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As the title asks.
Does his natural armor bonus stack with that granted by the spell?
Does the spell substitute the dragon natural armor bonus for his own?
Do you take whichever is higher?
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The spell doesn't say you lose anything, or that what it gives replaces anything you already have, so I'd say you use whichever is higher.
Edit: And since it's the same type of bonus, it wouldn't stack. (Unlike, for example, Barkskin, which says it's an enhancement bonus to your existing natural armor.)
A better question is what happens when a stone giant wizard casts Giant Form: Stone Giant?
Hm, shouldn't they stack?
The bonus from the base creature (stone giant) is a built in "natural" natural armor bonus, whereas the bonus supplied by the spell is a magic or enhancement bonus to the natural base armor.
Ruyan.
Ah, well. I found this.
Looks like the bonusses are of the same type, therefore overlap, resulting in a +11 natural armor.
Ruyan.
NO NO NO NO WRONG WRONG WRONG!
The Magic Section people! READ IT!
Ok... I'm done with my tantrum now I'll fix this:
While under the effects of a polymorph spell, you lose all extraordinary and supernatural abilities that depend on your original form (such as keen senses, scent, and darkvision), as well as any natural attacks and movement types possessed by your original form. You also lose any class features that depend upon form, but those that allow you to add features (such as sorcerers that can grow claws) still function. While most of these should be obvious, the GM is the final arbiter of what abilities depend on form and are lost when a new form is assumed. Your new form might restore a number of these abilities if they are possessed by the new form.
Natural armor by definition is completely dependent on form -- as such the stone giant loses his normal natural armor bonus to AC. It is instead replaced with the one given by the spell.
Also since he starts at a size different that small or medium you have to adjust him to one of these sizes before he gains the benefits from the spell.
In this case he's going from large to medium so according to the chart that comes in the polymorph section of the magic section we apply the following before the spell: -4 str +2 dex -2 con
He would also lose:
Darkvision, low-light vision, improved rock catching and rock throwing.
All the rules for this are here.
A better question is what happens when a stone giant wizard casts Giant Form: Stone Giant?
If casting Giant Form I, the wizard would change as follows:
+2 to Strength, +2 to Con
Lose the +4 from "improved rock catching"
Lose the +8 Stealth in rocky terrain
Rock throwing drops to 60 ft range increment
I think that's it.
EDIT: If you agree with the above, then natural armor drops from +11 to +4.
The spell doesn't say you lose anything, or that what it gives replaces anything you already have, so I'd say you use whichever is higher.
Granted the spell doesn't say you lose anything, but the general rules for transmutation(polymorph) do.
For purposes of natural armor, the stone giant is a dragon. He is not a stone giant with dragon scales. So, that's a +8 total bonus to natural armor because he loses his +11 as he is no longer a stone giant.
Hm, shouldn't they stack?
The bonus from the base creature (stone giant) is a built in "natural" natural armor bonus, whereas the bonus supplied by the spell is a magic or enhancement bonus to the natural base armor.
A spell in question says that you get a "a +8 natural armor bonus" It does not say "bonus to AC." Now, there are two ways to interpret this.
1) you get +8 natural armor bonus to AC or
2) you get a bonus of +8 to natural armor.
Animal Growth explicitly states that your "existing natural armor bonus increases by 2". Barkskin states that it "grants a +2 enhancement bonus to the creature’s existing natural armor bonus."
So, I'm afraid I would rule that if the rules intended for your bonus to increase by 8 they would have explicitly said so.
The language that's tripping me up is from the polymorph subschool.
It says "bonus to natural armor" NOT "natural armor bonus to AC" is gained.
*sigh*
IF natural armor isn't the type of the bonus, it is an untyped bonus to natural armor. A natural armor bonus to AC would not stack with other "natural armor" bonus types. An untyped bonus to natural armor would stack.
In any case, it isn't very clear, so nobody should be pretending this is obvious or berating anyone for any level of interpretation. If you are going to call people stupid for not knowing this obscure stuff, I'd rather not hear your response at all. It's better to be helpful than right.
I would love a decisive answer, but as a GM I see at least three ways to read this.
Complicating matters, near as I can tell there isn't a named bonus type "natural armor" in Pathfinder. The d20pfsrd has it included from 3.5 with adaptation. :(
The natural armor won't stack since natural armor is an (ex) ability and is lost when polymorphing.
So the side issue of if they could stack or not doesn't really apply here due to the polymorph effect.
All supernatural and extraordinary abilities are lost when polymorphing as are all movement speeds, and natural attacks.
I understand the confusion on the stacking natural armors end of things -- I really do -- but this is a case of simply reading the rules for the spell in question and realizing there isn't even a problem with stacking natural armors in the first place.
90% of the spell questions that come into the rules forum could easily be solved by simply reading the magic section. If you are playing a spell caster you really should read that section as it clarifies most of these things immediately.
That is not to say it fixes all questions (it doesn't, like the freedom of movement with natural difficult terrain question) -- but it does fix most of them.
Sounds good Abe. Can I get a reference on natural armor as (ex)?
Simply because there exists an answer does not mean anyone can find it, so please be courteous to those who cannot.
And also, thank you for your answer, it is the one I will be using.
I like the quote Lincoln. Although, upon reflection, Abe did try to qualify his rant by alluding to his own "tantrum." Anyway, I think I might have unearthed an appropriate passage from 221 of the core rule book.
Natural armor is not an extraordinary ability. It is a natural ability.
Natural Abilities: This category includes abilities a creature has because of its physical nature. Natural abilities are those not otherwise designated as extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like.
Natural armor ought to naturally fit into Natural Abilities.
I would think it quite reasonable to then consider Natural Abilities would also be lost because they too depend on your "original form."
It wasn't directed at Abe, actually, it was preemptive. ;)
...and more a response to the prevailing attitude on the forums than to the actions of any individual. I'm on a short fuse today, apologies.
While under the effects of a polymorph spell, you lose all extraordinary and supernatural abilities that depend on your original form (such as keen senses, scent, and darkvision), as well as any natural attacks and movement types possessed by your original form. You also lose any class features that depend upon form, but those that allow you to add features (such as sorcerers that can grow claws) still function. While most of these should be obvious, the GM is the final arbiter of what abilities depend on form and are lost when a new form is assumed. Your new form might restore a number of these abilities if they are possessed by the new form.
The rule you quoted applies the creature and class abilities noted as (Ex) or (Su). By RAW, natural armor is never defined as an (Ex) ability. While it is reasonable to assume this, and may be RAI, it is not RAW.
After going through the PRD, the Bestiary, and the core book, I could not find a reference to natural armor being an extraordinary (Ex) ability, but I may have overlooked it.
That said, the natural armor bonus seems to be a bonus to natural armor.
Polymorph: A polymorph spell transforms your physical body to take on the shape of another creature. While these spells make you appear to be the creature, granting you a +20 bonus on Disguise skill checks, they do not grant you all of the abilities and powers of the creature. Each polymorph spell allows you to assume the form of a creature of a specific type, granting you a number of bonuses to your ability scores and a bonus to your natural armor.
Edit: Ninja'd
If I was to suggest a change for the next -- whatever -- that change would be to have a specific rule section that covers specifically things like different bonus types, how they stack, how different effects interact, and order of operations for bonuses, actions, and everything else.
Once those ground rules are established then having specific sections for combat, magic, skills and the like becomes easier since you don't have to reference completely different areas of the book to find rule interactions as much.
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I've found the same natural ability thing as Tim, but I can't seem to find the section that specified that natural armor was an extraordinary ability.
I can certainly find many places where specific cases of natural armor are referenced as such -- and I know that as a whole natural armor is supposed to be extra-ordinary in general nature -- but I'm afraid I don't (currently) have a page number for you.
My best current reference is that it is extra-ordinary in the same way most feats state they are such too. Precisely that they don't.
Also it reference keen senses for example as an extraordinary ability -- but keen senses aren't listed anywhere as an extraordinary ability -- neither are the elven immunities, or magic bonuses, Dwarven stability, stonecunning, slow and steady or any other racial ability -- which all should to some degree be covered by these rules.
I would suggest there is room for some errata here from the developers, since there are a large number of abilities and features that are not designated one way or the other.
The only other line we have to fall back on is the tried and true return of rules zero:
While most of these should be obvious, the GM is the final arbiter of what abilities depend on form and are lost when a new form is assumed.
Which really isn't going to satisfy anyone here I think.
The only other line we have to fall back on is the tried and true return of rules zero:
While most of these should be obvious, the GM is the final arbiter of what abilities depend on form and are lost when a new form is assumed.
You know thing are bad when even the designers throw in the towel.
They rewrote the polymorph rules hoping to make them simpler. Yet, I think this shows there is still more work to be done. So, how would you re-write the polymorph rules? I would:
I would clearly state whether you lose you existing natural armor bonus.
I don't think we want to say that all racial traits are lost. Although any traits that supplies a racial bonus should be lost. This makes sense as a dwarf would keep Stonecunning and Hatred but lose Stability. Although I think some racial traits might need to be rewritten (halfling fearless and halfling luck come to mind).