mage armor shield for newbies

Rock

I made a new character on Origin, a female elf mage-scribe called Wiz Writer. As she trains Wrestling, I thought it would be useful to temporarily raise up Parry as well (maybe help build STR and DEX at same time). Now I realize that she can't hold the shield while casting heal.  Is there an easily available shield type that is inexpensive and has the Mage Armor property? Thinking a wooden shield would sort of be like leather armor, I thought it would work, but nope.

I remember the very old days, maybe 18 years ago, when new characters were given practice weapons. They were crappy for real fights, but for training with friends, their low damage was ideal. Ideally there would be a crappy shield serving the same purpose.

Lord_Nythrax

Spell Channeling is what you want. It can appear on any random looted shield or be imbued.

Sable

Another option is to engage a carpenter to make you shields from frostwood.  Frostwood gives the spell channeling property.

Rock

Great info, guys.  Thank you. If I didn't need a scribe on this shard, I'd think about trading out Inscription for Parry.  It seems like it would be useful adjunct protection against weapons damage. I know that is what Wrestling is for, but Parry would help, would it not?

North_LS

parry would definitely help and is a very popular skill for mages, the downside is with lower than 80 dex, parry rate drops significantly. the result is it can be tough to balance stats on a parry mage so you have sufficient dex, hp, and mana. it's certainly doable, but you'll need to rely on equipment buffs a lot, and may even need to resort to greater str and agil pots.