I've got the Tortle package and made a Barbarian, and I noticed that the Constitution Modifier isn't added to the AC of my Barbarian.
Natural Armor Due to your shell and the shape of your body, you are ill-suited to wearing armor. Your shell provides ample protection, however; it gives you a base AC of 17 (your Dexterity modifier doesn’t affect this number). You gain no benefit from wearing armor, but if you are using a shield, you can apply the shield’s bonus as normal.
Unarmored Defense While you are not wearing any armor, your Armor Class equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Constitution modifier. You can use a shield and still gain this benefit.
In Natural Armor it says that the Tortle body isn't suited to wear armor, but the shell provides ample protection. In Unarmored Defense it says you can add your Constitution Modifier to your AC as well, your Dexterity Modifier isn't counted towards AC due to Natural Armor.
What do you people think? Is this a bug and should the Con Mod be added to AC, or not? :)
I've tried creating a Tortle Fighter with the Defensive fighting style, which gives you +1 AC when you're wearing armor. Guess what. It also doesn't calculate this for Tortles. :)
So Tortles have Schrödinger's Armor, both there and not there until Dndbeyond has looked into it. :)
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Both the Barbarians Unarmed Defense and a Tortles Natural Armor change the base armor calculation and therefor cannot stack. This is intended and working correctly. It's to prevert kinda what you are attempting to do.
As for Defensive Fighting Style, I am assuming this is because a tortle receives no benefit from wearing armor, so even if you equip it you don't receive it's benefit so the system assumes you are not wearing any armor. This one is arguable and as a DM I may just mod it to work, however, I am going to assume its also working as intended.
EDIT: Defensive Fighting Style does work, the problem is the armor you have equipped has to be higher than your Natural Armor. For example, the base calculation of your Natural Armor is 17, which is higher than studded leather armor, so you would naturally use your Natural Armor, and since natural armor isn't actually armor, you don't receive the benefit, however, if you were to equip plate armor, which has an AC of 18, you would receive the benefit of the Defensive Fighting Style.
You have to remember, D&D 5e is not like older systems it was designed so that a Player Character with an AC 20 is like End Game Goal and unless you are a big heavy hitter, your most likely never going to achieve that goal
PHB, Chapter 1: "Some spells and class features give you a different way to calculate your AC. If you have multiple features that give you different ways to calculate your AC, you choose which one to use." This is why you can't use your Natural Armor with the barbarian's Unarmored Defense. (Nor the monk's, for that matter). So when determining AC, it's either this or that. (Pro Tip: pick the higher one!)
Also, while you are naturally harder to hit than most, you aren't wearing armor, so no bonus from Defensive fighting style.
If 10+CON+DEX<17, your AC is 17. Shields still work. 19 AC at level 1 is fantastic.
True. For unarmored defense to be fantastic for a barbarian requires some special circumstance (like many ASIs, the right race, the barbarian capstone, and/or great rolled stats), since it makes you MAD. It generally works out to be comparable to not much worse than wearing armor.
Ironically, Jeremy Crawford just started a new Sage Advice segment in Dragon Talk, and this was one of the very first topics that came up.
EDIT: Defensive Fighting Style does work, the problem is the armor you have equipped has to be higher than your Natural Armor. For example, the base calculation of your Natural Armor is 17, which is higher than studded leather armor, so you would naturally use your Natural Armor, and since natural armor isn't actually armor, you don't receive the benefit, however, if you were to equip plate armor, which has an AC of 18, you would receive the benefit of the Defensive Fighting Style.
That would be an actual bug. Regardless of the fact that a Tortle can wear Plate armor, they do not ever gain the AC from it--it's literally just metal vanity clothing to a Tortle, and they are never eligible to receive a bonus from the Defensive Fighting Style. It is a completely wasted choice.
To the OP, everyone else has nailed it: Tortle's Natural Armor is an AC formula, and so is Unarmored Defense (Barbarian). You do not ever get to combine different formulas. You pick one or the other.
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Hi everyone,
I've got the Tortle package and made a Barbarian, and I noticed that the Constitution Modifier isn't added to the AC of my Barbarian.
Natural Armor
Due to your shell and the shape of your body, you are ill-suited to wearing armor. Your shell provides ample protection, however; it gives you a base AC of 17 (your Dexterity modifier doesn’t affect this number). You gain no benefit from wearing armor, but if you are using a shield, you can apply the shield’s bonus as normal.
Unarmored Defense
While you are not wearing any armor, your Armor Class equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Constitution modifier. You can use a shield and still gain this benefit.
In Natural Armor it says that the Tortle body isn't suited to wear armor, but the shell provides ample protection.
In Unarmored Defense it says you can add your Constitution Modifier to your AC as well, your Dexterity Modifier isn't counted towards AC due to Natural Armor.
What do you people think? Is this a bug and should the Con Mod be added to AC, or not? :)
Addendum:
I've tried creating a Tortle Fighter with the Defensive fighting style, which gives you +1 AC when you're wearing armor.
Guess what. It also doesn't calculate this for Tortles. :)
So Tortles have Schrödinger's Armor, both there and not there until Dndbeyond has looked into it. :)
Both the Barbarians Unarmed Defense and a Tortles Natural Armor change the base armor calculation and therefor cannot stack. This is intended and working correctly. It's to prevert kinda what you are attempting to do.
As for Defensive Fighting Style, I am assuming this is because a tortle receives no benefit from wearing armor, so even if you equip it you don't receive it's benefit so the system assumes you are not wearing any armor. This one is arguable and as a DM I may just mod it to work, however, I am going to assume its also working as intended.EDIT: Defensive Fighting Style does work, the problem is the armor you have equipped has to be higher than your Natural Armor. For example, the base calculation of your Natural Armor is 17, which is higher than studded leather armor, so you would naturally use your Natural Armor, and since natural armor isn't actually armor, you don't receive the benefit, however, if you were to equip plate armor, which has an AC of 18, you would receive the benefit of the Defensive Fighting Style.
You have to remember, D&D 5e is not like older systems it was designed so that a Player Character with an AC 20 is like End Game Goal and unless you are a big heavy hitter, your most likely never going to achieve that goal
PHB, Chapter 1: "Some spells and class features give you a different way to calculate your AC. If you have multiple features that give you different ways to calculate your AC, you choose which one to use."
This is why you can't use your Natural Armor with the barbarian's Unarmored Defense. (Nor the monk's, for that matter). So when determining AC, it's either this or that. (Pro Tip: pick the higher one!)
Also, while you are naturally harder to hit than most, you aren't wearing armor, so no bonus from Defensive fighting style.
Gruns
If 10+CON+DEX<17, your AC is 17. Shields still work. 19 AC at level 1 is fantastic.
True. For unarmored defense to be fantastic for a barbarian requires some special circumstance (like many ASIs, the right race, the barbarian capstone, and/or great rolled stats), since it makes you MAD. It generally works out to be comparable to not much worse than wearing armor.
Ironically, Jeremy Crawford just started a new Sage Advice segment in Dragon Talk, and this was one of the very first topics that came up.
That would be an actual bug. Regardless of the fact that a Tortle can wear Plate armor, they do not ever gain the AC from it--it's literally just metal vanity clothing to a Tortle, and they are never eligible to receive a bonus from the Defensive Fighting Style. It is a completely wasted choice.
To the OP, everyone else has nailed it: Tortle's Natural Armor is an AC formula, and so is Unarmored Defense (Barbarian). You do not ever get to combine different formulas. You pick one or the other.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.