Does wearing armor while also wearing robes negate the effects of spells like oakflesh? How effective is a build that combines both robes and heavy armor?

I am not sure, but if I remember correctly, in order for the flesh spells to work properly, you can only wear armor that has no armor rating. Wear armor with an armor rating negates the effect one is trying to receive when using a flesh spell. The reason is because the flesh spells give you an armor rating, and with the perks in the alteration tree, it improves on the armor rating given by the flesh spells. Hope that made sense.

Those spells work fine in their basic form with or without armor, and boost your armor rating. The perks to make those spells more effective do not work if wearing any armor except a shield. So if you want to wear armor and use those spells, then simply don't bother with the mage armor perks.

I think they stack. Combine? as in armor and hood etc? It should work. Most people I know just enchant their heavy armor so it has the same effects as the robes.

Something like what the Vigilants of Stendarr wear.

The remaining question is why you'd wear a robe instead of a cuirass. Since the other pieces of armor negate the mage armor perk, there's no longer a reason to use the robe. It makes more sense to either use all armor, or all non-armor. It's already been mentioned that you can put the same enchantments on the armor, so why lose the defence?

According to the in-game text, it works like this:

The spells Oakflesh, Stoneflesh, Ironflesh and Ebonyflesh add to your armor rating by the amount indicated for the spell. Oakflesh adds 40 armor, for example. That 40 AR stacks with any physical armor you may be wearing. So if you're wearing a full suit of armor that gives you, say, 100 AR, you're going to get 140 from casting Oakflesh.

The "Mage Armor" perks in the Alteration skill tree increase the effectiveness of those "-flesh" spells - but only if you're wearing no armor.

So as Acadian said, just skip those perks if you're going to wear gear like the Vigilants.

The other half of your question is an interesting one. How effective is it to mix armor with robes and use those -flesh spells? I'm not sure, but look at it like this:

The highest AR you can get from -flesh spells alone is 300 (Ebonyflesh, with 3/3 Mage Armor). Put on a pair of gauntlets and a pair of boots to look like the Vigilants, and you lose the 200 AR boost provided by your Mage Armor perks. So that means those gauntlets and boots would need to have a combined AR of over 200 in order to be 'worth it' to avoid taking Mage Armor perks in the first place. My guess is, it would take some heavy investment in armor perks and probably Smithing in order for you to make up the difference.

Miraak wears robes, and armor.

Take him as an example.

This, something to keep in mind though is that the physical armor that you wear gives a rating that doesn't wear off after 60 seconds or so.

I suppose I could substitute the mage robes with vampire armor. They look similar enough.

To look magey and for the magic regen. In the vanilla game you cannot duplicate the magicka regen boost of a robe with the enchant skill because the the effect you get from disenchanting robes is borked. So, if you are going for regen rather than simple cost reduction it makes sence to wear the robes.



I think you can to get 200 AR from gauntlets and boots without any perks in an armor skill or smithing if you (1) wear higher tier armors and (2) have a fully perked enchant skill and are willing to do some fortified smithing. Throw alchemy and a helm or dragon priest mask into the mix and you can get way more than 200 AR without a cuirass.

Of course you need two perks in smithing to smith a dragon priest mask, but for regular self enchanted armor you don't need those two perks since you can smith the armor first and then enchant it.

Mages should not even wear armor to begin with, IMHO.

I've been thinking about making an evil mage with black robes and ebony gauntlets and boots. That would look awesome. Oh yeah, and a big black beard.

I used to think that way, having played AD&D back in the day. Oblivion was my first Elder Scrolls title, so that reinforced the no armor mage concept in my mind.

But then I went backwards in the series and played Morrowind, where there are no armor penalties, and some of the armor pieces, like the Daedric Tower Shield are the best for enchanting.

Then met Divayth Fry and was awed by his full suit of Daedric armor. Daedric armor is ungodly rare in Morrowind. There are only two full sets in the game and Fyr has one of them. The pieces of the other set are scattered across the game world.

Daedric armor is also ungodly heavy in Mortowind. You need a lot of strength (ie carry capacity) just to move around in it.

So seeing the infamous 4,000 year old wizard strutting around in a full suit of Daedric armor gave me a different perspective on whether mages should wear armor.

And look what happened to him!

Not very effective at all. I wouldn't bother with alteration magic. Just use light or heavy armor instead along with smithing. You won't regret it.

From a pure gameplay point of view I would probably agree. For RP purposes however, do what is needed. But if getting the most out of it is the goal I would say go full armor or no armor. Unless as said, for RP purposes, cause that overrides common sense.