That's not how monster stats work. They're not based on PC rules. A frost giant's AC is 15 because a designer wanted it to be 15. There isn't any armor called "patchwork armor" that's heavy or medium or light and has some AC calculation.
If you want to change the statblock to be unarmored, just pick a number that feels right for the challenge you want to provide.
That's not how monster stats work. They're not based on PC rules. A frost giant's AC is 15 because a designer wanted it to be 15. There isn't any armor called "patchwork armor" that's heavy or medium or light and has some AC calculation.
If you want to change the statblock to be unarmored, just pick a number that feels right for the challenge you want to provide.
Incorrect.
Every monster's armor class incorporates a Dexterity bonus, whether it is naked, wears manufactured armor, or has natural armor. If it has other AC modifications other than its dexterity alone (such as natural armor, or manufactured armor), it also mentions those alternate AC sources in parentheticals.
Armor Class
A monster that wears armor or carries a shield has an Armor Class (AC) that takes its armor, shield, and Dexterity into account. Otherwise, a monster’s AC is based on its Dexterity modifier and natural armor, if any. If a monster has natural armor, wears armor, or carries a shield, this is noted in parentheses after its AC value.
From this, we can infer that the Giant's patchwork armor provides +6 AC, or an AC calculation of 16+Dex, something like that
That's not how monster stats work. They're not based on PC rules. A frost giant's AC is 15 because a designer wanted it to be 15. There isn't any armor called "patchwork armor" that's heavy or medium or light and has some AC calculation.
If you want to change the statblock to be unarmored, just pick a number that feels right for the challenge you want to provide.
Incorrect.
Every monster's armor class incorporates a Dexterity bonus, whether it is naked, wears manufactured armor, or has natural armor. If it has other AC modifications other than its dexterity alone (such as natural armor, or manufactured armor), it also mentions those alternate AC sources in parentheticals.
Armor Class
A monster that wears armor or carries a shield has an Armor Class (AC) that takes its armor, shield, and Dexterity into account. Otherwise, a monster’s AC is based on its Dexterity modifier and natural armor, if any. If a monster has natural armor, wears armor, or carries a shield, this is noted in parentheses after its AC value.
From this, we can infer that the Giant's patchwork armor provides +6 AC.
None of that contradicts what I wrote, and "+6 AC" is fundamentally not how armor works.
It is not how player armor works. But the MM quote shows that that's how Monster armor works. The two are not the same.
If a Frost giant were to drink a potion that gave it +1 Dexterity so its Dex modifier became +0 instead of -1, the RAW-est reading of the MM intro would suggest you should increase its AC by 1, because it's AC "takes Dexterity into account."
It is not how player armor works. But the MM quote shows that that's how Monster armor works. The two are not the same.
If a Frost giant were to drink a potion that gave it +1 Dexterity so its Dex modifier became +0, the RAW-est reading of the MM intro would suggest you should increase its AC by 1.
The rules you quoted says AC is "based on" Dexterity, but doesn't specify how Dexterity affects it. Either you assume PC rules, and you have to homebrew some equipment stats that get you the correct value and make a ruling based on that, or you don't assume anything, and you have to homebrew the rules themselves and make a ruling based on that. Either way, you're homebrewing. The RAW-est reading is that a frost giant's AC is 15, period.
Unless the equipment referenced has established stats that you can use to deduce that the creature is working similarly to how a PC would, you have to make shit up, which is what the designers did in the first place.
The only assumption involved is that monster AC starts at 10, like players... and we don't even actually need to make that assumption, if you aren't comfortable with it. Fine.
An unarmored (i.e., not showing any parenthesis after AC) monster's Armor Class is X+Dex=published statblock AC. It cannot be a number that does not account for Dexterity (an alternate calculation, or a number that does not represent a caculation), because we're told it "takes Dexterity into account." If Dexterity changes, AC changes, its just that simple.
Monsters that show something in parenthesis like (pathwork armor) are X+Y+Dex=published statblock AC, where Y is the bonus provided by the (armor or shield) in parenthesis. Again, it cannot be a number that does not account for that (armor), because we're told it "takes armor into account."
A frost giant's AC is 15=X+Y+Dex (-1). We can make that formula make sense and stay true to the RAW by saying X is 10 and Y is +6. Or, we can make that formula make sense and stay true to the RAW AND mimic the PHB armor rules by saying that instead of X+Y, we just have Armor calculation Y+Dex, which is 16+Dex... either way, pick your poison, the math is the same.
But the result is... if the Frost Giant's Dexterity increases? Its AC increases. End of story, monsters cannot have an AC calculation that does not include a dexterity bonus.
I mean, you can say all that, but there's not actually any textual support for it. There are any number of ways that the calculation can take those things into account that don't look anything remotely like what you've assumed. Maybe it's 10 + max(armor bonus, 5) + min(dex bonus, 2) + (some arbitrary number a designer pulled out of their ass)^2. That certainly takes dexterity into account, but if the dex bonus changes from +2 to +3, the final result stays the same. You've got no idea, and neither do I, because at the end of the day, a designer made a decision to target 15 as the monster's AC, everything else is defined to accommodate that, and those definitions are completely hidden from our view as players.
This is such a stupid thing to argue about. Your signature is doing a lot of work today, friend, and I'm not here for it.
If your good faith argument is that the formula involves squaring a complicated string of random numbers, and is not simply somenumber+armor+Dex or somearmorcalculation+dex like the MM suggests.... than I would suggest that today you are the one making this harder than it needs to be :)
The simplest explanation is likely the correct one. When the MM tells you that a monster's AC "takes its armor, shield, and Dexterity into account," finding a way to interpret that so that Dexterity is not taken into account is an exercise in rebellion against RAW.
End of story, monsters cannot have an AC calculation that does not include a dexterity bonus.
Unfortunately this isn't true, as monsters can wear Heavy Armour, which doesn't add their dex bonus, such as Fire Giant's which wear plate armour and have 18ac.
Going back to the topic at hand: the Monster Manual states that Frost Giant's typically wear armour that consists of stringing together smaller creatures armour, such as a bunch of shields chained together.
Because a Frost Giant's Dexterity modifier is -1, this means a Frost Giant's patchwork armour is either Light or Medium armour with an ac of 16 + dex mod, or Heavy armour with an ac of 15. Annoyingly none of the armours in the armour section of the basic rules meet this criteria and Frost Giant's are the only creatures across the Monster Manual, Volo's and Mordenkainen's who wear 'Patchwork' armour (Just did a quick check) so we can't compare ac values with other creatures who wear them.
Personally I would assume it's Heavy Armour, otherwise we're assuming that you can string a bunch of shields together to make medium armour better than Half-Plate.
End of story, monsters cannot have an AC calculation that does not include a dexterity bonus.
Unfortunately this isn't true, as monsters can wear Heavy Armour, which doesn't add their dex bonus, such as Fire Giant's which wear plate armour and have 18ac.
Except there's no indication that monster armor follows the same rules that PC armor does. All we know is that a fire giant has an AC of 18 and also is wearing plate armor. How those facts interact with each other isn't defined anywhere. We can assume it's just like PC armor, and that's probably super reasonable, unless you're CC and think normal medium armor rules are "an exercise in rebellion against RAW." But you're still just making it up, which is what OP is going to have to do, because it's all arbitrary.
End of story, monsters cannot have an AC calculation that does not include a dexterity bonus.
Unfortunately this isn't true, as monsters can wear Heavy Armour, which doesn't add their dex bonus, such as Fire Giant's which wear plate armour and have 18ac.
Going back to the topic at hand: the Monster Manual states that Frost Giant's typically wear armour that consists of stringing together smaller creatures armour, such as a bunch of shields chained together.
Because a Frost Giant's Dexterity modifier is -1, this means a Frost Giant's patchwork armour is either Light or Medium armour with an ac of 16 + dex mod, or Heavy armour with an ac of 15. Annoyingly none of the armours in the armour section of the basic rules meet this criteria and Frost Giant's are the only creatures across the Monster Manual, Volo's and Mordenkainen's who wear 'Patchwork' armour (Just did a quick check) so we can't compare ac values with other creatures who wear them.
Personally I would assume it's Heavy Armour, otherwise we're assuming that you can string a bunch of shields together to make medium armour better than Half-Plate.
Monsters don't purport to have Light vs. Medium vs. Heavy armors, and their armors frequently behave differently from players. See e.g. the Fire Giant Dreadnought, whose dual shields are "each accounted for in the giant's AC". Confusingly, the DM is warned that the giant must "stow or drop one of its shields to hurl rocks," seeming to invite the DM to recalculate that AC when they do so... is each shield +2 AC? Is the first shield +2 AC, and the second +1 AC? Are they together +3 AC, but +0 AC if only one is held? If they're both +2 AC, is its Plate only AC 17 plate, instead of AC 18 plate like a regular Fire Giant? Ahhhhh....
But the math gets easier if there's a -1 AC from Dex in there. The Dreadnoughts AC is X base + Y plate +Z1 shield + Z2 shield + Dex = 21. That's all I know for sure. If X is 10 as usual, 10+Y+2Z-1=21, or Y+2Z=12, suggesting Y=8 and Z=2. 10+8+2+2-1=21. So every time the giant drops a shield, -2 AC.
So AC is actually Max (Armor worn + Shield + Dex, Natural armor + Dex)?
If I count backwards to before the Dex modifier was added to their AC, the Hill, Stone, and Cloud Giants have ACs of 14, 15, and 14, respectively.
Using that as a base, I rule that Frost Giants in my game have a natural AC of 13 (14 before a Dex modifier of -1).
I further rule that all giants in my game (except the slightly tougher skinned Stone Giants) have a natural AC of 14 before their Dex modifier is added. This gives Fire Giants a natural AC of 13, and Storm Giants a natural AC of 16.
Thanks everyone! I now have Giants without armor, as well as Giants with any armor.
If you want your unarmored giants to have natural armor, that sounds like a decent approach. DMG Chapter 9 has instructions for how to build your own new monsters or monster variations, and it does have some guidance about what changing AC or HP on a monster might do its CR. That section is far less interested in the math of how you end up at AC X than the MM was, and is more interested in what's useful and quick for the DM, and how that might influence balanced encounter building. It's not a bad approach... as much as I'm adament that the published monsters do have Dexterity included within an actual armor class calculation, nobody is going to batt an eye at your dropping naked AC 13 Fire Giant Streakers into an encounter without demanding to see the math that supports it.
That's not how monster stats work. They're not based on PC rules. A frost giant's AC is 15 because a designer wanted it to be 15. There isn't any armor called "patchwork armor" that's heavy or medium or light and has some AC calculation.
If you want to change the statblock to be unarmored, just pick a number that feels right for the challenge you want to provide.
As Saga says, sometimes monsters just have arbitrary numbers because it ended up being what suited them best. This is particularly true when they have equipment that has no direct counterpart in PC equipment.
As Saga says, sometimes monsters just have arbitrary numbers because it ended up being what suited them best. This is particularly true when they have equipment that has no direct counterpart in PC equipment.
Source?
See post #15, I really don't disagree in spirit, because a DM is encouraged by the DMG to just mess around with AC without worrying about anything other than how it impacts the creature's challenge rating... but when you make baseless claims like "monsters have arbitrary ACs," it has knock on effects for players when they use Wild Shape, Ranger's Companion, summoning spells, NPC companions, etc etc etc. We have Monster Manual Introduction text saying that AC is not arbitrary, so these flippant "monster AC isn't a calculation" responses feel really disingenuous and misleading.
As Saga says, sometimes monsters just have arbitrary numbers because it ended up being what suited them best. This is particularly true when they have equipment that has no direct counterpart in PC equipment.
Source?
See post #15, I really don't disagree in spirit, because a DM is encouraged by the DMG to just mess around with AC without worrying about anything other than how it impacts the creature's challenge rating... but when you make baseless claims like "monsters have arbitrary ACs," it has knock on effects for players when they use Wild Shape, Ranger's Companion, summoning spells, NPC companions, etc etc etc. We have Monster Manual Introduction text saying that AC is not arbitrary, so these flippant "monster AC isn't a calculation" responses feel really disingenuous and misleading.
I mean.... the monster we are discussing? where in the rules do you find the AC of piecemeal armor?
As Saga says, sometimes monsters just have arbitrary numbers because it ended up being what suited them best. This is particularly true when they have equipment that has no direct counterpart in PC equipment.
Source?
See post #15, I really don't disagree in spirit, because a DM is encouraged by the DMG to just mess around with AC without worrying about anything other than how it impacts the creature's challenge rating... but when you make baseless claims like "monsters have arbitrary ACs," it has knock on effects for players when they use Wild Shape, Ranger's Companion, summoning spells, NPC companions, etc etc etc. We have Monster Manual Introduction text saying that AC is not arbitrary, so these flippant "monster AC isn't a calculation" responses feel really disingenuous and misleading.
So, we've got the fire giant dreadnought you brought up, right? And, maybe its 21 AC is calculated like so: 18 (plate) + 4 (shield * 2) - 1 (dex) = 21, right? But then we've got a helmed horror, and if we assume the same rules, its AC should be 18 (plate) + 2 (shield) +1 (dex) = 21. Except... that's not its AC. Its AC is only 20. So either plate is sometimes 18 and sometimes 17, or maybe sometimes the Dex is considered and sometimes it isn't, or maybe sometimes monsters follow normal PC armor rules and sometimes they don't, or maybe the designers target a particular AC and make everything else up to suit.
In any of those cases, the final result is founded on an arbitrary design decision.
As Saga says, sometimes monsters just have arbitrary numbers because it ended up being what suited them best. This is particularly true when they have equipment that has no direct counterpart in PC equipment.
Source?
The Monster Manual
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Frost Giants wear patchwork armor. They have AC 15 and Dex 9 [-1].
Is this patchwork armor light, medium, or heavy armor?
What AC bonus does this patchwork armor provide?
What is the natural AC of an unarmored Frost Giant?
That's not how monster stats work. They're not based on PC rules. A frost giant's AC is 15 because a designer wanted it to be 15. There isn't any armor called "patchwork armor" that's heavy or medium or light and has some AC calculation.
If you want to change the statblock to be unarmored, just pick a number that feels right for the challenge you want to provide.
Looking at them on this site, I would say their armor is beyond Heavy, due to their being of size Huge.
Their armor would be AC 15.
Without it, AC could be 10, up to 14.
Incorrect.
Every monster's armor class incorporates a Dexterity bonus, whether it is naked, wears manufactured armor, or has natural armor. If it has other AC modifications other than its dexterity alone (such as natural armor, or manufactured armor), it also mentions those alternate AC sources in parentheticals.
From this, we can infer that the Giant's patchwork armor provides +6 AC, or an AC calculation of 16+Dex, something like that
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
None of that contradicts what I wrote, and "+6 AC" is fundamentally not how armor works.
It is not how player armor works. But the MM quote shows that that's how Monster armor works. The two are not the same.
If a Frost giant were to drink a potion that gave it +1 Dexterity so its Dex modifier became +0 instead of -1, the RAW-est reading of the MM intro would suggest you should increase its AC by 1, because it's AC "takes Dexterity into account."
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
The rules you quoted says AC is "based on" Dexterity, but doesn't specify how Dexterity affects it. Either you assume PC rules, and you have to homebrew some equipment stats that get you the correct value and make a ruling based on that, or you don't assume anything, and you have to homebrew the rules themselves and make a ruling based on that. Either way, you're homebrewing. The RAW-est reading is that a frost giant's AC is 15, period.
Unless the equipment referenced has established stats that you can use to deduce that the creature is working similarly to how a PC would, you have to make shit up, which is what the designers did in the first place.
The only assumption involved is that monster AC starts at 10, like players... and we don't even actually need to make that assumption, if you aren't comfortable with it. Fine.
An unarmored (i.e., not showing any parenthesis after AC) monster's Armor Class is X+Dex=published statblock AC. It cannot be a number that does not account for Dexterity (an alternate calculation, or a number that does not represent a caculation), because we're told it "takes Dexterity into account." If Dexterity changes, AC changes, its just that simple.
Monsters that show something in parenthesis like (pathwork armor) are X+Y+Dex=published statblock AC, where Y is the bonus provided by the (armor or shield) in parenthesis. Again, it cannot be a number that does not account for that (armor), because we're told it "takes armor into account."
A frost giant's AC is 15=X+Y+Dex (-1). We can make that formula make sense and stay true to the RAW by saying X is 10 and Y is +6. Or, we can make that formula make sense and stay true to the RAW AND mimic the PHB armor rules by saying that instead of X+Y, we just have Armor calculation Y+Dex, which is 16+Dex... either way, pick your poison, the math is the same.
But the result is... if the Frost Giant's Dexterity increases? Its AC increases. End of story, monsters cannot have an AC calculation that does not include a dexterity bonus.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I mean, you can say all that, but there's not actually any textual support for it. There are any number of ways that the calculation can take those things into account that don't look anything remotely like what you've assumed. Maybe it's 10 + max(armor bonus, 5) + min(dex bonus, 2) + (some arbitrary number a designer pulled out of their ass)^2. That certainly takes dexterity into account, but if the dex bonus changes from +2 to +3, the final result stays the same. You've got no idea, and neither do I, because at the end of the day, a designer made a decision to target 15 as the monster's AC, everything else is defined to accommodate that, and those definitions are completely hidden from our view as players.
This is such a stupid thing to argue about. Your signature is doing a lot of work today, friend, and I'm not here for it.
If your good faith argument is that the formula involves squaring a complicated string of random numbers, and is not simply somenumber+armor+Dex or somearmorcalculation+dex like the MM suggests.... than I would suggest that today you are the one making this harder than it needs to be :)
The simplest explanation is likely the correct one. When the MM tells you that a monster's AC "takes its armor, shield, and Dexterity into account," finding a way to interpret that so that Dexterity is not taken into account is an exercise in rebellion against RAW.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Unfortunately this isn't true, as monsters can wear Heavy Armour, which doesn't add their dex bonus, such as Fire Giant's which wear plate armour and have 18ac.
Going back to the topic at hand: the Monster Manual states that Frost Giant's typically wear armour that consists of stringing together smaller creatures armour, such as a bunch of shields chained together.
Because a Frost Giant's Dexterity modifier is -1, this means a Frost Giant's patchwork armour is either Light or Medium armour with an ac of 16 + dex mod, or Heavy armour with an ac of 15. Annoyingly none of the armours in the armour section of the basic rules meet this criteria and Frost Giant's are the only creatures across the Monster Manual, Volo's and Mordenkainen's who wear 'Patchwork' armour (Just did a quick check) so we can't compare ac values with other creatures who wear them.
Personally I would assume it's Heavy Armour, otherwise we're assuming that you can string a bunch of shields together to make medium armour better than Half-Plate.
Except there's no indication that monster armor follows the same rules that PC armor does. All we know is that a fire giant has an AC of 18 and also is wearing plate armor. How those facts interact with each other isn't defined anywhere. We can assume it's just like PC armor, and that's probably super reasonable, unless you're CC and think normal medium armor rules are "an exercise in rebellion against RAW." But you're still just making it up, which is what OP is going to have to do, because it's all arbitrary.
Monsters don't purport to have Light vs. Medium vs. Heavy armors, and their armors frequently behave differently from players. See e.g. the Fire Giant Dreadnought, whose dual shields are "each accounted for in the giant's AC". Confusingly, the DM is warned that the giant must "stow or drop one of its shields to hurl rocks," seeming to invite the DM to recalculate that AC when they do so... is each shield +2 AC? Is the first shield +2 AC, and the second +1 AC? Are they together +3 AC, but +0 AC if only one is held? If they're both +2 AC, is its Plate only AC 17 plate, instead of AC 18 plate like a regular Fire Giant? Ahhhhh....
But the math gets easier if there's a -1 AC from Dex in there. The Dreadnoughts AC is X base + Y plate +Z1 shield + Z2 shield + Dex = 21. That's all I know for sure. If X is 10 as usual, 10+Y+2Z-1=21, or Y+2Z=12, suggesting Y=8 and Z=2. 10+8+2+2-1=21. So every time the giant drops a shield, -2 AC.
Nice!
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
So AC is actually Max (Armor worn + Shield + Dex, Natural armor + Dex)?
If I count backwards to before the Dex modifier was added to their AC, the Hill, Stone, and Cloud Giants have ACs of 14, 15, and 14, respectively.
Using that as a base, I rule that Frost Giants in my game have a natural AC of 13 (14 before a Dex modifier of -1).
I further rule that all giants in my game (except the slightly tougher skinned Stone Giants) have a natural AC of 14 before their Dex modifier is added. This gives Fire Giants a natural AC of 13, and Storm Giants a natural AC of 16.
Thanks everyone! I now have Giants without armor, as well as Giants with any armor.
If you want your unarmored giants to have natural armor, that sounds like a decent approach. DMG Chapter 9 has instructions for how to build your own new monsters or monster variations, and it does have some guidance about what changing AC or HP on a monster might do its CR. That section is far less interested in the math of how you end up at AC X than the MM was, and is more interested in what's useful and quick for the DM, and how that might influence balanced encounter building. It's not a bad approach... as much as I'm adament that the published monsters do have Dexterity included within an actual armor class calculation, nobody is going to batt an eye at your dropping naked AC 13 Fire Giant Streakers into an encounter without demanding to see the math that supports it.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
As Saga says, sometimes monsters just have arbitrary numbers because it ended up being what suited them best. This is particularly true when they have equipment that has no direct counterpart in PC equipment.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Source?
See post #15, I really don't disagree in spirit, because a DM is encouraged by the DMG to just mess around with AC without worrying about anything other than how it impacts the creature's challenge rating... but when you make baseless claims like "monsters have arbitrary ACs," it has knock on effects for players when they use Wild Shape, Ranger's Companion, summoning spells, NPC companions, etc etc etc. We have Monster Manual Introduction text saying that AC is not arbitrary, so these flippant "monster AC isn't a calculation" responses feel really disingenuous and misleading.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I mean.... the monster we are discussing? where in the rules do you find the AC of piecemeal armor?
So, we've got the fire giant dreadnought you brought up, right? And, maybe its 21 AC is calculated like so: 18 (plate) + 4 (shield * 2) - 1 (dex) = 21, right? But then we've got a helmed horror, and if we assume the same rules, its AC should be 18 (plate) + 2 (shield) +1 (dex) = 21. Except... that's not its AC. Its AC is only 20. So either plate is sometimes 18 and sometimes 17, or maybe sometimes the Dex is considered and sometimes it isn't, or maybe sometimes monsters follow normal PC armor rules and sometimes they don't, or maybe the designers target a particular AC and make everything else up to suit.
In any of those cases, the final result is founded on an arbitrary design decision.
The Monster Manual
"Not all those who wander are lost"