looking for class or ACF

[Thac0 Redeye]

Hi all,
I'm helping one of the guys in our party create a new chara concept. He wants to go in the direction of Mystic Theurge. We need help finding an arcane class or ACF for the arcane. He defiantly wants to NOT use CHA for spellcasting, but wants to use armor. So I need advice on finding a class that uses WIS or INT for arcane spellcasting in armor.
almost all books are allowed but no ebberron, psionics, or tomb of battle.
thanks

[Troacctid]

Here is a list of spellcasting classes from official sources. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1geywITbI4M-Up08SGD-rUHlnobR66aIgKqu7mILkmhU/edit#gid=1606060866

Your main choices are going to be either beguiler or death master.

[Thac0 Redeye]

thanks for the list. what about ACF's like battle sorcerer? but for wizard.

[Particle_Man]

There is a dwarf wizard prestige class called runesmith in races of stone that uses runes stones instead of somatic components and thus can cast arcane spells in armour. A dip in that might be useful although you would still have arcane spell failure before getting to that prestige class. I presume the cleric class would give you armour proficiencies. So cleric 3/wizard 2/Runesmith 1/Mystic Theurge 10/Runesmith 4 could do it. And Runesmith is very easy for a cleric/wizard to meet the prerequisites for.

[Troacctid]

thanks for the list. what about ACF's like battle sorcerer? but for wizard.
There is no equivalent of battle sorcerer for wizard. However, if you use cleric as your other class, you could take the dragonscale husk variant for it, which replaces your heavy armor proficiency with a carapace that does not incur any chance of arcane spell failure.

[schreier]

If you are going Theurge, you can take alternate source spell and memorize the arcane as divine - boom, no spell failure.

You could also take the feat Battle Caster (Complete Arcane)

[Particle_Man]

Oh and if the player doesn't want to play a dwarf, the Arcane Hierophant from races of the wild is a druid/arcane theurge type prestige class that has this ability:

"When casting an arcane spell, you ignore the arcane spell failure chance for any nonmetallic light or medium armor (padded, leather, or hide armor). You learn to cast arcane spells while wearing the types of armor that druids favor."

Again, this requires patience as you have to *get* to this prestige class before you can wear armour. Also, it doesn't extend to all armours (but dragonhide armour can cover breastplate).

A neat advantage of this prestige class is that if you take both mystic theurge and arcane hierophant, you can end up with 9th level divine and arcane spells.

[Kelb_Panthera]

You're not actually forbidden from wearing armor as a wizard.

Thistledown padded armor has no spell failure at low levels and adding thistledown padding along with other special materials can reduce the asf of heavier armors. The heaviest will demand the twilight enhancement as well but, IIRC, you can get a breastplate down to 0% asf without breaking the bank.

Just need to get proficiency to avoid the attack penalty after that. Your divine side should cover that easily enough.

[Thurbane]

One level in Urban Savant allows a Wizard to cast in light armor with no ASF. Better if the DM allows ranks in Knowledge (history) to sub for Bardic Knowledge.

[Biggus]

You're not actually forbidden from wearing armor as a wizard.

Thistledown padded armor has no spell failure at low levels and adding thistledown padding along with other special materials can reduce the asf of heavier armors. The heaviest will demand the twilight enhancement as well but, IIRC, you can get a breastplate down to 0% asf without breaking the bank.

Just need to get proficiency to avoid the attack penalty after that. Your divine side should cover that easily enough.

Mithral reduces ASF by 10%, Thistledown padding by 5%, Twilight by 10%. If Dragon Magazine material is in play, you can get caster armor (#358, p.39) for another 5%. I'm not sure how you can get the last 5% needed for full plate except by taking a level of Spellsword though (you could take a level of Prestige Paladin from UA to qualify if it's available).

[Wildstag]

An alternative to all this is that you could also focus on spells that only have verbal or material components. Arcane Spell Failure only effects spells with somatic components. I did this once, focusing heavily on the Power Word X spells. Granted, they are Enchantment (Compulsion)(Mind-Affecting)...

And an alternative Arcane route could use Duskblade, which qualifies for the prestige class after 5 levels. At 4th level you can cast in medium armor.

[nedz]

What sort of arcane casting does the concept require ?
There are many options and this will help us thin them out a little.