Khelon Testudo
Cleric of Stronmaus
Seems a bit gruesome. The human equivalent: My leather is human skin, or my helmet is a human skull. Or at least a primate skull or gorilla leather...
D&D 5E What armor can druids wear? Is there a way to get a decent AC?
Iry
Hero
Your avatar is suspect.
Khelon Testudo
Cleric of Stronmaus
Hahahha! I'd forgotten! That's an image of a mini I bought, but it's the original art from the site. My tortle actually has a smaller shield, and has replaced the baby-turtle-mace with a standard hammer head. I modified my personal mini to suit. I should try and get an image of it - I'm rather pleased with Khelon. He's a storm cleric.Your avatar is suspect.
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Harzel
Adventurer
Welllll, as to RAI, it appears you are correct.
Errata: October 2016 | Sage Advice | Dungeons & Dragons
This Sage Advice includes a link to the Player’s Handbook errata and answers some D&D rules questions.
However, I greatly disagree that the wording of the spell leaves no room for misinterpretation. As evidence, I submit the words of the many people who have expressed their confusion here and elsewhere; it is abundantly clear that it is possible to misinterpret it. And it seems to me there are two good reasons that people might misinterpret the spell. First, the phrase "regardless of what kind of armor it is wearing" calls attention specifically to armor and will cause (some) people to think that armor is particularly germane to the effect of the spell. In your interpretation (and Crawford's intent) armor is just one factor among many. As I noted previously, that intent would be much better expressed by "regardless of what its AC would be otherwise", or, in fact, by simply leaving off any such phrase entirely. "the target's AC can't be less than 16" is more concise and less subject to misinterpretation.
Just to be clear, I agree that the phrase "regardless of what kind of armor it is wearing" is logically consistent with the intended interpretation. But that does not mean that that is the only interpretation with which it is consistent (it's not), nor that that is the interpretation that everyone will consider the most likely (it's not), though some may.
The second thing that I suspect trips people up (certainly it tripped me up) is that the intended working of the spell is quite at odds with many peoples' view of the fiction. Both the name of the spell and the fluff "the target's skin has a rough, bark-like appearance" give the impression that the spell's effect can be attributed, in the fiction, to the target having tougher skin. Given that fiction, many (I'd even stretch it to say most) people would expect a shield, cover, and anything else that usually stacks with armor to give their usual bonuses on top of the Barkskin effect. And many people when uncertain will gravitate toward an interpretation that matches their view of the fiction.
And just to respond in advance to a comment that I'm sure a few people are just itching to type back at me - no, the fact that there are a number of D&D rules that present challenges when trying to construct a corresponding fiction does not mean that it is somehow illogical to not want more such instances, nor that it is unreasonable to tend to resolve perceived ambiguities in favor of rules that are consonant with the fiction as we imagine it.
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I haven't noticed Druids IMCs suffering much from low AC. Valour Bards, OTOH... !
If a Druid plans to fight in melee they are going to be a Wildshaping Moon Druid. If not, they usually have a high AC (or Barbarian) tank PC to hide behind. I've twice seen the Druid in my Runelords game get ambushed out of Wildshape form and go down fast -once because she didn't Wildshape on her init, once because she walked up to the ancient blue dragon BBEG and asked it to give her the Maguffin, then rolled low on init. But I've seen the Barbarian go down more often.
If a Druid plans to fight in melee they are going to be a Wildshaping Moon Druid. If not, they usually have a high AC (or Barbarian) tank PC to hide behind. I've twice seen the Druid in my Runelords game get ambushed out of Wildshape form and go down fast -once because she didn't Wildshape on her init, once because she walked up to the ancient blue dragon BBEG and asked it to give her the Maguffin, then rolled low on init. But I've seen the Barbarian go down more often.
Harzel
Adventurer
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "not supported by the rules". If you mean that the rules don't define the term "armor-based AC", well, yes, that's true, but I don't understand what difference that alone would make.
The concept of calculating an AC value based on the armor you are wearing most certainly is in the rules, and all that I did was invent a term for that because I needed to refer to it several times. And at any particular time, a character's AC is not necessarily the same as the AC value calculated on the basis of what armor it is wearing, so there certainly is that distinction.
I don't see how my invention and use of the term, per se, in anyway invalidates any of what I said. It's true that it turns out that it's not pertinent to the intent of Barkskin, but that's not the same as "not supported by the rules". Maybe I'm missing what you meant. (?)
Harzel
Adventurer
Did you mean Lore Bards maybe? Valor gets access to medium armor and shields, so not much trouble getting AC to 17 or 18.
Ah... my poor Valour Bard player obviously never read that section!! :-O
Lore Bards are fine IME, they play like Wizards.
Iry
Hero
Mountain Dwarf Lore Bard riding her Find Greater Steed and Tenser's Transformation would like words with you. Rawr.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Clearly that part of the sentence is the one that people who don’t want to interpret the spell as working according to RAI latch onto to justify their interpretation. And I agree that leaving that part off would have made the intent clearer. I don’t agree that there is any other logically consistent way to interpret the wording of the spell, but people aren’t always logically consistent.Welllll, as to RAI, it appears you are correct.
Errata: October 2016 | Sage Advice | Dungeons & Dragons
This Sage Advice includes a link to the Player’s Handbook errata and answers some D&D rules questions.dnd.wizards.com
However, I greatly disagree that the wording of the spell leaves no room for misinterpretation. As evidence, I submit the words of the many people who have expressed their confusion here and elsewhere; it is abundantly clear that it is possible to misinterpret it. And it seems to me there are two good reasons that people might misinterpret the spell. First, the phrase "regardless of what kind of armor it is wearing" calls attention specifically to armor and will cause (some) people to think that armor is particularly germane to the effect of the spell. In your interpretation (and Crawford's intent) armor is just one factor among many. As I noted previously, that intent would be much better expressed by "regardless of what its AC would be otherwise", or, in fact, by simply leaving off any such phrase entirely. "the target's AC can't be less than 16" is more concise and less subject to misinterpretation.
Just to be clear, I agree that the phrase "regardless of what kind of armor it is wearing" is logically consistent with the intended interpretation. But that does not mean that that is the only interpretation with which it is consistent (it's not), nor that that is the interpretation that everyone will consider the most likely (it's not), though some may.
I think you’re absolutely correct about this. In fact, I think this is the only reason the spell throws people off. If the spell’s function was more intuitively consistent with people’s view of the fiction, I don’t think the armor part would throw anyone off. The way the spell actually says it works doesn’t seem right to people, so they assume they’ve misinterpreted, and re-read looking for an alternative interpretation. The comment about armor gives them enough ammunition to construct a (logically flawed) argument, usually involving “it doesn’t say your armor can’t be higher than 16” and/or “why else would it mention armor and not shields or cover?” to convince themselves that it must work in a way that better fits their view of the fiction.
No, for sure, it’s not illogical or unreasonable to want the rules to function in a way that intuitively aligns with your view of the fiction at all. It’s only unreasonable to expect that all rules will (or should) do so, because everyone has different views of the fiction and different opinions about the most intuitive way to reflect that mechanically, not to mention the fact that intuitive alignment with the fiction is far from the only factor that goes into designing the rules.
Granted, this particular spell’s function is particularly unintuitive for a particularly large number of players, and I certainly empathize with people having a hard time wrapping their heads around it. If the argument is that the spell should work a different way because its current function is too difficult to align with the fiction, I think that’s a much stronger argument than claiming that the wording makes the RAI unclear.
There does exist a term in the rules that describes what you’re calling “armor-based AC” though. It’s called “base AC” and it’s used in the wording of Mage Armor. The fact that Barkskin isn’t worded this way is an indication that it doesn’t work the way many people want it to. If that was the intent, they would likely have worded the spell like Mage Armor, setting your base AC to 16.
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