Spell hindrance

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Spell hindrance is a system that imparts a chance for armor to prevent spells from being successfully cast. Elemental spells are harder to cast in heavy armor than Spiritual or Mental spells, and Mental spells are far harder to cast in armor that covers the caster's head.

Armor and Hindrance

Robes, light leather, and full leather armors allow spells from all circles to be cast without failure. Reinforced leather and double leather cause hindrance for some elemental and mental spell circles. Characters wearing a leather breastplate will experience hindrance for spells cast from every spell circle. A base mana cost will be taken, stance will be forced down from defensive, and the standard 3 second cast roundtime takes place, but there is no further effect:

You trace a sign while beseeching the spirits to empower you with the Bind spell...
Your spell is ready.
You gesture at a skeletal lord.
[Spell Hindrance for some marbled pink mithril armor is 9% with current Armor Use skill, d100= 7]
Your armor prevents the spell from working correctly.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.
(Forcing stance down to guarded)

The failure rate varies based on the circle of the spell, the armor worn, and the caster's training in Armor Use.

Reducing Hindrance

Hindrance is entirely negated in natural sanctuaries, Major Sanctuaries, and areas where Minor Sanctuary (213) is in effect.

Base hindrance is the minimum hindrance that can be attained with enough Armor Use:

Armor Use Bonus Required = (Base Hindrance * 20) - 10

Under trained penalty formula (total will not exceed the armor's max hindrance in the spell hindrance table's rightmost column):

Total Hindrance = Base Hindrance * (1 + (Required Bonus - Current Bonus) / 20)

Base hindrance can be further reduced both by the spell Faith's Clarity (1612) or by the paladin's armor specialization Armored Fluidity. Faith's Clarity reduces base hindrance, thereby also reducing the required armor use bonus in the formula. Armored Fluidity only reduces total hindrance using the original base hindrance amount from the table times 10% per rank of fluidity, rounded down.

Paladins can also learn armor specializations that mitigate the negative aspects of armor hindrance. Armored Casting decreases the mana and roundtime expended when failing to cast a spell, and Armor Blessing increases the potency of a successfully cast attack spell if a previous cast has failed due to armor hindrance.

Examples

Paladin spells have 13% base hindrance in full plate armor at 250 armor use skill bonus (150 ranks). If the caster has only trained to 170 skill bonus (70 ranks), total hindrance will be 13% * (1 + (250 - 170) / 20) = 65%. While under the effect of Faith's Clarity, with 25 ranks in Paladin spells, the caster would have 5% Paladin base reduction. This puts the base hindrance at 8%, so only 150 skill bonus (50 ranks) is required and the same caster is considered fully trained and will only experience 8% hindrance. In addition, since Faith's Clarity also reduces the caster's Minor Spiritual spell hindrance to match their Paladin spell hindrance, they would also experience 8% hindrance with Minor Spirit spells. Armored Fluidity no longer stacks with Faith's Clarity, so would not give any additional hindrance reduction.

Chart of Armor Spell Hindrance Penalties

See Armor Use for the number of ranks required to minimize hindrance for each type of armor and spell circle.
Table: Spell hindrance - edit
AG ASG Name Spell Hindrance (%)
MnS MjS Cleric MnE MjE Ranger Sorcerer Wizard Bard Empath MnM MjM Paladin Max
1. Cloth 1 Normal Clothing - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
2 Robes - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
2. Leather 5 Light Leather - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
6 Full Leather - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
7 Reinforced Leather - - - - 2 - 1 2 - - - 2 - 4
8 Double Leather - - - - 4 - 2 4 2 - 2 4 - 6
3. Scale 9 Leather Breastplate 3 4 4 4 6 3 5 6 3 4 4 6 2 16
10 Cuirbouilli Leather 4 5 5 5 7 4 6 7 3 5 5 7 3 20
11 Studded Leather 5 6 6 6 9 5 8 9 3 6 6 9 4 24
12 Brigandine Armor 6 7 7 7 12 6 11 12 7 7 7 12 5 28
4. Chain 13 Chain Mail 7 8 8 8 16 7 16 16 8 8 8 16 6 40
14 Double Chain 8 9 9 9 20 8 18 20 8 9 9 20 7 45
15 Augmented Chain 9 11 11 10 25 9 22 25 8 11 10 25 8 55
16 Chain Hauberk 11 14 14 12 30 11 26 30 15 15 15 30 9 60
5. Plate 17 Metal Breastplate 16 25 25 16 35 21 29 35 21 25 21 35 10 90
18 Augmented Breastplate 17 28 28 18 40 24 33 40 21 28 21 40 11 92
19 Half Plate 18 32 32 20 45 27 39 45 21 32 21 45 12 94
20 Full Plate 20 45 45 22 50 30 48 50 50 45 50 50 13 96

Arcane Spells and Hindrance

The hindrance of Arcane spells is a little more subtle. Some Arcane spells have a 'native' circle, and use that circle's armor hindrance. For example, Minor Cold (1709) is native to the Wizard Base, while Spirit Guard (1712) is native to the Minor Spiritual circle. Arcane spells that do not have a 'native' circle (such as Arcane Blast (1700)) have the same hindrance as Sorcerer Base.

A caster wearing double leathers would thus experience no hindrance casting Spirit Guard, 2% hindrance casting Arcane Blast, and 4% hindrance casting Minor Cold (provided they 15 ranks of Armor Use to minimize hindrance in double leathers).

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