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Message: <blockquote data-quote="juggerulez" data-source="post: 6676855" data-attributes="member: 98250">Let's agree to disagree, I'm going to elaborate below.why shouldn't you allow them, then? natural armor implies thickness of your skin, not some kind of apparel you don.For instance the bear has 10 AC (as anybody) and 1 natural armor. There is nothing you could ever consider as armor, so why would you? and above all else, why would you deny a class feature which implies you gain a benefit from something you could have gained through training as well as through magical/mystic ways?"game balance" is not a viable answer, because you can cast a spell, you can don a barding, you can acquire magic items. So there are several ways to gain the same benefit, so why would you deny one? what are the reasons? apart from specific DM ruling which imho should be well explained to your gamers very much alike whatever resons they should provide to you for having a barbarian moon druid. it's only fair that if the gamers' reason must make sense and be well intertwined with your settings, your ruling should match the same criteria too! What i'm trying to say is that you shouldn't choke the fantasy of your player. If they think something is cool and they would love to do that, why shouldn't you allow it? "because i don't like it" it's not a legit answer nor a very fair one, one may add <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />This whole resonment implies that you are overruling the customization options for your own personal motivations, not from a mechanics nor settings perspective.I can respect that you restrict the rage and bear totem to bear shapes, but this is something that should come from the player, not an imposition from the master.Another role playing ruling, not mechanics'. This is mostly up to the gamers too. From a mechanics perspective, the martial arts are meant to be a way to dish extra damage with parts of your body that normally couldn't. this has little to do with your physiognomy "per say", because any martial artist can spend his downtime training at being better in a different shape, or with a different style. When a martial artist changes his style he just changes a mean to land hits, it's not like he's going back to his dojo to relearn how to stand on his feet like a rookie does. the same could be applied to a monk who turns druid (and vice versa of course): he changes his physique and trains at being effective. As a bear you will not certainly roundhouse kick stuff - at least not as an entry level monk <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> - but you will be surely able to swipe your arms, grab and squeeze, and whatever could come up in the mind of the gamers. This is fairly represented by a d4+str+proficiency for an entry level monk. Then as soon as she gets better, this die can, and will, improve, as it does normally. I fail to see the flaw here, i'm sorry. This is something you debate with your DM and strictly regards the role playing aspect of the game. It has little to do with mechanics. The OP asked a set of questions regarding the mechanics, not the implications of such an initiative in his world.Imho unarmed defence works just fine if your shape doesn't get any AC from wearing armor (which as an animal can only be achieved by wearing a barding or a magical suit of armor). Let me elaborate.This is hard to show by looking at animals only, so if you kindly open your monster manual and go to the "Ogre" (p.237 MM) you will see that his armor classe is stated as Hide armor, then go to the "Oni" (p. 239 MM) and you will see Chain mail, last go to the Gibbering Mouther (p.157 MM) and you will see there is nothing stated after the nine. This means that this creature isn't wearing any armor nor has natural armor itself: its defenses are just the -1 Dex!What does this mean? it means that in the recap (because it is a recap of the monster's stats) it shows you that it has a given AC value and from where it comes from by stating it between parses.This implies that when you see natural armor stated as the soruce, there is a thick layer of skin/fur/scales, involved, not an apparel.By this reasonment, your naturally armored animal is not wearing any armor, thus Unarmored Defense states: "While you are not w earing any armor, your Armor Class equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Constitution (or Wisdom) modifier. You can use a shield and still gain this benefit (not the monks)"Thus it should be working just fine.THEN if your DM overrules this, it's something that has nothing to do with mechanics and that's it. Imho it's not fair and you should pretend an extended explaination for this... just don't do it in the midst of the gaming session, it's douchy as hell!It's not a size mod, it's a Natural Armor mod as stated between the parses. Natural armor comes from different soruces: it could be fur, it could be thickness, it could be the material (e.g. golems) or a particular condition (e.g. undeads).It's not OP neither, because you could gain the same benefit by other means (e.g. barkskin, magic armor, bracers of defense*, etc). So unless you consider OP having something you are expected to have, there is no other reason for you to consider it as that.*Bracers of defense provide you +2 bonus AC from an unspecified source (p. 155 DMG) and since the description of magic item categories (p.139 DMG) states that you may choose the type or determine it randomly, you could choose "dodge" bonus or "luck" or whatever "non suit of armor related" and stack it with unarmored defense and everything else!If you look at the animated shield, you will notice that it states "armor (shield)" in the very first line of its description: this means it provides a "shield" type of AC bonus, which will deny your monk her Unarmored Defense but not the barbarian's (and as a magical item, it will work while shaped, providing your bear a stylish shield floating around it! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> )</blockquote>

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