armor penalties for mages. why?

[Nekira Sudacne]

It never made a single bit of sense.

how does armor affect magic? what's it purpose.

i'm not a fool, it's a game, and magic is not supposed to make sense. but in making the rules, there has to be a reason for them.

the reason is obvious, it's a penalty for playinga mage.

but why is it "if you want to cast spells you have to suck at defence"?

i mean really, what's the point of making it harder to cast spells just because your in armor? it dosn't make any sense.

now, EBA, as most spells can't work though it, I can see, but even then, shouldn't you be able to cast the ones that do work though it in it?

I mean really. . . it's a needless negitive.

[Borast]

It interferes with the mage's "connection" to the world...

Also, the penalties come from the fact that the mage is not used to wearing armour. They don't know how to carry the armour, or their own armoured bodies.

[Svartalf]

actually... (or have the *official* rules evolved since I last checked?) you *can* affect somebody in EBA ... it used to be PA and robots that were too thick for magick to pass through and affect the pilot...
and in my early games, mages, could and did use EBA freely, (the Gladiator was a classic) actually, they still can in games I GM, only metal is magic negative, so plastic and ceramics are ok.... of course, now, when I'm a player, my LLW is mostly restricted to such stuff as fury beetle armor, or old style juicer partial plate... good thing he's from an MDC race and can soak up some, even after the shell gets cracked.

[LunarYoma]

its nor rhe armor inof itself that interfers with magic. it is metaal that interfers with magic.

have a magic user wear full EBA made of compisite materials(having no metal in it what so ever) & that are fine casting spells.

[Svartalf]

Borast... your explanation about mages not being used to wearing armor doesn't hold out... rogue scholars and scientists or the like would not have the military training to wear armor... but I don't see them suffering penalties when they suit up.

[Nekira Sudacne]

you all say it's the metal. I still don't get it, why should metal interfeare.

i'm NOT talking about the "in game worlds explanation"

i'm talking about WHY, as a GAME DESIGNER, would you give mages pelaies for wearing armor, metal or not.

[Svartalf]

whooah Nekira... keep your pants one...

well, from the point you designate, the only explanation I can come up is Palladium metasystem homogeneity. PFRPG mages have penalties with armor (whether those are more justified than in Rifts I refuse to discuss, most especially here), so mages just about everywhere east of the HU Pecos have to get armor penalties too...

[Tinker Dragoon]

i'm talking about WHY, as a GAME DESIGNER, would you give mages pelaies for wearing armor, metal or not.

Because that's the way it always was. In Palladium Fantasy, perhaps taking a nod from Dungeons & Dragons, mages (and for that matter, everyone who wasn't a man of arms) suffered severe penalties for wearing heavy armor.

For whatever reason, Rifts initially gave mages no magic penalties when wearing armor; instead mages and other non-warriors only suffered reduced mobility.

Why this has been changed is anyone's guess. One possibility is that Kev wanted to make Rifts and PF more consistent with each other. Another could be that he wanted to reinforce the individual flavor of mages, so that they weren't just men of arms or scholars/adventurers who cast spells.

[Nekira Sudacne]

:-P whooah Nekira... keep your pants one...

well, from the point you designate, the only explanation I can come up is Palladium metasystem homogeneity. PFRPG mages have penalties with armor (whether those are more justified than in Rifts I refuse to discuss, most especially here), so mages just about everywhere east of the HU Pecos have to get armor penalties too...

fine, but why would the PF mages have them. . . maybe this topic should be moved to the GM's Forum. . .

[Dead Boy]

When I first started playing Rifts back in 1990 one of the many things that I really liked about the game what that it wasn't beholdent to the old D&D concept that metal interferes with magic. It was a bold leap at the time given that it was a RPG stand-by that pretty much everyone accepted. And it worked out great! Given that men of magic were so severely dogged by the number of attacks that casting a single spell took (HALF!) it was some compensation that they could benefit from just as much protection that the Men at Arms OCCs enjoyed, shy of power armor that is.

And then Federation of Magic came along and everything changed. All of a sudden spell casters were slapped with a sloo of restrictions. Metal armor, now a no-no. Any environmental armor at all? Shy of a gas-mask, forget about it. Any kind of conventional protection that's worth a damn? Not in this game. It's like they adopted a ton of D&D-esque rules out of the blue because someone felt it was essential to the game to set the magic OCCs apart or something. I was appalled, but it's canon now and barring some house rules, there's nothing that can be done but gripe. Much like the ever-dreaded "-10/No Bonus" dodge rule that got imposed on us much to nearly everyone's chagrin.

[dark brandon]

Magic users are awesome, basically. The only problem with playing a magic user was that younger mages had a real problem of dieing real fast. In palladium, this was ok, because in combat, only bow users were a real worry for magic users. But in about 1 melee round, you could incapacitate a good number of soldiers (magic net and carpet) for example. Just because they have only 2 apm with spells doesn't mean they are helpless. A good magic users can still pull his own and then some.

[Uncle Servo]

This is one of the handful of house rules I have for Rifts. In my campaigns, mages can wear -- and cast spells from -- any kind of armor that doesn't include a sort of physical enhancement or powered exoskeleton (such as the Chipwell Challenger, the NG Gladius, and any form of power armor).

Mages already face penalties in the fact that they can't pilot PA suits/bots, are restricted in the skills they can take (as opposed to men at arms), and in other ways.

[grandmaster z0b]

Can someone point out where these rules are in Federation of Magic? I can't seem to find them (not that I'll think I'll apply them to my game anyway), are they in the original edition or the updated version?

On the subject of compatibilty with PF, why not just say that Rifts Earth is so permeated with magic that a mage no longer feels the restrictions of the Palladium world? The same logic as why spells now do MDC on Rifts Earth.

Oh and I really like the idea that it's the electricity that interfers with magic.

[Borast]

its nor rhe armor inof itself that interfers with magic. it is metaal that interfers with magic.

have a magic user wear full EBA made of compisite materials(having no metal in it what so ever) & that are fine casting spells.

Actually, most EBAs ARE made of composite materials. There may be SOME metals in them simply to act as conductors and linkages, but in a 20 -30 kilo suit of armour, this probably works out to be 1-3 kilos at most! (ie: the Plastic Man EBA armour is called that for a very specific reason! )

The "logic" behind this is that the mage is "cut-off" from the world. If he wants to cast lots of (self) spells or spells to specifically effect his EBA, fine - as long as he has the PPE anyway...after all, he won't be able to draw any from the environment!

One of the books (no, I can't remember which one) even goes so far as to describe the erosion that a mage's PPE does to a sealed suit of EBA...something like over a few days erodes 10% or so of the suit's base MDC from the sensitive inside layers out until it breeches the environmental seals, at which point, the erosion stops.

If you want to give a mage armour, remove the environmental seals, or give him basic juicer plate (since despite being described as an EBA, it 'aint, I mean LOOK at it!!!), or modified Dog Boy armour.

[Le_Squide]

This is the kind of thing that seems like an old D&D holdover poorly applied to Rifts...retroactively, no less, which I find odd and jarring.

I usually ignore this rule when I GM, or even write it out with the other house rules we'll be using (No -10 rule, Fate points, etc) so the players know what to expect in game. I also dislike the 'cyberware affects magic' rule, because it's stated that intent, belief, and willpower control magic, but that's a seperate bucket of worms alltogether.

[Syndicate]

...umm...armor of Ithan...umm....invincible armor...these COULD be reason why. Contrary to popular belief scrolls, amulets, and magical objects that confer armor DO exist in Rifts AND Palladium Fantasy. Kinda cheesy to have a Mage walking around in Plastic man armor unable to be distinquished from the rest of the non-magic users in the party (excluding disguise purposes).

[Nekira Sudacne]

...umm...armor of Ithan...umm....invincible armor...these COULD be reason why. Contrary to popular belief scrolls, amulets, and magical objects that confer armor DO exist in Rifts AND Palladium Fantasy. Kinda cheesy to have a Mage walking around in Plastic man armor unable to be distinquished from the rest of the non-magic users in the party (excluding disguise purposes).

fine and dandy. NOT all mages have them.

furthermore, Armor of Ithan is all but usless until around level 4-6. really at level 1 thats 10 MD. one shot from a rifle can take you out, as can a single slash from a vibro sword and heck a strong person with a vibro blade getting a lucky hit in.

[Svartalf]

Metal. Same reason Cybernetics and Bionics interfere with magic.

Another good reason is that Body Armor is restrictive, and tends to slow a person down. Why would a mage that can conjure Invincible Armor (for 25 PPE, and potentially has MORE armor than any one man armor in the game) want to slow himself down?
Quit munching and play on.

a good reason for wearing body armor *in addition* to using AoI or Invincible Armor, is that, even if you're lvl 10, the latter will last you only half an hour... not very practical and eventually PPE costly to use systematically rather than only as fighting rears it's ugly head... still, you need some MD protection, in case of sniper or other surprise attack..

and no, metal armor is not supposed to offer mages trouble for the same reason the implantation of cyber does... the former supposedly cuts you off the environment and causes disruption in the channeling of PPE, while cyber and bionics are considered an intrusion in the wholeness of your being, thus disrupting your actual *potential* for magic.
of course, this explanation doesn't tell why mages and psionics can load up on bio wizardry implants and augmentation nearly to the point of becoming bio borgs and still keep their full abilities.

have you noticed that the rules against psionics and mages having bionics or cyber mods seem to have hardened? I remembered such things (any amount of cyber, and any bionics short of partial reconstruction) only reducing your ISP & PPE by half. but when I could not find the actual rules in RMB, I checked in the BoM, and *whammmo!* it says that up to 2 cyber implants & one bionic limb, *every* aspect of your psionic and magic abilities (range, duration, effect... not just the resources) is reduced by half, while anything more completely negates any psionic or magical abilities you ever hd (and in RMB, the borg OCC allowed psionics to keep their abilities with up to a partial reconstruction) ... I'll start to wonder why MrK included those OCCs in the first place if he hates them so...
Also, in a game where you can play a dragon and some other major nasty stuff, what's wrong with a mage or psionic of common human parentage munchkinning it up a little?

[Vrykolas2k]

Stange, I thought they were only penalized for heavy armour... I thought things like the Crusader were fine...

[Tinker Dragoon]

its nor rhe armor inof itself that interfers with magic. it is metaal that interfers with magic.

have a magic user wear full EBA made of compisite materials(having no metal in it what so ever) & that are fine casting spells.

Actually, most EBAs ARE made of composite materials. There may be SOME metals in them simply to act as conductors and linkages, but in a 20 -30 kilo suit of armour, this probably works out to be 1-3 kilos at most! (ie: the Plastic Man EBA armour is called that for a very specific reason! )

The "logic" behind this is that the mage is "cut-off" from the world. If he wants to cast lots of (self) spells or spells to specifically effect his EBA, fine - as long as he has the PPE anyway...after all, he won't be able to draw any from the environment!

One of the books (no, I can't remember which one) even goes so far as to describe the erosion that a mage's PPE does to a sealed suit of EBA...something like over a few days erodes 10% or so of the suit's base MDC from the sensitive inside layers out until it breeches the environmental seals, at which point, the erosion stops.

If you want to give a mage armour, remove the environmental seals, or give him basic juicer plate (since despite being described as an EBA, it 'aint, I mean LOOK at it!!!), or modified Dog Boy armour.

This is likely why it was further changed in SoT1 so that all artificial armors now interfere with spellcasting.

[Vrykolas2k]

So, from now on just play mages who are MD to begin with I guess, since now you can't even cast spells in a Branaghan Duster... otherwise, you're insta-paste.

[Tinker Dragoon]

Well you can also just ignore the rule, like so many do

[Vrykolas2k]

Well you can also just ignore the rule, like so many do

Nah, cuz then the dorr opens for rules that make sense to be ignored by my fellows...

[Svartalf]

THe "mages can't wear EBA armor" rule first appeared in the Siege of Tolkeen series where just about everyone complained about it, so when they released the Book of Magic shortly thereafter they revised the rule: wizards can wear enviornmental body armor of any type provided it doesn't have more than 10% metal in it.

hey, kitten... a) it doesn't state 10%, just says "made of metal or any man made compound with a lot of metal in it" ; no precision as to proportions or exact composition
b) most GMs I know, those that apply the new rule at all actually extend it to "made of man made material" period, if only because armor description almost never says exactly *what* the plating is made of (and it would likely be ceramics, polycarbonate, or other composites anyway. I ought to know... I came in with an LLW, ignorant of them new rules, and now I have the derndest problems finding anything like adequate protection. I'm not allowed to use any of the suits in New West (very available where we were recently located) and those obviously non metallic suits as the Crusader and gladiator are off too... I have to do with classical juicer plate (because it doesn't cover too much) or stuff like fury beetle armor when I can find it... good thing, like Vryk said, that my character was MDC to start with... it helps quite a bit.

[Killer Cyborg]

When I first started playing Rifts back in 1990 one of the many things that I really liked about the game what that it wasn't beholdent to the old D&D concept that metal interferes with magic. It was a bold leap at the time given that it was a RPG stand-by that pretty much everyone accepted. And it worked out great! Given that men of magic were so severely dogged by the number of attacks that casting a single spell took (HALF!) it was some compensation that they could benefit from just as much protection that the Men at Arms OCCs enjoyed, shy of power armor that is.

And then Federation of Magic came along and everything changed. All of a sudden spell casters were slapped with a sloo of restrictions. Metal armor, now a no-no. Any environmental armor at all? Shy of a gas-mask, forget about it. Any kind of conventional protection that's worth a damn? Not in this game. It's like they adopted a ton of D&D-esque rules out of the blue because someone felt it was essential to the game to set the magic OCCs apart or something. I was appalled, but it's canon now and barring some house rules, there's nothing that can be done but gripe. Much like the ever-dreaded "-10/No Bonus" dodge rule that got imposed on us much to nearly everyone's chagrin.

Pretty much sums up how I see it.
Somebody either forgot that they weren't playing D&D, or they thought that Rifts should be more like D&D, and they imposed sensless armor penalties out of the blue.
Suddenly my Ley Line Walker couldn't effectively wear the armor he got as part of his starting equipment.
Sigh.

[Killer Cyborg]

There is only one armor in the game that does not contain metal, and that's the Plastic Man

Other than a bit of electronics, which are present in all Rifts modern armor, the only armors that specifically say that they have any metal are the Tarnov MDC plate mail and chain mail.
Even Crusader and Gladiator armor are made with ceramics and high-tech fibers, according to the main book.

In any case, the question isn't:
"What in-game excuses are there to rationalize the decision to cripple mages?"

It's more like:

"Why on Earth did the writers decide to suddenly decide that mages can't wear decent armor?"

[Drakenred®™©]

Stange, I thought they were only penalized for heavy armour... I thought things like the Crusader were fine...

Im I the only one here who remembers when Crusader WAS heavy armor?

[Nekira Sudacne]

Stange, I thought they were only penalized for heavy armour... I thought things like the Crusader were fine...

Im I the only one here who remembers when Crusader WAS heavy armor?

now, now, just because it had no prowl penalty and more MDC than the light Dead Boy, and was the best all around armor for stealth with one of the higher MD totals, dosn't mean it weighed much. . .

[Drakenred®™©]

My bad I was thinking about the "gladiator" body armor

[Nekira Sudacne]

AHHH. yes.

now heavy is 200 MDC with agumented sterngth. . .

[Drakenred®™©]

Basicaly what we decided on was that you had a chance for a spell to fail = to the base prowl penalty for that type of armor (IE 10 for light, 25 for "medium") + the listed prowl penalty untill you spend 1K per point to "atune" the armor. (Ie Crusader would cost 10K, Lt Dead boy (original) 20K, Heavy Dead Boy was (I think) 50k. or half if you did not want an environmentaly sealed suit. (We were trying to avoid the "tank-mage" problem that was starting to show up.

[Dead Boy]

...umm...armor of Ithan...umm....invincible armor...these COULD be reason why. Contrary to popular belief scrolls, amulets, and magical objects that confer armor DO exist in Rifts AND Palladium Fantasy. Kinda cheesy to have a Mage walking around in Plastic man armor unable to be distinquished from the rest of the non-magic users in the party (excluding disguise purposes).

The Spells Armor of Ithan and Invincible Armor are fine and dandy, that is untill you actually have to cast them in combat. It takes half the caster's melee attacks to get the Armor of Ithan spell up, and in that time he can take all sorts of attacks. But say for he does get it off before he sustains any hits. What then. Against a first level puke with four attacks per melee, armed with a bargan-basment, Blue Light Special, previously owned Black Market L-20 he's in the posistion of taking 42 MD in attacks in that same span of time. Even if he's a 6th level magician the caster is in constant danger of being blown away and must use all his energies and actions to keep renewing his Armor of Ithan and pray that one of his buddies gets the L-20 wielding punk before he runs out of PPE. If the caster had some armor as well, he'd be in the position to take more hits than his conjured protection can provide (or in addition to it) and go on the offensive now and then as well.

Ok, I know what you're saying. There is more than just one protective spell out there. What about Invincible Armor? Well, though it grants 25 MDC per level of the caster, it's also a 7th level spell. That means that it requires the caster to spend an entire melee round casting the darn thing! So going back to our example of the 1st level puke and the 6th level mage, let's give the mage a break again and say he has his Invincible Armor spell in place before the two clash. In a full melee the 1st level nobody can dish out a potential 84 MD and the mage's Invincible Armor has 150 MDC of protection. Under this situation the caster has time for exactly two levels 1-6 spells or one level 7+ spell (or just blast away with his rifle like everyone else) before he has to start recasting another Invincible Armor, otherwise he's going to have his defenses breached before he has time to renew them again. So what we have going here is a situatin where the caster is capable of fighting one melee round and out of commission the next. Or he can take a risk and hope he can get the 1st level peon before his trusty hand-me-down of a gun can shatter the caster's magic armor spell.

There are other defenses out there, like the highly prized Amulet of Armor. But that requires one to either shell out a Million credits for one, (assuming one can be found for sale), or kill themselves a Splugorth Slaver and his 4-6 Blind Warrior Women and pilfer it off their corpses. Neither of which is an easy task to pull off. And the there's the Talisman Spell where one can virtually pre-cast his defensive spells and have three Invincible Armors on tap at all hours of the day, but A) 13th level spells are a little hard for a 6th level guy to get (only a 10% chance to find and a Million Credits to get the guy to teach it!), and B) he might have a hard time coming up with the 500 PPE it takes to make the thing in the first place. And lastly there are scrolls. Forget scrolls. Unless there was a major change in this area elsewhere in the books (may have knowing Kev) according to the Main Book "Magic scrolls are extremely uncommon" (pg. 165). On top of that, in case you hadn't noticed, by in large, spell casters are illiterate! There isn't a one of them that comes with the Literacy skill in their OCC Skill package. It's kind of hard to use a scroll if you can't read the darn thing.

So, I reiterate, the arbitraty decision of making Rifts more like D&D by stripping the armor off the spell casters' backs is a really bad one. One that just may get them killed.

[Vrykolas2k]

I call the Crusader light because it weighs in at 11 lbs, and Gladiator medium because it weighs in at 21 lbs.
I wear clothing sometimes that's worth more than 11 lbs. And you're saying a mage would be hampered by that? Come on... if I can perform kata in 11 lbs of clothing, then surely a mage can cast spells in 11 lbs of fiber armour

[Uncle Servo]

My approach is to allow mages to wear light or medium EBA without spell casting penalties, but not heavy (the logic being that the bulk limits the necessary gestures for casting spells). On the other hand, mages who don't wear EBA are granted a +1 to spell strength at level one, and an additional +1 at levels five and ten, in addition to normal spell strength bonuses. I prefer the idea of rewarding players for going with the "spirit" of a mage character rather than penalizing players for wanting a bit of a crutch to protect their character.

One of the better ideas I've heard.

I just never saw the need to further penalize mages in the ever-increasing power creep that Rifts has been experiencing. Even with the house rules I put in place, I never had any problems with players fielding a variety of different characters (no one group would ever be all mages, etc.).

[Tinker Dragoon]

THe "mages can't wear EBA armor" rule first appeared in the Siege of Tolkeen series where just about everyone complained about it, so when they released the Book of Magic shortly thereafter they revised the rule: wizards can wear enviornmental body armor of any type provided it doesn't have more than 10% metal in it.

Federation of Magic (p. 69) had it even earlier than that, though it just gave a vague ban of "most types of 'full' M.D.C. body armor."

[Killer Cyborg]

I call the Crusader light because it weighs in at 11 lbs, and Gladiator medium because it weighs in at 21 lbs.
I wear clothing sometimes that's worth more than 11 lbs. And you're saying a mage would be hampered by that? Come on... if I can perform kata in 11 lbs of clothing, then surely a mage can cast spells in 11 lbs of fiber armour

Rifts Sourcebook 1, p. 8

"What defines light, medium, and heavy body armor, the weight or the amount of MDC?

Answer: The amount of MDC protection compared to the weight.
Light Armor: Plastic Man, Crusader, Urban Warrior, CA-2 and Dog Pack armor are considered light armos because they weight under or around 12 lbs and offer 35 to 55 MDC.
Medium Armor: Juicer Plate armor becaus it only provides 45 MDC and weighs 18 lbs. Some might considere Plastic Man armor to be medium because it provides 35 MDC and weighs in at 13 lbs. The Huntsman and GB personal armor are also considered to be medium armor.
Heavy Armor: Gladiator (70 MDC), Bushman composite armor (60 MDC), CA-1, and all other types of armor that provide 60 or more MDC and weigh over 60 lbs but under 30 lbs (anything heavier is probably considered some sort of power armor or inefficient)."

So there you go.

Anway,
The flexibility of the armor is affected by weight, but that isn't the only factor. I could come up with a costume made of cardboard that weighed very little but that hampered my movements more than heavy winter clothing.
I think that (assuming you want to give mages any spell failure chances at all) going by the prowl penalties is as good an indicator as any...

Another thing about the above quote from Sourcebook 1 (as a side note that has nothing to do with your post) is that it casts Fury Beetle armor in a very poor light. When the "no man-made materials" rule came out (before it was changed to "no metal"), many people started advocating Fury Beetle armor as being ideal for mages and claimed that since the main book listed no prowl penalties for it that it didn't have any penalties.
Which makes no sense because according to Sourcebook one, it would (weighing in at 35 lbs) be considered "some sort of power armor or inefficient"... and it's clearly not power armor.
Which is why I guess the GM's Guide listed it's prowl penalty as being -30%...

[Ice Dragon]

But a mage can wear TW modified armor or mystic armor and cast spells with out being slept down . So give your mage a TW modified Body armor .

BTW, I ignore this rule with armor restriction for mages also - that was one of the many aspects that got me into Rifts.

[Subjugator]

In any campaign I run, I've revamped mages substantially.

Quite simply:

1. They cast spells more quickly (levels 1-3 take one action, levels 4-6 take two actions, and so on and so forth...). Rituals obviously take longer.
2. They can wear any kind of armor they like, but cannot cast spells through any armor that provides physical enhancement (i.e. exoskeleton or greater).
3. If they're more reliant on technology than they are magic (exception being Techno Wizards...they have to act like TWs), they take an experience hit. THAT is how you regulate power levels.

Example:

Line Walker: Why am I only third level when everyone else is sixth level?
Me: How many spells did you cast in the last session?
Line Walker: That doesn't matter! I'm killing stuff!
Me: The answer to my question is you cast exactly one spell in the whole session. Yes, you're killing things, but you're not acting like a mage, are you? You've got all the subtlety of a hand grenade. I mean, c'mon, this is not a roll playing game, it's a *role* playing game. Maybe you should rely more upon your magic so that you can become more experienced in it.
Line Walker: *whine* *whine* *whine*

Next game, he's either changed his ways or we're short a player.