Unoathed Plate & Radiants

[Trusk'our he/him]

Unoathed Plate appears to possess at least some of the perks of Radiant Plate, such as regenerating and functioning without external infusions of Stormlight (appearing to draw from the SR directly), being dismissal/summonable, capable of changing its shape to suit its user's needs, and being aware of its surroundings.

It does make me wonder, would Unoathed Plate still interfere with a Radiant's Surgebinding while they wore it? Or, would it be capable of adapting to their Identity?

Regardless, even if we assume the Plate would interfere it would still be very powerful to lend to a lower-oath Radiant.

Summoning Plate is very advanced for Radiants, and getting it early on in their progression would prove invaluable, and they could even dismiss parts of the Plate when necessary to allow external Surgebinding. 

[earthexile]

I do think it would interfere with their Surges. It seems noteworthy to me that Unoathed Plate does not bear glyphs like Radiant Plate does, and I think it's specifically because the person and spren do not share a bond.

The Radiants we've seen usually have a glyph of their order on their Plate, and Kaladin's has a Bridge Four glyph. The spren they're assembled from have a Connection to the being they're armoring, which is reflected in the form they take. They display the heraldry of their leader, sort of. Unoathed armor spren are just themselves, so this doesn't happen.

And since there isn't this Connection, and man and spren have entirely separate Identities, I think their Surges would be blocked.

Edit: I had another thought the second I pressed the button. While it would make sense to use whatever tools/allies are available, in most cases you would get a greater overall benefit from arming normals with the Unoathed spren, because even Squires of Radiants have access to supernatural healing. Protecting their bodies is inherently less important than it is for everyone else. If I am planning a big battle, I want as many normal guys in Plate as possible before I start putting it on guys who can grow their legs back.

Now if I'm putting together a strike team and I just want a squadron of the most invincible fighters I can outfit, it makes a whole bunch of sense to send Unoathed spren with Radiants. If nothing else they're backup sets of Plate for when the Radiant's spren need a break.

Edited January 7 by earthexile