I'm usually creating my own monsters for my more important encounters (I almost never throw in a monster completely 'as is') and the Monster Creation chapter in the Bestiary have been very useful for this. But there's one thing that isn't mentioned anywhere, at least not that I can find. Natural Armor.
How do you decide how much natural armor a monster should have? There's nothing stating how that should be calculated. But, there is a monster feat which increases natural armor slightly, and a prerequisite is of course that they have natural armor.
I suppose I could just go with my gut on it, seeing as to how long I've been modding and creating monsters. But when you're creating a monster completely from scratch, and it's supposed to have natural armor I'd prefer that the numbers for it where there. What I've done now is simply add the creatures highest save as the natural armor bonus.
So, is there an official way to calculate this and it was merely overlooked, or will I have to think up my own way of doing it? Using the highest save might work, but I haven't tested it on my players yet, so I'd call it a makeshift solution at best right now.
Decide how tough its hide is and eyeball it from there.
Alternately, give it a natural armor bonus that puts its AC into the average AC range for its CR.
Either way, there is no hard and fast rule. If you're making a completely new homebrew monster, you decide how much natural armor it has.
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It does talk about natural armor, read step 7 in creature creation.
When building a creature's Armor Class, start by adding armor, shield, and natural armor bonuses to its Dexterity modifier. If a creature does not wear armor, give it a tougher hide to get it near its average AC. Remember that creatures with higher hit point totals might have a lower Armor Class, whereas creatures with fewer hit points might have a higher Armor Class. If a creature's Armor Class deviates from the average by more than 5 points, it might not be the right CR.
Yeah it does mention it, but only briefly and very fuzzily.
Seems that it's just to go for what seems right/works.
Thanks for the replies, I'll post a thread with my monsters later on when my players have encountered them (I know at least one of them roam around here O_o )