Alternative rules for Arcane Spell Failure

[EnnPeeCee]

I'm looking for ideas on different approaches to Arcane Spell Failure given by wearing armor. As is currently is, having even a 5% chance that any spell fails is an unacceptable risk for casters to take (which I believe is the general consensus about ASF). This leads to wizards = no armor, unless you can find a way to reduce the ASF to 0. Which, I understand is what WoC intended for arcane casters, they should be the squishy, back-line, glass cannon type characters. I get that, and I do agree with that.

But what I am getting at, is there really is no choice on the player's side. For example, a rogue has to make a choice on what type of armor to go for. Ignoring max dex for a moment, its a judgement call based on how much AC the rogue wants vs how much check penalty to their skills they are willing to take. There is no right answer for the rogue, the game lets the rogue make the choice and find what works best for your character.

For the arcane caster though, the game has basically already made the choice for the player, with how risky ASF is. So what I'm interested in, is an alternate system to ASF that brings the choice back to the player. Of course, it should still lean the arcane players towards not wearing armor, or wearing lighter armor, but let the player make that judgment.

Some ideas I've tossed around to replace ASF:
Armor check penalty applies to spell save DC for arcane spells. (while this would affect a lot of offensive spells, spells that rely on attack rolls, or self cast spells are unaffected)
Heavier armor reduces number of arcane spells per day (requires DM intervention to prevent taking off armor when prepping spells, also is a much heavier penalty to low level characters, doesn't effect high level much)
Heavier armor increases casting time for all arcane spells (probably way too penalizing, doesn't affect out of combat casting)
Heavier armor adds a "cool-down" time between spell casts (have to keep track, doesn't affect out of combat casting)

Any ideas? Has anyone used any alternate rules for ASF? Or is everyone ok with how it currently is? Has anyone actually seen or played an arcane caster that wore armor with ASF?

[Zancloufer]

First: Spells that use attack rolls are already effected by armour if the Caster is not proficient with it. So there already is a slight trade-off for it.

If you wanted a general scaling penalty for wearing armour, perhaps reducing the effective CL by something like 1 CL per 5% ASF, to a minimum of 1. Or at least CL for dispelling/Duration. Perhaps adding the armour check penalty to the DC of the spell would work as well. Then there would be multiple ways that armour impairs spell-casting, not one overpowering option, and some that could be negated by feats.

[EnnPeeCee]

First: Spells that use attack rolls are already effected by armour if the Caster is not proficient with it. So there already is a slight trade-off for it.

If you wanted a general scaling penalty for wearing armour, perhaps reducing the effective CL by something like 1 CL per 5% ASF, to a minimum of 1. Or at least CL for dispelling/Duration. Perhaps adding the armour check penalty to the DC of the spell would work as well. Then there would be multiple ways that armour impairs spell-casting, not one overpowering option, and some that could be negated by feats.

That's a good point, maybe having armor affect multiple aspects of casting would be better than trying to nail down just 1 thing for it to affect. As long as its relatively simple to implement, and doesn't become a bookkeeping nightmare.