From my own play experience, when I run a mage, I always go Light Armor. It gives easy protection and access to the stamina perk. Considering how easy enchantment is, the initial mage enchantments for cloth really don't matter. For others going mostly mage, do you prefer armor or clothes?

Depends on whether you're playing a pure mage or a battlemage. Pure mage wears only cloth and no conventional weapons, battlemage wears armour and uses any weapons together with magic.

Scaled/Studded Armor + Mage Armor for my Nord

I do it for style.

I play as a sorceress. My twist on a mage cause I do not use alteration.

Red vampire armor

Black vampire cloth gloves

Black vampire cloth boots

Circlet and ring

No hood?

Oops. Sorry. SOmetime I wear a circlet, or sometimes the vampire black cloth hood. Somethimes I switch and instead of using the red vampire armor, I use the vampire cloth robes.

Did you know you can wear a hood and a circlet at the same time?

I've always said that mages needed a wider range of armour.

I think they need a far wider range of robes as there really is very little to choose from. A battlemage of course has access to every available armour in the game.

I always start off with robes then switch to light armor once my enchanting level is high enough. Once I had an Altmer that wore a college hood with Daedric armor. Looked totally bad ass. Probably do an all robe mage next time.

No I did not. Thanks Craig for the info. I will try it later when I go to play.

That only applies to a few items, and it's a bug.

Didn't know it was a bug, doesn't surprise me however. I've used it with a few items and never realised.

Depends on the mage. I like to wear clothing on some, and my Battlemages have worn light/heavy armor.

The Archmages' Robes are one of the items that are affected. A few other robes and some Falmer helmets are also affected. The Wiki has a list somewhere.

I didn't know it was a bug myself until I started using the unofficial patches (I'm on PC). I wore circlets with the Archmage's Robes all the time with that character, installed the patch, went to equip a circlet with the robes on, and suddenly I was standing butt nekkid in the middle of Whiterun except for that circlet. That's when I found out.

I'm trying out heavy armor on my battlemage and i like it. You FLY around in robes though. Light armor is the middle and not as much fun imo.

impossibru.

I think unless you're playing as a pure robe/cloth only mage, its all just personal preference and what appeals to you visually. I mean, when I first started playing I was always looking for the strongest weapons and armor. Now its all about what looks good and fits my character's RP.

Assuming the poll is about pure mages: Cloth with alteration mage armor spells.

Would only use armor with a battlemage or spellsword.

I use Light armor on my pure mages usually and Heavy on my sorcerers and battlemages. Robes/cloths are completely useless and provide absolutely no advantages, even for a mage. I am no min/maxer, but i cannot STAND wearing something so completely useless. I am lucky and found a mod that actually creates Light armor versions of most clothing in the game, including robes.

Surely a "pure mage" doesn't in fact wear any armour, light or otherwise. I think the only armour acceptable for a pure mage is bound.

I would've been content with Greybeard robes as they look perfect for the mage who wanders the cold climate of Skyrim.

For me it depends on the role play and what looks good on my character.

I have a few robe wearing mages, some heavy armor mages, a robe wearing heavy shield mage, but my favorite is the archmage robes with heavy armor gauntlets and boots. Again, it really just depends on my build and what looks best to me.

Not to sidetrack the thread, but I always wondered what the downside was of a mage wearing armor. I always went robes since I thought some spells couldn't be cast in armor (this may be because I played the older games). What if any downside is there for a mage to wear armor? I just assumed they shouldn't.

There is none, there is literally no advantage for a mage to use robes or clothing at all.

There really isn't a downside unless you choose the Mage Armor perks in the Alteration tree. You lose the armor bonuses those perks give to the flesh spells if you're wearing any armor (but you can still use a shield without affecting the bonuses).

The only other effect is on carry weight. Mages tend to be low stamina builds, so they don't have a lot of carry weight capacity. Robes weigh a lot less than armor (unless you take those perks in the armor trees).