Alter Self and Monsters

[RickSummon]

If a creature with natural armor and natural attacks uses alter self to turn into a human, they lose their natural attacks for the duration, but keep all of their other abilities, correct? But do they keep or lose their natural armor bonus?

[The Wraith]

Hmmm, good question. At first I would have said 'they keep their natural armor', but since the various spells give a 'natural armor bonus of +x' and not an 'enhancement bonus of +x to natural armor', I'm not sure if this stacks with existing Natural Armor or not...

If the bonuses stack with existing Natural Armor, a creature casting Alter Self would keep his 'basic' natural armor bonus; if the spells change the bonus completely, a creature with natural armor casting Alter Self would have 0 Natural Armor.

Somebody has an official answer about this ?

[Asgetrion]

RickSummon wrote:

If a creature with natural armor and natural attacks uses alter self to turn into a human, they lose their natural attacks for the duration, but keep all of their other abilities, correct? But do they keep or lose their natural armor bonus?

Uh, you have the avatar of *Filge* -- the nastiest low-level villain I've yet encountered (our DM really role-played him as a black-hearted, petty lunatic who ended up being strangled to death by the druid in our party). You horrible, horrible little man... :D

(off-topic, but I just had to say it... ;)

[LazarX]

RickSummon wrote:

If a creature with natural armor and natural attacks uses alter self to turn into a human, they lose their natural attacks for the duration, but keep all of their other abilities, correct? But do they keep or lose their natural armor bonus?

Basically this calls for that fine tool mistakenly called common sense. If a creature's ability depends on it's physical form, it's going to lose that ability if it shapeshifts. If it's a mental ability, it keeps it. Remember abilities granted by shapeshift are the lesser of what's granted by the spell and form.