January 2016 Sage Advice - All About AC

There is a new Sage Advice from WotC's Jeremy Crawford posted on the D&D website about Armor Class and how spells interact with it. As always, the Sage Advice Compendium has also been updated with this information. This month, Jeremy discusses how to calculate creature ACs, and how spells like mage armor, barkskin, amor of Agates, and heroism work. Interestingly, it also contains a reconsidered ruling on how barkskin and shields work, and an update to his previous ruling one the Savage Attacker feat.
Find the full column here and the full compiled Sage Advice Compendium PDF here.

Also of note, the Monster Manual errata has been updated and now includes the water elemental and changes to the kraken.


Sage Advice is a monthly column that gives official clarifications of D&D rules. It also sometimes provides reference documents to help your D&D game run smoothly. Despite its official status, Sage Advice doesn’t trump the rulings of a Dungeon Master; the answers and information provided here are meant to assist a DM in adjudicating the game.

 

[spectacle]

Why is Savage Attacker overpowered when used with Unarmed Strike?

Has anyone claimed that it is overpowered?

 

[bogmad]

With all these conflicting rulings I'm a little disappointed we don't see more of the Rules as Intended, Rules as Written, and Rules as Fun or whatever all those distinctions were that we had as the subject of the first Sage Advice column.

It seemed like we were going to be encouraged to to bend the rules to each individual home games, but I guess that kind of subtle encouragement from Wotc was outweighed by all our clamour for what the official ruling was destined to be.

 

[Zaran]

Has anyone claimed that it is overpowered?

It must be if it has caused a Dev to reverse their ruling.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I really like how he revisited past rulings, not because I like or dislike the changes, but because it reinforces the idea that Sage Advice is merely an attempt at creating a consistent set of rulings. The ruling are intended to invoke design intent, and to be internally consistent, but they aren't official rules.

 

[Remathilis]

It must be if it has caused a Dev to reverse their ruling.

Both of these rules (Barkskin and SA) are less power issues as much as they are "design elegance" issues; the original answer created a kink in the rule that wasn't exploitable or egregious, but opened the door to stranger rules interactions they didn't want to deal with later. Basically, both could set precedent, and they don't want that.

With Barkskin, it sets the precedent that some things count before you set your AC to 16 (armor, natural armor, dex) and some things don't (shields, magical effects) Wheras now, its a pass/fail check: If AC <16, set 16. if AC > 16, ignore.

With Savage attacker, it is part of Wizard's neverending campaign to remind all of us that an unarmed strike is never a weapon ever ever ever. Adding an extra die to a monk isn't the concern, its that it hollowed out a corner case where the term "weapon" could refer to an "unarmed strike" and those two things shall never meet.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It must be if it has caused a Dev to reverse their ruling.

The intent isn't to limit things that are OP, it's to clarify a nuance of the rules.

 

[Skyscraper]

Interesting to read the ruling on barkskin. That's the way I interpreted it, and that's what it means literally as written. But either way, no wonder there was confusion because of prior tweets. Hopefully this finally puts this discussion to bed

To bed with whom? Because the answer to this question might provoke quite a bit more of discussion...

 

[Coredump]

I really like how he revisited past rulings, not because I like or dislike the changes, but because it reinforces the idea that Sage Advice is merely an attempt at creating a consistent set of rulings. The ruling are intended to invoke design intent, and to be internally consistent, but they aren't official rules.

Yes they *are* official. WotC has explicitly said as much. Of course any DM can use or ignore them, just like any DM can use or ignore any rule in any book or publication.

 

[Skyscraper]

Yes they *are* official. WotC has explicitly said as much. Of course any DM can use or ignore them, just like any DM can use or ignore any rule in any book or publication.

I've tried ignoring rules at work, arguing that I'm a DM and consequently, I just can.

So much for my job. It was fun while it lasted.

 

[Staffan]

But why Barkskin wasn't used to introduce natural armor AC to player characters, we will never know...

Barkskin is a not the spell you cast on the rogue to give them an AC boost. It's the spell the druid casts on themselves, and then transform into a bear with AC 16 instead of 11.

Funny that the official answer is different to his own ruling in the bark skin case. I also admit defeat and will follow Jeremies ruling instead of the sage's advice.

He did say that he changed his mind on that one. Personally, I don't really like the new ruling - I think it makes sense that barkskin + cover is better than just barkskin.