Is there any reason to choose metal carapace over hardwood armor ?
I know these are different elements but metal carapace just seems to be an inferior choice to hardwood armor. They have the same AC and Stat requirements and neither get armor specialization, but one breaks on a critical hit while the other does not.
The only reason I could find is that you get 2 more hardness from shield block. But is it worth losing your armor when you get critted?
Well, the question is assuming that your particular Kineticist character has both Wood and Metal elements.
So one reason to choose one of these armors over the other is due to what other abilities that you are getting from Wood or Metal channeling if you are wanting to choose only one of those elements.
But as far as the whiteroom comparison of only these two feats, Hardwood Armor does seem noticeably better because of that lack of being destroyed when crit.
It isn't a completely terrible downside of the armor though, since it is only one action to bring your armor back in place - or two if your Kinetic Gate is down at the beginning of your turn.
The edge that Metal Carapace has is that the shield has better Hardness and HP so it will protect you a bit more and break less frequently. That one action re-cast cost that Metal Carapace has when crit is also going to happen if the Hardwood Armor user wants to continue having a shield after blocking a crit.
breithauptclan wrote: Well, the question is assuming that your particular Kineticist character has both Wood and Metal elements.
So one reason to choose one of these armors over the other is due to what other abilities that you are getting from Wood or Metal channeling if you are wanting to choose only one of those elements.
Yeah this seems to be a case of giving multiple elements a similar capabiility so that kineticists of either can access it. Nothing wrong with that. Obviously we don't want the elements to be blandly similar, but a little overlap is fine. Wood and Water both have healing, one could ask the same question (why would anyone take d4+1 Fresh Produce over d8 Ocean's Balm?), but the answer would be the same: wood healing is there (a) beacuse healing thematically fits with that element and (b) not everyone who goes wood also takes water.
breithauptclan wrote: But as far as the whiteroom comparison of only these two feats, Hardwood Armor does seem noticeably better because of that lack of being destroyed when crit. oh yeah this is completely a whiteroom thing. Just comparing all 3 armor sets.
I'm sorry for necroing this thread but there are a couple of other considerations with the traits of the two armors.
Metal carapace in the plate group with the noisy trait. The important part, in relation to combat, is that it gets a resistance to slashing damage.
Hardwood armor is in the wood group, meaning a critical hit with unarmed strike or non-reach melee results in the attacker taking piercing damage.
I think those factors would adjust a lot of people's thoughts on which is better.
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BranTregare wrote: I'm sorry for necroing this thread but there are a couple of other considerations with the traits of the two armors.
Metal carapace in the plate group with the noisy trait. The important part, in relation to combat, is that it gets a resistance to slashing damage.
Hardwood armor is in the wood group, meaning a critical hit with unarmed strike or non-reach melee results in the attacker taking piercing damage.
I think those factors would adjust a lot of people's thoughts on which is better.
Not as much as you might assume. Yes you can probably get armor specialization to apply to those armors, but you'll have to go out of your way to do it; it's not baked into the feats, or the kineticist's progression.
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Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
To be fair, as level 1 feats, the armor impulses make nice fairly early (4th level) pickups with the multiclass kineticist archetype (Through the Gate). Also, the kineticist can take the sentinel archetype to gain the armor specialization effects with Armor Specialist.
Armor in Earth with Mighty Bulwark makes a pretty good "tank."
Dragonchess Player wrote: To be fair, as level 1 feats, the armor impulses make nice fairly early (4th level) pickups with the multiclass kineticist archetype (Through the Gate). Also, the kineticist can take the sentinel archetype to gain the armor specialization effects with Armor Specialist.
Armor in Earth with Mighty Bulwark makes a pretty good "tank."
Oh I agree, I was just pointing out that those builds aren't likely to be especially common; it's something to keep in mind, but I dunno how significant a portion of kineticist players will be considering it.
Sentinel is something I'd definitely point out to anyone interested in replicating the PF1E kinetic knight, though.
Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Being fair again, PF2 has much more consideration about keeping all of the options within a certain range of "potential balance" than 3.x/PF1. Even for choices that "aren't likely to be especially common" (at least until the hard-core optimizers discover an "exploit" to make a certain "build" mechanically superior to other options; and then everyone starts using it).
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