Tenser's Transformation is a rather unique, gish-y spell that lets wizards toss their spellbooks aside and take up arms like their Fighter counterparts.
One aspect of this spell that disappoints me is its interaction with armor; specifically, Heavy Armor.
Tenser's Transformation, among other things, gives proficiency with all things martial, and lasts 10 minutes:
You have proficiency with all armor, shields, simple weapons, and martial weapons.
This is great and all, until you realize that all armor takes time to don:
- Light Armor – 1 minute
- Medium Armor – 5 minutes
- Heavy Armor – 10 minutes
Wizards are naturally proficient in none of these. This means they cannot cast spells with the armor on, which creates the conundrum of being unable to start this spell with the appropriate armor on, and being unable to put on the best armor without the spell running out or being generally combat inviable.
To get even more meta, consider these next points:
- Tenser's Transformation takes 1 action to cast, which implies that this is a start of combat spell. However, it would take 10 combat rounds to don the weakest form of armor, Light, which is unacceptable for a real combat situation – most combats are over in 3-4 rounds.
- A Wizard will generally not have a fantastic Dexterity stat, and thus will not benefit from taking the time to don Light or Medium armor.
- Mage Armor, (a 1st level spell), would beat most Light and Medium options for a Wizard wanting to don armor with this spell – this makes the armor portion of this spell even more useless.
- This makes Heavy Armor the most obvious choice for this spell, but it would take your entire time to don the armor. This leads to the comical situation of the Wizard casting Tenser's, slowly putting on his heavy armor, having the spell end, and then being forced to doff it because he's unable to cast spells now. Hilarious.
Without multiclassing, using Feats, or using magic items like Cast-Off armor, is there any way for a Vanilla Wizard to start a fight with Tenser's Transformation and Heavy Armor?
Best Answer
Glyph of Warding
This assumes the Wizard is the big bad, or at least is on home turf.
Cast glyph of warding at 7th level, storing Tenser's transformation, with some trigger that the wizard alone can do, on your castle floor.
Wear plate armor and sit on your throne like the king you are.
When the invaders come in, stomp on the glyph and say "you're toast, interlopers".
This is very niche, as glyph of warding cannot move, but it's one of the options.