No dresses allowed!

[Fappy]

Mages can wear armor in Elder Scrolls games XP

Don't forget the DnD concept of "Arcane Spell Failure" and the idea that armor may restrict a mages ability to actively cast somatic based spells due to the bulk of gauntlets and inability to move your joints a natural fashion. This, of course, depends on the type of armor and you could easily just throw on a breast plate and Dr. Strange that shit all day long.

 

[PurplePlatypus]

Isn?t it just there to balance things because typically mages end up pretty powerful in battles?

 

[ctuncks]

This is one of the reasons I like the system that Whitewolf uses for their games. If you wanna be an armoured mage you can be, it won't even (generally) effect your castings. What it will effect is everything else. In order to wear armour, especially heavier armour you need a minimum str score, if your increasing your strength it means that you're negelecting something else.