While my race is Tortle, equipped and attuned Bracers of Defense do not affect my AC. If I change race to human for example, the Bracer's bonus is applied to my AC. Is this intended? Ring of protection grants the bonus just fine.

It is not intended. I am tagging this as a bug, in the meantime, you can click on your AC to customize it.

Thank you.

I am also having this issue. It seems like the bracers of defense are not adding the AC bonus to the natural AC of the tortle.

Seeing as this has not been fixed by the time I’m posting, can I assume that “natural armor” is included in the definition of “armor” for the "bracers of defense” prerequisite of “wearing no armor?” 

Thanks,

Quote from TheHeartThatFed >>

Seeing as this has not been fixed by the time I’m posting, can I assume that “natural armor” is included in the definition of “armor” for the "bracers of defense” prerequisite of “wearing no armor?” 

Thanks,

 Natural armor does not count as wearing armor. This is a bug.

 Natural armour counts as armour, as it can't stack with worn armour. ( You take which ever has more AC barring any specific restrictions on worn armour.)

Natural Armour does not count as "wearing" armour - it's a physical part of you. You don't "wear" your muscles, bones or hands.

Bracers of Defense should apply if you are not "wearing armour" or using a shield.

Jeremy Crawford, Lead Rules Designer of D&D Beyond 5th Edition tweeted this as a Sage Advice rules tweet:

The Defense fighting style requires you to be wearing armor. Having natural armor doesn't count as wearing armor.

 Bracers of Defense are conditional to not having armour, natural or otherwise as both set AC to specific value. ( Besides the Tortle already has a base 17 natural AC in a bounded accuracy game.)

Quote from Baithammer >>

 Bracers of Defense are conditional to not having armour, natural or otherwise as both set AC to specific value. ( Besides the Tortle already has a base 17 natural AC in a bounded accuracy game.)

Would you say a Barbarian with Unarmoured Defence cannot use Bracers of Defense? They don't wear armour but their UD sets their AC to a specific value.
It's for that reason that's not the requirement. The item specifically says "wearing no armour and using no shield" as the only requirements. Natural armour is not "wearing" armour. As Cybermind said you don't wear your body.

  Unarmoured defense is the addition of a second stat bonus to ac, which is only allowed when not wearing armour. ( Monk is restricted from using shields as well.)

 Natural Armour is armour and in the case of the Tortle prevents the wearing of any other armour. ( Lizardman was suggested to be able to wear other armour but had to use the greater ac for one or the other.)

Quote from GPyromania >>

Just to confirm - Baithammer is correctly describing the armor interaction. Tortles are specifically called out to have a specific armor class that effectively works as armor itself. As such, the Bracers of Defense wouldn't apply. 

While I acknowledge that its funky in how its described, we have to follow the rules when coming to that interaction. However, you can certainly create a homebrew solution or manually override the armor class yourself!

 
Can you clarify the source of this, please because the Rules as Written for Bracers state you get the bonus if you are not wearing armor and Natural Armor is not considered to be wearing armour as detailed by Jeremy Crawford, the rules designer of Wizards of the Coast. 

When following the rules as they are written they should stack together.

Quote from GPyromania >>

Just to confirm - Baithammer is correctly describing the armor interaction. Tortles are specifically called out to have a specific armor class that effectively works as armor itself. As such, the Bracers of Defense wouldn't apply. 

While I acknowledge that its funky in how its described, we have to follow the rules when coming to that interaction. However, you can certainly create a homebrew solution or manually override the armor class yourself!

Please provide a citation as your position contradicts the positions of: another moderator, the collective wisdom of the community, and the guy whom actually wrote the rules. 🤔

[edit]

Can we have the "Resolved" tag removed from this thread? The issue is clearly not resolved.

Quote from Baithammer >>

  Unarmoured defense is the addition of a second stat bonus to ac, which is only allowed when not wearing armour. ( Monk is restricted from using shields as well.)

 Natural Armour is armour and in the case of the Tortle prevents the wearing of any other armour. ( Lizardman was suggested to be able to wear other armour but had to use the greater ac for one or the other.)

 Unarmored Defense is not a bonus to AC, it is an alternative AC calculation. That is why it does not stack with any other form of natural armor.

The tortle's (and warforged's) natural armor trait says "you gain no benefit from wearing armor." At no point does it say or even imply that you are treated as wearing armor. And since you are not wearing armor, bracers of defense should apply.

I have been using the edit AC section of the character sheet to manually add the +2 after discussing the bug with my DM whom agreed that it should apply.

Glad to see this thread revived as it's been nearly 1.5 years and it's still not fixed. Thankfully there is a work around!

Still no Fix?

Quote from Stormknight >>

Quote from Navarch >>

Still no Fix?

Bracers of Defense work just fine with Tortle - I just checked.

Please make sure that your character has attuned to the bracers.

 I just created a level 1 Tortle Barbarian without armor and added Bracers of Defense and it still says 17 ac instead of 19. Yes it is equipped and attuned.