction because they don't need it.

Yet D&D has an almost complete lack of magical protection spells but it still contains that no-armor rule.

So, instead you are forced to pick from a lists of silly restriction, none of which actually explain the rule. Even the game balance argument is not valid. So the DM is forced to modify his game world in order to justify a game rule, which is the exact opposite of what a DM should be doing.

[cooper]

I think the argument about wizards in armor is indicative of a restrictive magic item campaign. Wearing armor and wielding a sword is a non issue when the MU in question has found or made a robe of the archmagi and wields a staff of power, to say nothing of bracers of defense.

[bigjackbrass]

Feb 16, 2015 9:45:44 GMT -6 cooper said:

I think the argument about wizards in armor is indicative of a restrictive magic item campaign. Wearing armor and wielding a sword is a non issue when the MU in question has found or made a robe of the archmagi and wields a staff of power, to say nothing of bracers of defense.

That's very likely true. Certainly, I've always favoured low-magic campaigns where any magical sword is a huge deal and will probably be a named item with a store of legends surrounding it, so PC magic-users in my games can't rely on stumbling over those super-powerful items at every turn.

Feb 16, 2015 7:33:51 GMT -6 Porphyre said:

The whole "iron interferes with magic" interpretation is enticing, because it has some resonance with legend and myth, but this raises other questions : how are magical armor and weaponry created? Do they all need some special alloy?

Meteoric iron, perhaps? Maybe the metal that falls from the stars is imbued with power direct from the source of all magic.

[Stormcrow]

Magic-users don't wear armor because it's not magic-usery to wear armor. There is no other reason.

[Porphyre]

Feb 16, 2015 12:36:32 GMT -6 bigjackbrass said:

Feb 16, 2015 7:33:51 GMT -6 Porphyre said:

The whole "iron interferes with magic" interpretation is enticing, because it has some resonance with legend and myth, but this raises other questions : how are magical armor and weaponry created? Do they all need some special alloy?

Meteoric iron, perhaps? Maybe the metal that falls from the stars is imbued with power direct from the source of all magic.

Orichalcum, probably.

Elfs use "elven steel" like in Poul Anderson 's Broken Sword.

[cooper]

That's very likely true. Certainly, I've always favoured low-magic campaigns where any magical sword is a huge deal and will probably be a named item with a store of legends

Unfortunately, as Gary Gygax explained in the DMG for the reasons for his weighted tables of magic items as well as the text outlining the fighting-mans special abilities in men and Magic, a low magic campaign unreasonably punishes fighting men over magic users.

[Scott Anderson]

I treat magic spells as strange living energy creatures. this provides me with the fluff to explain "why" the several weird inconsistencies with magic- the spells themselves have an opinion, and it must be honored to make magic go.

So Dweomers (the name of the class of creatures which constitute spells) are unsympathetic to worked iron. They don't like to be around it for long. It's insulting to them that a wizard would carry it around and also ask them to do their spell stuff.

Meteoric iron or Mithral or other metals are okay. Why? Who knows! They don't talk.

[premmy]

Feb 16, 2015 13:27:12 GMT -6 Scott Anderson said:

I treat magic spells as strange living energy creatures. this provides me with the fluff to explain "why" the several weird inconsistencies with magic- the spells themselves have an opinion, and it must be honored to make magic go.

So Dweomers (the name of the class of creatures which constitute spells) are unsympathetic to worked iron. They don't like to be around it for long. It's insulting to them that a wizard would carry it around and also ask them to do their spell stuff.

My problem with this and other "steel interferes with magic energies" explanations is that going by the rules, the same Magic User could (strength permitting) carry the same amount of the same metal on his body (well, certainly as much as you have in leather armour or studded leather...) in other shapes: grappling hooks, lucky horseshoes, metal ingots, metal coins, hammer, metal spikes, cutlery, a carpenter's saw etc., and THOSE won't interfere with his spellcasting.

[tetramorph]

Feb 16, 2015 8:00:58 GMT -6 @hedgehobbit said:

Yet D&D has an almost complete lack of magical protection spells but it still contains that no-armor rule.

So, instead you are forced to pick from a lists of silly restriction, none of which actually explain the rule. Even the game balance argument is not valid. So the DM is forced to modify his game world in order to justify a game rule, which is the exact opposite of what a DM should be doing.

Okay, so I read you saying that it is too easy to get a MU. And it is rather easy to get a low-lvl MU. I agree that high powered wizards are hardly vulnerable to a common thug. And high leveled MUs in D&D are like walking bombs. I think I would rather have my character face a lvl 10 FM than a lvl 10 MU.

I read you saying that they lack magical protection spells. I understand how someone could see it this way. But, for me, they seem to be there. Anti-magic shell, protection from evil, protection from magic, protection from ordinary missiles, feeble mind, etc. I think the point in the party dynamic is to protect the MU because he will eventually just blow everything up. I am okay with that.

I read you saying that a game balance argument is invalid. You could be right. I'd love to read more about why you think so. But I still see it that there is a little bit of 0e style game balance going on here. And, again, I guess I'm just okay with that.

But I also like modifying rules and game worlds. How do you handle it?

[Deleted]

If low level magic users could use armor and weapons it would totally make playing them uninteresting.

Artillery is deadly at long range but it's the weakest arm in close combat. If artillery had the mobility of armor, the concealability of infantry, and the firepower of artillery, they would be the least interesting arm to play.

Stop thinking in terms of "my character" and start thinking in terms of "elements of a combined arms team." Each has its unique strengths and weaknesses and the game is about using them.

[Porphyre]

I think we all have our own opinions about the armor wearing/non-wearing magic users, "game design"-wise (game balance, more interesting options, etc.) or in a more "simulationist" approach, but I'm not sure that was the point of the whole thread: calithena has already made up his mind about this (MU won't wear armor, as per the rule as written). He is just asking for a post hoc justification "in-universe".

Personally, I don't need any (I generally handwave it with a "Merlin would look silly in breastplate!") , but if calithena asks for it, well, I suppose he has his resaons: maybe his players are of a more "immersive" ilk than mine, maybe he just wants to muse about it (and who would pass the occasion of a little idle discussion about the nature of dweomers?) 

[Deleted]

Thoth-Amon never wore armor.

[premmy]

When people die, they appear in the afterwold in whatever garment and with whatever equipment they had in life. All wizards automatically go to Hell for trading their souls for magic, and the contracts always have a No Armour clause because demons don't like their chewing gum crunchy.

[talysman]

I think I've settled on four rationales to back up the "no MUs in armor" aesthetic.

(1) Magic armor is only magical for fighters and clerics.
(2) Rest times are doubled for anyone other than a fighter or cleric wearing armor.
(3) Helmets and armored gloves have to be removed for spell casting, tripling casting time.
(4) While casting, AC is always 9, anyways, regardless of armor worn.

[Porphyre]

I like the (4). I think I read something like that on Alexis Smolensk's blog. Basically, he was saying that casting spells is like standing still in the middle of a brawl with eyes closed, hands up, chanting "Na-na-na-na-na-I-can't-hear-you-I-can't-see-you!"

[zeraser]

I rule that M-U's can't cast magic if they're wearing, wielding, or holding _anything_ made of metal - not just armor but rings, coins, daggers, etc. However, furs (AC 7 as far as I'm concerned) or maybe even certain types of leather armor are acceptable, and I want to leave open the possibility of very expensive and rare crystal armors.

[talysman]

Feb 17, 2015 12:08:36 GMT -6 Porphyre said:

I like the (4). I think I read something like that on Alexis Smolensk's blog. Basically, he was saying that casting spells is like standing still in the middle of a brawl with eyes closed, hands up, chanting "Na-na-na-na-na-I-can't-hear-you-I-can't-see-you!"

Yep, that's where I got that from.

[Stormcrow]

Feb 17, 2015 12:08:36 GMT -6 Porphyre said:

casting spells is like standing still in the middle of a brawl with eyes closed, hands up, chanting "Na-na-na-na-na-I-can't-hear-you-I-can't-see-you!"

That's an awesome analogy!

[Porphyre]

His, not mine

[Deleted]

Feb 17, 2015 12:08:36 GMT -6 Porphyre said:

I like the (4). I think I read something like that on Alexis Smolensk's blog. Basically, he was saying that casting spells is like standing still in the middle of a brawl with eyes closed, hands up, chanting "Na-na-na-na-na-I-can't-hear-you-I-can't-see-you!"

So wizards get the benefit of wearing armor, just not on the rounds they are casting. That seems like a reasonable compromise.

[Red Baron]

Feb 16, 2015 8:00:58 GMT -6 @hedgehobbit said:

Feb 15, 2015 15:01:22 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

What if it is just that no magic-users wear armor in the classical legendaria: legends, novels, movies, that the original game tried to engage.

Wizards in fiction are hardly vulnerable to a common thug. They always have some sort of magical defense either to repel the attacks, conjure a force field, or heat the weapon so the assailant has to drop it, etc. In Chainmail, Wizards are harder to hit than super heroes to reflect this magical protection. Wizards don't wear armor in fiction because they don't need it.

Yet D&D has an almost complete lack of magical protection spells but it still contains that no-armor rule.

Protection from evil/missiles can both be made permanent for a measly one point of constitution.

Bracers of defense and magic rings are nothing to scoff at either.