Why can't wizards wear heavy armor?

It can't be THAT heavy.

>play warrior
>don't have the intelligence to wield a stick

muh arcane study

Balance issues

Heavy armor limits their hands, which makes for lousy spellcasting. Imagine Harry Potter's "swish and flick", but when you suddenly have a weight tied to your arm. Your motion will be hindered, and you won't get that sweet Hermione pussy.

UMMM DID YOU ACTUALLY KNOW THAT HEAVY ARMOR IS NOT HEAVY AT ALL I SAW AN LINDYBEIGE VIDEO ON IT ONCE I AM THE EXPERT HERE

what about heavily armored t-shirts

they can, fantasy is fantastical and not restricted to Tolkien cliches.

Metal restricts magical ability unless it's silver or platinum. Both are generally extremely expensive and poor have poor durability, a wizard of such high stature who could afford such armor would be magically skilled enough to not need it.
Magically reinforced talismans of protection would be far more valuable to wizards, especially because they know the true dangers lurk outside of the physical realm which no amount of armor can protect from.

The problem with answers like this, and likely what will be nearly answer ITT is that it only answers the question under a specific realm of fantasy.
Some universes might not allow wizards to use heavy armour because the metal would negatively interact with the magic, others because it would restrict the maneuverability needed for spellcasting and plenty of other reason too for different universes.
Yet practically every fantasy universe I know of doesn't allow wizards to wear strong armour yet have no physical requirements, there aren't any known interactions between materials used for armour and magic, etc.

Holy shit my uncle had this poster hanging up in his basement for years, fuck yeah.

In SaGa Frontier 2, all pieces of equipment that a person has aid in the channeling of natural energies to cast spells, everything you got on you is basically a spell conduit.
However, in that world, Steel barely conducts magic at all. It really dampens your casting ability if you have it on.
In fact, access to magic is favored by most people to the point when even swordsmen often fight with ceramic or obsidian edged weapons.

Then one guy who was born without the ability to use magic decides to raise a steel army.
It's a pretty cool game.

>playing dark souls
>make 60 INT build
>with havel set
eh

you need to read more then.

They can if they're TREE wizards

literally every FF character with an heavy armor can use magic

There are a lot of series where mages wear heavy armor.

Depends on the setting mostly. Most of the time it's just because the wizard can magically protect himself without needing to bother putting on armor, or there could be a better, more lore friendly answer like the metal disrupting magic flow, or the armor hindering their movement. However all those are just excuses because people want to enforce the MUH ROBE AND WIZARD HAT stereotype.

I'm kind of glad this is how most games are because I don't want faggot wizards looking cool as well as being easier to play in 90% of the games.

Because DnD didn't want to have mages be able to do everything, originally, so they gave a small limitation of armor. And even in that setting they could, but it would just add arcane failure chances, something like 75% for full plate. Most modern settings decided to copy this, which was originally only copied because of Gandalf.

Main reason is it made it easy to figure who was a mage and who wasn't: "Geek the mage first!" "Which one is the mage?" "The one in the back in the dress."

Worse than that, steel naturally repelled magic. Gustav's steel knights tore through the enemy that was literally using sticks because of this.

>Because DnD didn't want to have mages be able to do everything, originally
and then 5e came in and all you have to do is play a Dwarf and you can be wearing full plate while casting spells witn no problemo

white/black/time/ect mages get robes for armor

They can just cast magical barrier that deflect both physical and magical attribute, there's no need to bother with heavy armory.

And in 2nd the fighter had his henchmen do it, but I suspect that's a rule few people even remember because muh Baldur's Gate.

Technically 3rd and 4th did allow everyone to walk around blasting spells too, but it involved checks. Also, in 4th and 5th, what you're thinking of is rituals which isn't the same as running around chucking fireballs.

>cast lightning bolt
>fucking die

Not really, straight from the PHB of 5e
And dwarves start proficient in heavy armor for free
8 Int dwarf wizard is a viable build

Usually for balancing purposes and to fit into pre-existing and well established archetypes.

>sit in a room all day reading books like a dork
>get old and past physical apex
>wonder why you can't put on the same shit a warrior from the northlands can, who lifted weights and trained from the age of 4

Fair enough: 5th edition is retarded. There's a reason the group I was in switched over to using IK or WFRP.

>cast firebolt
>robes dont catch fire

To make them balanced. Wizards are supposed to be frail but powerful. If they weren't frail, then they'd be unstoppable bar any monster which is a dedicated mage killer.

They actually can, but because they are cowardly faggots they like to stand at the back behind other people,who are brace enough to go toe to toe. Hence the fuckers lie and pretend they can't cast in armour and need protection. Or the combination of steel and electric bolt spells is bad, I dunno... fuck off!

Yeah, I've only DM'd some shit for my friends in 5e, before I told them to either figure out scheduling or fuck off because I'm tired of being told 10 minutes before gametime that someone won't be there
4 months later they're still inside of that zombie infested village, and I'm enjoying Only War and Dark Heresy with people that actually are fun to play with

Who says dwarves can't be wizards if they want to?

I just wish there was a dwarf specific rune wizard class, instead of generic wizard.
Oh well, there's always homebrew

Go check out the LotR RPG system.

there is plate looking armor in xiv for caster classes

First I'd need a group to play with, and to actually want to play LOTR stuff, never been to keen on that universe
Both of mine play 40k stuff with me right now

>not casting while naked

Armourlets! When will they learn?

>wear metal armor
>conjure a lightning bolt

in most fantasy settings, metal hinder magic
in most of them wizzards are weak as hell due to staying up all night reading books
in some other it's a matter of style

Much good it did to them in that one trap filled dungeon where the suicidal lemmings that they were, were constantly running into aforementioned traps!

Full-body metal armor is actually good protection against electricity, since it conducts electricity better than your flesh does

That's why power line workers wear copper mesh suits

Witchers are super mutants, they don't count