Armor & Magic

[verden]

Should characters wearing Heavy Armor be disallowed from using magic? How about Medium Armor? This is a traditional distinction that balances fighter versus mage or clerics. Simply because PS is skill-based, rather than a class-based does not, IMHO, remove the need of class and skill balances. If it was up to me, I would have metal on the body interfere with glyphs, disallowing magic on any character wearing Medium or Heavy Armor.

[Phantomboy86]

100% agree. The damned maxed HA magic users are giving us purists a bad rap.

As for medium armor, I suppose you'll have to get more technical about how heavy it is, weather or not it would only slightly fudge up your casting, yadda yadda yadda bicker all day about it.

[Tzarhunt]

That's a bit of a radical position; some day maybe there will be anti-magic. Shall we then ban weapon skills on a warrior with high anti magic? I can't seem to see how this would be about balance. Now let's talk about coherence in regard to the settings.

I see two solutions here: wearing metal would block the flow of magic going through one's body. Wearing metallic armour on, let's say, torso and/or head would thus make one unable to cast a spell. Maybe then there would be one special, rare, expensive and hard to work with metal that allows the casting of spell.

Or, a mage have to execute very special gestures in order to cast a spell properly. Chainmail or leather wouldn't make the operation too awkward, but plated armour sure would given how it is articulated. Then maybe we could take in consideration the mage's magik skill, armour skill and agilitiy/strength stats.

[Tessra]

I can't say that I agree with this one.  Just because someone trains magic ICly doesn't mean they have to be a scrawny little wimp.  There's nothing that says mages cannot have physical strength and stamina, and nothing to say they cannot wear armor.  Does it suck when you're trying to duel them? Sure. Is it fair. Yes.  That character spent the time both ICly and OOCly being trained up in the use of an armor.  It's their right. 

[Pakarro]

Mages shouldn't wear armor. They wear robes and (should) have reasonable shield spells. Any armor (and also weapons) use should significantly reduce spell efficiency. In the same way, spell usage should significantly decrease ordinary weapon and armor efficiency.

Also, effectively training for casting interferes with bodily development. Being a mage is also due to not being strong enough to be a fighter...

This is again from the perspective of a relative newcomer....

[weltall]

i use heavy armor in skyrim i don't see the problem

[Caraick]

I have to stand with Weltall and Tessra on this one. 

It's a bit of a far cry to ask that mages not be able to wear HA.  That being said, this goes back to my age-old outcry against the HA users.  There's no downside to wearing plate  If a mage wants to wear HA, and he or she is properly trained in the art, than I have no problem seeing them wear it, as far as realism goes.  However, said mage should be forced to deal with the exact same physical impediments that HA poses to any wearers.  Namely, very little endurance, limited mobility, and greatly slowed attacks.  It's full plate, people.

So yes, there should be certainly some downside to wearing plate as a mage.  But that same downside should be applied to everyone who wants to wear plate. 

[Mask]

i use heavy armor in skyrim i don't see the problem

Skyrim has a different setting than PlaneShift.

It's a bit of a far cry to ask that mages not be able to wear HA.  That being said, this goes back to my age-old outcry against the HA users.  There's no downside to wearing plate

If it's made from metal, you're clad in something that is most likely rather heavy. Maybe not as heavy as today's armors (those plates are heavy!), but still heavy.

If a mage wants to wear HA, and he or she is properly trained in the art, than I have no problem seeing them wear it, as far as realismgoes.  However, said mage should be forced to deal with the exact same physical impediments that HA poses to any wearers.  Namely, very little endurance, limited mobility, and greatly slowed attacks.  It's full plate, people.

If you bring realism into this ...
Full plate armor covering the whole body was usually custom-made, form-fitted body armor. That is why it was so expensive. There were attempts to make the plate armor cheaper and mass-produce them, but the quality got worse of course. I would also like to point out to not confuse full plate armor with jousting armor. For example the Maximilian armor only weighted about 45pounds (20kg) with the weight distributed all over the body. A modern MTV - which is just a vest, not a full body armor, weight about 30pounds(15kg) with the weight distributed over the torso.

Even if it is convenient for balancing reasons to say that mages shouldn't wear armor and full plate is clanky and heavy (but offering perfect protection against swords) in a fantasy game doesn't mean it does actually make sense.

[Phantomboy86]

Magic is supposed to require intense study and training to be any good at it (most especially fighting with it one should think), as is wielding any sort of combat equipment even down to daggers.

If you really wanted to be realistic, it would be nigh impossible to become proficient in both of them to any degree. If you trained in magic, you wouldn't be great with weapons nor generally that strong, and vice versa if you trained in close combat. It also makes sense that something like plate armor would block the flow of magic. Magic comes from glyphs, conducted through the players body. Something like Blue Way would rust armor, Red Way could electrocute them quite badly, even before the spell got out. It makes complete sense that such armor would interfere with casting.

[Mask]

I'v said it before and I will say it again: as long as there is no official, proper source for this kind of information you can point me at, all we can do is argue about speculations and opinions on how it should be. While it might be interesting for developers to know how the players think some things should be does not mean that they are that way; hence my reluctance to actually post something here in general.

[Gilrond]

No, totally disallowed isn't practical. However armor type can hinder magic usage. I.e. the heavier is the armor, the less effective spells are.

[Gilrond]

i use heavy armor in skyrim i don't see the problem

Oblivion reduces spell effectiveness depending on the armor:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Magic_Overview#Spells

[Rigwyn]

It would be nice if that new character development simulator that weltall spoke of could be used to find a balance between a mage and fighter through repetetive trials or something... Likewise, a balance between attack, defense, reach, delay and cost for each kind of attack - magic or physical.

As for armor, I think it should block physical things like flying stones, or a punch when necrotouch has been cast, but should fail to protect against non physical things like taste of death or weakness. I know this complicates things a bit... Just my 2 cents.

As for spell casting and physical strength, if mages must be skinny and weak, then fighters should be proportionally dumb rendering them a bit weaker regarding magical defense/resistance.



I don't think all "magic" should be treated the same.

[novacadian]

Maybe the balance could take place during character development. Some type of functions could be attempted to be worked out whereby there is are relational caps between stats and skills which are combat related and those which are magic related. By maxing out on one would lower the max available in another.

For example maxing in HA would reduce the allowable maximums one could get in the ways. This is just meant as an example to explain the thought. The actual formula would be up to the devs to work out.

In this way it would work better into the RP of things. If one progressed far into combat skills it would have a negative effect of how far one could progress in magic and vis-a-vis. This would then have a more RP base to it in my opinion rather than arbitrary restrictions like in D&D rule sets.

Some type of balancing is required. Perhaps anti-magic could give that balance; yet my feeling is that more than that will be required. Having some kind of sliding formula to training seems to me a more streamlined approach requiring less additional code to many areas of the project.

- Nova

[Gilrond]

As for armor, I think it should block physical things like flying stones, or a punch when necrotouch has been cast, but should fail to protect against non physical things like taste of death or weakness. I know this complicates things a bit... Just my 2 cents.

It is so already, with a caveat that armor doesn't help against any spells, even such kind as Flying Stones (against which one would expect armor to help).