Troll Lord Games

The Player's Handbook makes it pretty clear how some of the classes are penalized for wearing armor that they're not suited to, such as rangers, rogues, assassins, and wizards. But it seems like there are other classes with restricted armor lists that don't appear to offer some sort of penalty. Does this ever come up in actual play? If it does, what do people generally do?

Depended on the class.

For example, if a druid tried to wear metal armor, I'd probably apply a penalty to spell-casting. If they persisted, I'd probably slap them with a quest to atone for straying from their faith.

If it was just a class proficiency issue, I'd just enforce a penalty of -2 to -5 on the person's siege checks and attack rolls.

I'd do the same thing every other class gets applied: cannot use any class abilities.

Yeah, Jyrdan is actually being nice, IMO. I tend to be more like serl: a mean old bastard, yes sir.
--Ghul

serleran wrote:
I'd do the same thing every other class gets applied: cannot use any class abilities.

Does that make sense for abilities that don't require physical movement? And if it doesn't, would there be classes with no abilities that would be hampered, effectively allowing them to effectively have unrestricted armor choices? I don't happen to have a book handy, so I can't tell.

Perhaps I'm over-analyzing it P-)

Much of the 'penalty' ascribed for armour has mainly to do with what the class does.

Consider the Druid example. Does anyone really see a druid tromping about in the wilderness, with his every day activities, in a full suit of plate armour?

Leather, and a bit of chainmail maybe, I can see.

The restrictions have more to do with a reasonable and logical expectation of ability, than any fantastical methodolgy.
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"We'll go out through the kitchen!" Tanis Half-Elven

Peter Bradley

If a PC wears armor that he doesn't have on his class list, he can't use any of his class abilities.

...............................................Omote

FPQ
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> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

There is also the age old question of wizards not being able to cast in armour. If metal interfered with magic, how come a wizard can use metal objects? The best explanation I found was in HARP. Essentially, the wizard acts as a conduit for his magic. Wearing armour wraps himself in a sort of Faraday cage - trapping his magic within. Picking up a metal object would just not be sufficient to trap the magic.

Divine spellcasters receive their magic from their deity - and we all know gods play by their own rules!
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They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

- Benjamin Franklin

now that is a cool concept babbage. I may have to BASE that.

BASE = Borrow and steal everything

Keith
_________________
Ignorance = lack of knowledge

Stupidity = Willful lack of knowledge

Ignorance is temporary, but stupidity...that's forever.

babbage wrote:
There is also the age old question of wizards not being able to cast in armour. If metal interfered with magic, how come a wizard can use metal objects? The best explanation I found was in HARP. Essentially, the wizard acts as a conduit for his magic. Wearing armour wraps himself in a sort of Faraday cage - trapping his magic within. Picking up a metal object would just not be sufficient to trap the magic.

That is how I have always pictured it. That is a great explanation.

I allow elves to use Elven Chain while casting magic. Of course, anybody could really use it, but all elves in my campaign get perturbed seeing another race wear it.............

I have also made an item called mage armor. The ability to make it has been lost to time, but it looks essentially like modern day body armor held tightly to the body by something that fits like spandex. It is AC +5. If a mgae can find it, it can be his/her best friend.
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Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.

-George Washington

The logic behind wizards not being able to cast in armour, as I understood it, had to do with the big arm movements of arcane gesture. Kinda hard to make expansive movements in plate and so forth.

Course, spellcasters, the rare few that there are, in my game don't have that problem since I'm not using a Vancian system. 8)
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"We'll go out through the kitchen!" Tanis Half-Elven

Peter Bradley

PeelSeel2 wrote:
I allow elves to use Elven Chain while casting magic. Of course, anybody could really use it, but all elves in my campaign get perturbed seeing another race wear it.............

I have also made an item called mage armor. The ability to make it has been lost to time, but it looks essentially like modern day body armor held tightly to the body by something that fits like spandex. It is AC +5. If a mgae can find it, it can be his/her best friend.

Interesting. Mage armor seems like Mithril. I too allow wizards to use elven chain or mithril, but only those experience enough. I still haven't determined what level I will allow it, but certainly not the first four levels or so. Sometime after that. For human wizards, it would probably have to be a gift from the elves for fantastic services rendered. Rare but, not impossible.
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Count Rhuveinus - Lejendary Keeper of Castle Franqueforte

"Enjoy a 'world' where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!" ~ Gary Gygax

"By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes:" - Macbeth

Quote:
I have also made an item called mage armor.

Seems just as easy to let a mage cast a permanency on himself with the spell Mage Armour.
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"We'll go out through the kitchen!" Tanis Half-Elven

Peter Bradley

babbage wrote:
The best explanation I found was in HARP. Essentially, the wizard acts as a conduit for his magic. Wearing armour wraps himself in a sort of Faraday cage - trapping his magic within.

I'm pretty sure this is how it was described in Palladium Fantasy as well, and pretty much the way I've always run it.

A personal option I have used in past games as well is a spell failure % if the wizard is near an area of high metal content. For example of the wizard is inside of a iron cage, behind a wall of iron, etc.

.........................................Omote

FPQ
_________________
> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

gideon_thorne wrote:
The logic behind wizards not being able to cast in armour, as I understood it, had to do with the big arm movements of arcane gesture...

I have always hated that reasoning.
_________________
Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.

-George Washington

No, the real reason for mages being affected by metallic armor is easy:

Its constructed of non-natural materials, and magic can only work against things of the natural world, or those which are wholly magical.

Now, one might argue that steel is natural, as its composed of normally minable metals and elements... but, is it? Can you dig steel directly from the ground? Not really. Its a refined ore, processed.

The problem with that though is that you can dig copper out of the ground. More importantly though, mithril is a natural resource as well. If you had armour made out of them, then your reasoning says it would be okay - which it certainly wouldn't be in my campaign! 8)

Also, 'magic can only work against things of the natural world' just doesn't work, IMO. That would mean spells would not affect anything not 'natural', and sometimes it's the only thing that works against the 'supernatural'.

I'm sticking with my explanation for my campaign. It gets me out of all sorts of sticky situations.
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They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

- Benjamin Franklin

I understand the need for a penalty to classes wearing inappropriate armor and I'm cool with it. It's just that the during the casual first read I'm currently giving the PH, the way the game handles it appears a little inconsistent.

The beginning of the Classes section claims that characters wearing armor not on the list for their class can't use class abilities. Okay, fine...a perfectly easy way to handle it.

Then it goes on to say that Rogues and Assassins are handled differently. Um, I'm not sure why that would be, but okay, fine also.

Then you get to the Ranger description, and restricted armor is treated differently from those two options by specifying which class abilities are affected and which are not. If I recall, the affected abilities are pretty much all the physical ones, leaving alone the abilities that have no physical component.

All of which makes me wonder why, then, a barbarian wouldn't be able to use any class abilities while wearing restricted armor, but a ranger can still use some of his. Or why a bard wearing plate mail couldn't still inspire others to greatness, but a ranger can still track (if I recall correctly). Or why rogues and assassins have their own seperate mechanism.

It just seemed a little odd to me and I was wondering if anyone else thought it was odd also. It sounds like they don't, and that's no problem. I can easily houserule it if it becomes weird in play.

Thanks!

I'm thinking about house ruling that if a character where armor not allowed for their class then they suffer a penalty to use any abilities based on physical attributes equal to the AC bonus. For example a ranger wearing full plate gets a -8 penalty to scale. so even if he has a dex of 18 as prime he still needs to roll a 17+ in order to scale that rock face.

Keith
_________________
Ignorance = lack of knowledge

Stupidity = Willful lack of knowledge

Ignorance is temporary, but stupidity...that's forever.

That sounds good to me.
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They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

- Benjamin Franklin

Indeed, that does sound pretty good.

Except that magical armor makes it harder. Should say the unmodified AC bonus.

quite right serl, so maybe the penalty should be twice the EV works out to be about the same in most cases and that way Elven Chain only penalizes a character with a -2 instead of -4. Also if applied across the board it makes it harder for rogues and assassins wearing heavy armor to use their abilities as well. I really like the simplicity of it though.

Keith
_________________
Ignorance = lack of knowledge

Stupidity = Willful lack of knowledge

Ignorance is temporary, but stupidity...that's forever.

That method would give a use for EV for those who otherwise don't use it (like me.) Hmm, not bad, and not too complicated, really. For many things, I recommend doubling (see my rules for crafting, for example, in the classless system document), so I definitely support such a thing.

I like neither the Faraday cage explanation nor the restricted movement explanation. The former, because I'm not about to start applying real-world physics to a fantasy environment (I'm capable of doing so, but where would it stop?) and the later, though a little better, seems to only to apply to spells with semantic components.

I like to think of it as a training requirement. A fighter is trained to fight and survive in armor. A magic-user has no such training and would be falling all over himself and concentrating on not tripping over his greaves rather than on the spell he is trying to cast.

By the Book, hasn't magical armor reduced EV? I cannot seem to remember whether I read it somewhere.

Training is part of the explanation, and would certainly be an explanation for the more complex armours. However, I myself have no training in such things but was able to don a chain shirt with no problem.

The 'Faraday' cage does not mean you have to apply real-world physics. It's just an analogy. The explanation simply goes 'encasing ones' self in metal disrupts the flow of the arcane energy'. Different metals have different results - hence the elve's affinity for elven chain and so on. Picking up a metal object is not encasing yourself in one, there is no similarity, so no mage would be troubled by using a dagger or even learning how to use a sword properly (if your CK allows such things).

To a true wizard it is too much of a risk. He is unable to control the flow and would either pull too much (and burn himself out), or pull too little (and fail to cast at all).

However, this doesn't answer the leather armour question but then neither would the training question.

Myself, I have seen people wearing, fighting and manoeuvring in all sorts of armour - and have even tried some myself. It isn't that difficult, and certainly doesn't need months or years of training. The important part is looking after it, and the more complex ones require fitting.

This is why I like other reasons to answer my players' questions. If you say it is training, then the next question is 'where can I get training?'. You could bluster and say it would take too long, but the player is within his rights to want to do it anyway. I don't think I want to have to say to that player - 'well, you can't'.

Someone, I forget who, wrote an article all about concealing the gamer's footprint. Which in essence meant removing arbitrary rules and providing more logical ones. I like that approach, and so I adopt ALL the explanations above - conduits, cages, training, restricted movement [although I have seen fully armoured knights doing somersaults in their armour right in front of me - believe it or not!] and so on.

Of course, as with all things, YMMV.
_________________
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

- Benjamin Franklin

I can't find anything regarding reducing EV for magical armour either [just checked] but it makes sense to do so.
_________________
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

- Benjamin Franklin

babbage wrote:
Training is part of the explanation, and would certainly be an explanation for the more complex armours. However, I myself have no training in such things but was able to don a chain shirt with no problem.

Yea, but were you able to pull off that fire ball while wearing the chain shirt?

Dakhysron wrote:
Yea, but were you able to pull off that fire ball while wearing the chain shirt?

No, I wasn't! I did try though! Damn, you got me.

Seriously though, if I could learn how to wear and manouevre in a chain shirt in a few minutes - it can't really be a sufficient bar to a wizard can it? Unless there is some other reason...
_________________
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

- Benjamin Franklin