[3.5] Arcane casting in light armor

[Thurbane]

Hey all,

Just wondering how many ways there are for Sorcerers, Wizards and other classes who suffer ASF in any armor to be able to wear light armor with impunity?

The obvious way is the armor itself - mithral, Twilight, Featherdown etc. to bring ASF down to 0%. Or to use an item like Bracers of Armor.

AFAIK, there is only 1 way to get it as a class skill: the Urban Savant PrC in Cityscape.

...are there other ways that I've totally overlooked? The bonus with getting it without relying on the armor itself, is that you can then take the Battle Caster feat to bump it up to medium armor (hello mithral Mechanus Gear!)...

[RandomNPC]

dip into warmage a little? or just play one. I think the ability they have MAY limit to just spells cast as warmage.

[Fastmover]

Heh... its interesting that you would ask this just as I was wondering about the exact same thing about Heavy armor.

In the PHB under Armor and Arcane Spell Failure, it says (at the very end of it) says that any spell can be cast in armor as long as it doesn't require Somatic Components. I was like... wait what?? So... if I simply take the Still Spell feat, which make the spell cast on spell level higher, I'd be capable of casting Arcane Spells in heavy armor.

Unless I'm reading it totally wrong. Some one please fully explain this to me. I would love to cast in full plate.

[arguskos]

Heh... its interesting that you would ask this just as I was wondering about the exact same thing about Heavy armor.

In the PHB under Armor and Arcane Spell Failure, it says (at the very end of it) says that any spell can be cast in armor as long as it doesn't require Somatic Components. I was like... wait what?? So... if I simply take the Still Spell feat, which make the spell cast on spell level higher, I'd be capable of casting Arcane Spells in heavy armor.

Unless I'm reading it totally wrong. Some one please fully explain this to me. I would love to cast in full plate.

You've got that right just fine. If all your spells are stilled somehow, then bam: full plate casting for you.

Also, Spellsword from C. Warrior can ignore some % chance of spell failure.

[Thurbane]

dip into warmage a little? or just play one. I think the ability they have MAY limit to just spells cast as warmage.

Nope, only for your Warmage spells. Same with Bard, Beguiler, Dread Necro, Duskblade etc.

@Fastmover: yes indeed, Still Spell allows you to cast spells in any armor with no ASF...I forgot about that! (It will mean, though, all your spells are at +1 level).

[Glimbur]

Be a Bard/Sublime Chord?

A dip in Spellsword will help with ASF.

[Gpope]

There's a fighter ACF in Complete Mage, but it's pretty much useless even for a gish because it requires you to spend a lot of levels as pure fighter (I think the best you can do is Fighter 6/spellcasting class 14 to cast 7th level spells in light armor).

A single level Spellthief dip lets you take the Master Spellthief feat, which lets you cast all arcane spells in light armor.

[Thurbane]

A single level Spellthief dip lets you take the Master Spellthief feat, which lets you cast all arcane spells in light armor.

Good catch, I forgot about that one as well!

[JeminiZero]

Geomancer lets you ignore all ASF for arcane spells below a certain level. Exactly which level depends on your level in Geomancer, but at Geomancer 10, you can cast level 9 spells in full plate / stone body / the works. It also grants a nice bunch of Ex abilities, and has medium BAB.

The downside is that you need to use some sort of shortcut to qualify for it, otherwise you will lose too many caster levels, since it requires level 2 arcane and divine spells.

[mikeejimbo]

I don't recall if it works that way, but I think the Runesmith allows you to replace the Somatic components with stone tablets. Or something.

[The Dark Fiddler]

I don't recall if it works that way, but I think the Runesmith allows you to replace the Somatic components with stone tablets. Or something.

I think it's material components, and only ones that you could normally Eschew at that.

Sorry, thinking of the wrong class.

[erikun]

There is (was?) a big list of all the ASF reducers somewhere, including ones from classes and feats. No clue where it's wandered off to, though.

Blue Ice (Frostburn) will allow you to cast [Cold] spells without ASF.

[The Glyphstone]

Black Ice + Snowcasting + Eschew Materials = Profit?

[erikun]

Depends on your DM. You'll want a bad of holding for all that snow, though. [edit] Durr. My mind obviously isn't working.

Also: http://community.wizards.com/go/thre...Lists_of_Stuff

[pres_man]

Don't forget you can use wands in armor, heck you can use them in grapples.

[Eldariel]

Just be a Demilich. They get Automatic Still Spell; no ASF ever! For something slightly more useful, yeah, there are all sorts of dips available to take care of it.

Lots of items can be built without ASF; Githcraft/Feycraft Mithril Chain Shirt is, for example, ASF 0% armor. Same goes for Mithril Twilight Breastplate. But that's not class-based, of course; I think most of those were covered already.

[Mongoose87]

There's a PRC called Warmage in one of the Dragonlance books that does that, and, I believe is a full caster.

[ericgrau]

Still spell plus the spells that are useful even when a level lower than normal. Higher levels are less of a problem since a number of great high level spells already have no somatic component so there's no need to bump it up with still spell.

[qoalabear]

There's the variant sorcerer class, Battle Sorcerer. You take a painful hit to your spells/day and spells known at all spell levels , but you get to cast your sorcerer spells in light armor without ASF (also gain proficiency with light armor and one light or martial weapon, plus d8 hit dice and 3/4BAB). Combined with Battlecaster and Mithral Mechanus Gear, it might just be worth it.

(It isn't for ALL your arcane spells if you have other casting classes, but I assume you wanted it for a Sorc/Wiz)

The Spellthief dip + Master Spellthief is easier on your spells/day & known, but this gives better hit dice and BAB on your sorc levels (How long do intend to stick with sorc before PrC-ing). Depends what you want to do with this character, and hey, added for completeness.

[Saintheart]

This is probably a stupid and obvious observation, but doesn't a level dip into Duskblade give you Armored Caster as a class skill -- I think first level cuts the ASF by about 10-15% or so?

[Myrmex]

This is probably a stupid and obvious observation, but doesn't a level dip into Duskblade give you Armored Caster as a class skill -- I think first level cuts the ASF by about 10-15% or so?

Armored Caster, for every class that gets it, lets them simply ignore ASF in a certain category of armor. There's no reduction- just removal of the ASF if you are in the appropriate armor class. They also only apply to spells from that class.

[dspeyer]

A dip in Spellsword will help with ASF.

As will a dip into prestige bard, though that costs a caster level in addition to its prerequisites.

It's probably also possible to make yourself really small and cast from inside a golem's head, but I don't feel like working out the rules for this.

[starwoof]

I don't recall if it works that way, but I think the Runesmith allows you to replace the Somatic components with stone tablets. Or something.

Yep. I've been reading over this class for the past few days working on a build. It replaces all for your somatic components with a material one: the runic tablet you inscribed the spell on. So you can cast in armor/shield with impunity.

[Cyclocone]

There's Knight of the Weave from Champions of... Valor?

IIRC it gets armored caster in light armor at level 2 which, by the way it's worded, applies to all arcane spells.

So you could go: Wizard 5/KotW 2/UM 10/Whatever 3. That should get you 6th level KotW spells to fuel persisting.

[Ravens_cry]

Mithral will help, reduces spell failure by 10%.

[ErrantX]

There is the Knight Phantom prestige class from the Eberron sourcebook Five Nations. It's a pretty good class, like an upgraded Eldritch Knight with dragoon abilities (not I jump like a moron, an actual dragoon).

-X