Quote Originally Posted by Skrum View Post
Could bring back arcane spell failure. Lol.

Clerics can cast in armor because they cast divine spells. Ditto for paladins and druids.

But wizards, sorcerers, etc., cast arcane spells and that means they have spell failure for using a shield or wearing armor. Bards would have to suck it up until they get to their subclass or something.

Even though (I think) I was the person to bring this up, it occurs to me that I might be looking at the wrong thing. I think maybe my problem isn't with armor - it's with the shield spell. A wizard with 20 AC? Ok, that's cool. Hit points are still low, still gonna avoid melee. Doesn't really change much.

A wizard with 20 AC that can selectively raise it to 25? That's getting ridiculous.
Spell failure just adds more complexity and helps kill off character archetypes. The problem isn't that Wizards (or what have you) can use heavier armors, or shields. It's that it's too easy. If you have to dip 3 or 4 levels in another class to do it, that's a significant cost. Same if you have to spend a feat (and ideally some stat points). It's Mountain Dwarf, and the various 1 level dips that are the issue. 1st level is too loaded for most classes (and in some ways not loaded enough). Ideally the 1st level of most classes would be cleanly broken in to 2 categories. Stuff you get if its truly your first level, and stuff you get if it's just your first level in that class. And the system does this halfheartedly, but it doesn't really work because there isn't enough in the first category for most full casting classes. Which makes multi-classing in to them too cheap (if you were always going to want 1 level from that class and another).

As for the Shield spell. It's really not that powerful. It only seems that way when combined with other stuff that is powerful.