What are some potential explanations to why wizard adventurers don't wear armour (bonus points if they are less...

Then wear a tights. I don't imagine all the folds in your cloth robe are doing you favours either if that's the case

Wizards don't want to invest in the STR to carry/wear that shit.

Pick one:

>Iron fucks with magic
>Wearing gloves disrupts casting, since the spells end up hitting the inside of the glove
>Armor is heavy and wizards are weak
>Armor takes training, which would take away from learning magic
>Wizards have too much student debt to afford armor
>Wizards wear armor, fuck the police

Seems like I read in some edition of D&D that wizards are simply incapable of performing the complex gestures needed to invoke spells while wearing armor. To prepare a spell, the wizard needs to assign a ritual to it, like a series of hand movements. If the wizard doesn't repeat the ritual with precision accuracy, then the spell fizzles out or backfires.

I'm not sure why this would restrict a wizard from wearing any type of armor, though. Quilted or leather armor isn't particularly heavy, and shouldn't necessarily restrict hand dexterity. If I'm not mistaken, 2E or 3E did add percentage-based spell failure for this very reason.

Clerics could cast magic while wearing heavy armor because clerical magic is simply given to the cleric entirely by proxy rather than necessitating complex invocation rituals.

It works better if you go with iron as being the opposite to magic, like in old folklore. So the dude encased in metal and wearing a sword is basically immune to magic, and the dude wearing normal clothes and clutching a wooden staff is able to cast pretty normally as long as the warrior doesn't stand too close.

It even adds cool stuff to the game where you put iron manacles on a wizard and now it doesn't matter what spells he knows, he's harmless until he gets free. Or wrapping an enemy wizard once or twice with iron chains so that he's basically disarmed.

The folds do nothing! Cloth does not conduct magic energy the way metals do.

Don't need armour when you look like THIS

Seriously, a large part of magic is about comfiness and armour isn't meant to be comfy, it's meant to keep you alive. Magic is a fickle, capricious craft where mistakes can be at best the spell not working or at best killing you. So, you need a certain level of comfort to cast spells correctly. For maximum effect and minimal chance of disaster, the wizard can't have any limitation of ease of movement of focus. That's why robes are so great, roomy, comfy, both breezy and warm when needed, good for travelling or sleeping, they allow wonderful ease of movement, they're light and you can keep all kinds of crap in there you might need.

But hey, if you train in armour and can be perfectly comfortable in it, more power to you.

Although being pic related, bare chested and bursting with arcane dickmight, is the best option.

I always attributed it to the fact that armor is really heavy, you need to train properly to effectively move around in armor, just putting on plate mail isn't gonna make you capable of utilizing it properly, and Wizards spend most of their time book-studying, not studying to wear armor. That's the point of a Warmage in 3.5, or a Magus in Pathfinder. These are classes that specifically train in armor, and speaks volumes for how much one has to train to actually wield armor.

That, and armor is heavy and Wizards don't tend to be very strong.

Arcane Spell Failure Chance is another option of course, which is a pretty blunt option for why they don't wear it. "I don't wear armor because it doesn't let me effectively cast spells and I don't have time to train to do that properly."

Good post

>Armor takes training, which would take away from learning magic

Armour really doesn't take training and I wish fantasy games had never introduced the idea. The most complex part about armour really is keeping it well maintained and knowing how to put it on and take it off again.

There's some amount of training in learning how to move effectively in it, or to use it to its fullest.

Yeah, like an hour. It isn't something that would take a level, a feat, and character resources to use: all you need to learn to use armour effectively is to walk around in armour for a little while and get used to it.

Wizards for the most part practice, study and live in relative comfort. And though this can be said for any singular character, I feel that wizards in general are also used to doing things their way and on their time. To be trained in how to make effective use of heavy armor takes time, considerable effort and most importantly, the ability to be talked down to on a constant basis by an instructor. It's always been my belief that most wizards don't wear armor primarily because it's uncomfortable, and in any non combat situation, more of a hindrance than a help. But in the event an apprentice would want to add wearing full plate armor to their repertoire of useful skills. I've always just assumed that the moment they get fed up with someone calling them a sniveling nancy boy for the umpteenth time, they simply disintegrate their teacher and move on. For anything else there's bogus balancing lore that works in a more mechanical fashion.

Magic attracts enough lighting stikes without adding metal to the equation

The weight is too much for most bitch-ass Wizard-scholars.
Wearing armour is restrictive for the subtle movements needed for spellcasting.
Metal fucks with the formation of spells and channelling of etheric energies.

All of these things can be mitigated through proper practice, but most Wizards would rather spend that time figuring out how to throw better fireballs, and summon aetheric armour which has none of these side effects.

The are not fighters. Like, they aren't trained for combat and are generally incompetent at all things related to it. The fact they can conjure fireballs has purely coincidental combat applications. It was just a science experiment really

There's a difference between being able to run around in armor and be able to do Complex Arcane Gestures™ in it, still.

They're limp-wristed nerds and you need to be in shape to wear armour for relevant stretches of time.

>The weight is too much for most bitch-ass Wizard-scholars.
Even full plate armour weighs less than a US soldier has to carry as normal marching equipment and the weight is distributed over the entire body, so that's a retarded point to make
How come there are still people here who haven't seen the video of the guy in armour doing gymnastics?

Now we only need a guy who says that a samurai will slice a knight apart because the knight is "slower" due to armour, that 2 handed sabres (aka katanas) are not completely retarded and that katanas are somehow faster than not stupidly thick and lighter european swords because of their "form"

Because I am a 106 year old man who can barely walk when I'm carrying a staff and a bag of holding. How am I expected to wear full plate, with magic or something?

>Rockhardbard.jpg

Old men have this odd affinity for bathrobes.

>Even full plate armour weighs less than a US soldier has to carry as normal marching equipment and the weight is distributed over the entire body

you could simply exclude full plate from the setting, given it was a late medieval invention. then the standard form of armour would be chainmail, which is heavier to wear. if you combine this with some fluff about mages being weaker than normal (maybe arcane energy isn't good for your health) then it would make sense for them not to walk around bearing that kind of weight.

Even chainmail isn't that heavy, especially if you're not an idiot and wear a belt for the longer shit to make sure that not all of the weight is on your shoulders/upper body
People massively overrate the weight of swords and armour

Depends on the setting
I think D&D uses the if you aren't trained in the use of the armor it fucks up the complex somatic components of spells

In my games not D&D it varies depending on level of magical bullshit in the world
High magic/Rule of Cool = Bikini Armor+Magical Forcefields pure wizards don't need armor
Normal games is basically the above D&D excuse unless your trained to cast in armor it's pretty hard to do

ASF is contrived how? Doing complex hand signs is difficult in armor or while using a shield. I don't understand in what way it is contrived.

armor doesn't need to cover your hands

This

Even heavy weapons like mauls and warhammers rarely weighed more than maybe 15-20 lbs.

it doesn't need to be "that" heavy. plenty of unfit people IRL would struggle with any degree of weight for any extended period of time, especially in adventuring conditions. if you made wizards unfit by nature they could easily prefer avoiding anything that might tax their stamina and make it harder to focus on spells.

Isn't chainmail 40lbs in d&d? If I'm a weakass old man and my strength is low. Say 9 or so, I would be halfway to max weight. Tack on a bad of stuff I need and I could hardly walk.

>But your a wizard with high strength and youth.

Wizards are either old men. Or old elves. Any young wizard apprentice isn't a real wizard. Minimum age 50 for a wizard or fuck off you untrained prick.

Magic involves not only a mental, but physical exertion as well. A mage running around in armor will have less energy to cast his spells.

Why the fuck would I want armor that leaves my hands defenseless?

Do you sell a helmet that leaves my vulnerable neck exposed?

Do you know of any plate that has an opening for my heart?

Hey can I get iron pants, but make sure my kneecaps are exposed.

Jesus. Armorless hands, stupid way to get your fingers chopped off.

Damn kids today, I swear

this guy seemed to do it just fine

>why wizard adventurers don't wear armour

After putting in grad-school hours to learn magic, they simply don't have time to learn how to use weapons and armor.

Some do, but their casting tends to suffer from time they must take away from magical study.

You mean the guy who only has an iron cuirass on? And normal cloth pants?

That's all he can carry, a piece of a set.

In d&d for example you buy a whole set, not just a piece.

So he is carrying a 30lb chest plate and nothing else because he is already too encumbered by it. To wear the full set.

Robes are symbolic.

When you change your clothing, you change your state of mind and the minds of others. It is part of crossing over from mundanity, and putting yourself partly into the magical realm. Armor has a mundane purpose, as do most other clothing, and so muddles the significance. But ritual garb is expressly intended for magic, and wearing it marks you as a practitioner, and is linked to spellcasting in your own subconscious.

Iron diffuses magic, they can't wear iron or steel in any large amounts without risking interference.

I think that works.

Basically this right.

Why should I learn to wear armor when I already spent 6 years learning to cast the strongest magic shield known to mortals.

This thread has convinced me there is no good reason for casters to not wear armor. Thanks Veeky Forums

>In d&d for example you buy a whole set, not just a piece.
Breastplate is medium armor

There isn't a reason not to, unless you spent time making a back story. None of which will have a wizard spending precious time learning to wear armor. Also, if a setting penalizes armor and arcane failure. Then there is a second reason not to wear it.

That's it.

Read the book again, Breastplates come with a helmet and greaves.

Dude, D&D was never known for its authenticity.

Metal and gemstones are magically inert and harvested from the corpses of dead primordials. This doesn't mean the can't be enchanted with channels of power carved into them and they're useful for catching and imprisoning spirits like pokeballs but if you stick a wizard inside a tin can of normal armor they lose any ability to restore their power from the environment or expand it out of any place that's covered up.
So either they're wearing armour that's fantastically elaborate set of runes and made of bone or they're some sort of demigod with infinite reserves.

>putting yourself partly into the magical realm.

Hehehe he said magical realm.

A chainmail habergeon which is basically a chain vest, was anywhere from 20-30 lbs depending what it covered. In d&d you get chain gauntlets with the chain habergeon, the chain gauntlets if they were connected to the habergeon as one piece would add 10-15 lbs to it.

Yes, it would weigh somewhere around 40lbs. Making it pretty damn close for "authenticity"

If you have armor everywhere but your hands, you're more protected than if you don't wear it at all, which is what wizards do now.

>>Wearing gloves disrupts casting, since the spells end up hitting the inside of the glove
I like this idea because it lends to full nake wizards

>Why should I learn to wear armor when I already spent 6 years learning to cast the strongest magic shield known to mortals.

It's more like "My whole life has been learning magic, I simply have not had time to devote to armor or weapon training". And also that they may not be expected to fight, instead they're supposed to hang around a university playing politics, begging for grant-money, and conducting research.

It's the same reason that most PhDs don't know how to operate rifles or conduct themselves in a combat situation. It's just not part of the job, so why bother. Besides, they're too valuable, had too much education to risk their lives like that. If they need to go someplace dangerous, they can just hire one or more hard-as-nails soldier dudes to serve as guides and shoot at anything that needs to be shot, ideally long before they get there.

Wearing armor doesn't take that long to learn. Neither does the real basics of weapons.

>Wizards have too much student debt to afford armor
Too soon.

See

Doesn't apply to adventurers.

Same reason they don't wear pants. Because fuck you, that's why.

Bernie Sanders could have prevented this....luckily i got in for free on minority quota requirements for wood elves!

>Enemy mage is armored like a battle tank.
>His hands are completely unarmored.
>Hmmmm do we aim for the armor, or do we aim for his hands? His weak, old, defenseless busy casting magic hands.

Or

>Be fizzle baba mcwizardguy
>Bought armor from salesman.
>He wasn't selling hand armor.
>Constantly worrying about hand damage when adventuring, can't perform.
>Get fired from adventuring job
>Go home, my loyal familiar leaves me
>Depressed. I go out solo, bandits attack.
>Enemy wizard has magical gauntlets that protect him from harm.
>He spent years learning to craft arcane magic into weightless matter which can protect him from harm
>I spent years learning to wear armor.
>I die, my final words echoing
"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?"

>Doesn't apply to adventurers

Most people don't structure their upbringing around adventure, but instead are drawn into adventure after acquring skills suited for a particular career path.

>I spent years learning to wear armor.

It takes an hour. One hour. One. You can literally do cartwheels in it. You can dance in armour. It is not hard to wear. Small children have worn armour. IT. IS. NOT. DIFFICULT.

>Drawn into adventure after acquiring skills suited for a particular career path.
Whoops, my cleric joined adventuring and got 30 points into his cooking skill, then opened a restaurant he figured magical skill increases were easier than college. Before he couldn't cook a rock, now he can cook the rock and make rock lobster al a king

He never even needed to learn how. It just popped into his head one day that he was proficient with cooking, anything diplomatic, and knowledge:sex demons.

If this is a setting where warriors have supermuscles and wizards do not, putting on some armor is not going to help some scrawny elderly man survive a gorilla-tier maceblow to the chest.

>Be Fizzle mcwizardguy
>Try to put on armor without knowing how.
>Luckily my familiar bit through the leather straps before I suffocated.
>Try again. With heavy armor.
>Took me 45 minutes to remove armor, I indeed pissed myself before I could remove it.
>Try again
>Maid walked in, thought I wanted kinky sex for some reason
>I burned the leather armor, killed maid, used her for spell reagents.
>Hired new maid to fetch me chainmail.
>Chainmail got caught in my beard of wizardry. Nearly died from bleed out
>Maid managed to stabilize me 3 times before I got untangled.

5 years later.
>Have developed methods to wear armor, padding to insulate, beard guard to prevent tearing
>Maid has become 17th level cleric from constant healings. She is very proud of that.
>Has become eternal servant out of gratitude.
>Can magically wear any armor for some reason, but I just don't know HOW....HOW CAN SHE DO THIS.

Next week I learn her secrets

This toddler thinks you're funny.

...

...

Hi I've worn chainmail in real life and I am a fat weak bitch.

I would not wanna run around waving my arms about while wearing it.

I always figured it was simply tiring for people who aren't used to wearing armor to suddenly put some on and wear it for a day while doing massive cardio trudging around the country side looking for things with a face to stomp.

Also, last I checked, your typical armor doesnt have pockets. I would imagine spell casters want a shit ton of pockets, and having to dig through a few pockets to find a thing you need instead of having like 30 pockets that you've memorized makes spontaneous casting a pain in the ass.

You would also not want to run around waving your arms while enduring multiple stab wounds and lacerations.

That's all that matters, because a cheap laugh is still more than I get from my groups, usually they just throw dice at me and tell me to "stop being a DM"

in D&D the "arcane spell failure" was a result of the fact that the movements and gestures to cast spells were so intricate and precise that wearing any more than cloth hindered the process.. hence.. Arcane spell failure.. though there are talents and other whatnots to change that I believe.. if not.. make some up.. fireballs and platemail here we come.. though you can just do that with certain items anyway.. woop woop.

Wtf are we in Detroit or something?

They're by and large scrawny nerds who have never had to lift anything heavier than a stack of books, armor is out of the question unless it's enchanted.

Yes. The adventure is set in fantasy Detroit. Good luck, fatty.

One of the joys of being a wizman is no compromises, why the fuck would I ever ever ever be anywhere near stabbing when I can throw fireballs from range and fly and in very VERY dangerous circumstances like against archers I can also cast spells that work twice as effectively as real armor.

you guys know that wizards CAN wear heavy armour in pretty much every version of D&D, right?

In my personal game and setting? No, Wizards can wear armor of any weight or protection category that they want.

Having heavier armor also means being less sneaky and having a disadvantage to initiative in combat, but I don't go so much for the 'armor = slow' thing, nor does it interfere with spellcasting. Instead I try to guide my player characters to behaviors I would enjoy by using the game mechanics.

Essentially, without going into too much detail, the lightest armor, while having the least protection, has the best chance to roll a maximum effect (smallest die = best chance to roll maximum). Max armor rolled on a dice means you get a block, a useful tool that lets you either absorb that much damage once during the fight OR add that many to a combat save. Wizards, having trash saves in anything but mind and magic will get tripped, shoved, overpowered, disarmed, bled, blinded, and bullied in all manner of ways in a combat scenario, usually resulting in them getting rekt. Therefore, having light armor and having the best chance to get bonuses to your combat saves is better then having moderately better armor but a much reduced chance to avoid these negative effects.

It actually works the same way for Fighters too though; fighters who focus on light armor get a bonus to going first which is great for those berserk types who like to get in and kill everyone before anyone can even attack them, plus blocks help them shore up THEIR weakness against magic and mind affecting saves, which is what mages will primarily be doing in a combat scenario.

Anyone can wear a nice Gambeson though. Love these.

it was an arbitrary rule imposed for balance reasons. backed up by the fact that wizards in old stories, e.g. Merlin tended to be noncombatants

i don't think it would actually be hard to do magic, as depicted in most settings, while wearing armor. and getting moderately good with weapons would only take an hour or two of training per day for a few weeks, which wouldnt detract much from their magic studies that isn't already being lost to miscellaneous adventuring hassles. i think a mage who decides become an adventurer would probably get pretty good at using arms and armor fairly quickly since there would be incentive to do so and no real reason not to besides the monetary cost

Books are heavy as shit, though

It was the result of a game balance requirement

This. My daily workout was lifting my 90lb bookbag and hiking that shit back and forth.

Armor takes an hour of training if you don't want to trip over your own legs in it, but if you want to run full tilt? Do quasi-complex legwork to do things like walk diagonally? Move your limbs with any kind of precision and not overswing from momentum? That takes longer. The momentum thing tires you out quick until you build the muscle for it as well.

To be fair, in most systems you can still use armor if you're not trained in it. You're just clumsy and slow, like in real life. A feat or a class level sounds like the right amount of time investment for an adventurer, unless you had a stupid amount of downtime. Then you're negotiating it with your GM, and he would have to dance around why your party isn't gaining experience or abilities, even at a much slower rate.

What's really retarded is armor giving things like speed or agility penalties to classes that are fully trained in it and then some. Once you've fully adapted to it, the extra weight is just draining in the long term. Short bursts of speed are as easy as normal, and the armor can move and flex better than you can. Worst thing about it are the sausage fingers for fine manipulation, and that's mostly from the gloves, not the metal.

>To be trained in how to make effective use of heavy armor takes time, considerable effort and most importantly, the ability to be talked down to on a constant basis by an instructor.
Incredibly wrong. Armour is not difficult to wear or use.

The one guy that fucking gets it.

No.

You need strength and endurance to wear armor or it's going to slow you down considerably and might actually be impractical for someone with no training.
Mages have little physical conditioning and spend most of their time studying magic, so wearing armor is out of question for them, unless they're some kind of hybrid class to begin with.

Belts mitigate the weight of hauberks. The most discomfort you'd get from wearing chainmail is getting hot and sweaty.

>spending precious time learning to wear armor.
Please stop.

Well that's rude..calling someone fatty because I asked you a question.

Go sit on your sisters dick, you fucking asshole.

You are confusing training to get the defenses of armor (which you don't need in most games) vs. training to be able to sprint, climb, swim, and fight just as effectively in or out of armor (which you do need)
a figher in d&d can swim across a lake in fullplate, which can't even be done in real life, and you think anyone can learn to do that in an hour?

I did stop, learning how to wear armor.

Only cannon fodder and expendables need to wear armor, I am a proud wizard who needs no protection besides what my armored pawns provide.

I am going to have to disagree with this, it takes a lot more to get used to than you would think. Modern day ballistic vests are fairly advanced and they still take some time to get used to.

>a figher in d&d can swim across a lake in fullplate
He'll likely get disadvantage to it, and if you're DM is hard enough you'll sink too. I lost a character that way once

This guy right here.

He gets it.

Because you tried swimming in full plate...willingly or unwillingly?