Okay, so I'm running around with my destro mage, finding all this awesome heavy armor and going, "ah, can't wear that, I'll have to sell it. I'm a mage, I can't wear steel armor."

BUT -

I don't actually see any detriment in the actual game when I DO equip some heavy (iron / steel etc) armor.

SO -

Can a magic-focused character use light / heavy armor with no penalty, or what? Should I buckle up some Orcish plate and become a walking flame tank?

I have the 696-page strategy guide, the game manual, and the wiki, and I couldn't really find any info about this. (Which probably means there is no penalty, but I'd like to be sure before I think about putting perks into a skill.)

In Oblivion (and maybe previous titles?) your spells would be reduced in power the more armor you had on, giving you an incentive to wear a dress instead. If there is no such restriction in Skyrim, imma get heavy...

Thanks!

tl;dr - can I wear armor and still cast spells just the same?

Yes. And since in combat magicka regen is negligible you won't miss the robes in the least. Just enchant for magic cost reduction and you're all set.

From what I can tell, the only negative effect is that it slows you down, weighs a lot (requiring either speccing into Stamina or Heavy Armor to improve carry weight) and you can't get the benefit of the powerful alteration perks for the Oak/Iron/Stoneflesh spells while wearing armor.

There are things called ..... Battle Mages. They wear armor.
Also a thing in Skyrim.... and is important to remember...... can wear what you want. Go where you want. Play how you want.
No penalties included.


(About the only 'penalty' would be any Sneak ability you might want... is not going to be as good as Cloth or Leather.)

Mages really don't work as they ought to.

Wearing robes alone just makes it harder and provides no worthwhile bonus as it should.

Have to hope Bethesda patch it so that mage gameplay isn't so broken, although if they thought it was ok to release as it is then I doubt they will patch it because they don't view it as a problem.

I liked when there was a penalty to wearing heavy armor. You could still do it but you had to spec a different way.

So significant casting cost reduction and large magicka regen bonsues are "not worthwhile"?

From what I can tell, this is the only detriment. But then, if you have decided to wear heavy armor and thus take care of defense that way you don't particularly need alteration's magic armor. The magicka regeneration bonus on robes helps quite a bit though. I have two-fifty percent magicka regeneration and one-hundred of that is from my robes; if I take them off, there's a noticeable difference on how effective I can be with my spells.

Thanks for the replies, all. I might try flame tank, then...

I believe armor can be enchanted with the "destruction and magicka regen" effect... I learned it from disenchanting a low-level robe I had. Haven't confirmed yet. (I know I can't put it on rings / necklaces, I tried!)

BTW, there is a stone you can use (one of the blessing stones) that adds 100 to your carry weight and completely removes movement penalties from armor (though not sneak penalties).

As a bonus question -

Can I only wear one ring?? I tried equipping two, and it kept switching them instead...

yes to both questions.

The only "penalty" to heavy armor is that it makes a lot of noise.

So if you're trying to be sneaky, its going to be a lot harder.

Yes, you CAN get those effects while wearing armor. And it's more than likely due to another coding error. All you need to do is cast those spells without any armor on and then put your armor back on and the effect of Mage Armor 3 stacks...

Once you get the Dragonskin spell though it's a moot point since the reduction cap is 80% no matter what your AR is.

Not really since you can just enchant excellent armor with those effects pretty easily.

If you're a high investment enchanter, sure. Others may want to put those points elsewhere.

Cost reduction is a must if you plan on actually casting things in combat. Magicka regen is for abusing broken mechanics to skill things up to 100 in an hour. Enchanting/Smithing are the most important skill trees for EVERYONE as you can ensure you hit 80% physical damage reduction cap and still have whatever magic enchantments you want on armor(cost reduction for example). Although to be perfectly honest unless you have some aesthetic attachment to destruction just don't be a mage... it's so horribly bad compared to melee/archery it's not even funny. 150 damage nukes vs 2k damage non-sneak 1h sword swings. Bethesda trolling Mages . Granted conjuration is pretty good once you get twin souls.

If enough people see it as a problem, mods will be released "fixing" any problems. And Todd specifically said that they will look into making some of the most popular mods into DLC content for console users, since Microsoft said no to allowing players to mod the console game. So we can hope that mage/magic overhaul will be implemented as a console DLC at some point in the future.

When the cost of spells when wearing cloth is still very high, and the in-battle regen rate of magika whilst wearing cloth is almost zero, it makes very little difference. Certainly not enough to justify having zero armour.

Well, that makes me sad.

I'm currently level 16 or so, and Destruction is MUCH more powerful than any sword I've found. Two-handed Firebolt with "Impact" for the stagger effect takes care of most baddies before they ever get close. I just learned Fireball but can't quite unlock the Adept perk yet (think I'm one point away). So far, it's much more effective than anything else I've tried. But I assume you're talking about higher levels...?

The swords I've found do like 11 damage. Where is this 2k damage sword, exactly? I want it...

It comes from a combination of things:

1) With smithing, you can make much more powerful swords

2) With weapon skill points and perks, your weapon damage goes up considerably

3) With enchanting, you can further boost your weapon damage

4) With alchemy potions, you can further boost your weapon damage

5) With "finishing moves", you can insta-kill enemies that still have a significant fraction of their health left, so that's like a giant dps spike right there.

6) Oops, almost forgot stamina-driven power attacks which boost your damage up too.