Customizable bonuses to mage armor

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

I was looking at the art depicting various mages (Ley Line Walkers, Mystics, etc), and it occurred to me that the magic symbols and designs on their armor don't really do anything in a game-mechanic sense. Why don't we change that?

My inspiration is a combination of the Mystic Kuznya and the Nightbane concept of sacrificing permanent PPE to get talents.

The basic concept is to allow any practitioner of magic to modify their own personal armor as they level up. One upgrade per level is allowed. No relevant spell knowledge is required. The personally-enchanted armor cannot be lent or borrowed and is unusable by anyone else. Nor can it be augmented by a Mystic Kuznya or Techno-Wizard or anyone else. In other words, no stacking ridiculous bonuses. None of these modifications can be placed on anything but the 'homemade' mage armor similar to the kind described in the Ley Line Walker OCC section of RUE. No, it can't be put on Millennium tree armor or biomancer armor, etc.

For example, at first level you get to pick an upgrade that you want. For 5 PPE permanently taken off your total PPE pool, you can add a magic focus that doubles the investment to 10 PPE (for a net gain of 5 PPE). The caveat is that you only get the extra PPE while wearing the armor. If it's sitting across the room on a desk, your PPE total is 5 less than it was, and you get nothing in return until you are touching the magic focus again.

For 10 PPE, you can invest in a regenerative booster. For one melee round per level, you regenerate 5 PPE. Thus at level 4, you can activate it for 1 minute and regain 20 PPE over that minute. Can only be activated once per day. Only one of these upgrades is allowed, ever.

For 15 PPE, you add a ward to your armor that grants +1 to magic or psionic defense (player's choice, always active).

For 20 PPE, you can activate an MDC personal force field that lasts until depleted or shut off. It has 20 MDC plus 2 per level. Can only be activated once per day. Can be used with Ithan and other armor spells. Only one upgrade is allowed, ever.

And for 25 PPE, you get a +1 to spell strength (always on). Limited to 3 of these upgrades, ever.

After the initial PPE investment, no PPE is required to activate any of the above bonuses.

Example of a level 15 character with maximum bonuses: let's take a Ley Line Walker and give them 300 PPE, base amount. They put 10 magic focus upgrades in their armor, which means that while wearing it, they have an extra 100 PPE (350 total). With the armor off, they only have 250 PPE.

Next, they get the regenerative booster, the force field, and 3 bonuses to spell strength. Total PPE cost: 105.

This means without wearing the armor, the Walker is down to 145 PPE. With the armor on, he's back up to 245 (350 minus 105).

Sounds too good to be true? Maybe. But bear in mind that if the armor is destroyed, the PPE invested is gone permanently! And of course, all the other bonuses are lost.

***

I realize it all sounds a bit messy, but the idea is to give magic characters some ways to personalize their armor without needing to rely on TW gimmicks. Tying it to level ups also makes it something that needs to be planned, and it makes the PPE costs far more prohibitive at low levels.

Any thoughts and/or criticism will be appreciated.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Just some more examples of how you could level up. Say you want nothing but to boost your PPE total. Okay, for 15 levels you get the magic focus upgrade. This means you lose 75 PPE from your permanent base, but while wearing the upgraded armor, you are +150 PPE (for a net gain of 75).

Probably not a big deal for a Ley Line Walker, but it is a big gain for a Mystic.

Alternatively a Ley Line Walker, since they have such a large pool of PPE to work with at high levels, could afford to put multiple wards on their armor. Say they want +4 versus psionics, that's 60 permanent PPE. This loss could be mostly mitigated with 11 magic focus upgrades (55 PPE net gain).

Since the system is flexible, you could recklessly wipe out huge chunks of your total PPE to get maximum bonuses to defense and spell strength, or very cautiously balance out a few advantages with the magic focus upgrades.