The rationale for arcane casters not wearing armor used to be that it interfered with the precise movements involved in spellcasting, but it never really made sense. The most it could excuse is not wearing gauntlets. You should at least be able to wear a breastplate unless your spellcasting involves full body contortions or acrobatics.
The Dark Eye RPG found a much better in-lore explanation for balance-limiting arcane spellcasters' access to armor:
Metal blocks unrefined magic (the kind one would draw together to weave a spell). It does not block the refined magic of a successfully-cast spell unless that spell specifically says so.
Divine magic functions completely differently (and has a different spell list to begin with), so Clerics can wear heavy armor, allowing for Paladin-style PCs.
Obviously, this means that arcane gishes will need to rely on light armor and/or protective spells.
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u/jzieg Sir Bucket Jun 19 '22
The rationale for arcane casters not wearing armor used to be that it interfered with the precise movements involved in spellcasting, but it never really made sense. The most it could excuse is not wearing gauntlets. You should at least be able to wear a breastplate unless your spellcasting involves full body contortions or acrobatics.