Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Help/Tips/Tricks Heavy armor for Wizards & Mages?

In most games mages and wizards get penalties for wearing anything other than robes (or sometimes leather). Does the same apply to Divinity? I got a ring that increased my wizard's strength along with intelligence, etc., so he now can wear heavier armor, but I don't want him to lose the ability to cast spells or whatever because of wearing a heavy armor.

Well the penalty would be you would sacrifice most of your attribute points on the strength require to wear the armor leaving you with puny intelligence and much weaker spells. In other words don't do it because it's f****** retarded. If you're going for the high strength then just use melee weapons and get the skills that put them to devastating use rather than just having them for basic attacks and matching them with worthless spells because you lack the intelligence rating to use mid to high level spells.

Nope, no penalties. Just doesn't make much sense to use items to raise his strength so he can wear heavy armor.

It would be like this heavily armored tank that looks like he could crack steel with his breath except that his attack rating would be too low to actually fight his way out of a wet paper bag.

So which ones is it??? One person says its OK, the other says its not...

Who said it's ok? There must be some invisible post I'm not seeing around here. But if you really read what the other guy/gal said as it being ok I give up......I'd probably advise you not to play the game at all because every mission involves lot of reading and attention to detail and thinking for yourself so you know what to do and avoid doing retarded stuff like losing or destroying quest items that are key to advancing the story and the game totally allows you to be retarded.....sure you might end up completely stuck and having wasted every chance you have at advancing the story but you're free to do it. If you need us to tell you something is f****** retarded and not to do it you're probably a lost cause anyway in a game that requires you to understand and think every single minute you're playing. You don't get that many attribute points throughout the game and I wouldn't suggest being left with the perception of a rock because you'll be hitting every trap and it along with speed affect the amount of action points you have and you won't be doing much of anything without action points.

Sounds to me like playing a battle mage kind of a build, innit?



here is my heavy armor rogue wizard fighter warlock for example.

This man is insane. Just ignore him.

There are absolutely no penalties for wearing heavy armor if you have the strength to do so. There is only the opportunity cost of having those points somewhere. But the RNG gods are dropping lots of +Strength and +Intelligence items you might as well do so.

Sounded to me like he is building a mage and wanted to give him metal armor for better protection. If he is bulding a battlemage then it is fine and makes sense to raise that character's strength.

Yes, you can wear heavy armor on your mages . Only penalties/ benefits is what you loss/gain from wearing that certain item. Ie. Intelligence +1, initiative +1, movement -0.40 , etc.

OK, I have NO IDEA who to listen to. I found this great orange leather armor that adds intelligence, but its a leather armor, NOT a robe... It seems to be affect my movement speed or am I just paranoid?

This game is design to be flexible / classless . You can test it out on your own, do anything you want . If you cannot wear an item, the game will not allow you to. There's no right or wrong, just what makes it fun for you, so enjoy the game (while you can before you reach Act 2 , LOL! Anyway this is just my opinion. )

Thread is bollocks.

Armor penalties exist - you'll note them in AP / Speed penalties, which are mitigated by the responding skills.


So, yes: your mage can wear heavy armor, but will have some AP / Speed penalties using it without the responding skill.


TL;DR

Mouse over the armors - you'll see the penalties are listed.

In this game the robes, cloth armor, and leather armor provide movement bonuses, while mail and plate armor give movement penalties. These movement bonuses are typically the same across all three of the above armor types, with larger bonuses being granted as the item level increases.

Mail and plate armor can give minor movement bonuses as well, but only when magically augmented. You'll know when that's the case by looking at the movement text in the item stats - it'll be blue (when enhanced) instead of white.

Likewise, the movement bonuses on robes, cloth armor, and leather armor can be enhanced beyond their default values as well. As above, the movement stat in the item details will be blue (when enhanced) instead of white.

Cloth and leather armor also provide a standard initiative bonus. Robes, mail, and plate armor do not (although it can come randomly as a magical enhancement).

im wearing plate lvl 14, needs 11str, its 1int 1dex 1str 1body and immune to stun...58armor...um yea u can use that for int hybrid easy

Several of my mages wear heavy armor, and there is no AP penalty. The movement speed penalty does exist, but can be removed by blacksmithing.

Dungeons and Dragons games, and ones which copy them, penalize you for wearing heavy armor on a wizard.

This isn't a Dungeons and Dragons game.

If you have the stats for something, you can use it - weapons/armor/peanuts whatever you fancy, so if your caster has a Str 10, feel free to equip that plate helm and mail armor.

Movement speed is an attribute on armor, it's true that leather armor and robes (plus equipping daggers) have movement bonuses on them while plate armor brings a movement penalty (scale armor having a lower str requirement and lower movement penalty).

But please note - like resistanes/attributes etc, you can find a sexy suit of mail/plate armor which has a blue movement attribute that has either a low movement penalty, or even a movement buff. Plus rings can have movement bonuses too, so it's possible to have a super fast Madora who zips over the battlefield.

As stated, the only 'downside' would be the movement reduction compared to robes.
But then you have to wonder yourself... since when do wizards need to walk much anyway?

So yeah, perfectly viable...