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General Tabletop Discussion
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What armor can druids wear? Is there a way to get a decent AC?
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<blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 7915755" data-attributes="member: 6779196"><p>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 <em>logically consistent</em> way to interpret the wording of the spell, but people aren’t always logically consistent.</p><p></p><p></p><p>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 <em>higher</em> 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.</p><p></p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 7915755, member: 6779196"] 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 [I]logically consistent[/I] way to interpret the wording of the spell, but people aren’t always logically consistent. 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 [I]higher[/I] 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. [/QUOTE]
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What armor can druids wear? Is there a way to get a decent AC?
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