Sentient Armor

Sentient Armor

The armour worn by a Vitaemancer is no inert collection of plates. Bound through the Ritual of Binding described on the Hellfire Forge and Sentient Equipment page, Sentient Armor breathes, learns, and grows alongside its wearer. Each piece begins equivalent to iron in its protection but carries 100 Upgrade Points that it spends as you teach it new skills.

The armour is alive, and it watches everything you do. Be deliberate in what you teach it. Hold sneak while examining a piece to see what it has learned so far.

Specialisation

The armour grows in many directions at once, but its capacity is finite. Trying to master everything yields mastery of nothing. Consider forging multiple chestplates, each trained for a specific purpose, such as a miner's set, a warrior's set, or an explorer's set. The Vitaemancer has devised Rituals to assist with focused training, and the Ritual of Sentient Evolution to imbue your armour with a greater capacity for growth. Stand upon the Master Ritual Stone while clad in Sentient Armor, and the circle pours its power into the symbiotic plates. The armour's potential expands beyond its former limits.

Upgrade Tomes

Upgrade Tomes are crystallised records of a particular skill, each carrying the experience needed to inscribe one or more levels of its upgrade onto a chestplate. They come from three places:

• Dungeon loot. Tomes are scattered through the loot tables of The Mines (ore chambers, the Smithy) and the Foreman's hoard.
• Sentient Extraction. Throw an already-trained piece of Sentient Armor onto the small zone above this ritual's Master Ritual Stone and it will extract every upgrade currently inscribed on the armor as a separate Tome, preserving the accumulated experience. The armor itself is left stripped but intact. See Rituals.
• Combining duplicates. Two tomes of the same upgrade can be merged at a vanilla crafting table to consolidate their experience.

Press [Use] while holding a tome to inscribe one level of that skill onto your worn chestplate, assuming sufficient Upgrade Points remain. Hold sneak and [Use] to inscribe as much as possible at once. The tome is consumed in the process, transferring its stored experience to the chestplate. If insufficient points remain, the tome applies what it can and retains the rest; unless less than one level's worth remains, in which case the tome crumbles to nothing.

Tomes are the key to deliberate specialisation; focus your training on the abilities that serve you best and discard the rest. Maintain separate chestplates for different purposes, each with its own set of tomes.

Training Bracelet

To impose order on the armour's undirected growth, the Vitaemancer wears the Training Bracelet, a focus inscribed in an Alchemy Array. With a copy of the relevant Tome in hand, you can set a level cap for any upgrade; once the armour reaches that limit it ceases training the skill. Only one bracelet is active at a time (priority: off-hand, Curios, main inventory, then add-ons). To allow all upgrades except one, set the bracelet to 'allow others' mode and cap the unwanted skill at level 0.

Upgrades

Every upgrade is trained by performing the matching activity while wearing the chestplate. Caps and trained-by hints from the in-game tomes are listed where the entry mentions them.

Upgrade	Effect
Body Builder	Anchored stance that resists being thrown; greatly bolsters vitality. Trained by eating food (max level 5).
Brilliance	Inscribe knowledge upon tomes and the armour crystallises into diamond-like hardness.
Charging Strike	Your momentum becomes a weapon; the faster you charge, the harder you strike.
Curios Sockets (Socketed)	The armour grows sockets to hold your vitaemantic trinkets.
Dwarven Might	The deeper you dig, the faster the armour drives your arms.
Elytra	Wings of living tissue unfurl from the chestplate; take to the sky.
Experienced	The armour draws deeper knowledge from each fallen foe.
Fierce Strike	Each blow teaches the armour to sharpen the next.
Gift of Ignis	The armour remembers the flame and learns to refuse it.
Gilded	A golden sheen earns the Piglins' grudging respect.
Healthy	Greatly increases the punishment your body can endure. Trained by restoring health, natural regeneration, potions, or vitaemantic healing (max level 10).
Pin Cushion	Every arrow absorbed teaches the armour to turn the next aside.
Poison Resistance	The armour learns to purge venom from your blood.
Quick Feet	The armour quickens your step with every mile traveled.
Repair	The armour knits its own wounds shut, slowly restoring worn equipment.
Soft Fall	The armour absorbs impact; the ground softens beneath you.
Strong Legs	The armour coils like a spring; launch yourself skyward.
Tough	Hardens against melee, explosions, and all close-range violence. Trained by taking non-projectile damage (max level 10).
Tough Palms	Calloused hands yield more Essentia Vitae with each sacrifice.

Downgrades

Every upgrade has a shadow. Downgrades are imposed by the Ritual of Sentient Downgrade (see Rituals) and exchange unwanted upgrade levels for a curse, freeing Upgrade Points to reinvest elsewhere.

Downgrade	Effect
Battle Hungry	The armour craves combat; starve it of violence, and it starves you.
Concrete Shoes	The armour drags you down; water becomes a grave.
Crippled Arm	The armour locks your off-hand; one arm must suffice.
Diseased	The armour festers, choking your body's ability to heal.
Dulled Blade	The armour bleeds your strength; every strike lands softer.
Leadened Pick	The armour drags at your arms; mining becomes a crawl.
Limp Leg	The armour hobbles your stride; each step heavier than the last.
Quenched	The armour seals your throat; no potion shall pass your lips.
Storm Trooper	The armour ruins your aim; every shot goes astray.

Caretaking

Sentient Equipment rivals Diamond in resilience and is repaired in an anvil with additional Binding Reagent (brewed in the Tabula Vitae). The armour is also highly receptive to enchantment. To strip all upgrades and recover their points, use the Tabula Rasa ritual.

See also: Hellfire Forge and Sentient Equipment (how the binding is performed), Sigils (the Training Bracelet that directs growth), Rituals (Sentient Evolution, Sentient Extraction, Tabula Rasa), Alchemy Arrays (where binding and bracelet are inscribed).