Magic-based Powered Armor?

[SinsI]

Equipment for Fighters in D&D is absolutely inadequate and can't serve its basic role at all. Even the most expensive mithral full plate offers absolutely no protection from even 1st level spell magic missile; it's like they brought a knife to a gun fight!

Fighters should be like Fighter Pilots in our world - piloting the most advanced magical powered armor, and all those feats should be spent on properly utilizing highly advanced and specialized magical weaponry in them.

And its not like D&D lacks the necessary technology - take a look at golems: they have powerful abilities, breath weaponry, enormous strength and are immune to magic.

Is there any golem-based powered armor in D&D? I take it it should be much cheaper, as you don't need the expensive control circuits and AI, as the fighter is going to replace them.

Homebrew is acceptable, too.

[CIDE]

Unless you're using Pathfinder or third party then this (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070212a) is about your only option for 3.5.

The one thing I noticed though is that the clockwork armor's RAW looks like it should help casters more. If you can get heavy armor Prof on a wizard then you're in power armor with the only penalty being an additional 70 lbs you're carrying. No armor check penalty or spell failure unless there's no proficiency. It'd be amazing on a cleric with the regular buffs.

[Tommy_Dude]

I believe there was a magical armor golem in Pathfinder's Ultimate Magic as well. Then of course there were the old Dragonmech rules you could rip off and modify. Other than that... I have no idea.

[Almarck]

Okay, so, while I get behind the idea of heavily armor super soldiers., I don't think giving fighters armor with flamethrowers and missile launchers solves things. Casters are considered superior because their spell lists give them a breath of options; more better armor will mitigate, but not remove it.

Also, I do see fighters perform admirably in my experience, but then again my games are hardly typical.

Also, magic missile is so pathetically weak that it needs that ability to not require attack rolls or force saving throws, so it's a bad example. Fireball is a better example. Deal lots of damage in an AoE radius and unavoidable without class features or the right magic items.

That said, there's been numerous mech pilots, powered armor, and other such shenanigans in both third party and homebrew.

To build off of what others have said; Pathfinder does have an artifact powered armor and it's very good, like gamebreakingly so, but again, out of reach from players. There's lesser suits made for player use, but they don't fit in with the idea of what you want (they remain and function as "armor", no pilot's liscence needed), and they don't have that many features that set them too far above normal armor. See for yourself:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/armor/technological-armor

[SinsI]

They don't have to have only flamethrowers and missiles.
What if magic powered armor had a magic engine that would allow one to load it with and support multiple continuous spells? DMM Persist clerics are often considered to be one of the most powerful builds, it makes sense to give access to it to mundanes as well...

[RoboEmperor]

1. Build a golem. In our example it will be a stone golem.
2. You can shape the golem anyway you want. Shape it like an armor, as in hollow, no head (the golem's head is his torso)
3. Tell your DM your golem has a retractable stone cage above its head. Or you buy a cage yourself and just fasten it on the golem after you are inside.
4. Your golem will now take all the damage for you, and you can cast spells inside (aka flamethrowers and missiles).

Some Options
1. Golem has eyes inside its torso, so it can watch your every move and emulate it
2. You build the golem's inside to fit your form perfectly. Now it can emulate your moves through feel only, and have its eyes pointing outside.

The DM
Q:"You can't do that, its not in the rules"
A:Yes I can, I just explained how, and it is completely within the rules and fluff. If you disallow you're a close-minded DM with no ability for creativity (Or this power armor is outside your intended level of optimization, in which case its fine to disallow).

Other golems: Any golem you can shape qualifies. A clay golem can wrap itself around you. Iron golem can be fashioned anyway you want. Effigies sadly don't qualify.

[Aegis013]

It's not precisely what you're looking for but the psionic summoning power Astral Construct (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Astral_Construct) could be summoned so that it surrounds a person and acts like power armor. I mean that's not really RAW since creatures occupying the same space and whatnot, but is certainly suitable fluff-wise.

Which would be really nice because it blocks line-of-effect to the user inside and the enemies have to "kill" the armor to get to the pilot.

You could then homebrew feats that give the Astral Construct additional abilities from its menus or feats that give it new abilities wholecloth.