If not, is there anything keeping a wizard from wearing platemail?
Armor doesn't give spells a chance to fail. As long as they're at least trained and have the appropriate strength, a wizard can wear plate no problem.
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There isn't. The only thing keeping a Wizard from wearing plate armor is the fact that they aren't proeficient in any type of armor, so they wouldn't add any proficiency modifier to the AC of their armor, leading to very low AC.
If they can pick up Heavy Armor proficiency somehow (possible as early as level 2 for humans), they can wear Heavy Armor just fine with no penalties whatsoever.
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As long as they're at least trained and have the appropriate strength, a wizard can wear plate no problem.
Actually, you don't even need the listed Strength to effectively wear armor. If you don't meet the Strength threshold, all that happens is that you take the armor penalty to skill checks and speeds. You still get every other benefit of wearing armor.
As long as they're at least trained and have the appropriate strength, a wizard can wear plate no problem.Actually, you don't even need the listed Strength to effectively wear armor. If you don't meet the Strength threshold, all that happens is that you take the armor penalty to skill checks and speeds. You still get every other benefit of wearing armor.
That would shift it from "no problem" to "w/ problems".
Those are severe penalties, and w/o the Str, it's unlikely the PC can handle the Bulk either.-You can go w/ low Str, low Dex, & Heavy Armor (w/ investment for Proficiency) at a cost of -10 speed (!) which remember, is the base for all other movement types (other than teleportation effects) and w/ severe penalties to physical skills. Add w/ major encumbrance troubles if you actually have equipment you wish to use in battle.
-You can go w/ adequate Str & low Dex w/ Heavy Armor (+investment) gaining a net +1 AC for -5 speed.
-You can go w/ low Str, high Dex w/ no armor (or light armor w/ investment) getting the baseline AC and normal speed. And instead of that +1 AC, you're getting improved Reflex saves...which if your party protects you well will be more important to your health than AC is.
Not investing in Str or Dex seems a non-option if you want AC, and w/ Str you'll also need to pick up the armor proficiency (and a way to improve it later). So ultimately it's a better choice w/ Dex and no armor, though a decent argument could be made for light armor which takes less investment than heavy though advancing it is no easier (but by then you may have raised your Dex high enough anyway).
I mean, spellcasters do generally have other options - their proficiency in unarmoured defense and access to spells like shield, mage armour and mirror image means it is generally cheaper in opportunity costs to not use much armour.
Though, investing a feat into the sentinel dedication (or the armour proficiency feat, though this only gives you light armour unless you take it twice) means that you can save your spell slots and use various magical armours.
Yes, Sentinel Dedication is the best route for light or medium armor because it'll automatically advance later. Unless one has another dedication in mind it's worth a feat to save some stat points, though don't forget the necessity of having a decent Ref save to avoid crit fails. PF2 has so many AoEs & tramplers compared to PF1.
Rogue Dedication is a good path for light armor despite not advancing, as you should be able to get your Dex up by the time the difference matters and it comes with useful benefits (and access to Mobility which is good when pressured by enemies w/ AoOs or other reactions your casting might trigger).
Full Plate Wizard is possible by level 2 if you're a human who uses their heritage and ancestry feat to take armor proficiency twice, or you multiclass Champion (with the multiclass option, you can be a heavy armor wizard at level 1 as an ancient elf). Both options also have ways to advance armor proficiency to Expert.
Arcane Spell Failure is a thing of the past. This is balanced by it being hard for Wizards to even achieve the armor benefits to begin with, but they honestly don't want/need it for how much they need to invest in it just to keep it up to snuff.
While you can technically wear Full Plate with some feats or dedications, it falls behind as the proficiency does not scale up to an appropriate level, meaning by 13th level or so, you will be lower AC than if you just followed what your base proficiencies were.
Well, if they wanted arcane spell failure to be a thing, they'd want it to apply to fighters who took the wizard dedication too, even though they're fully proficient in their armor. So nonproficiency penalties alone don't really make up for ASF going away. They just didn't want it any more.
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Since you add your proficiency bonus to AC in PF2, wearing armor you're not proficient in actually penalizes your AC even if the armor itself is better. The game doesn't need extra penalties to make that proficiency matter.
While this is true in general, at low level you get a better AC if you wear heavy(ish) armor even if you are not proficient with it.
Consider a level 1 Wizard who is going for full plate, but couldn't get the dedication yet: they only get a +3 from unarmored proficiency, and they probably have low Dex and decent to good Str. Their AC will be better if they wear chain mail, breastplate or any kind of heavy armor, up to 3 points depending on which armor and how much Dex they actually have.Anyway, this advantage is lost quickly as they gain levels, if they don't get the appropriate proficiency somehow.
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With arcane spell failure gone there's no excuse for dragons not to have armor anymore.
I mean, as cool as dragon armour is, kind of one of the key thematic elements of a dragon is that they are so naturally impervious that they have little need for armour.
Armour would have to be better than their scales to be worth wearing, and there aren't a lot of materials out there that do that.
It's also probably very expensive to commission armour for a dragon, and that means parting with valuable treasure.
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While this is true in general, at low level you get a better AC if you wear heavy(ish) armor even if you are not proficient with it.
Consider a level 1 Wizard who is going for full plate, but couldn't get the dedication yet: they only get a +3 from unarmored proficiency, and they probably have low Dex and decent to good Str. Their AC will be better if they wear chain mail, breastplate or any kind of heavy armor, up to 3 points depending on which armor and how much Dex they actually have.
Anyway, this advantage is lost quickly as they gain levels, if they don't get the appropriate proficiency somehow.
I almost mentioned that, but it's only true really briefly. And plate is expensive for 1st-level characters.
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So...not counting Champions and Monks, AC proficiency only begins shifting to expert at level 11. Spellcasters and such get expert in unarmored at 13, and dedications can pick it up at 14.
Because proficiency is pretty much the same bonus across the board, the distinguishing contributions are item and Dex.
From level 1 to level 5, spellcasters can have a max Dex bonus of +3. So, assuming a +3..
Mage Armor: +1 item, +3 Dex = 4
Light Armor (studded leather): +2 item, +3 Dex = 5
Medium Armor (any of them): +3(or +4) item, +2(or +1) Dex (respectively) = 5
Heavy Armor (full-plate): +6 item, +0 Dex = 6
The reflex saves point is nearly moot as Full-plate has bulwark that gives +3 to Reflex against damaging effects (which is most of them, but admittedly not all).
Once you hit 5 you could have a Dex bonus of +4, but that only really improves the Mage Armor total to 5, as well as improving your reflex saves.
All-in-all there are some trade-offs, but it stays pretty even across the board if your putting effort in to having a good AC. The full-plate allows you to focus on ability scores other then Dex without a massive penalty. The point being, with only a 1 or 2 point deviation, you can get creative with your builds without falling really far behind.
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With arcane spell failure gone there's no excuse for dragons not to have armor anymore.
If you want a dragon with armor, sure, design one.
But when you look at the monster creation rules, you'll see that the monster's AC wouldn't change from having armor or not. The AC is determined by the level of the monster.
"To be level X challenging this monster needs an AC of about Y", then putting armor on the monster doesn't increase Y. If you did increase the AC beyond Y, you'd essentially be fooling yourself because you're starting to make a monster that's higher than level X.
With arcane spell failure gone there's no excuse for dragons not to have armor anymore.If you want a dragon with armor, sure, design one.
But when you look at the monster creation rules, you'll see that the monster's AC wouldn't change from having armor or not. The AC is determined by the level of the monster.
"To be level X challenging this monster needs an AC of about Y", putting armor on the monster doesn't increase Y. If you did increase the AC beyond Y, you'd essentially be fooling yourself because you're starting to make a monster that's higher than level X.
I mean, the design rules do allow for variations - the table has extreme, high, moderate and low values for each level for AC, and when designing or modifying a monster you should be choosing out of those four whichever value best fits the concept and the balance with your other choices.
For example, an Adult Red Dragon is a level 14 monster, and it has an AC of 37 - this is just 1 higher than the "High" entry for AC in the monster creation rules (creatures designed by the designers will deviate from the rules provided for players because the designers have a lot of knowledge and playtesting and gut feel to help them).
If for some reason I wanted to make an armoured adult red dragon of the same level (again as I said before, an armoured dragon is a bit redundant) I would probably give it the AC from the extreme column for AC of that level, giving it an AC of 39. Would probably have to give it some penalty to make it so it has some kind of tradeoff for that however (maybe reduced initiative or speed?).
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Right. If you wanted to make a dragon whose gimmick is that it wears armor, you can do that. You'd maybe give it 1-2 more AC than typical, and reduce something else by a similar amount.
What I was trying to say is, a dragon with a full plate isn't going to have 6 AC more than one without it, because it's AC is based on how much of a threat the GM wants it to be (i.e. choice of creature level), not on how much that equipment would do when used by a PC.
I think that dragon scales are already as hard as steel plates. Putting armor over them would do the same as wearing two full plates one onto the other: mechanically, none.
Still, the concept of an armored dragon is cool. As the others have said, improving its AC by a couple points would be a good way to make it.
And plate is expensive for 1st-level characters.
Only if you buy it... ;)
Armor doesn't give spells a chance to fail. As long as they're at least trained and have the appropriate strength, a wizard can wear plate no problem.
The bottom line is there is hardly any point in armour for armour's sake as the numbers are quite consistent and tight.
Once you get to 5 points of AC from your armour + dex thats likely the best contribution you will get. Heavy armour only has one point of AC left to gain. Its possible to do a little better with an extreme DEX build eventually at very high level, but that is not for most characters. Proficiency is limited largely by class and level.There are amour specialization bonuses, but they are minor. Mostly armour is a penalty. The game is balanced around armour being optional.
So for most wizards maybe light armour can be worth while for a while, via the general armour proficiency feat. It is just hard to justify the cost of spending too much on it. You have better things to spend your resources on.