Mages and Squishiness, essay and simple fix (3.x)

[Fizban]

Was thinking about trying to fix squishy mages and homebrew classes and whatnot again, and finally connected the last few dots. Spun it into a whole essay for my doc, might as well post it here:

Mages and Squishiness

DnD 3.x has a problem, and that problem is how squishy mages are supposed to be. Sor/Wiz are supposedly no-armor, but then they have the mage armor and shield spells, and then special materials and adjustments are printed to let them use armor anyway. As base classes are added to the game, spell-centered arcanists which get "Armored Mage" abilities equal and then outnumber those who don't, and they can take the Battle Caster feat to improve this ability (though only once). Arcansists then, are actually less worried about armor than Rangers and Rogues, who have class features (Combat Style and Evasion) that are locked to Light armor with no exceptions.

Some people will shout that "it's just AC!", usually followed by "AC is useless use X/Y/Z instead!" But AC stacks with all of those other defenses, and crucially, the rest of the party doesnt just get those defenses for free. And why is AC useless? Let's look at what happens:

The standard party has a massive range of expected armor class values. The sor/wiz is supposed to have no armor or shield, and thus a base AC bonus of +0. The meatshield is expected to seek out armor and shield, with their base AC bonus quickly reaching the expected soft cap of +10. That's a 10 point range. That's huge. With a 10 point difference in AC, a foe can threaten the squishy mage, while barely being able to hit the meatshield. This creates a dynamic combat scenario where weaker foes can threaten some of the party but not others, making positioning and threat assessment important. Even the 4 point difference betwen a light armored rougish type and a properly unarmored arcanist is significant.

Putting Armored Mage (Light) on everything means that the standard AC range is no longer 0-10. It is now 4-10, a gap of only 6 points (for only a +/- 30% change in accuracy, rather than +/- 50%). Giving mages all-day mage armor spells means this applies even without that ability. Giving them easily extended and/or spammed shield spells that give +4 more AC means that the gap is now 8-10, only 2 points. If those shield spells are available to the rest of the party because fairness and item creation, the entire party now simply has the same base AC of +8 whether they two-hand or not, though making the shield spell available to everyone at least lets the gap get back to the 4 points between light/mage armor and full plate. (And yes, magic armor will eventually exceed 1st level mage armor, but there are more powerful versions of the spell and those items cost money, so this does not happen until the mid or late game, if at all).

And if the party all has the same AC, that means that every foe's attack bonus is funneled into a binary result. Not the binary result of hit or miss, but the binary situation of either the foe has a credible chance of hitting any member of the party, or none of them. When the party has a 10 point range of standard AC values, a level appropriate martial foe can range from a lowish chance of say 40% against the meatshield, all the way to a 90% chance to hit the squishy mage. That foe is always a threat to someone, and the combat can, depending on planning and skill and luck etc, have that foe handled without risk, or have that foe maim or kill one of the party. Pushing the minimum AC up by +X means that the minimum attack bonus of foes must also go up to maintain threat against the "squishy" party members, but this means that now the tough party members are actually behind by -X, with no way to make up the difference. Except of course by bringing in spells to fix it.

When the entire party has the same AC, there is no difference between them. A foe is either a dire threat, or a low threat, or a medium threat against which luck will be the deciding factor, no matter who it can reach. Positioning only matters in terms of who has more hit points to spare, not actual likelihood of being hit (and thus hit points become more important, and more people take damage, and recovering that damage becomes even more necessary). Extra magical defenses like miss chance and DR from spells are the only major difference between characters' toughness, and the arcanists have them innately while the rest of the party doesn't.

Thus: AC "doesn't matter"- because foes must have enough attack to hit someone, and the whole party has the same base AC, so everyone can always be hit. Thus: Cheap miss chance items are "required" because AC no longer works, and the classes which were supposed to have AC instead of defensive spells now need both AC and defensive spells.

In short: Allowing arcanists to have easy AC makes the rest of the party worse by fundamentally breaking the game's base combat mechanic expectations. Zero or tiny AC gap means AC is broken, and Armored Mage, and the mage armor and shield spells and all their derivatives, make that happen.


So. While I've made some extremely minor nerfs to mage armor and shield, I've also been allowing Armored Mage casters and improving medium armor (and thus the Battle Caster feat), while generally grappling with the concept of squishy mages and how to keep that trope and its possible attendant gameplay expectations alive without rocking the boat on too much published material.

And the answer is simple: I can't. It doesn't work.

There is a fundamental problem with Armored Mage and mage armor that cannot be removed. If mages are supposed to have lower AC, you can't give them more AC. You can give them non-AC defenses that are useful, which are even more useful when applied to people that also have AC. You can give them small AC buffs which work on everyone and overlap with expected items over time. But if you raise the bottom end of the party's armor class it cannot avoid reducing the size of the available game space and make things worse for the rest of the party.

Thus, the point of this section. Much like the Spell Duration Grid below (a spell level/original duration grid of standardized spell durations), this is not something I'm necessarily implementing as a default in all games, but it needs to be addressed in some way. Increased AC must come at a central character cost. Note also that if the party sacrifices overall arcane magic for AC, they should not be punished for it: the DM should, if they can, attempt to use, find, or create some foes for which the party's lack of top level offensive spells is a weakness, the same way a normal party's arcanist being vulnerable to attack rolls is a weakness.


Squishy Mages

The mage armor and shield spells are removed.
-Any similar or derived spell which provides an armor or shield bonus is removed.
The Armored Mage ability is removed from all full casting base classes (typically those with 9th level spells).
-This includes (but is not limited to): Warmage, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, and Shadowcaster*.
--Homebrew classes may be brought in or written which have Armored Mage in games which don't use this fix- such classes still lose Armored Mage.
-Mage warriors (typically 6th level or lower spells), may retain this ability.
--Including but not limited to the Bard, Hexblade, Warlock, Spellthief, and Duskblade.
Divine full casters are still secondary tanks, but should be secondary.
-Clerics and derivative classes with Heavy armor proficiency are reduced to Medium. They may still increase their armor proficiency as normal, and cast spells in armor just fine.
Psions, Wilders, Ardents, and any other class that gains powers above 6th level, suffer from arcane spell failure chance.
-Psychic Warriors, Divine Minds, etc, have "Armored Mage" for their base armor proficiencies.

*I suppose if you haven't already buffed Shadowcaster they could keep it.

Notes: Overall the effect on the game here is either huge, or inconsequential. Either it prevents the problem from occuring, or the problem was never going to occur in the first place.

This fix still relies on the arcane spell failure system as its deterrent: if you allow easy removal of ASF, then this fix won't matter if those methods are used. If available reductions are calculated so that ASF can be partially but not wholly ignored, then the penalty will remain at whatever amount is allowed, which your players may or may not be afraid of. My own armor and material tables currently still allow +3 worth of armor and shield with a mere 5% spell failure- but that 3-10 gap is much bigger than 8-10 ( or even 6-10 with the previous nerf of the spells to +3/+3), and it does have that tiny failure chance which actually compares to attack rolls. The biggest change is the flat-out banning of the mage armor and shield spells. But since mages are supposed to be squishy, even casters which don't have those spells should not be getting easy Light armor.

It is possible that my minor buffs to armor/AC and nerfs to those spells (+1 effective to medium armor, +1 to big shields, -2 to the spell combo) were enough to close that 4 point light/mage armor gap before, and that with this larger fix in place the gap could become too wide. But for a group that needs this nerf, I expect the caster would quickly sus out the available armor anyway and quickly reclaim 3 of those points, putting them just about where Armored Mage (Light) would have put them anyway- but with no upgrade feat, and tied to their specific items, in an overall scenario where mages in general are still squishy even if this one is slightly less so.


There. You may now tell me all about how I'm wrong etc.

Consider also that even if you think that mage armor and Armored Mage (Light) should be the default, that doesn't change the basic problem of AC gap. It means that now your Light armored characters, your Rogues and Rangers, are exactly as squishy as the mage, and your gap between low and high base AC is only 6 points, +/-30%. And even if the shield spell isn't always on, whenever it is, the overall effect still happens and the gap narrows to a mere 10%, for a mere pair of 1st level spells. If you buff heavy armor meatshield AC by 4 points to compensate for the change is base expected light/mage armor, the net result is basically a cosmetic change for the PCs, and -4 AC for Commoners (and Monks that don't have mage armor items). The question is how much of an AC gap there should be- or if you choose to remove it as a factor, what mechanics you're going to use to replace it.

[H_H_F_F]

Interesting read. I tend to agree with your basic premise. Seems a bit too radical, at first glance, but I'll leave that discussion to others.

[Spore]

The thing is, AC is by far not the only measurement in which you can challenge your character's survivability and defense. You can target touch AC, flat-footed AC, but for the premise of this thread, I'll much rather target saves. That, or have the discussion of ranged vs. melee. Or miss chance in that case. A well positioned archer or mage can have up to 50% miss chance (with full cover), can have decent to good saves. But still, one unlucky perception roll and the mage is hit with a sneak attack poisoned arrow.

Besides, AC for casters is not "free". Mage Armor costs a spell slot, as does shield. It is on you as a DM to draw these ressources out. An armor lasts all day, a sword arm swings almost tirelessly. Yet a mage only has a few high points in their adventuring day. If your encounter design does only target AC, if your combat hugely favors a 5 minute adventuring day, it is no wonder your fighter feels inadequate. You need to find a balance between both playstyles. You don't want to drag your wizard player through 10 fights without a rest, only able to spam Ray of Frost or plink away with a crossbow, but you also don't want only two fights a day, where the fighter looks on while the wizard murders the BBEG with scorching rays while tanking his hits with an AC if 21+.

Also I am a fan of semi-customized loot tailored to the weaknesses, not the strengths of a party. An elf wizard could find an unerring longbow that adds his intelligence modifier to damage rolls, while the fighter suddenly gains access to boots of levitation or the ability to dimension door in the dark ala shadowdancer. Of course upgrades to a playstyle are important as well, but sidegrades are important, and should be offered in plenty, as often people simply don't want to upgrade their side capabilities in a certain way.

[holbita]

Even more important that costing slots... it costs actions. I've never found that high AC in squishies is an issue in any game I've played in, the amount of effort that takes them to get high AC makes then lack in other aspects. You want to set up a mage armor? that's a turn you are not damage dealing or doing battlefield control, etc. and thal whole turn of the character not being proactive it's usually what I need. If the characters had preparation time before the encounter so it is not taking from the encounter actions then the monsters were screwed either way so it's not an issue.

And for the cases where it comes from magic item optimization or self crafting ridiculous combinations of equipment then as long as the whole team is doing the same thing I just need to adjust the monster appropiately.

Issue comes when only the squishie does such thing, but that is a different issue with power level disparity on the party, not the AC being an issue.

There are 4 basic ways to screw a character: AC, touch, flatfooted and saves. I find that characters are naturally decent in at least one of them, if they want to invest actions and resources in improving the rest I am good with it. The only thing that may become a problem is if they become good in all 4 of them... and even in those cases they are very good defending but they do nothing in fights so it's not a problem. If you play something that is unbeatable and does a lot of damage/control/etc. the I am sorry, unless the rest of the group is the same that should not be played in game, so it should also not be an issue.

[Quertus]

This is founded on 3 very wrong-minded premises.

The first is that Wizards are supposed to be squishy. Wizards aren't supposed to anything - it's thinking Wizards are "supposed to" be blasters and other such nonsense that gave us the bad testing that didn't catch 3e imbalance in the first place. I've played in games where the Wizard was the tankiest member of the party, and it was fine. Doubling down on "supposed to" is like setting yourself on fire as a fire break, and kills off valid concepts as collateral damage.

The second wrong-minded premises is that you have to (or even should) auto-scale foes with the party. If the party makes a decision, give them the agency to have that decision have meaningful consequences! This includes having the wizard have a good AC! The logical consequences of "the Wizard's AC improves" are "the wizard gets hit less", not "the Fighter gets hit more". Games that involve the latter pants-on-head logic really should go home and rethink their life.

Now, if you actually buy into these premises, that the Wizard should be squishy, and dealing direct damage? Then I'll be quite curious how the first level Wizard keeps up with the Fighter, let alone the Rogue or Thug. But not just keeps up with, exceeds the damage output of, since there has to be a balance reason to mandate them having the "squishy" flaw (and getting finite resources with which to make those attacks).

If the Wizard is actually designed to be the MVP Rockstar of DPS? Then it's fine to mandate their squishiness. And… sign me up for Healbot Cleric, I guess - I'll enjoy the roleplay, the undead, and the irony that if the game goes on long enough, I'll probably be trying to overthrow the gods.

[Zanos]

Wizards have a d4 hit dice and mage armor is, for most combats, worse than wearing a chain shirt. Armor that has sufficiently reduced penalties to be worn by wizards costs a large amount of gold, and is therefore another resource cost.

Low level wizards aren't spending two first level slots to get ~20 AC for a few minutes.

[pabelfly]

If I were making a list of all the problems with Wizard and Sorcerer in 3.5, their AC would be extremely low on that list.

[H_H_F_F]

If I were making a list of all the problems with Wizard and Sorcerer in 3.5, their AC would be extremely low on that list.

For sure, but I get wanting to address it, especially for low-op groups.

[RandomPeasant]

If I were making a list of all the problems with Wizard and Sorcerer in 3.5, their AC would be extremely low on that list.

Honestly, if your Wizard is investing a whole bunch of resources in boosting his defenses, that probably makes the game less imbalanced. In 3.5, tankiness doesn't really win fights, because there are precious few ways to get monsters to attack your tank. It doesn't matter if the Wizard has AC 40, a 50% miss chance, and immunity to non-magical weapons if the Rogue gets turned into a fine red mist by the monsters instead. And if the spell slots the Wizard spends on that aren't being spent on spells that win fights, that means the observed power of the Wizard is a lot lower. The number of people who will complain about "Greg is never the one who dies in fights" is much smaller than the number of people who will complain about "Greg wins all the fights with a single action".


For sure, but I get wanting to address it, especially for low-op groups.

For low-op groups, balance problems are generally either nonexistent, or deeply idiosyncratic. Which limits the value of any fix targeted there. Does this fix the problem of "Wizards can get a lot of AC from spells"? Sure. But how many groups are having that problem, rather than "the TWF Rogue is dealing more damage than the Fighter" or "the Sorcerer picked a pretty good spell and has been overshadowing everyone" or "the DM gave the Monk a pity item and it turned out to be way too good" or any of the dozens of other problems low-op groups can have?

[Darg]

What we have done in the past is reduce the attack penalty of fighting defensively to only -2. Another change was (as they are used interchangeably in places) to make using combat expertise as fighting defensively to interact with other rules.

[gijoemike]

Was thinking about trying to fix squishy mages and homebrew classes and whatnot again, and finally connected the last few dots. Spun it into a whole essay for my doc, might as well post it here:

Mages and Squishiness

DnD 3.x has a problem, and that problem is how squishy mages are supposed to be. Sor/Wiz are supposedly no-armor, but then they have the mage armor and shield spells, and then special materials and adjustments are printed to let them use armor anyway. As base classes are added to the game, spell-centered arcanists which get "Armored Mage" abilities equal and then outnumber those who don't, and they can take the Battle Caster feat to improve this ability (though only once). Arcansists then, are actually less worried about armor than Rangers and Rogues, who have class features (Combat Style and Evasion) that are locked to Light armor with no exceptions.


This premise is incorrect. Sor/Wiz start out not knowing how to use armor at level 1 as part of their class kit. That is no where close to supposed to be no-armor and squishy forever. The Wizard is typically the most intelligent PC in the party. S/he is supposed to realize, I have no protection and then adjust to cover that glaring weakness.

The Fighter, Ranger, and the Rogue all get multiple armor options as defense built directly into the class kit. No resources (other than gold) required.



Some people will shout that "it's just AC!", usually followed by "AC is useless use X/Y/Z instead!" But AC stacks with all of those other defenses, and crucially, the rest of the party doesnt just get those defenses for free. And why is AC useless? Let's look at what happens:


Armor is absolutely not worthless. Especially at lower levels. For the first 10 levels it is the most commonly targeted defense. Past a certain point there are terrible diminishing returns. So, there comes a point when targeting X/Y/Z instead is a better investment and has a higher chance of success.



The standard party has a massive range of expected armor class values. The sor/wiz is supposed to have no armor or shield, and thus a base AC bonus of +0. The meatshield is expected to seek out armor and shield, with their base AC bonus quickly reaching the expected soft cap of +10. That's a 10 point range. That's huge. With a 10 point difference in AC, a foe can threaten the squishy mage, while barely being able to hit the meatshield. This creates a dynamic combat scenario where weaker foes can threaten some of the party but not others, making positioning and threat assessment important. Even the 4 point difference betwen a light armored rougish type and a properly unarmored arcanist is significant.


NO NO NO. A sorc/wiz isn't supposed to be unprotected in battle. Anyone knowingly walking into a battle with AC 10+dex should have their PC killed. That is a knucklehead decision. If nothing else stand behind some cover.

I disagree that a meat shield should have armor and shield. A tank should present an up close and personal threat. Thus, forcing the enemy to be required to deal with said tank. In D&D that is most easily accomplished with a 2 handed weapon at early levels. This changes the entire AC range. A naked caster behind cover and a shieldless tank is only 6 points different.



Putting Armored Mage (Light) on everything means that the standard AC range is no longer 0-10. It is now 4-10, a gap of only 6 points (for only a +/- 30% change in accuracy, rather than +/- 50%). Giving mages all-day mage armor spells means this applies even without that ability. Giving them easily extended and/or spammed shield spells that give +4 more AC means that the gap is now 8-10, only 2 points. If those shield spells are available to the rest of the party because fairness and item creation, the entire party now simply has the same base AC of +8 whether they two-hand or not, though making the shield spell available to everyone at least lets the gap get back to the 4 points between light/mage armor and full plate. (And yes, magic armor will eventually exceed 1st level mage armor, but there are more powerful versions of the spell and those items cost money, so this does not happen until the mid or late game, if at all).


Armored mage requires certain classes and ACF's locking the PC out of other options. If the PC chooses to take defensive class features let them have better defenses. There is also the Battle Caster feat that just lets you ignore ASF chance in certain armors. Locking a PC to certain classes and ACFs so they can have defense isn't a bad thing.

All day mage armor? Slow down Fizban. You have jumped several steps right there. Lets take it one step at a time.

mage casts mage armor - PC has used a limited resource to have a temporary buff. If it was a spell slot that is one slot less for offensive ability. At lvl 1 that means the Wizard/Sorc took the spell as one of the very very few spells they know. This limits their overall ability to be offensive. It will help during the kick in the door phase but not the surprise attack at night.

Mage uses multiple magic item/feat combos to extend mage armor at higher caster level - once again tying up at least 1 resource for day on not offense. If the PC invents in defense let that defense be useful. Also, this is still not as permanent as the fighters armor. 1 dispel magic is all it takes. You cannot dispel magic platemail

All day mage armor I assume Bracers of Armor (back to what you wished to discuss). That is +4 armor. Chainmail is base of +5 armor. Chainmail can then be enchanted or spelled up to go beyond the +5. Also the all day mage armor stills came from a resource.

Repeat the same for Shield. It is a wand, extend rod, or some Spell Weave trickery. Still resources that are expended.





And if the party all has the same AC, that means that every foe's attack bonus is funneled into a binary result. Not the binary result of hit or miss, but the binary situation of either the foe has a credible chance of hitting any member of the party, or none of them. When the party has a 10 point range of standard AC values, a level appropriate martial foe can range from a lowish chance of say 40% against the meatshield, all the way to a 90% chance to hit the squishy mage. That foe is always a threat to someone, and the combat can, depending on planning and skill and luck etc, have that foe handled without risk, or have that foe maim or kill one of the party. Pushing the minimum AC up by +X means that the minimum attack bonus of foes must also go up to maintain threat against the "squishy" party members, but this means that now the tough party members are actually behind by -X, with no way to make up the difference. Except of course by bringing in spells to fix it.

When the entire party has the same AC, there is no difference between them. A foe is either a dire threat, or a low threat, or a medium threat against which luck will be the deciding factor, no matter who it can reach. Positioning only matters in terms of who has more hit points to spare, not actual likelihood of being hit (and thus hit points become more important, and more people take damage, and recovering that damage becomes even more necessary). Extra magical defenses like miss chance and DR from spells are the only major difference between characters' toughness, and the arcanists have them innately while the rest of the party doesn't.


Flanking, aid to attack, charges. Cover vs no Cover. Position still very much matters. The PC that can be surrounded are in trouble. Take for example 2 enemies ganging up on a single pc. Both attack to aid a 3rd attacker who then charges into a flank. That is a bonus of +8. Your entire basis was over a range of 10. Position very much matters and determines who can get hit.




Thus: AC "doesn't matter"- because foes must have enough attack to hit someone, and the whole party has the same base AC, so everyone can always be hit. Thus: Cheap miss chance items are "required" because AC no longer works, and the classes which were supposed to have AC instead of defensive spells now need both AC and defensive spells.


But to get to this point the Arcane caster has spent resources while the fighter/rogue/ranger hasn't. This "AC doesn't matter" is a state of the game the arcanist has worked hard to get to by consuming Class abilities, feats, spells, and magic items. Fighters/Rogues have had to do NOTHING thus far. Also the miss chance shift, that is the diminishing returns I was talking about a few quotes ago. There comes a point fairly early that getting a miss chance is cheaper and easier than an extra +1 ac.



In short: Allowing arcanists to have easy AC makes the rest of the party worse by fundamentally breaking the game's base combat mechanic expectations. Zero or tiny AC gap means AC is broken, and Armored Mage, and the mage armor and shield spells and all their derivatives, make that happen.

Um, no. Improving defense doesn't make anyone else worse in any way. It improves defense. Also, the base combat expectations isn't a naked mage. An small AC gap means the mage is doing their job properly and shoring up weaknesses possibly for the whole party.




So. While I've made some extremely minor nerfs to mage armor and shield, I've also been allowing Armored Mage casters and improving medium armor (and thus the Battle Caster feat), while generally grappling with the concept of squishy mages and how to keep that trope and its possible attendant gameplay expectations alive without rocking the boat on too much published material.

And the answer is simple: I can't. It doesn't work.

There is a fundamental problem with Armored Mage and mage armor that cannot be removed. If mages are supposed to have lower AC, you can't give them more AC. You can give them non-AC defenses that are useful, which are even more useful when applied to people that also have AC. You can give them small AC buffs which work on everyone and overlap with expected items over time. But if you raise the bottom end of the party's armor class it cannot avoid reducing the size of the available game space and make things worse for the rest of the party.

Thus, the point of this section. Much like the Spell Duration Grid below (a spell level/original duration grid of standardized spell durations), this is not something I'm necessarily implementing as a default in all games, but it needs to be addressed in some way. Increased AC must come at a central character cost. Note also that if the party sacrifices overall arcane magic for AC, they should not be punished for it: the DM should, if they can, attempt to use, find, or create some foes for which the party's lack of top level offensive spells is a weakness, the same way a normal party's arcanist being vulnerable to attack rolls is a weakness.



No need to nerf anything. And it doesn't work because that isn't the problem. "Increased AC must come at a central character cost" is flat WRONG. It comes and should come from a resource cost. Spells, charges on magic items, magic items themselves. Armored Mage. which OP mentions as a problem, is a central character cost, yet it is one of the first things listed as a problem. This is a bit contradictory.

The real problem you have is casters can do amazing versatile things using magic while not-casters cannot. A caster who uses enough resources is stronger than a raging barbarian, sneakier than the rogue, tougher than a fighter, harder to hit than any of them, and ignores 90% of the effects when they are somehow hit. And they also ignore crits and sneakattack. But nothing stated here even begins to address any of that.

[Zanos]

I will add, since it hasn't been mentioned yet, adding some AC can still be beneficial even if your AC is terrible, because it might protect you from power attack and iteratives. If you have 10 AC, nothing stops a big melee brute, almost all of which have power attack, from dealing a ton of extra damage.

Although almost always a primary arcane casters first defense against attacks should be positioning.

[Fizban]

To those saying it isn't a problem, that's great: if it's not broken you don't need to fix it. I did say that the effect was either huge or inconsequential- and if a change is inconsequential to you, there's no point in making it.

I also seem to have forgotten that if you post a "fix," people will immediately combat it as if it were being shoved at their own game and every game rather than reading it as an option (as optional as any other bit of rules), which is one of the reasons I'd been avoiding the term. But then, I also allowed the bit of self-deprecation where I invited people to tell me I'm wrong, so. . .

I see no one seems to be engaging with the basic concept of the AC gap, aside from brushing it off as replaceable with other defensive gaps, a shame but unsurprising. Clearly I should have re-written this into a fundamental game design concept and left it at that, but I'd already spent all that time writing it up for my DnD notes and hey that's how I should present it, right?



Interesting read. I tend to agree with your basic premise. Seems a bit too radical, at first glance, but I'll leave that discussion to others.
Since you seem to be the only one who does, I'd very much be interested to hear any further thoughts. Indeed, the response most people seem to have is that it's way too radical, but why? It's two spells that, if they didn't already exist, wouldn't be missed.

If a person homebrews an ability which gives double the bonus of anything at the same level, for the same or longer duration, and says it's fine because it's only "replacing" something that the base class specifically did not have- that ability would normally be, righfully, marked out as an obvious increase in power. Mage armor and shield both do this vs shield of faith, and stack with each other, and one of them has a massive duration that becomes trivial to maintain- mage armor even still providing a net AC bonus when overlapped with 1st level armor weaker than scale mail. And it's justifed because they don't stack with armor or shields. . . and are given to the class that most explicitly is not supposed to wear armor or use shields, one of them only working for the caster and being better than anything it would overlap with for ages.*
*Actually 3.0 shield was better and worse, since it was a +7 directional cover bonus.

What justifies all these added full casting arcanists ignoring armor problems, when that feature first shows up on the Bard- who has dramatically decreased casting, followed by the Hexblade- who has even less, and is supposed to be a martial combatant -? They're justified because mage armor is "expected" but doesn't match the themed lists of those casters. And mage armor directly violates a restriction that is baked into arcane casting and nowhere else. Only arcane casters have such inherent problems with armor down to their smallest ability (Rogues losing some, and 3.5 Rangers losing more, and even Monks don't have their basic unarmed attacks affected)- and yet, this spell says that they don't really, and so a bunch more just cast in armor anyway.

And what justifies psionics completely ignoring the entire concept? Fluff does not excuse blatant increases in power, and the complete removal of casting components is just that.

Sure, it seems too radical. From an end-of-3.5 standpoint where everyone (with magic) has as much AC and other wacky defenses as they want. But from the original principles, arcane spell failure and the results that the AC gap has on gameplay, the addition of mage armor (or rather, the 3.x updates which I expect collectively made it far cheaper and more effective than the previous editions), is the overly radical change.



The first is that Wizards are supposed to be squishy. Wizards aren't supposed to anything - it's thinking Wizards are "supposed to" be blasters and other such nonsense that gave us the bad testing that didn't catch 3e imbalance in the first place. I've played in games where the Wizard was the tankiest member of the party, and it was fine. Doubling down on "supposed to" is like setting yourself on fire as a fire break, and kills off valid concepts as collateral damage.
If you disagree with the role-based foundation of the game and how those roles should operate, sure. But it was how it was, and it is how it is in tons of games that were based on it, and it's how I and many people think it should be. If one wants their game to follow those roles and has players that will use these rules failings to buck them, then fixing the game is valid. And non-problem players will still tend to use things that are obvious and easily available, like 1st level spells and features.

You can just as easily set yourself on fire doubling down on how arcanists are "supposed to" do whatever they want because the writers got more lax.


The second wrong-minded premises is that you have to (or even should) auto-scale foes with the party. If the party makes a decision, give them the agency to have that decision have meaningful consequences! This includes having the wizard have a good AC! The logical consequences of "the Wizard's AC improves" are "the wizard gets hit less", not "the Fighter gets hit more". Games that involve the latter pants-on-head logic really should go home and rethink their life.
Correct, you should not. I even stated this myself, that if you've invoked these changes and the party intentionally takes the hit in order to boost their bottom line, you need to make sure you don't screw them over.

But people do it. All. The. Time. As a default matter of course without thinking. Exactly the same as if you mention a character, when you mention a monster, the forum starts immediately char-op'ing it, and if your character can't stand up to their personal level of monster-op, that means your character is "underpowered." If the DM actually runs all unmodified MM1 monsters from a module written without any knowledge of the party, then sure, the only result is that the wizard gets hit less. But I'm quite sure very few people actually run their games that dryly, and you don't have to do it intentionally for it to happen.

Regardless, the logical consequences are still bad even if you don't conciously or unconciously adjust the foes to compensate. The number of possible results in the game space goes down. There is no longer a range in the basic defensive value, which means the results of combat become more and more similar between each character, making combat less dynamic, less interesting. It's just boring. If you don't want your game to get samey like that, then enforcing some squishiness on some of the party is again, perfectly valid.


Now, if you actually buy into these premises, that the Wizard should be squishy, and dealing direct damage? Then I'll be quite curious how the first level Wizard keeps up with the Fighter, let alone the Rogue or Thug. But not just keeps up with, exceeds the damage output of, since there has to be a balance reason to mandate them having the "squishy" flaw (and getting finite resources with which to make those attacks).
I'm noticing multiple jabs at 1st level- uh, you guys do realize that the 1-10 AC gap I'm specifically calling out here doesn't even exist at 1st level, right? The gap isn't fully formed until full plate is standard, and it's not fully infringed on by wizards until mage armor (and then shield) are sufficiently easy to maintain. The fact that people keep saying that never really happens is bizarre, considering that one of the foundational assumptions of any baseline optimized wizard is that those spells are always up because there are always enough spell slots/cheap consumables/they choose when the fights happen/etc.


If the Wizard is actually designed to be the MVP Rockstar of DPS? Then it's fine to mandate their squishiness.
DPS is not a standard role, so no they're not- they're AoE and mundane defense piercing artillery support. All players like to deal damage, all characters can and should/do contribute to damage (directly or indirectly), and no character gets to paint themselves as the "main" damage dealer. But ranged AoE defense piercing is a highly offense focused role which is expected to suffer in defense, yes Roles like "DPS" where it's not the delivery but instead the magnitude with a presumed always-success, are the sort of evolution that happens when defenses become static and things become more like an MMO: X hit points vs Y DPS with a side of Z aggro control, a bit of variation in the numbers but things are expected to go as expected. Higher op games override a lot of the basics and "surfing the d20 wave" to build themselves new roles and expectations, and then indeed much of the published material doesn't line up well with the new roles designed around certain builds.



Wizards have a d4 hit dice and mage armor is, for most combats, worse than wearing a chain shirt. Armor that has sufficiently reduced penalties to be worn by wizards costs a large amount of gold, and is therefore another resource cost.
I could write a companion piece that is almost exactly the same, but with a Hit Point gap instead. Again, one of the standard char-up mandates is Con immediately after casting stat, specifically to minimize the hit point gap. A d4 is only 1 point per level less than a d6- that's the Rogue again. The fixed-list casters all conveniently have d6's, so their adoption means the Rogue becomes exactly as squishy as them. The Ranger and Monk have d8s, only 1 point per level higher, so they're also looking a lot weaker in relative terms. The prevalence of massively increased ability scores and thus higher Con in some games also makes this worse, since the Con goes up for everyone, making the size of those base hit dice matter less and less to the overall total. And that's without things like Stalwart or Battle Sorc, certain PrCs that shall not be named, etc.

And it applies again to saves, which one poster suggested as a more significant measure of toughness. Saves are one of the few things that really stay dependent on class, and very few classes are ever given all high saves. But of course, then conviction (and various other save booster spells) roll around and ramp everyone's saves up so high that standard monsters can barely affect the mid or low end- so DMs have to optimize to compensate.

Why allow and even embrace this arms race, when you can just not include the disruptive elements? I've never seen a game in any medium or format that said "actually, everyone should be exactly the same toughness regardless of what they do." Even points-based and narrative-focused games will say that well if you want X/Y/Z to be high, something's gotta give elsewhere. DnD has this wonderful parallel advancement track setup, but it also means that it's very easy to give people X at no cost to Y, and then someone else gets Y at no cost to Z so they can "keep up," and the whole thing spirals into everyone needing to have the same AC, hp, saves, access to magic, everything. There are fairly visible caps to offense depending on optimization, but there can't be defense caps?

Further down I note that saves themselves approach a 10 point or greater gap- should mages also have 1st level spells that give them a pair of stacking +4s to their low saves because they don't have all high saves? There actually are some 1st level massive save bonus spells like say ironguts, but it at least has the decency of being limited to a certain type of "attack," and there's no extra +4 to reduce the gap by the same 8 points, nor one for Reflex saves. Conviction is busted, but at least it's busted for everyone equally.


Low level wizards aren't spending two first level slots to get ~20 AC for a few minutes.
See above.



Honestly, if your Wizard is investing a whole bunch of resources in boosting his defenses, that probably makes the game less imbalanced. In 3.5, tankiness doesn't really win fights, because there are precious few ways to get monsters to attack your tank. It doesn't matter if the Wizard has AC 40, a 50% miss chance, and immunity to non-magical weapons if the Rogue gets turned into a fine red mist by the monsters instead. And if the spell slots the Wizard spends on that aren't being spent on spells that win fights, that means the observed power of the Wizard is a lot lower. The number of people who will complain about "Greg is never the one who dies in fights" is much smaller than the number of people who will complain about "Greg wins all the fights with a single action".
Seriously, this is the first time I've ever seen people argue so hard that a couple 1st level spell slots is some huge cost barrier- maybe because by mentioning Armored Mage people are now focused on 1st level? I'm usually the one reminding people that spell slots are more limited than they think, but these are 1st level spells. 25gp on a scroll (which all wizards can scribe), 12.5 if you craft it yourself, you can buy dozens of these by 2nd or 3rd level. Complaints of action cost on shield are more significant, but heck the consumables are still so cheap that you could pop one almost every door and probably not much care even without bothering to Extend one at higher cl- definitely every time you enter a main door, important room, or hear something that sounds like a possible treat. Schrodenger's wizard seems to be in full force, but now failing to keep their spells up instead of perfect- but the very premise of the thread is that Schodenger's mage armor+shield user would already be able to manage it, else the fix wouldn't be needed.

But it doesn't even need to be all the time- if the vanished AC gap makes the game more boring even only sometimes when the mage finds it convenient, why should I suffer it to happen at all?

I was kinda expecting someone to point out that since shield is inactive so often it shouldn't be counted (although it remains a ridiculous +4 for a 1st level spell), so the AC gap is still 6 and actually that's plenty good enough for their tastes- that's why I pre-empted it. Which I suppose is why I've got so many responses that either disregard the concept entirely or insist that neither of the spells are reliable therefore they're both totally fine.

If the wizard is actually spending a ton of spells on defense and failing to do their job, that's a whole separate problem.


For low-op groups, balance problems are generally either nonexistent, or deeply idiosyncratic. Which limits the value of any fix targeted there. Does this fix the problem of "Wizards can get a lot of AC from spells"? Sure. But how many groups are having that problem, rather than "the TWF Rogue is dealing more damage than the Fighter" or "the Sorcerer picked a pretty good spell and has been overshadowing everyone" or "the DM gave the Monk a pity item and it turned out to be way too good" or any of the dozens of other problems low-op groups can have?
That would be the "But what about X?" argument, which is a fallacy. If you have other problems, you also fix those problems (and if you don't have this problem, you don't need this fix- I've literally even said that I'm not making it a default rule myself). And making sure that the AC gap remains intact so that the sorcerer is squishy and the TWF rogue is almost as squishy, allowing you to threaten them without needing soup'd up monsters, would be part of a comprehensive response.



The Fighter, Ranger, and the Rogue all get multiple armor options as defense built directly into the class kit. No resources (other than gold) required.
No they don't? The Ranger and Rogue are locked into light armor if they want to use their class features as intended, I already addressed this. A Fighter that goes around not using their heavy armor proficiency is asking for it.


If nothing else stand behind some cover.
But that would be acknowledging that sometimes you need a Fighter to hide behind, and roles don't exist, or so I'm told.


I disagree that a meat shield should have armor and shield. A tank should present an up close and personal threat. Thus, forcing the enemy to be required to deal with said tank. In D&D that is most easily accomplished with a 2 handed weapon at early levels. This changes the entire AC range. A naked caster behind cover and a shieldless tank is only 6 points different.
You are free to disagree, but that's not what I've found in my experience with DnD and games inspired by it. You're not supposed "control aggro" by "threatening" foes. You control whether the squishes can be hit by using basic positioning, all of which is right there in the PHB. "Meatshields" that drop their AC are hit more easily by the foes they were supposed to very specifically be not dying to, causing a larger drain on resources in exchange for what usually seems to boil down to a personal desire to deal maximum damage rather than any tactical teamplay choice.

This is a fine time to mention that if a game is running at "mundanes ubercharge or otherwise 1-round level appropriate foes," then yeah, it's gone farther than just a question of magic user squishiness.


At lvl 1 that means the Wizard/Sorc took the spell as one of the very very few spells they know. This limits their overall ability to be offensive. It will help during the kick in the door phase but not the surprise attack at night.
1st level, see above. And yes, I'm also one of the first to remind people that combats spaced throughout the day and random encounters and night attacks are all supposed to be there, mitigating ideas of caster supremacy. The best you can do is determine the level at which you think those spells really are so easily maintained, and then try to redraw what the new AC gap is based on where the top end AC is supposed to be at that level. But you're still going to end up with a narrowed gap compared to if the spell simply didn't exist.

How much of a gap the DM thinks is appropriate could vary wildly. I find that range of 10 points to be very effective, since it means you can range all the way from 1/4 hits to 1/4 misses, from 1/2 hits to barely any hit. With a d20 roll, a 10 point gap is a lot of room to play around in. But if one agrees with Armored Mage/mage armor on everything, they might simply find a 6 point gap more appropriate. Base saving throws eventually reach a 6 point gap, though based on ability scores at this level and 2-3 of the standard classes (all the non-arcanists actually) focusing on stats that boost saves, the full gap between top and bottom can still easily be 10 or more points.


Mage uses multiple magic item/feat combos to extend mage armor at higher caster level - once again tying up at least 1 resource for day on not offense.
If you're managing to push people's resources hard enough that a handful of 1st level spells is make or break at say 7th or 9th level, then you may consider your job well done (and you don't need the fix).


1 dispel magic is all it takes. You cannot dispel magic platemail
The number of foes with natural dispel magic is extremely small and specific. Such foes can occasionally rock the boat, but if you have to pin all visible balance on the fact that "oh sometimes there's something immune to them/can dispel them/etc," then you've lost your dynamic combat range and replaced it with rock/paper/scissors.


All day mage armor I assume Bracers of Armor (back to what you wished to discuss). That is +4 armor. Chainmail is base of +5 armor. Chainmail can then be enchanted or spelled up to go beyond the +5.
Bracers of Armor use the enhancement formula, yes, and are all day items. This means that they preserve the AC gap, as the armored character always has that extra base armor. They are no problem.


Flanking, aid to attack, charges. Cover vs no Cover. Position still very much matters. The PC that can be surrounded are in trouble. Take for example 2 enemies ganging up on a single pc. Both attack to aid a 3rd attacker who then charges into a flank. That is a bonus of +8. Your entire basis was over a range of 10. Position very much matters and determines who can get hit.
What the foes can choose to do, usually spending actions that can deal no damage to slightly improve the chance of just one dealing damage- if anything these should highly exactly why squishy characters are important. If everyone has the same AC and a foe can't reliably hit that AC, they're screwed: even if they can trade a bunch of actions to get a hit in, that's not much better than fishing for a hit themselves unless the AC near 20 above their bonus (where they're mega-screwed). If there is a squishy PC, they can still try to target at least one person, without having to get multiple foes working together in perfect concert just to land a single hit between multiple actions.


The "gank the mage" strat is literally one of the oldest in the book. It's why people say you need to special builds to they can't just "walk past" the melee character, it's why positioning and tactics matter at all. All the way down to animals that protect their soft underbellies. If/when mages can just make themselves as tough as everyone else, in the exact same ways, for basically nothing (rather than at least some expensive temporary castery hoop jumping), that all goes away.

Skipping some because I'd just be repeating myself again-


Um, no. Improving defense doesn't make anyone else worse in any way.
Relatively worse is still worse, becomes absolutely worse if the DM consciously or unconciously adjusts foes to compensate, and even without that the narrowing of the gap reduces the space of possible outcomes in the game.


Also, the base combat expectations isn't a naked mage.
Not the first to say this- then what, praytell, is? You just spent many words trying to say that mage armor/shield actually aren't ever all day really. So the standard is not that they're up all the time, which means a "naked" mage. The standard mage does not have armor proficiency and I have literally never heard anyone suggest a 1st level sor/wiz should be wearing armor standard, it's completely anathema, and I will virtually guarantee appears in no suggested starting gear or 1st level NPCs anywhere. So if the mage isn't naked, and they aren't wearing armor, and mage armor isn't always on, then what is their expected default?


An small AC gap means the mage is doing their job properly and shoring up weaknesses possibly for the whole party.
I. Just. What? How is a mage using mage armor and shield all the time evidence that they're doing anything to shore up the weaknesses of other party members? These are two completely different things.



No need to nerf anything. And it doesn't work because that isn't the problem. "Increased AC must come at a central character cost" is flat WRONG. It comes and should come from a resource cost. Spells, charges on magic items, magic items themselves. Armored Mage. which OP mentions as a problem, is a central character cost, yet it is one of the first things listed as a problem. This is a bit contradictory.
You are essentially saying that because the wizard is special and gets this whole extra set of paralell abilities, "resources," they can just offload responsiblity for fundamental character traits over there and pretend they've paid something. But they haven't. Armored Mage is not a cost, the same way specialization is not cost- not significant ones anyway: you take those when you were already going to focus on X set of spells, and you lose "options" while still gaining a whole pile of spells. The non-casters never gets this luxury. They have class and feat options, but no extra pile of special "resources" they can just turn into whatever, with costs that eventually become negligible.


The real problem you have is casters can do amazing versatile things using magic while not-casters cannot. A caster who uses enough resources is stronger than a raging barbarian, sneakier than the rogue, tougher than a fighter, harder to hit than any of them, and ignores 90% of the effects when they are somehow hit. And they also ignore crits and sneakattack. But nothing stated here even begins to address any of that.
Gee, wouldn't it be a bit more fair then if there were some things they couldn't just do because lol magic? And the "But what about X?" fallacy again.

[H_H_F_F]

Sometimes you'll play a game, typically a low-op game, in which a mage's low AC is a useful balance tool that encourages the kind of strategic play you'd like to see. In those cases, I agree with implementing a fix. That's what I meant when I said I agree with your basic premise, and I stand by that. I also think many of your suggestions are good ones - clerics in medium armor is an appropriate balance tool for low level games at all levels of optimization, IMO.

However, even in such games, I feel that player creativity and wanting to play outside the box should not be punished. Mage armor is an easy "No armor but actually yes armor" outside of the very first level. Shield is a minute/CL spell spell that could be utilized by a clever mage who got wind of a fight, or would cost an action for a mage who likes being in the thick of things. Mage armor is just a must spell, while shield is a player choice - "I'd like to play an abjurer, which I see as a defensive minded caster." I think defensive spells should exist, even those that affect AC, as long as they have actual costs or require a suitable situation. Someone who wants to invest resources and actions to be able to play out-of-role should be allowed to do so, I think.

Similiarly, I question your refusal of armored mage for the warmage. The warmage sacrifices a lot to be a more war-like mage, and in my experience anyone playing them does so to feel like a battle-mage, standing in the heat of combat casting spells such as burning hands. I think it's thematic, I think it's appropriate, and I think it supports the intended way of play. A warmage is supposed to be positioned differently than the wizard, and is supposed to be able to survive that. From a power point of view, they're still a non-threat when compared to wizards, even in the lowest op of tables.

In short, I think that even when attempting to fix the issue in general, you should still allow ways for casters to invest real resources in order to play more close-up if they'd like - just like a cleric can still take heavy armor proficiency to fulfill a more combat oriented role.

[King of Nowhere]

in my experience, you are vastly overestimating the value of caster AC buffs.

at low levels, the wizard has too few spell slots, and the duration is too low. they can afford to be tanky if they do nothing else.

at high levels, there is equipment changing all of it.
so, your wizard has greater magic armor for +6 AC. maybe he bought bracers of armor, he can get up to +8, not stacking. Great. the fighter has +5 full plate, for a +13.
the wizard has the shield spell, worth +4. Or he can get a +5 mithril buckler, for a +6. the fighter has an animated +5 greatshield. the fighter is getting +20 from armor and shield, the wizard is stuck with +14 at most. from buff spells alone, he's at +10.

plus, the wizard has less hit points than anyone else (though constitution boosts reduce the gap) and they have worst saving throws. A wizard only have a high base will save, but with no reason to invest in wisdom it's going to be a moderate bonus at best. And most will saves effects are negated by immunities that are almost required to play at high level, even at moderate optimization. fort-based save or die, and ref-based area damages, are threats much more commonly encountered, and guess what, wizards are the only class that sucks at facing both.
So, even with regular rules, wizards ARE squishy, as far as passive defences are concerned.

wizards can get untouchable in other ways - invisibility, stacking miss chance, defensive contingencies, immunities, being on another plane and acting by proxy. generally those don't see much table play, because - if used in full - they break the game entirely. in any case, your attempted fix didn't address that.


Personally, i have a different houserule, which I made for practicity, but i realized it also helps martials. The houserule is simply, there no max dex bonus for being in armor.
this way, a fighter in full plate can still get a benefit from buffing their dex. a high level rogue can still fight in armor with her ludicroud dex bonus without having it capped. I don't see the max dex bonus adding anything to the game anyway, and it's not realistic either: if alice is more agile then bob when neither is armored, then alice should also be more agile than bob when both are wearing the same armor. it works for everything else; armor applies a penalty to some skill checks, it does not cap their maximum result.
I considered, for realism, houseruling that armor give a flat dex penalty to dodge, but a corresponding ac boosts to compensate, but it would have been a lot of additional complication for little to no gain.

[loky1109]

armor applies a penalty to some skill checks, it does not cap their maximum result.
Armor doesn't cap even without house rules. Max dex is only for AC.

[gijoemike]

No they don't? The Ranger and Rogue are locked into light armor if they want to use their class features as intended, I already addressed this. A Fighter that goes around not using their heavy armor proficiency is asking for it.


In reference to fighters/Rogue/Ranger getting armor choices. This is incorrect. Even with just light armor there are some choices. Mithril breastplates are considered Light Armor and don't need the extra proficiency in 3.5. So a 2 weapon ranger at level 1 starts out using a chainshirt and heavy shield for +6 AC. A few levels later they have magic armor and use 2 weapons for +8 armor (usually a ring of protection/dex item is involved). Then a few more levels they can use enchanted mirthril breastplates.

A Fighters with dex normally prefer breastplates so they can benefit from the much better max dex cap. Also 1st and 2nd level characters cannot afford platemail. As it has been stated before in other threads on these boards there is very little difference in medium and heavy armor in D&D. Which I grant you is super dumb.

Lets see, options and choices, followed by options and choices for both classes. And the cost? nothing. But for a mage to do that they have to first learn spells, memorize the spells, cast the spell at the right time.


Not the first to say this- then what, praytell, is? You just spent many words trying to say that mage armor/shield actually aren't ever all day really. So the standard is not that they're up all the time, which means a "naked" mage. The standard mage does not have armor proficiency and I have literally never heard anyone suggest a 1st level sor/wiz should be wearing armor standard, it's completely anathema, and I will virtually guarantee appears in no suggested starting gear or 1st level NPCs anywhere. So if the mage isn't naked, and they aren't wearing armor, and mage armor isn't always on, then what is their expected default?


This is referring to the squishy mage. Naked doesn't mean without defenses. A mage that is prepared and walks into battle should be very well defended even without the Armored Mage class feature. They aren't in physical armor but "armored" up in layers of spells. Some of which may be 24 hour duration or longer. There are a handful of spells at multiple levels that increase some for of defense. They are supposed to be used.

Catching the mage ( party ) off guard with fewer defenses is a thing and is an important tactic to use from time to time. Even then they still shouldn't be 10 + dex for AC. The Wizard absolutely needs a ring of protection, cloak of res, bracers of mage armor, perhaps Robes of the Archmage.

Now if you think naked mage means no armor. Ok then, all mages are naked except battle casters and armored mages. Naked to me means few to no defenses which should almost never happen outside of surprise attacks at low level.

So what is the trope?
A mage having an AC better than the platemailed fighter is logical and natural game design. A fighter has more HP than a mage. If they both have the same AC the mage is a more vulnerable target as they cannot take as many normal hits. Therefore a smart mage will stack on EVEN MORE AC/ save bonuses. There is a balance of AC to HP to consider. Barbarians have low AC but the highest HP in the game. Fighters have lower HP but are assumed to have better AC than a barbarian. The rogue has some AC and is assumed to be dex based for even more. But they have lower AC and HP than the fighter. Mages have next to no HP and start off with 0 AC. So they need to bolster their AC. So they may be in a bath robe but there is a coat of magic that will take time to get through.

The trope is a heavily enchanted and fortified caster wading through/hovering above battle bolstered by spells. When the spells run their course and their magic fails they become very vulnerable. e. g. Stone skinned/wind walled blasters. Shadowy/flickering illusionists. Transformed shielded warded dragons (Transmuters), Abjururs standing in a sleetstorm or hell fire but just brush it off like it is nothing, and constant blinking teleporting caster who is very hard to pin down. These are the tropes. Casters are dangerous and hard to kill once they have spelled up.

[Floing]

I played a wizard to high level once and never even considererd using armour. A wizard's defense is in immediate actions, deception and transformation (being native outsider and Alter Selfing into a Dwarf Ancestor is available from level 3 and easily beats out the armour spells you want to take away) and your supposed fixes wouldn't have affected my defensive strategy at all. A lot is wrong with Arcane full casters but having bad spells or feats to boost AC is not it.

[Quertus]

@Fizban: hard to reply… comprehensively… on a phone. But I'll try.

First and foremost:

"You can just as easily set yourself on fire doubling down on how arcanists are "supposed to" do whatever they want because the writers got more lax."

How is that even remotely true? How are these two even remotely the same:


Person 1: "You are supposed to take up the family business, marry your sister, have 2.5 kids, a dog, and a house with a white picket fence."

Person 2: "Do whatever you want, man, it's your life."

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"role-based foundation of the game"

Citation needed.

In fact, the standard complaint is that the Wizard has always been "defined" by "everything every Wizard in legend could do" (and that the Fighter is "everything every mundane IRL can't do", but that's another issue).

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"But people do it. All. The. Time. As a default matter of course without thinking."

Which is why you hit people upside the head with a (verbal) clue-by-four, repeatedly, until they stop, rather than cut off your own extremities. Performing a self optiondectomy in order to fit in with the idiotic, unthinking masses is not the answer, IMO.

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"If the DM actually runs all unmodified MM1 monsters from a module written without any knowledge of the party, then sure, the only result is that the wizard gets hit less. "

Modified or unmodified doesn't matter; "built to provide a particular level of challenge" / "built to allow sample party X at optimization level Y to experience challenge level Z". But, yes, "from a module as written" / "written without any knowledge of the party" is both what I do and advocate, to maximize player agency.

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" The number of possible results in the game space goes down. There is no longer a range in the basic defensive value, which means the results of combat become more and more similar between each character, making combat less dynamic, less interesting. It's just boring. If you don't want your game to get samey like that, then enforcing some squishiness on some of the party is again, perfectly valid."

This is actually an interesting bit.

Hmmm… maybe and no?

Let's start with the "no", because I understand it better.

If party 1 had a tank Fighter and a squishy Wizard, and party 2 has a tank Fighter and a squishy Wizard and party 3 had a tank Fighter and a squishy Wizard, and party 4 has a tank Fighter and a squishy Wizard… that's more samey than if party 1 had a tank Fighter and a squishy Wizard, and party 2 has a tank Wizard and a squishy Fighter, and party 3 had a tank Fighter and a tank Wizard, and party 4 has a squishy Fighter and a squishy Wizard.

So, at the highest level, you're wrong, allowing more options gives greatest possible variety of play.

For the individual game, though? That's more complicated.

If *everyone* can fly, flying to the island is possible. If *everyone* can swim, swimming to the island is possible. If only some people can fly, and only some people can swim, do you have more or fewer options on how to get to the island?

That is, are there more or fewer valid tactical choices when looking at parties 2-4, and comparing them to party 1? I honestly don't know the answer to that question, despite having played in parties 1-4.

Which questions you ask are different. Which options you consider are different. But I lack the ability to determine which set of questions was more interesting. (In part because I'm biased, and want the Fighter/muggle to be the rockstar, carrying the party, so it's hard to suss out the true answer from my bias.)

That said, I hate MtG free-for-all games, where the first person out has to wait, twiddling their thumbs, for hours until the next game starts - it's (one of the reasons) why I prefer "x-headed giant" logic.

So, in that regard, I prefer setups that maximize the chances that everyone will get to participate in the majority of the gameplay. So "everyone can survive roughly equally long" seems optimal gameplay, IMO.

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"uh, you guys do realize that the 1-10 AC gap I'm specifically calling out here doesn't even exist at 1st level, right? "

Touché.

That said, before Con / for an undead party, the Fighter/Barbarian is looking at 2.5x-3x the HP of the Wizard. And, if they're low-op / playing to trope, that could be 5x-10x (8 Con Wizard vs 16 Con Fighter, or 6 Con Elf Wizard vs 20 Con Dwarf Barbarian w/ toughness).

Not, of course, that that was my point - my point was that most people neglect to ensure that the Wizard can actually meaningfully contribute in their supposed "role", especially when that role is blasting, especially from level 1. Because, when "balancing", they're accustomed to thinking that Wizards are OP.

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"rules failings" "lax" "dryly"

You use a lot of negativity in place of actual supported argumentation. You should probably rethink that practice.