If you have natural armor in your natural form, and you polymorph, does the natural armor that your new form gives you, over-ride your existing natural armor, stack with it, or only come into play if it's more than your natural armor is normally?
That depends. Any creature can be affected by a single polymorph at any given time. The thing is, the polymorphic effect states what it provides, and it overrides anything your previous form had.
If it was done as a choice (I.e. Wild Shape), I am sure you still retain your natural armor bonus (assuming it is superior), otherwise the polymorph effect overrides it. In events of a baleful polymorph, I would say no since you aren't given an option or capability to retain any natural armor you may have; that decision is left to the caster, if possible, and chances are they won't give you more AC.
Just my 2 cp. Hope that helps!
If you have natural armor in your natural form, and you polymorph, does the natural armor that your new form gives you, over-ride your existing natural armor, stack with it, or only come into play if it's more than your natural armor is normally?
James Jacobs had this to say:
Natural armor bonuses never stack. The only way you can increase a natural armor bonus is to put an enhancement bonus (as from barkskin) on it.
When you polymorph, you take a new form. You get the new form's natural armor bonus (or whatever variant of that bonus the spell grants), but you don't retain your old one since you're not in that form any more.
So you lose whatever natural armor you have in your natural form, and replace it with whatever the new form gives.
OKay, what if the thing polymorphing is an animal companion? It has natural armor from it's base form. then a scaling bonus based on being an animal companion. do you take the polymorph natural armor bonus, and then add the scaling animal companion bonus to it?
The bonus natural armor is actually improving the animal companions normal natural armor. I would say it would be lost, just like everything else tied to the animals old form. But thats just my opinion.
If you have natural armor in your natural form, and you polymorph, does the natural armor that your new form gives you, over-ride your existing natural armor, stack with it, or only come into play if it's more than your natural armor is normally?
This is actually a little tricky... and I suspect you are not asking the question you want answered; see below.
First: Generally, bonuses of the same type don't stack. Like armor bonuses to AC, natural armor bonuses to AC don't stack.
Second: The basics of natural armor are given in the Barkskin spell:
The enhancement bonus provided by barkskin stacks with the target's natural armor bonus, but not with other enhancement bonuses to natural armor. A creature without natural armor has an effective natural armor bonus of +0.
So every character has a natural armor bonus to AC; it just defaults to zero. (Knowing this was a great help to me in understanding how AC works in general).
Third: Polymorph school says
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.
So, if I was your GM, I would judge that your animal companion's natural armor bonus to AC "depended on it's original form" and is thus lost when you polymorph it -- it gets the natural armor granted by the polymorph spell, even if it is worse than the original.
However, if your PC was an 15th level Draconic sorcerer (with a +4 natural armor bonus as a class ability) I would rule that the normal stacking rules apply -- that is, it's a class ability does not "depend on your original form" -- and say that you get the better one of the bonus you have already and the polymorphed one.
In both cases an enhancement bonus to natural armor, such as from Barkskin, continues to work -- it enhances your natural armor.
BUT! very big BUT!
It is possible to gain natural armor "increases" (e.g., Dragon Disciples) and "improvements" (Animal Companions) -- and these should also carry across polymorphs! (I guess this is what you wanted to ask about?)
The final procedure for determining the natural armor of a polymorphed animal companion becomes:
- Subtract animal's original/Bestiary natural armor bonus
- Add Polymorph spell's natural armor bonus
- Add improvement to natural armor from table 3.8, Animal Companion Base Statistics
- Add enhancement bonus to natural armor
|
I had the same idea, Power Fower, but then checked again the Natural Armor. It is always a natural armor bonus. And the polymorph spells give a natural armor bonus, so they don't stack.
You need a natural armor enhancement or a ability that increase the natural armor bonus, not one that give a specific value for it.
|
|
Animal companion natural armor increase probably would increase the polymorphed natural AC form too, as it is expressed as: "AC +2 natural armor" in the statistics about the animal companion advancement.
The Draconis bloodline instead say "Dragon Resistances (Ex): At 3rd level, you gain ... and a +1 natural armor bonus. At 9th level, ... natural armor bonus increases to +2. At 15th level, your natural armor bonus increases to +4.", so it give a specific value for the natural armor, not an increase to it.
The problem is that the difference could be simply a different way to say the same thing instead of a intended difference.
A FAQ clarifying this matter wouldn't be a bad thing.