Abjurant Champion and Mage Armor

[RNightstalker]

How do other DM's deal with the example of Mage Armor being listed in the description of Abjurant Champion actually being a Conjuration spell?

Would it be simpler to research and make an Abjuration variant of the spell? And subsequently Greater Mage Armor as well?

[heavyfuel]

Yup. It's not like forcing all Abjurant Champions to be Exalted Good and have them jump through hoops to heal the ability damage from (Greater) Luminous Armor makes them any weaker, it just makes them more varied

[KillianHawkeye]

Prepare a lot of shield spells?

[Mr Adventurer]

Yup. It's not like forcing all Abjurant Champions to be Exalted Good and have them jump through hoops to heal the ability damage from (Greater) Luminous Armor makes them any weaker, it just makes them more varied

Is that sarcasm?

[rel]

Just houserule mage armour as abjuration or provide a variant.

[Zombimode]

I would just rule that Mage Armor and Greater Mage Armor simply work with the Abjurant Champoins class feature. Because that was obviously the intention.

[Thurbane]

I would just rule that Mage Armor and Greater Mage Armor simply work with the Abjurant Champoins class feature. Because that was obviously the intention.

Yeah, nothing about the class would really break if you made the ability work with any spell that grants an armor or shield bonus.

[heavyfuel]

Is that sarcasm?

Nope. (extra characters)

[Mr Adventurer]

Okay. Just that if all AbCs "are forced to be Exalted Good and have them jump through hoops to heal the ability damage from (Greater) Luminous Armor", then that makes them less varied, not more...

[KillianHawkeye]

You don't need to be "exalted" Good to cast sanctified spells, any non-Evil prepared caster can do it.

[heavyfuel]

Okay. Just that if all AbCs "are forced to be Exalted Good and have them jump through hoops to heal the ability damage from (Greater) Luminous Armor", then that makes them less varied, not more...

Oh, you're right. That's definitely what I meant

[Malphegor]

I've always figured that for the abjurant champion, Mage armour automatically switches schools, because otherwise, the following quote of a class feature doesn't make sense from a design perspective. "You get an AC bonus equal to your level. Here's some spells you can use for that endeavour!"


Any time you cast an abjuration spell that grants you an armor bonus or shield bonus to AC, you can increase the value of the bonus by your abjurant champion class level. Abjurant champions rely on mage armor, shield and similar spells instead of actual armor.

Wouldn't be the first time a spell and related spells are in a spell school seemingly at random (I'm staring at you right in the face, Bestow Curse, a necromancy spell as of the switchover from 3.0 to 3.5, even though its big brother, Greater Bestow Curse, is eternally a transmutation spell).

[HighWater]

I would just rule that Mage Armor and Greater Mage Armor simply work with the Abjurant Champoins class feature. Because that was obviously the intention.

While I wholeheartedly agree, the Errata for Complete Mage strips the mention of mage armor:



Page 51 – Abjurant Champion
Class Features [Deletion]
Under the abjurant armor ability,
remove mention of “mage armor” at
the end of the paragraph. The abjurant
armor ability does not affect mage
armor, but the spell is still useful to an
abjurant champion.

See:
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/errata

That said, I'd say it depends on your table whether Mage Armor working with Abjurant Champion is a problem or not.
Any table where the player would instead head for the Luminous Armor spells => sure, allow Mage Armor!
Any table where the player would become relatively unstoppable compared to the group => balance to the group, disallow Mage Armor! (Or, you know, talk to the player.)
Any table where the player is really struggling, compared to the others => by all means, allow it to work!

[Mr Adventurer]

Greater Bestow Curse is a Necromancy spell in the Spell Compendium, isn't it?

[Malphegor]

Greater Bestow Curse is a Necromancy spell in the Spell Compendium, isn't it?

ah, I was looking at Complete Divine as I don't have a copy of Spell Compendium yet. It looks like you're right, they fixed it in the end to fit the change.