I'm playing a Warrior Poet Samurai in a campaign and I just hit level four. I decided to put my armor bonus in my clothes, but my GM said that this would cancel the CHA bonus I get to my AC because my clothes now count as armor. To get around this I need to pay 2k to get bracers and enchant those. Is this correct because I don't think it is.
It was my understanding that the "enchant your clothes" option for automatic bonus progression was to replace "bracers of armor" which would no longer exist in an ABP campaign.
So if "having pants which grant an armor bonus that don't get in the way of spellcasting" works for a wizard, I don't know why it shouldn't work for a monk or indeed a samurai.
He states that it's for balance, because it's unfair that monks and (in my case) a samurai can get armor for "free". Thus adding plus one to clothes makes it armor.
You literally need 17th level before the armor attunement becomes better then a f#$$ing hour/level first level spell. If a +1 to AC must be banned for "balancing", what will mage armor do?
Seriously, this isn't balancing, this is the opposite (enforcing imbalance). Bracers of armor cost the same as magic armor enchantments do, so if everyone gets the later for free, making you pay for the former is illogical.
Why does you GM think the option to enchant your clothign exists if no character would ever use it? If the clothign counts as armor, why aren't the stats (that every single piece of armor in the game absolutely must have) given?
Bracers of armor and mage armor are not the only things that are not armor that gives an AC bonus. Robes of the archmagi give a +5 armor bonus to AC. I am sure if you look you will find many things that grant an armor bonus that are not armor. The reason most of these grant an armor bonus is so that they do not stack with armor. If the item or spell granted an untyped bonus each item would need to explicitly state it does not stack with armor.
One thing you could try doing is purchasing a non-magic set of bracers and saying you are applying your bonus to those.
Your GM can of course hose rule this any way he wants. But RAW he is wrong.
There's a lot of gaping holes in the bonus progression rules. As written, it's a good idea that wasn't properly fleshed out. The intent should be clear that these rules aren't meant to randomly punish classes, just because every possible interaction wasn't carefully considered.
If your GM insists on being unreasonable then just grab a wand of mage armor and have an ally cast it on you as needed.
As someone else pointed out, the bonus you will get from that will be more than automatic bonus progression would give you for a long time. And with each casting lasting an hour, it's not hard to have it available the whole adventuring day.
IN any event, Possible Cabbage is correct. It was intended to replace Bracers of Armor, which wouldn't have interfered with your Charisma to AC ability.
Your GM is arguing that a monk should have worse armor class than a spell-free wizard?
Ahahahahahahaha!