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In concept I couldn't agree more. The armor innovation is easily the most boring of the lot. At level 1 you get resistances to choose from, good start but I think we can do better. A few ideas I have are below. I'll leave balance talks and levels to others to think of.
*Reactive Armor: gain a reaction that causes your armor to sense danger and step away from it. After being hit by a melee strike, take a step.
*Sprung a Leak: upon being hit by a strike, the attacker must make a Reflex save or be temporarily blinded by grease and oil that gushes out of your armor innovation. Creatures can spend 1 action to wipe their eyes clear.
*Exposed Wires: when hit by an unarmed strike, the attacker takes your level of electricity damage. Attacker must make a basic Reflex save
*Projectile Deflector: +1 to AC vs ranged attacks
*Anti-Magic Core: +1 to all saves vs spells
I love the idea too but...the 16 str minimum kind of kills that conceptI love the idea of a scrawny dude in a suit of mech suit, but just adding resistances isn't very fun. What's the point in having high defenses if you can't keep enemies focused on you? I'd like to see innovations that give you features like the fighter or champion have to keep enemies engaged. Some examples:
- * Defensive Subroutines (Opportunity Attack / Shield Block / Shield Warden)
- - There are a lot of feats an effective defender needs, so it would be nice if a couple were bundled together (since we only get three innovations).
- * Integrated Tower Shield
- - More than just integrating it, it would be nice to get some bonus like getting a free hand or no penalty to speed. I kinda like the free hand- yes it's strong, but who else could do it besides someone who built the shield directly into their armor?
- * Antagonist Suppression System (Retributive Strike)
- - Strike an enemy that attacks an ally as a reaction.
- * Subharmonic Distortion Field
- - The area within five feat of you is difficulty terrain.
- - Something, something, using sound to mess with everyone's inner ear.
I think adding a new trait feature to the Armor Innovation like "Lightweight", for the Inventor could get around that since only he can use it anyway and we are already trying to add more defensive options to make this more unique, fun, and flavorful. The justification for it being lightweight can be up to the player, but could easily be something like a combination of a revolutionary crafting technique and a new composite material the Inventor created just for this armor, or by using/tapping into some kind of energy to lessen gravity or lightly magnetize the armor in some way that the ground repels it a little or something. It's a small add for a mad scientist.
I was thinking that aside from resistances, armor should also have other options. Crowd control is a no brainer, cementing the innovations role as a tank.
Other brainstorms - a temporary hp, shield like modification that grants an offensive boost, but once the temporary hp is gone the offensive boost is too (protects user while also gives incentive for enemies to attack the tank).
- an ability that allows ac (-10) to be the attack stat for a strike (maybe an area attack like the other level 18 feats?)
- remote control armor, just for cool factor, user loses their armor but can use the armor as a summoned creature basically?
- an armor lock style action, almost like taking the total defense action, then at the beginning of the inventors turn they do a super powerful area attack - possibly forcing enemies to run away or face the consequences
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If the Inventor offers Opportunity Attack as a 6th level feat like other martials, I think that would be fair. I definitely think that they should have Shield Block as a level 1 feature though.
Agreed with the general idea of Armor Artificers getting more "Defender" abilities. Another idea that I'll throw out is a super-charged fascination effect.
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Shield block at 1st level feels appropriate.
At the moment, 3.5 out of 20 classes gain shield block at 1st level; Champions, Druids, Fighters, and Warpriests.
I can see why Swashbucklers and Investigators didn't get Shield Block. I can see why the Magus didn't get Shield Block.
But it seems very fitting for the gear focused class which is expected to frontline (and even tank) with 8HP/level to get 1st level Shield Block.