D&D 5E Natural Armor

[SkidAce]

I would rule that Natural Armor only stacks with dex and a shield.

All the above examples of something with tough hide putting on say chain mail, and then have the AC of the chain mail seems correct to me.

However, if the person/creature with tough hide picks up a shield, that should help their AC.

 

[Jaelommiss]

I don't think that natural armour should stack with worn armour. If it did stack, I'd expect every intelligent creature (dragons, kraken, aboleth, angels, etc) with natural armour to be wearing a set of plate on top for additional defences. Facing Tiamat with 33 AC (18 plate + 15 natural) would be impossible to defeat, and there's not a good reason I can think of for an Int 26 god to NOT wear plate over her scales if it provides such a boost.

 

[Tormyr]

In earlier editions of D&D (specifically 3.5), it seems like natural armor did stack with worn armor/mage armor. Going through the Age of Worms AP, it seems like every other spell caster has an amulet of natural armor +x, and everyone has 20 different things adding to AC. In 5e, it looks like most of the monsters that have natural armor do not wear armor. They might have a shield (lizardfolk?) but no armor.

To a certain extent, natural armor is just a method of adjusting AC for the purpose of meeting a certain CR in monsters that do not utilize worn armor, mage armor, or any other AC method other than 10+Dex. I think it would be fine for a PC to use it, because it would be rarely utilized anyway. The PC will quickly move to armor, mage armor, unarmored defense, sorcerer defense. The natural armor would only be useful in situations where the other AC calculation method was not available, but it would be something to pull out in special situations.

 

[Blackbrrd]

In earlier editions of D&D (specifically 3.5), it seems like natural armor did stack with worn armor/mage armor. Going through the Age of Worms AP, it seems like every other spell caster has an amulet of natural armor +x, and everyone has 20 different things adding to AC. In 5e, it looks like most of the monsters that have natural armor do not wear armor. They might have a shield (lizardfolk?) but no armor.

3.x didn't have bounded accuracy. To keep up with the base attack bonus which increased by one every level, you needed something to keep up. The "standard" gear would be a amulet of natural armor +x, a ring of protection +x and an armor +x. (X being 1-5).

5e has bounded accuracy, so having natural armor stack with armor doesn't make any sense. It would break the bounded accuracy. As mentioned in an earlier post, giants don't have stacking natural armor/armor. Have natural armor set the base AC as mentioned in multiple posts. The dragon sorcerers 13 base AC is to me an example of this.

 

[Derren]

I know they haven't brought in natural armor for PC races.

They have, and it does not make sense at all.
See the Dragon Sorcerer. He gains AC13 when not wearing armor. If he wears something with a higher AC his natural armor has no effect at all. And if he dares to wear light armor he is actually more easy to hit than when completely naked as the <13 AC of the armor overrules his AC 13 natural armor.

 

[MerricB]

In earlier editions of D&D (specifically 3.5), it seems like natural armor did stack with worn armor/mage armor.

3E is the only edition that specifically calls out a natural armour bonus. One of the key features of 3E was that bonuses of different types stacked together: so we got the natural armour bonus, the enhancement bonus, the armour bonus, the shield bonus, the deflection bonus, and a lot of other named bonuses.

And it caused lots and lots of problems, especially as the bonus types began to proliferate. To keep up with AC, you needed a *lot* of magic items. And it was quite easily broken.

This is as opposed to AD&D and 2E, which didn't have a comprehensive set of rules for handling different types of armour; instead, there's a bunch of inconsistent rulings: some things stack, others don't. I seem to remember one ruling in those editions that you compared the natural AC and the item AC; if the item AC was better, it was used, but if it were worse, then it just provided a +1 to AC... but I can't remember where I saw that reference at present.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

They have, and it does not make sense at all.
See the Dragon Sorcerer. He gains AC13 when not wearing armor. If he wears something with a higher AC his natural armor has no effect at all. And if he dares to wear light armor he is actually more easy to hit than when completely naked as the <13 AC of the armor overrules his AC 13 natural armor.

Actually, it look likes there's an AC system that makes sense (use the best Base AC calculation), but a few abilities that used an earlier version of the system (try to describe it in text) that don't make that much sense - Barkskin and Draconic Resilience being the major oddities.

Cheers!

 

[The Crimson Binome]

3E is the only edition that specifically calls out a natural armour bonus. One of the key features of 3E was that bonuses of different types stacked together: so we got the natural armour bonus, the enhancement bonus, the armour bonus, the shield bonus, the deflection bonus, and a lot of other named bonuses.

It was even better than that. There was no "enhancement" type of bonus. Instead, enhancement just provided a bonus to other bonuses.

So you could have a natural armor bonus, and an armor bonus, and a shield bonus, and an enhancement bonus to your natural armor bonus, and an enhancement bonus to your armor bonus, and an enhancement bonus to your shield bonus.

 

[Connorsrpg]

Thanks guys. You have talked me out of a +1 AC. I think I will go with stating you have a standard Ac of 12 (or whatever) + Dex bonus. Armor worn makes this better.

Only down side is, this natural armor will then be better for classes/types that rely on light armor (and therefore stealth types), which naturally armored creatures often are not.

Anyway, the giant eg helped a lot. That was the exact sort of thing I was after. I did not have MM w me when I started this post and was wondering if people could back-track stats.

Cheers all and thanks for the many replies.

BTW: We are considering this for dragonborn in our settings. And given it is over-ridden by armor, this is not a big deal. Oh, and we have drawbacks (negative features) for our races, so not overly concerned about 'balance/power' in this regard.

 

[PnPgamer]

Why do i remember reading somewhere on phb that the character chooses what armor type he/she wants to use.