Afaris' Animate Armor

Until recently, animating a full suit of armor to operate autonomously was a mere fantasy, but the Wizard Afaris broke the lock on this secret spell, giving way to the ability for even the most intermediate spell casters the ability to create living armor of their own, and perhaps even imbue them with their own, silent personality.

Once animated and given life, the suit of armor uses the Animated Armor statblock from the Monster Manual. Once cast the Spellcaster has full control over the armor's actions or can choose to give it semi-autonomy via basic commands. In combat, the armor acts on the same turn as the caster that animated it. The armor can use any weapons wielded by medium creatures

Only one suit of armor can be animated by a spell caster at a time, and the armor loses it's magical properties when it's hit points drop below 0 and it returns to being a regular suit of armor. Any slain Animated armor's can be reanimated by the same caster after 24 hours. The armor also deanimates if the caster that animated it originally becomes unconscious via combat or dies.

When casting at higher levels consult the list below to see the additional effects

 4th Level. the Armor gains an additional 1d8(6) max HP
5th Level. the Armor gains an additional 2d8(10) Max HP and +1 to it's AC total
6th Level. the armor gains an additional 3d8(14) max HP
7th Level. At 7th level the animated armor becomes a Helmed Horror and uses the according stat block. It does not gain the Helmed horror's gear but can add an additional 1d10 force damage to any melee weapon attacks. It also gains 2d8(12) max HP and a +2 to AC
8th Level. the Horror gains an additional 4d8(18) max HP
9th Level. the Horror gains an additional 6d8(22) max HP and a +4 to its AC

You can spend 1 hour + the corresponding spell slot to upgrade an existing animated armor to the next tier during downtime at the DMs Behest