Animated Armor 5e: Stats and Guide for Players & DMs

Last Updated on November 6, 2023

What Is Animated Armor in DnD 5e?

Animated Armor is a CR1 construct that looks identical to a regular suit of armor when motionless. It attacks with a slam attack and has 60-foot blindsense.

The Hollow Man, The Empty Armor, The Armored Specter…

There are many such names for the concept of a suit of armor that leaps up and fights on its own, propelled by some mysterious arcane or mystical force. 

A Player’s Guide to Animated Armor

Suits of animated armor can be fairly common in low-level adventures. In later levels, you could expect to see large groups of them in a puppet-master situation.

In this next bit, we will talk about which locations would be likely to have animated armor, the tactics they use, and then how you can counter those tactics to avoid getting slammed to death.

Where Are You Likely To Encounter One?

The stat block says you are likely to find these constructs in urban environments. Most likely this means in castles and manors, both lived in and abandoned. 

In either case, these castles and manors will most likely be home to strong magic users or will carry leftover enchantments of bygone days. 

The animated armor will most likely be set up to guard a certain position, a certain object, or a certain person.

Animated Armor’s Tactics

Animated armor has a tendency to just stand around and wait, which, ironically, is the smartest thing it can do. 

It has the false appearance ability, which means it looks identical to a regular, nonmagical suit of armor set up on display somewhere.

There could be a hallway with 20 suits of armor decorating the space. Any one of them could be animated, and you wouldn’t know until it tried to reach out and punch you.

Fortunately, these constructs aren’t very smart. They either attack or stand motionless. They do not prioritize whom to attack, and they do not interpret their instructions in creative ways. 

For example, they could be told to guard a door and not let anyone through. This means anyone is free to climb through a window.

The animated armor will always seek to use its multiattack and score two attacks against anyone who has triggered it. This will result in 2d6+4 damage if both attacks hit. 

This is enough damage to take out most 1st– or 2nd-level characters who aren’t careful. The animated armor lacks any ranged attack, and you can not hide from its 60-foot blindsense, making it the perfect dumb guard.

Tactics When Facing Animated Armor

Should you find yourself on the wrong side of an empty suit of pissed-off plate mail, you have a few options on how to proceed.

First, you should figure out what brought the animated armor. These things work off of a series of very simple instructions. Was it meant to guard a door? 

To assault anyone who takes a certain item? Or was it built by a racist spellcaster who wanted it to attack any member of a certain PC race?

Once you figure out why the armor is animated, maybe you can stop doing the thing that is getting you attacked in the first place and just slide right by the construct without risking any more violence. 

This way, you can save your HP for the Big Bad at the end of the session.

Secondly, you should be aware of the armor’s limitations. It has perfect blindsense up to 60 feet. After that, however, it is blind to everything. 

Get at least 61 feet away from the construct, and pepper it with ranged attacks.

Unless it was instructed to protect itself, it will just stand there and take the damage. Remember, this thing only has an intelligence score of 1. 

It will likely not have the processing power to think something exists outside of its range of vision.

Thirdly and lastly, just destroy the thing. Why brain when you can bash? If you can beat that 18AC consistently, then have at it.

Alternatively, animated armor only has a Constitution bonus of +1 and a Dexterity bonus of 0. Its Intelligence, Charisma, and Wisdom saves are disastrous. 

Force it to make saving throws with spells if possible.

Don’t forget the Anti-Magic Sensitivity! Animated armor is especially susceptible to dispel magic and antimagic field. And, for the love of radiant damage, do not attempt to poison the construct. 

Bad Assassin! Bad! Don’t make me get my Bad Player Spray.

Animated Armor and Helmed Horrors

Helmed horrors are an advanced form of animated armor with their own skills, abilities, and tactics. The only way to tell the difference is by studying their behavior.

Animated armor is mindless, direct, and unable to adapt and change tactics.

Helmed horrors have an Intelligence of 10. If the animated armor you are fighting suddenly dives for cover and reaches for a different weapon, you are definitely dealing with a helmed horror.

Unless the DM has something else nefarious and evil planned. But your DM wouldn’t do that, would they? 😉

DM’s Guide to Animated Armor

Animated armor can make great features for a dungeon or a one-shot. Hopefully, the following can help make your next dungeon a memorable one!

Animated Armor Encounters

There are many places you could store a suit of animated armor to surprise your players.

• In a dark abandoned dungeon, there could be weapons and armor from past adventurers lying around. Make one stand up. Your players won’t know if they are fighting a construct or an undead!
• In a lord’s manor, consider having weapons and armor as decorative pieces. There could be a coat of arms over the mantle with animated swords and suits of armor on racks next to each doorway.
• When interrogating a villain, consider allowing the PCs to think they have the upper hand when they have the villain alone in a storage room or an armory until the villain speaks the password and animates the weapons and armor surrounding the PCs.

Finally, keep in mind the reason for the armor’s existence. Explicitly write down the armor’s purpose. When it was created, it was given a job to do. Write that down, and allow the players a bit of creativity in the combat.

If they can correctly guess the instructions and then work around them, I would reward them with XP even if they don’t defeat the monsters in combat.