Do humans have natural armor?

[Draloric]

This is probably a dumb question, but do humans actually have natural armor? Table 5-3 in v.3.5 Monster Manual (p. 298) seems to imply that they do, but does a +0 really indicate having natural armor? To my mind, there is an important difference in saying a character has no natural armor and saying a character has natural armor +0 for the purposes of, say, making use of an amulet of natural armor, which--strictly speaking--adds an enhancement bonus to an existing natural armor bonus. The hair I'm trying to split is kind of like the difference between having a Constitution of 0 and not having a Constitution score at all, which are two very different things. What do those more well versed say?

Kris

 

[Zurai]

Things that offer enhancement bonuses to natural armor specifically say that no natural armor = +0.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Things that offer enhancement bonuses to natural armor specifically say that no natural armor = +0.

Not all of them carry that note, hence the confusion - Barkskin states "A creature with no natural armor has an effective +0 bonus", while the Amulet of Natural Armor is silent on the matter.

-Hyp.

 

[Diirk]

I'm of the opinion that humans have no natural armour, and that they are only treated as having a natural armour of +0 for certain effects (eg barkskin). So they couldn't, for instance, take the improved natural armour monstrous feat, which has a prerequisite of natural armour (which would be meaningless if everyone had natural armour of +0).

 

[AnonymousOne]

If you wanted to burn a feat to get a +1 Nat. Armor bonus to AC, then by all means, burn that feat. *shrugs*

 

[Diirk]

Hey, its better than dodge.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Hey, its better than dodge.

And, so, what?

Cheers, LT.

 

[Bagpuss]

Hey, its better than dodge.

Except that it doesn't work against touch attacks, and isn't a requirement for later feats.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Humans do indeed have natural armour of +0. For proof, just look at the human skeleton. The skeleton templates provides a +2 improvement to NA and the human skeleton receives that improvement. The template does not grant NA, it merely improves upon it.

If humans did not have natural armour, and therefore did not have a natural armour bonus, the skeleton template would not have increased the AC of the human skeleton.

 

[Bad Paper]

I would go so far as to say that any corporeal creature has a natural armor rating.