Conquest of the Horde

As of currently, the only armor one can wear in-character is the one(s) restricted to their class. Unfortunately for priests, warlocks, and mages; this would be only one. Cloth. That doesn't give much to work with, despite spellcasters being commonly known as flimsy and very easy to get to through no armor. Unfortunately some characters that are priests within the game choose to dress more suited for combat, like my little Lendri.

Asking for those spellcaster classes to be able to wear plate armor would be silly. I'm suggesting that the cloth armor they possess can be reinforced with tougher materials, such as leather or chainmail. Vambraces for example is a very good image as to what this would look like, or reinforced leather/chainmail straps across hard-cloth shoulderpads. If you simply slapped on a bolt of cloth to your shoulder, that wouldn't protect against much. It also seems unlikely, as well.

It wouldn't be the same as druid or rogue leather, mind you. It's just reinforcing material that would keep the shape or hardness of a shoulderpad together. My image of one would be a small, rounded piece that has cloth covering a leather shell, which inside has wool or some sort of soft material. Or a cloth tunic that has the inner side have a sewn-in light chain-mail skirt, or leather piece. It's not fully decking yourself out in leather or crazy plate mail, but gives you a more subtle protection that is allowed in-characterly.

I'd really like this to be allowed as it's not a huge change to their armor, but just something that keeps them from getting cut up to shreds, heh.

Do you mean IC or OOC?


Because IC I don't think there's the slightest problem if you RP leather+ on your caster. Many 'cloth-type' armors in fact look exactly like leather reinforced with metal bits.

The point is not to wear massive armor, not no-kind-of-metal-or-leather-never-ever.

In my understanding of things, anyway.

If I recall correctly, the current policy on armor is you can only wear that your class can wear and nothing more [excluding jewelry]. Even if some robes and items look to have metal on them, you still can't claim it's anything other than cloth. At the moment, if you're a mage/priest/warlock and you say you have some sort of leather piece or chain reinforcement, we'd say no on that. I recall a situation where a cloth character was wearing a metal undershirt and it had to be retconned. Don't be so quick to dismiss cloth as unable to protect at all, as cloth can get pretty thick, and not wearing armor is one of the trade-offs for being a caster.

I don't believe the staff or Kretol has any intention of altering the rules to say otherwise, even if it isn't a request for x class being able to have y armor unlocked for them. Can it change? Maybe. Will it? Unlikely.

I'm not sure this counts as armor but common folk wore leather tunics, boots, hats, and other paraphenalia. Chain is a tad too much to OOCly imagine for IC use but leather is about as hard to avoid

To amend Reigen's statement:

A caster cannot completely forego cloth armor and replace it with leather or mail. Plate, obviously, is well out of the question of acceptability (I don't believe that's being contested, but it's always good to be clear!). However, minorly reinforced cloth armor to include soft/thin leather (as opposed to the thicker, tougher leather employed by rogues and druids) or bits of metal (think rivets and various adjustments, not full-on chainmail) is acceptable. If you look at in-game models of some cloth armor (that aren't dresses) you'll see thick, padded or otherwise toughened cloth but you'll also see elements (keyword: elements) of leather and chain.

TL;DR -- The leather and mail elements cannot outweigh or replace the cloth. The cloth takes precedence.

However, as you attested with Lendri's armor, a complete use of leather and mail for a casting class is unacceptable.

Edited to Respond to C0rzilla:

c0rzilla Wrote:I'm not sure this counts as armor but common folk wore leather tunics, boots, hats, and other paraphenalia. Chain is a tad too much to OOCly imagine for IC use but leather is about as hard to avoid

Common folk didn't get the benefit of magic. As Reigen mentioned, there is a trade off for mages, priests and warlocks: You get all this great magic, but you risk being vulnerable due to a lack of tougher armor. Theirs is a distance-based class.

Given that Reigen and Caravan have already clearly laid out the policy issues of the matter, I'd like to poke my head in to offer an interesting article on the actual use of what us RPG buffs describe as 'light armour' in the Middle Ages. Some fascinating stuff - cloth as armour was nowhere near as useless as it is often portrayed, and nor was proper leather armour light or particularly flexible.

Worth contemplating.

Silly Sol, leather armor is snug and form fitting and durable and resistant to the elements and quiet and amazing and totally sexy and you can look like a ninja and do badass flips because you're wearing leather and not chain or plate or some silly frilly robe that mages tend to wear thus making rogues the master race because screw druids they run around naked most of the time.


That druid's not wearing the sexy leather, your argument is bannanas.

Preeeeeetty sure the policy is known by now, though...

I personally don't see a problem with claiming some patches of armor as maybe a light leather or maybe a very thin metal. Looking at some robes and shoulder armor, there's no way they could create such a look without reinforcement. To me, it's one of those game mechanics =/= what it really is. I support Lendri's motion so long as its used in moderation and cleared with a GM prior. After all, battle mages, battle warlocks, and battle priests would look quite silly running into battle with just cloth. One would expect something a bit more durable in vital areas.

Edit: my phone's autocorrect is so derpy.

(10-15-2012, 06:03 AM)Caravan Wrote: [ -> ]However, as you attested with Lendri's armor, a complete use of leather and mail for a casting class is unacceptable.

I didn't say that all she wears is leather and mail armor. Her armor is reinforced with tidbits of leather and chainmail, is all.

(10-15-2012, 09:05 AM)SachikoMaeda Wrote: [ -> ]After all, battle mages, battle warlocks, and battle priests would look quite silly running into battle with just cloth. One would expect something a bit more durable in vital areas.

Yes! This. =)

And what of shamans?
I've always found that class puzzling, as game mechanics in Vanilla meant that they had to be as versatile as paladins- something the class clearly shouldn't really have been doing. I mean, I know "calling" elements rather than typical casting, yadda yadda, but it seems to me like a third of mail armor out there is more clothie than a lot of cloth gear. I mean, seriously. Look at them.

Perhaps there would at least be a way for us to compile a list of "totally should be accessable to cloth-wearers" list and make that available to 'locks, mages, priests and droods?
Would that be feasible to implement?

And after taking another look at "cloth" armor sets, it seems to me like you can have all kinds of stiff, non-specific metal-looking material you want.
I mean, seriously. WTF is this made of?!


And there's plenty of blatantly (small and reasonably-sized) plate pauldrons going on in the cloth armor class.
Personally, I'd say we should generally allow what people can wear as cloth within WoW as a game to be IC, just because this whole "you can't cast with cloth" stuff is silly and functions mainly as a balance thing.
If you try really hard, you can get some decently armor-ish cloth sets, though as with any outfit, to RP well, you have to factor in what you're wearing to your character.

Well, I know in D&D even battle mages have a huge chance at failing with spells well wearing plate... That said, I agreee that clothe is a good draw back to mages and I'll also say shamans are so cheaters (That's why i loves 'em!) when it comes to stuff like this :P

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I'd also add that with greater armor, more spells sizzle in D&D, a mage -can- wear plate but it makes him/her weaker spell fail wise.

The point of casters not wearing metal or leather is A) for them to remain mobile and B) for them to avoid spell failure chance. So it's quite simple logic. The more metal and leather you incorporate, the slower you are and the higher your chance of spell failure.

That's what i said but more complicated >.<

Sooo what about this? You can apply it on anything, from cloth to plate.

(10-17-2012, 10:48 PM)Sorum Wrote: [ -> ]Sooo what about this? You can apply it on anything, from cloth to plate.

One step ahead, Sorum.

But yes, that. You don't need armor to protect your vital areas, You can use other things like wrap leather or even cloth around the areas you wish to protect.