Wood and metal confusion

[Dragonhearthx]

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?

[breithauptclan]

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.

[Easl]

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.

[Dragonhearthx]

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.