How to make an armored wizard?

I have an image in mind, that of a necromancer wearing some metal armor. Anything from as 'low' as a breastplate to as high as a 'fullplate' would fulfill the stylistic criteria I have set, so I have some room to move freely regarding building this character.

So, how would I best go about it?
Should I grab a fighter or cleric level for the proficiencies or is it better to grab the feat giving me armor proficiency?
Would I be better off with a medium armor so that I don't have to take many of the feats that drop the chance of spellcasting failure due to wearing an armor? What metal armor would be the best to pick?
If I multiclass 1 level in fighter or cleric for the armor and weapon proficiencies, how much of a disadvantage would it be to pick a race that has none of fighter, cleric or wizard as a favorite class? Meaning, do you really feel the xp penalty or is it something that I might even forget?

Thank you in advance!

Mithral and the twilight enchantment will take you a long way. As will gith crafted. A few other things will stack for reducing asf.

A dip into fighter is typical of many gish builds. I think wizard 6 / fighter 1 / spellsword 1 / abjurant champion 5 is the typical beginning. That leaves you at 13th level with 12th-level casting, base attack bonus +10, and -10% arcane spell failure chance from armor.

Is Dragon magazine on the table? The Armored Savant ACF (Dragon 355, p92) trades the 1st level bonus feat for an ability that cuts arcane spell failure from armor in half. (It also lets you treat any armor as one category lighter for determining movement.) So you can cut full plate down from 35% to... 17.5%? Maybe there should be some form of rounding. And you can cut mechanus gear down from 50% to 25%.

Mithril is -10%, and since mithril makes the armor medium, Armored Savant then lets you treat it as light for movement. A thistledown suit (Races of the Wild, p168) gives -5%.

Refluff mage armor as summoning a suit of whatever. Upgrade to greater mage armor at level 3. It's already a conjuration spell, so...

Alternatively, if the emphasis is on being a necromancer, not a wizard, go with Dread Necromancer instead and grab a mithril breastplate if you don't like refluffing for some reason.

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Originally Posted by Corran

Meaning, do you really feel the xp penalty or is it something that I might even forget?

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Someone plays with multiclass penalties?!?!

There are probably many different ways to get a tin can wizard. To save space/not post walls of text, there are three main ways to do this:

1) Reduce ASF to 0%: Feycraft (-5%), Githcraft (-5%), Spellsword 1 (-10%), Twilight (-10%), Mithral (-I Forget%), etc, to make there be no real penalty to wearing armor. Do mind that you should get proficiency from some source to avoid the nonprofincency penalty.

2) Remove Somatic Components: Bad, bad choice. Just still all of your spells and then never pay ASF again, ever. You should only consider this if you somehow get free metamagic +1, in which case why didn't you choose a better +1 metamagic to apply to your spells???

3) Battle Caster (CArcane): Be able to ignore ASF in armor (usually light), apply Battle Caster once, and then wear medium (or mithral heavy, counting as medium) armor. This is probably the cheapest and least intensive, provided you have a method of ignoring ASF for light armor to begin with. OTOH, without being a base class, Runesmith or Urban Savant should work.

Play a psion/thrallherd with the psianimate dead* power who takes undead as thralls? Then you won't have to worry about arcane spell failure at all. Get yourself a psychoactive skin of ectoplasmic armor to wear over your mithril chain shirt (upon which you will add some really nice enhancements).

Thralls automatically refill when destroyed, so...



*From Hyperconscious

The Death Master is a necromancer class from Dragon Compendium that ignores spell failure chance by sacrificing intelligent humanoids to Orcus and using their blood for a material component.

The Runesmith from Races of Stone is dwarf-only but can ignore somatic components for all their spells at no additional cost.

If you care more about6 flavour over optimization, then the Pale Master prestige class gives you pretty much everything you are asking for.

It's just not very optimal.

If it is necromancer in particular you want, clerics make pretty good necromancers and can wear armour right out of the box.

Similarly, if you have access to Magic of Incarnum, the incarnate going into the necrocarnate prestige class can use medium armour (so breastplate is on the table). But how evil do you want to go? They torture souls for their power! Also, probably less powerful than a tier 1 cleric or wizard.

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Originally Posted by Deophaun

Alternatively, if the emphasis is on being a necromancer, not a wizard, go with Dread Necromancer instead and grab a mithril breastplate if you don't like refluffing for some reason.

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This - DN can wear light armor right out of the box. Just keep in mind that your Advanced Learning spells are subject to ASF, so plan accordingly.

Alternatively, as Goaty mentioned you can combine materials to get ASF to zero.

Full plate has 35% ASF.

Mithral reduces ASF by -10%. (DMG)
Twilight enhancement reduces ASF by -10%. (MIC/various other sources)
Spellsword 1 reduces ASF by -10%. (Complete Warrior)
Githcraft reduces ASF by -5%. (DMGII)
Feycraft reduces ASF by -5%. (DMGII)
Thistledown Suit reduces ASF by -5%. (Races of the Wild)

So some combination of those can knock down ASF to 0%. Mithral full plate counts as medium armor, but you can bring that down to light armor by adding the Halfweight property (+3 enhancement, FR Underdark).

Instead of mithral, you can use blended quartz (A&EG) to reduce ASF by -20%, but this doubles the weight and leaves the armor at whatever weight category it was before. However, this puts things like heavy plate (45% ASF), battle plate (50% ASF), or mechanus gear (50% ASF) within range of 0% ASF.

In Dragon Magazine #355, there's a Fighter 1 ACF, "Armored Savant", that lets you treat armor as being one weight category lighter. Combine this with mithral, dragoncraft, blue ice, sentira, firebrass, etc. to knock heavy armor down to light.

I love making Dwarf wizard's with Runesmith.

1st level Wizard, focused specialist transmuter, ban evocation, enchantment, necromancy, immediate magic, sudden shift (Scribe Scroll, Dodge)
2nd Level Dwarf Fighter (Axe Focus) D12 HP wield dwarven waraxe one handed.
3rd Level Wizard (Mobility)
4th Level Wizard
5th Level Wizard
6th Level Runesmith (Arcane Thesis Haste)
7th Swiftblade (Spring attack bonus feat)
8th Swiftblade
9th Swiftblade (Extend Spell)
10th Swiftblade
11th Swiftblade
12th Swiftblade (Iron WIll)
13th Spellsword
14th Dragonslayer
15th Abjurant Champion (Practised Spellcaster)
16th Abjurant Champion
17th Abjurant Champion
18th Abjurant Champion (Almost anything)
19th Abjurant Champion
20th Whatever gives you spellcasting

This guy loses out on three levels of spellcasting but has so many class abailities it is nutty.
17th Caster Level 16+ BAB, casting in full plate and a shield, casting extended haste at +2 CL for free that also gives you +10 additional feet of movement, +2 to hit, ac, and Ref saves, 50% miss chance, 30% miss chance vs spells, and is extraordinary so it can't be dispelled. You also get spring attack, Int to initiative, and +1d6 damage if you move 10 or more feet in a round.

Spellsword is mostly used to get more BAB and casting, whereas, Dragonslayer makes you immune to fear, gives you +1 BAB, and +1 level of casting.

Abjurant Champion is nice for Full BAB and Casting and some nifty uses for the abjuration bonues, up to and including things like casting greater luminous armor on yourself.

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Originally Posted by tricktroller

Abjurant Champion is nice for Full BAB and Casting and some nifty uses for the abjuration bonues, up to and including things like casting greater luminous armor on yourself.

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You're already wearing heavy armor. In fact you sacrificed the Swiftblade's Diligent Rapidity - free (Ex) Freedom of Movement - and Perpetual Options - free extra standard action every turn - for the ability to wear heavy armor and get free Still Spell. You also capped Evasive Celerity at 30% and lost some other stuff, but those two are the big ones.
Which is fine. You want a dwarven heavy armor wizard, go for it (even if it makes optimizers cry :smalltongue:).

But why would you do that when your plan is to cast Greater Luminous Armor and go Abjurant Champion anyway?
Instead of going for more Runesmith to actually make use of the Share Runes and Permanent Rune features (you know, the good ones)? Or anything that doesn't make wearing heavy armor completely pointless?

He said he wanted an armored wizard.

I'm not trying to make the most optimized version of this possible, just give a fun character that has the things he asked for.

An armored dwarven wizard is neat. You can even throw in things like arcane strike if you want to start bumping up damage potential and stuff.

But this is an armored wizard with some nifty abilities and nothing that will make your DM throw a book at your head like a mystic ranger, wizard, ultimate magus, runesmith using persisted swift haste while in full plate.

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Originally Posted by tricktroller

He said he wanted an armored wizard.

I'm not trying to make the most optimized version of this possible, just give a fun character that has the things he asked for.

An armored dwarven wizard is neat. You can even throw in things like arcane strike if you want to start bumping up damage potential and stuff.

But this is an armored wizard with some nifty abilities and nothing that will make your DM throw a book at your head like a mystic ranger, wizard, ultimate magus, runesmith using persisted swift haste while in full plate.

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I have no problem with making unoptimized choices for the sake of flavor (and that's kinda necessary for a wizard in heavy armor).
My complaint was specifically for the fact that your build - the whole idea of which is "... in heavy armor" - makes wearing that heavy armor pointless via Abjurant Champion.
The rest is fine if you want it that way, but that one just boggles my mind.

Also, a really fun one to play is a Mystic Ranger/Sword of the Arcane Order.
For the first 10 levels you are basically a full caster on a fighter chassis, with SotAO you get to cast wizard and ranger spells in your slots. Nab Haste @ 3rd to qualify for swiftblade after 6th, take full 10 levels in swiftblade. Lightly armored caster of up to 5th level spells with lots of nifty stuff from Swiftblade.

If you want optimized you can take lots of other routes but a swift haste that is persisted with swiftblade is a very nasty way to do the spell. You'd need two metamagic reducers to get it to a 5th level spell, so arcane thesis and easy metamagic(Persistant Spell) would give you the ability to persist swift haste on yourself as a 5th level spell.

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Originally Posted by sleepyphoenixx

I have no problem with making unoptimized choices for the sake of flavor (and that's kinda necessary for a wizard in heavy armor).
My complaint was specifically for the fact that your build - the whole idea of which is "... in heavy armor" - makes wearing that heavy armor pointless via Abjurant Champion.
The rest is fine if you want it that way, but that one just boggles my mind.

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The point of Abjurant Champion isn't to cast Greater Luminous armor, its for D10 hp +5 BAB and +5 levels of spellcasting. A swift Shield spell still makes use of the +5 to Abjuration spells.

The abilities of the Abjurant champ are literally just a bonus on top of what is wanted from the class.

If you're on with a breastplate, mountain dwarf can wear it right out of the gate, no matter the class.

If you don't want to worry about casting spells save for the ones that give you undead minions you could always go horned harbinger from a fighter/warblade/etc

Sorry about the build I posted, I misread that first part.

So for a necromancer wizard in fullplate we will still keep bits of the build.

Dwarf wizard 1/Cleric 4/Runesmith1/True Necromancer 10/Mystic Theurge 4

Use Precocious apprentice to get Command undead at 1st to qualify for True necromancer.

With this you will have 8th Level Arcane Spells and 9th level divine spells at 20th level (If you care about such things).

(Personally I prefer Dwarf Cleric 3/Wizard 2/Runesmith 1/TN 10/MT 4 for dual 8th level casters, its also cleaner and qualifies for everything without stuff like precocious apprentice)

This gives you the ability to turn and rebuke undead, summon undead, etc, gives you full access to buffs for your undead etc.
(Taking the enhance undead and Skeletal Minion ACF's might not be a bad idea either)
(Corpsecrafter feats will make your undead minions even nastier)

If you don't want to be a dwarf I can figure out some other options.

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Originally Posted by mormon_soldier

If you're on with a breastplate, mountain dwarf can wear it right out of the gate, no matter the class.

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Is that true in 3rd edition? I know it is true in 5th edition.

I don't believe so.

I designed a cloud giant sorcerer with a level of spellsword who wore twilight feycraft mithril full-plate for zero spell failure.

You could always be Muscle Wizard and cast fist.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...09/211/590.jpg

I second the advice of making a Dread Necromancer instead of a Specialist Wizard Necromancer.
It lets you cast spells in light armor. You can easyly expend on this using feats like 'battlecaster' (Complete Arcane).

The class Battle sorcerer (Unearted Arcana) also lets you use light armor and lets you choose your own spells, but if necromancy is your thing, I don't see how you can build anything from it that's better than, or even as good as, the Dread Necromancer already is.

If your character is evil and ok with worshipping Orcus, Death Master (Dragon Compendium) is also an option.

There are also some prestige classes that let you cast in armor, if that´s wjhat you prefer, but you always must sacrifice something for it. These ones cost you the least in spellcasting, that I know of:
Knight Phantom (Five Nations): 1st level lets you cast spells in light armor
Spellsword: 1st level gives you 10% reductuon of ASF.
Pale master (Libris Mortis), if you don't insist on the armor being metal. Up to 20% reductuon of ASF.
Knight of the Weave (Champions of Valor): 2nd level lets you cast in light armor. A bit of a weird combination with Necromancer i.m.o., but that's up to you.
One level of Spellthief (Complete Adventurer) + the feat 'master spellthief' (Complete Scoundrel) seems to let you cast all your arcane spells in light armor, if I read the feat correctly. It has some nice side benefits too, like +1d6 sneack attack and the steal spell ability.

The spells 'Silver Dragonmail' and 'Golden Dragonmail' (Champions of Valour) conjure mithral breastplate and fullplate, respectively, and you're treated as proficient in them. That means you don't have to spend feats on armor proficiency. It's a bummer you can't get these spells as Dread Necromancer, unless you come up with a way to learn spells from outside your class list from somewhere.

Dread Necromancer is cool but if you wanted to go with a specialist necromancer Wizard and went down the Abjurant Champion Route you wouldn't need to worry about armor at all. You could just buff yourself and have a great AC. However, that's kinda optimizing and if you're in it just for the flavor I'd say go with Dread Necromancer and use some of the advice people have already stated. Just keep in mind that you will want something item or spell wise to counteract the loss of movement speed due to your armor. There's lots of ways around this.

If you do decide to multiclass, make it worth your Wile: A single level in one of the classes of Tome of Battle can give you a number of Maneuvers and a Bonus Stance. They can be useful in delivering Touch Attacks, as well as adding to your survivability.

You do trade off a Caster Level though. Just giving you an idea to experiment/Play with.