From the way I'm reading it, it seem that a monk could put on a suit of light armor and fuse with it and not loose access to any of their monk abilities, and only the time the armor is worn and not fused would limit access to those abilities.
Is this how others have read this as well, or is my interpretation wishful thinking of a sort?
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Evolving still says you're wearing the armor. Since you're wearing armor, you lose anything you normally would for wearing armor even when it's fused.
Once per day on command, the armor fuses with the flesh of the wearer for 30 minutes or until dismissed. The armor doesn't grant any armor bonus to AC during this time, though the wearer still gains any of the armor's magic abilities. While fused with the armor, the wearer can manifest two of the following evolutions from the summoner list of eidolon evolutions: gills, improved natural armor, resistance, scent, slam, and swim. The wearer can't wear another suit of armor while fused with evolving armor.
That seems counter to what 'fuses' means.
Fuse:
*to join or become combined, or to cause things to join
*to blend thoroughly by or as if by melting together : combine
So the person and armor are no longer separate and thus the armor is no longer 'worn', at least not until the time limit is up. Using 'wearer' seems to be there to show that someone couldn't just press some armor against another person, or themselves, and then fuse with it, it has to be donned first.
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If that was the case then it would have dropped the "wearer" term after the fusing happens. As it is the term "wearer" is used at every point when talking about the ability, including while being fused. RAW says that you are still wearing the armor. When wearing armor, monks lose some of their abilities.
I think it would be reasonable in a home game to allow it to work the way you want. However, you asked for rules, which is adjudicated by RAW. RAW seems to be very clear on this matter.
Monks do not wear armor if they want to use their monk abilities (barring sohei). This is what the rules say and the designers intend. Please stop trying to bypass the limitations of a class that were built in by the design team.
Monks do not wear armor if they want to use their monk abilities (barring sohei). This is what the rules say and the designers intend. Please stop trying to bypass the limitations of a class that were built in by the design team.
*Cough* Design team of 3.5e.
It's not even a balance thing, I mean otherwise bracers of armour wouldn't be allowed with monks.
It's definitely a balance thing. I prefer monks and I've never bought Bracers because they are obnoxiously expensive compared to actual armor on a point for point comparison.
I don't know what you are talking about... bracers of armour cost the exact same amount as magic armour... Considering you'd probably be wearing light armour as a monk, you weren't going to get a large AC bonus from the armour itself, most of the bonus was going to come from the enhancement bonus to begin with.
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Mithril Shirt is 4 AC plus the enhancement bonus with max Dex of 6. A monk won't likely have more than +6 dex due to the MAD.
So to get +8 AC with a Bracer will cost 64k and with mithril chain will cost 20k.
As James pointed out, you're only considering the enhancement bonus, you're completely missing out the armor's own armor bonus which point-for-point is obviously much cheaper than the enhancement bonuses. (obviously directed at Milo, just quoting James because he makes the good point)
Yeah, but the Monk's class bonus plus Wis to AC kinda cancel's out the armor's base armor bonus, the bracers just have to replace the enhancement bonus to the armor (since the monk is wearing no armor to enchant).
Thus the bracer's cost being equal to the cost to enchant armor is, well, equal.
I don't think I agree that armor fused/melded into your form should still count as "wearing armor" since it no longer provides an armor bonus and isn't physically on your body (it is inside you). You could still get the special qualities of such armor, but you could have just put them on bracers anyway. But the FAQ disagrees with me.
So yeah, you still count as wearing armor.
