Why might wizards be unable to wear armour?

Question

Inspired by this question, this question and this question, I, too have been thinking about typical RPG-style magic systems.

It's a truism in RPGs (and fantasy in general) that armour and magic don't mix (fair warning: that's a TVTropes link) - that is, wizards are capable of astonishing feats of magic as long as they wear nothing more protective than robes and a pointy hat.

This is, of course, done for reasons of balance, and often handwaved away by saying that the armour is restrictive and prevents the wizards from performing the complex gestures (also a TVTropes link) necessary to cast spells.

Speaking as someone who owns a haubergeon, this blanket ban on armour (for this reason) seems at best suspect, especially given the existence of cleric-type characters. I for one would rather wear mail than robes with massive sleeves if my life depended on waving my hands about in complicated ways.

Let's assume a typical Forgotten Realms style universe, with similar magic rules to Secespitus' question, but closer to those used in the Forgotten Realms:

• wizards draw upon magic that permeates the universe
• They learn spells through study and on special occasions, such as reading a grimoire
• wizards prepare spells by memorising them, and cannot cast spells without first preparing them - the memory of the spell is wiped from their mind when cast
• They can do all of the normal things for this genre - throw around fireballs, create walls of earth, fly through the sky, etc.
• Spells have power proportional to their caster's skill and knowledge about magic and how to use it efficiently. This can be represented by a stat like Intelligence.
• The God(s) have nothing to do with this kind of magic (think of it as arcane rather than divine)
• Casting spells requires the wizard to say the magic words and perform the ritual gestures (see D&D's Verbal and Somatic components, let's ignore Material components for now)
• Wearing armour massively reduces a wizard's ability to use magic

Given the above, why would a wizard not be able to use magic while wearing armour?

I'm looking for a sensible in-universe explanation as to why armour in general would prevent a wizard from using magic while worn.

To be clear, some armour types are restrictive enough to (theoretically) cause problems - we see this IRL with things like tournament armours, but we have pictures of archers shooting in plate harness, and properly sized mail imposes virtually no restriction on freedom of movement, so a blanket ban doesn't add up.

This edit might invalidate the text of some of the extant replies, but hopefully it shouldn't invalidate the concept of any of them and narrows the scope of the question enough to be reopened.

If you're reading this and thinking of an answer based on metal interfering with the flow of mana, or armour being cumbersome and preventing the wizard from making the necessary gestures to cast their spell, please stop and consider whether you're adding anything that the fourteen existing answers on these themes haven't already added.

Answer 1

I've played around with restricting armor in an RPG universe. I came to the conclusion that most others have, iron and steel cause some form of magical interference.

However, I decided to turn it around as an advantage too. In my system:

• Wearing common metal armor adds a chance to fumble or misfire the spell. The more metal on your person, the higher the chance.
• But a soldier wearing armor gains a slight buff against magic. Magic damage is reduced and non-damaging effects have an increased chance to fail.
• There exists high-tier armor made with superior materials or methods that not only ignore the blocking effect, they enhance magic power when worn (assuming your wizard has the skill points to wear it at all).
• But wearing magic-enhancing armor turns you into a magical lightning-rod. Better hope your defensive spells are good, or else you have no chance against an equally powerful, yet unarmored, spellcaster.

Answer 2

I would suggest that maybe it's because armor wouldn't help a wizard. If the enemy is able to hit the wizard with a sword, axe, spear, or hammer, then the wizard is already beaten. To recover from a blow, jump backward, re-open the distance, and cast a magical counter-attack, would be next to impossible. Armor may mean it takes a couple more follow-up blows to kill the wizard, but doesn't offer any real chance of escape.

On the contrary, dressing light would enable the wizard to move quickly and keep out of reach, a tactical necessity for his way of fighting.

Answer 3

Because it is not worth wearing armour

Wearing armour need resource that is better to invest to somewhere else spell casting. So what is the resource

Time for training: a wizards need to train to be a wizards. As in RPG, you see wizards often come scroll, tome, book, ... It is like a researcher in modern real world. So, they should spend their life studying magic, not how to wear, maintenance armour. Wearing armor is not just simple as put it on. You need to learn how to maintenance (someone might do that for you), movement, ... The more complex, heavier armour, the more difficult to do use.

Stamina or Energy: Wearning armor require more energy to do everything, because armour add mass (weight). So you would be quickly tired to move around when wearing heavy armour (again, untrained armour user make it even more costly). The energy better use to cast spell for destruction instead.

But for what armour provide, the wizard might don't need at all.

Armour protect user from being hurt by attack. A knight need armour because he would go close combat, which others might hit him. armour can protect a knight from others knight or men-at-arm (who is less skill than knight).

But a wizard can reduce risk of getting hurt by stay out of range. To keep staying out of enemy range, protection from armor is not worth trading for mobility. If the wizard got caught in close range, the same armor is not offer as much protection as it does to the knight, because the wizard is not training in close combat (due to limitation of Time resource for training)

When stay far from battlefield. The only threat can come from other wizard who have such range. The armour might not offer protection from other wizard either, because magic is just to strong to get through armour.

In real world, it is explain why Musketeers don't wear armour, because they can kill enemy from range, and power of other range unit (Musketeers, cannon, ...) can get through armour easily.

Answer 4

It's not that they can't wear armour but there's no point. There are so many wizards who have made so many magic swords that are now available for anyone to own, that metal based armour just isn't that useful these days. Only magicly enchanted armour stands any chance of protecting the user in which case they may as well enchant light weight flexible clothes rather than heavy steal plate.

Answer 5

I've been thinking exactly on the same question when I compared ES Daggerfall mechanics to Skyrim mechanics (as a sideline, I've also thought about the standard RPG distinction of light, medium and heavy armor and how it can be developed, even though it makes no sense realistically).

It would work in Elder Scrolls-like setting, where almost everybody has magic potential, but not everybody chooses to develop it. For historical similarities we choose not middle ages, but start of the modern age, where firearms were already pretty developed and started to disappear. In real history, armour had become heavier as firearms grew more powerful, and at some point before armor disappeared completely, there were two main forms of armour you could wear - either a comparatively light combination of breastplate and open helmet for heavy infantry or light cavalry applications, or heavy full plate for heavy cavalry and as siege armor (this is gross oversimplification and contraction of several time periods, but bear with me).

In this world, magic serves in the role of the firearms - maybe the proportion of magic users had increased. To combat the increased number of mages on the battlefield, all armor started being enchanted to protect from magic - so it is not an innate quality of steel in armor, it is a specific decision to enchant armor. Magic-dampening armor halves magic potential when worn at breastplate and helm and completely nullifies all magic when it is heavy full armour. On the battlefield, magic is used both as line-of-sight firearms and artillery, as well as indirect fire artillery. So you never know when you are about to be hit with an arching fire rain spell - better keep your breastplate and helmet on. Non-enchanted armor does nothing against magic.

In such circumstance, mediocre magic users world prefer to wear enchanted 'medium' armor and use their magic as a flintlock pistol - to take an occasional shot at the enemy. Very powerful mages operate from significant distance, in the manner of artillery. They are unarmored in order not to hamper their magic - and also to help them escape from their opponents. Wearing unenchanted armor will not help them if their position is attacked - lightly armored opponents still have some access to combat magic.

UPD: not that I wrote it out, I see some inconsistencies. In order for it to work, enchanted half-armor should work in very specific way - it should restrain the magic abilities of everyone just enough to leave them with one lethal cantrip, similar in effect to firearm. Without enchanted armor, trained wizard should have access to significant powers, while untrained layman's still has 1-2 cantrips. That becomes wonky.

Answer 6

Other than iron and magic dont mix logic, I can see one reason and that is that armours are clumsy and are made keeping specific actions in mind which may be a problem with magic,where spells may require complex action, also armours can be weared during combat but magic is needed at anytime so wearing armours all the time will decrease ease of use.