Armour encumbers movement
 

My level 31 gnome mage just found Green dragon scale mail of Craftsmanship [20, +25] to replace his Blue Dragon scale mail (-2) [12, +10]. It's an obvious upgrade on paper but I now get an 'armour encumbers your movement' message.

I did a quick control C and tried various combinations and couldn't see anything change on my stats - except AC of course.

Any advice? Also, I'm not engaging in any sort of melee combat. It's all fast cast, haste and spells at this stage.

That message means your total armour weight has gone above the class maximum. The only effect is your mana is reduced, more the more over weight you are. So that's one of the things to consider when choosing what to wear (along with armor class, resistances and so on).

Thanks Nick, I hadn't even noticed my SP changing. It's marginal and I'm already packing 170 SP so I think I'll leave it on.

Doesn't Craftmanship ego make the body armor any lighter to wear from the spellcasting point of view? If it doesn't, it should.

It doesn't appear to affect the weight of the item, only the AC bonuses. Mages still get SP punishments for Craftsmanship items.

Yeah craftsmanship is a few pounds lighter. But Green DSM has a higher base weight (and AC) than blue. The difference will be pretty marginal tho, as the original poster discovered.

Craftsmanship also lowers the hit to your to-hit