[3.5] Magitech Templar - Iron Man

[Fizban]

Is there a facet of this class that allows the Magitech to sleep in their armor, so as to avoid losing all of their class abilities when surprised at night? I remember armor taking several minutes to don, even when assisted.

There are tons of dirt cheap ways to do this with magic out of pocket, otherwise you could use light armor, Sectioned Armor from the Planar Handbook (which can be reduced to medium or light), or use the Transmutation ability to change your armor into light armor when you go to sleep.

Speaking of the Transmutation ability, I have nothing but praise for it. Fax isn't wussing out with any "one of three specific metals" crap. It's a class ability that lets you turn your armor into anything, so that's exactly what it does. If it's in the campaign setting, it's legit. Bravo.

Anyways. I like all the different armor abilities, and while I would usually want the ability to keep upgrading one over and over, the fact that you can't do that is a nice meta-balance. Since there isn't one super-ability that is always better than the others once upgraded, you aren't forced to take one over the others to be "optimized enough." The 1d4 round cooldown also ensures more of a scaling benefit if you take more than one blasty ability, since it gives you a limitation to overcome (not having an ability available every round -> always having one available).

One ability that I don't like is the Alchemical Ability. Potions suck, and the only thing you're getting is the ability to brew them yourself and avoid an AoO when you should never be drinking potions in combat. I would either improve it to a swift action to use a slotted potion (comparable to a number of feats and class abilities around), or make it special and uncap the level limit so you can have more high level toolkit ability. I would also want to let the Repeating Crossbow ability count as a normal Light Crossbow for prerequisites, simply because there are several feats and abilities that discriminate against repeaters.

I could go for some clarification on how to determine the price of upgrading your armor with +X abilities, and how one replaces a Clockwork Companion. I'd normally figure the cost would be determined separately from the class bonus, adding the class bonus on top afterward (such that no matter what level you are, the cost is the same). As for replacing the CC, probably a day's work with some scrap metal, or maybe a modest price (Animal Companions are free after all). I also wonder if you could take the Ability Focus feat for one of your armor upgrades. They're listed as class abilities, so between that and my desire to do so I would naturally assume yes