Wizards in power armors, a bit too much ?

[amelio]

Hello Folks !

I have a question for you.

I am playing in a setting where magic and science (cyber-punk level science) cohexists. You can say that in some extent it's quite similar to a game like Shadowrun.

My players will soon have the meaning to make/receive/buy some new high tech armor, for some players it will be close to a dreadnought and for others it will be more like a bulkier iron man armor.

My players are all mages and it might be a game breaker to see them running in full power armor and also to launch fire balls, control the wins and so on. There is no reason for me to forbid the wear of those armors for them in our setting. So my question is the following, how can i do to get my players out of their shells and not constantly in them ?

For now i have a solid lead : the neural interface prevents them from being able to focus so much into magic and they can just use a fraction of their magical power while plugged in them.

Do you have any cool leads ?

Thanks for your attention and excuse me for the bad spelling.

[Admin Dirk]

Some of these wild SWAGs would depend on how magic works in your world, of course, but...

Too much Iron drains power, so the longer they spend in the armor, the more spell (slots/levels/powers) they lose. Grounding/draining, perhaps.

Some of their magic has to go to fueling the armor

The electrical interference idea is possible too.. so much juice running through the circuits, it interferes with magic juice.

Fine motor control... magic depends on very precise finger movements, and they can't all be done in bulky armor.

difficulty in finessing the material components, perhaps? Again, dexterity, fine touch, maybe they can't get that feather or bit of bitumen out.

Alternately, unless they are the first to have these, one can assume that there's already answers out there... special mage in armor hunters, that can deal with them. To make it really infuriating, make these hunters Monks, and they can strike weak points and lock armor... knee joints get smashed, and now you can't move. Elbow strike, and now you can't straighten that arm to point. Neck joint jammed, now you can't turn to see.

General fatigue: just being in the suits is hard, and so they need endurance checks after a couple hours. Concentration in order to cast, after being fatigued from clomping around all day.

Magnets with silence spells. Throw them at the mages, they stick, and voila... many spells are gone. Also, magnet with slow spells, etc..

[zevonian]

Interesting first post on site you have. Care to mention what system you're running this game under? Perhaps there's rules and mechanics already written that cover casters wearing armor.

[orcbane]

Without knowledge of the RPG system you're using, there's really no way to know.

In D&D 3.5, there was spell failure for Wizards wearing armor. Every time they cast a spell wearing the armor, they'd have to roll a d% to see if their spell failed due to the armor's hindrance.

Or you could looks at the Rifts RPG, where if you chose to go with any build other than the Glitter Boy, you messed up. Maybe their power armor is so powerful that using spells is now effectively junk-casting. You can also see this play out a bit in Cthulhutech.