Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
This is the first time I have ever heard anyone have trouble understanding barkskin in 5e. I think it's very clear.
Oh, it was super controversial when 5e first came out. The thing is, it’s extremely easy to understand the literal meaning of the words, but the conclusion can be very difficult to reconcile with the fiction. For example, a character with 14 Dex and hide armor has an AC of 14, so Barkskin increases it to 16. But if that character picks up a shield, Barkskin no longer affects them because their AC is already 16. It’s pretty unintuitive that the amount by which having your skin turned hard as bark affects your odds of being hit varies depending on how hard you already are to hit, and a lot of people take that to mean that the natural reading of the spell description must not be correct.