Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 18, 2015 21:38:49 GMT -6
Bracers of defense and magic rings are nothing to scoff at either. Bracers are the primary reason I don't think magic-users wearing armor would be all that big a deal. These things are so common every gong farmer in the realm has one yet you don't hear people talking about how they break the game. What I would prefer would be spells that lasts a long time (at least 8 hours) and grants an AC. This way magic-users don't need armor yet they have to spend spells (their primary source of power) in order to gain the effect. But mostly it offers the magic-user a choice: wear armor and lose your movement and carrying capacity or use a spell and lose some of your offensive power. Basically, armor doesn't make magic-users better at what they do. That's why I think it fails the "If Gary Never Said It" test.
|
|
|
Post by Red Baron on Feb 19, 2015 9:52:01 GMT -6
I would expand permanency to cover several spells, like shield, if a player asked.
|
|
|
Post by havard on Feb 21, 2015 5:22:01 GMT -6
I dislike the "you can't do it, because of game balance" argument. I have nothing against game balance of course, but its the "you can't do it" bit without any reasonable explanation that I have a problem with.
IMC any character may put on any suit of armor. However, if the armor is "not allowed for his class", that means he doesn't have any training with that type of armor so he doesn't get any benefit from it beyond what he would be allowed to wear. A more realistic rule would have given him a penalty to actions and a slight benefit to AC, but I like keeping it simple.
I have no problem with armor hindering spellcasting though. Spellcasting requires freedom of movement and concentration that armor can interfer with. Even leather armor is rather bulky compared to comfortable robes.
That said, I might allow a magic user to wear a suit of leather armor with the AC bonus that comes with it as long as he doesn't cast spells.
-Havard
|
|
|
Post by sepulchre on Feb 21, 2015 9:38:29 GMT -6
Talysman wrote:
Rest times are subsumed in the abstraction of encumbrance/movement rate, alter them and you must alter them for every other class. As for enchanted or regular armor, the question lies more in whether one rules a magic user can donne armor at all and still cast spells. Helmets and armored gloves and tripling casting time, just feels a bit arbitrary. AC is always 9...see below
Hedgehobbit wrote:
I would work it this way, a roll 'to hit' required for AC 9 disrupts spell casting (hence the "Na-na-na-na-na-I-can't-hear you" for magic user wearing armor). Should that roll also meet the number required 'to hit' their improved AC (wearing armor), damage is incurred. This fits within the RAW for disrupting spells.
Well stated. If still using the 'Man-to-Man' battery for initiative, you could also extrapolate casting times for spells or use the weapon speed and casting time rules as written for AD&D (67 DMG). There are spells accessible even to lower level magic users that might actually play out according to the vision you describe (shocking grasp, forget, ray of enfeeblement, scare, stinking cloud, blink, etc.) granted you could home brew new low level spells with similar casting times that accomplish these effects as well (heat weapon, force field etc) - all in addition to the question of donning armor.
|
|
|
Post by Red Baron on Feb 21, 2015 12:08:39 GMT -6
Wizards don't wear armor in fiction because they don't need it. I could say the same about magic-users in d&d. Cast sleep and run like hell.
|
|
|
Post by aldarron on Feb 24, 2015 11:49:50 GMT -6
...... 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.... The iron interference issue is also found in the Beyond This Point be Dragons/Dalluhn 1973 D&D draft, as follows: "NOTE: Magic-Users are warned about the dangers of trying to cast a spell while wearing metal armor and/or helms. Because of effects of "cold iron" on magic, a Magic-User dressed in plate mail will be unable to have a spell of any kind or level be successful, although it will cost him a spell for that 24 period. A MagicUser dressed in chain mail will have only a 25% chance for complete success, although something will always occur." The implication of the above is that in the draft rules an MU could wear leather armor.
|
|
|
Post by sepulchre on Mar 1, 2015 9:48:10 GMT -6
Bigjackbrass wrote:
Agreed. As to whether iron and magic are at odds, that can be left up to one's own esoteric inquiry or random assignment of metaphysical quality to the fantasy world in question. In terms of legendaria, I am fond of the robed wizard found in sci-fi influenced fantasy, who might donne an imposing helmet and/or breast plate for protection, or even in medieval fantasy, a cambion (half-demon/half-human)endowed with spell-like abilities, or a practitioner of 'necromancy' himself, who donnes a breast plate and helm.
|
|