Enhanced Defense 5e
Item: A suit of armor or a shield
A creature gains a +1 bonus to Armor Class while wearing (armor) or wielding (shield) the infused item.
The bonus increases to +2 when you reach 10th level in this class.
Review by Prince Phantom
For an infusion as simple as +1 AC to a suit of armor or shield is, there sure is a whole lot to talk about with this one. Obviously this is a way to stack your AC to the stratosphere, a very common strategy among Artificers and Armorers specifically. I find that you are usually better served to put this on a shield rather than armor, as there are far more infusions for armor than their are for shields (5 to 2, respectively), most Artificers have no problem holding a shield, and you can more easily hand it off to a friend if needed for some reason.
You will find that this becomes outclassed by Repulsion Shield once we reach 6th level, as that provides the AC bump and an additional effect, but at 10th level we have a decision to make. This infusion starts giving a +2 to AC at 10th level, while Repulsion Shield has no such scaling. Personally, I find that at higher levels the additional AC will be more useful as monster’s hit chance continues to scale, but if the Repulsion Shield ability is crucial to your strategy, feel free to stick with that.
Finally, we get to the main question. Is a +1 to AC worth one of our very limited infusions at low levels? Honestly for most Artificers, no, but it’s still nice to have, and it’s great that it doesn’t require attunement. Where this really shines is on the melee Armorer, which seeks to have enemies target it instead of other player characters through use of a quasi-taunt mechanic. That build is desperately seeking every point of AC it can get its hands on as it tanks through AC rather than HP like a Barbarian would.
This makes this a very good pickup for melee Armorers from 1-5 level, before being swapped out for Repulsion Shield at levels 6-9, then going back to Enhanced Defense for the addition AC at level 10. For everyone else, this is a good filler pick akin to the Defense Fighting Style, in that it’s great if you don’t have another option that speaks to you, but that’s probably not going to be the case as there are some very good infusions for all Artificers regardless of build, even at low levels.
Final Rating: 2/5
Final Rating for Melee Armorers: 5/5
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