D&D 5E Natural Armor

[DND_Reborn]

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Ok.. I see a lot of bad arguments for not having armor and natural armor stack. An elephant or even say a honey badger has thick tough skin. A natural armor. If I stick a layer of chain mail over that, that skin is not less hard to pierce and now before I can even pierce it, I have to pierce chain mail. I'd say they stack. Especially since the only actual natural armor example I can see in the books is a recalculation due to a druids wild shape. Something which has never stacked, in the first place as you and everything on you basically morphs into the animal. Not accounting for races with a natural armor class feels like a huge oversight by WoC, when looking at threats like these.

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I always liked the idea of adding half value of armor to natural armor. So, an elephant in chain mail would gain a +3 to AC (half the +6 chain mail grants above 10).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Ok.. I see a lot of bad arguments for not having armor and natural armor stack. An elephant or even say a honey badger has thick tough skin. A natural armor. If I stick a layer of chain mail over that, that skin is not less hard to pierce and now before I can even pierce it, I have to pierce chain mail. I'd say they stack. Especially since the only actual natural armor example I can see in the books is a recalculation due to a druids wild shape. Something which has never stacked, in the first place as you and everything on you basically morphs into the animal. Not accounting for races with a natural armor class feels like a huge oversight by WoC, when looking at threats like these.

I think natural armor is best represented by small damage reduction vs nonmagical attacks.

But it is difficult to give a general answer.
If I have a chitin armor and put plate over it, it should not stack, as you generally don't want to go through that armor anyway, but instead try to go for the eyes or some other unprotected part. And before that, your blows just rattle you inside the armor and whittle you down.
So more thick layers won't help.

In DnD the thick natural armor is also represented by high constitution and thus more hp.

So in the name of game balance and for the sake of abstraction, having natural armor not stack with normal armor makes a lot more sense than one might think.