This is mostly a redo of post I made on the gameplay board a while ago, modified to address an issue zulgh raised re: offhand-wandiness

Here's what I hope my idea does:
Gives mages some more baseline DR and lowers their top-end damage reduction potential, allowing them to be solo-viable without resorting to extremely conservative, while keeping their average power level about the same. The system I am proposing preserves a significant benefit to exploring, while reducing mandatory tedium. It retains the ability to ambush mages out gathering preps in predictable locations. It also adds some level of tactical choice in deciding how to prep.

At level 15 casters learn the spell "create magic armor wand." This creates a one-charge, limitted wand that contains the spell "magic armor." The magic armor spell stacks up to three times, with increasing damage resistance per application, but decreasing duration. There is also a timer which prevents the mage from creating beginning a new stack. Here are some sample numbers to illustrate the idea. The numbers I'm using are intended to be mostly in line with a/b/s, but slightly weaker all around.

Stack TotalDR% Duration Timeout
1 10 12 24
2 20 10 36
3 35 8 54

There are two types of spell components (I'll call them gem and book for now) that can be used to increase the damage reduction, and they are interchangeable for this purpose. Using one adds 2 per cast and using both adds 5.

Stack One component Both components
1 12 15
2 24 30
3 41 50

The syntax for using both would be something like
cast 'create magic armor wand' gem book

Both are 3-charge, limitted wands. If cast as part of the spell a charge is consumed but the spell contained does not get cast. The gem contains the spell "Extend" which increases the duration by 1 tick if no gems were used in the last cast and is incompatible with the gem's DR-enhancing effect. The book contains the spell "Recover" which reduces the no-cast timer by half (to a minimum of 1).

The gem is available for sale at 2-4g or so in a few very magicy places (High Tower of Sorcery, Consortium, Thar-Acacia, etc), they may vary cosmetically but are all the same. The book is found in the current sleek barrier locations and assigned per-character in the same way.

Details:
Sanc, barrier are incompatible with magic armor > 20% dr
aura, shield are incompatible with magic armor > 25% dr
Casting cost is nominal (20-40)
Character under level 35 are limitted to 2 stacks and those under level 20 are limitted to 1 application.
sleeks no longer exist
Timeout is halved on death
Item limits are to prevent container storage only.