Topic: Channelers casting in armor

[providence13]

A player took over for another who had to drop. Picked up the Ranger character and is very disappointed about casting in armor.
His last character was a Monk so he never had to worry about these rules.
The last GM had easy to learn, streamlined house rules that allowed Channelers or those in magic armor to discount casting in armor penalties. Trying to use as much RAW as possible, my "new way" upsets the group, a bit.

My points:
1. This is pretty biased against Essence casters; but it might balance out at later levels.
2. Their way totally negates the Transcend Armor skill and therefore one of the Paladin's +20 to a skill. Where else is that going to go?
3. Once you acquire that magic +5 armor, no penalties for Channelers (only), because they need help in combat.? I think this is an old carry-over from D&D Clerics.

Anyone else used this house rule or heard about it? I'm not going to start. Just wondered about its prevalence in other GM's games. They can pick up TA, Restricted. IMO, it won't take long to off-set penalties.

[markc]

  No I use it as written for TA and armor in general but as a house rule I do allow Rangers to be from any realm of magic. So maybe that will help out if you allow him to switch his realm.
  Do you allow players to buy Talent Points? If so you can let them buy skill talents to provide bonuses to Transcend Armor (TA). Or some have allowed for talents that can change the skill type from R to standard to E to O.   
 
MDC

[Ecthelion]

I also think that such a special house rule for Channeling users is not necessary. Using metal armor as a Channeling user is possible with the standard RMSS/RMFRP rules, but it costs some DPs and is not for free.

[Ravenheart]

You could also solve the problem in role-playing terms, like stating that religion's sacred armors negates any penalties with spell casting. Or you could give your custom made expensive armor to your religion's priest so that he can cast some purification/enhancement or so, that it could fully or partially dismiss any spell casting penalties. Just going and buying some pagan made armor from god-know what blackmarket place would give the penalties (or even more) written in SCM tables.

As for rangers, that somehow channel the nature's own magic, or power of creation (whatever it is in your campaign) without specific religion, this could mean that the armors made by ranger or his ilk dismiss these penalties. I guess there are some very hard trees out there that could, properly enchanted and crafted of course, provide AT 20 armors for example. It's a magical world, after all.

Just my two iron pieces.

[providence13]

I do allow Rangers to be from any realm of magic
I'm thinking about it, but it's an established character that a new guy took over.
We could tweak his Talents/Flaws a bit.
Putting Ranks in TA might be easier.

religion's sacred armors negates any penalties with spell casting.
 Or perhaps while casting spells from certain Lists/1 Base List... The Power may favor certain Lists or armor types. Holy Symbol, +1/Rank is an idea for now. With Vengeance, it could be just vs "enemies".

[Ravenheart]

providence13: Or perhaps while casting spells from certain Lists/1 Base List...

Yes, of course. It's a question of power-level now.

[providence13]

did you mean Power as in Lesser-Greater Diety or power-creep?

I guess I'm thinking of Specialty Mages and Priests from D&D 2ed.
They could cast an extra spell/lvl from their area of specialty. In RM this would translate as PP. That doesn't work well for me so I'm thinking (thank you Ravenheart) that lowering penalties/bonus for casting only a specific List might be close.
I've got a Greyhawk RMFRP campaign and this might work out for the theme.