Negative natural armor?

[Admiral Squish]

If humans have 0 natural armor, is it possible for a creature to have negative natural armor? Do the rules work that way? Say, the creature's skin is particularly thin or delicate, or it doesn't have skin, or it's made of gum-flesh, or it's got one of those diseases that makes your skin fall off, something like that.

[Roguenewb]

I think all the templates that reduce the natural armor AC give a minimum of zero.

[tyckspoon]

I don't believe there's anything that forbids something like that, but typically a creature with a vulnerability of that style would have it represented with a different quality (or possibly just a generic penalty to AC instead of specifically a negative Natural Armor.) They might have vulnerability to slashing/piercing weapons or suffer a bleeding wound when damaged, things like that.

[CaladanMoonblad]

There's a bare minimum for skin (natural armor) to keep out nasty bacteria and viruses, and why it's important to have a tetanus shot in real life when cut by metal objects (Tetanus kills 1 in 5 of people infected without a vaccine). Anything less than 0 is likely not going to be a living creature at all. Think of human skin as a bare minimum to guard against infection.

[Admiral Squish]

There's a bare minimum for skin (natural armor) to keep out nasty bacteria and viruses, and why it's important to have a tetanus shot in real life when cut by metal objects (Tetanus kills 1 in 5 of people infected without a vaccine). Anything less than 0 is likely not going to be a living creature at all. Think of human skin as a bare minimum to guard against infection.

Well, what if it's not alive? Say, someone made a tissue paper golem, or it's an undead creature whose flesh has turned papery and fragile?
The question is, is it possible to have a negative natural armor.

I mean, this kind of vulnerability seems like it might have to be represented with a penalty to natural armor. It won't make it easier to hit you with a touch attack, but it'd make it easier for weapons to hit you.

[eggynack]

I'm pretty sure that if oozes don't have negative natural armor, nothing will. Oozes sound a lot like what you're talking about, and they rock a perfect zero on that front

[Lord Vukodlak]

Take a human with no armor and 10 dexterity.

His Armor Class is 10.
His touch AC is 10
His flat-foot AC is 10.

If you somehow gave him negative natural armor would his touch AC be higher then his regular armor class.(because touch AC ignores natural armor). But that's ridiculous... your easier to hit with a sword then to simply touch you?

Basically a human sized object has an AC of five. Doesn't matter if its made of flesh, stone or cardboard. That's simply the AC to his an object of that size. It be the same base AC a naked human would have at a dexterity of one or zero.

[Admiral Squish]

Take a human with no armor and 10 dexterity.

His Armor Class is 10.
His touch AC is 10
His flat-foot AC is 10.

If you somehow gave him negative natural armor would his touch AC be higher then his regular armor class.(because touch AC ignores natural armor). But that's ridiculous... your easier to hit with a sword then to simply touch you?

Basically a human sized object has an AC of five. Doesn't matter if its made of flesh, stone or cardboard. That's simply the AC to his an object of that size. It be the same base AC a naked human would have at a dexterity of one or zero.

Hmmm. I still think negative natural armor works in most cases, but your argument holds truth.

How WOULD one represent such frailty of flesh, then?

[DaedalusMkV]

How WOULD one represent such frailty of flesh, then?

Very low HP totals? Taking Bleed damage from Slashing/Piercing attacks? Taking bonus Damage per attack? Penalties to the creature's Con score? Automatically confirmed critical hits against it, or even extended Threat Ranges? Anything that makes it more fragile when hit would make sense, much more so than making it easier to hit.

[TuggyNE]

Take a human with no armor and 10 dexterity.

His Armor Class is 10.
His touch AC is 10
His flat-foot AC is 10.

If you somehow gave him negative natural armor would his touch AC be higher then his regular armor class.(because touch AC ignores natural armor). But that's ridiculous... your easier to hit with a sword then to simply touch you?

There's a similar case in the existing ruleset that is properly handled: Dex is added to AC, and flat-footed AC ignores the Dex modifier, right? Well, what happens if your Dex mod is negative? The solution is that flat-footed only ignores the Dex bonus, not any Dex penalty you might have.

Here, just set it up so touch AC ignores natural armor bonuses. Done.

[Admiral Squish]

There's a similar case in the existing ruleset that is properly handled: Dex is added to AC, and flat-footed AC ignores the Dex modifier, right? Well, what happens if your Dex mod is negative? The solution is that flat-footed only ignores the Dex bonus, not any Dex penalty you might have.

Here, just set it up so touch AC ignores natural armor bonuses. Done.

Mmm, but that doesn't make sense, either. Why would frail skin make you easier to touch?

[Ashtagon]

There's a similar case in the existing ruleset that is properly handled: Dex is added to AC, and flat-footed AC ignores the Dex modifier, right? Well, what happens if your Dex mod is negative? The solution is that flat-footed only ignores the Dex bonus, not any Dex penalty you might have.

Here, just set it up so touch AC ignores natural armor bonuses. Done.

Actually, flat-footed ignores the Dexterity bonus, not the modifier. Dexterity penalties still count.

[TuggyNE]

Mmm, but that doesn't make sense, either. Why would frail skin make you easier to touch?

Hmm, that is kind of tricky to justify, but something is wonky no matter how you do it.


Actually, flat-footed ignores the Dexterity bonus, not the modifier. Dexterity penalties still count.

Yes, that's what I said. I deliberately included a false version initially for rhetorical value (because that's how you'd expect it to work, but that's not how it does work).

[Ashtagon]

Yes, that's what I said. I deliberately included a false version initially for rhetorical value (because that's how you'd expect it to work, but that's not how it does work).

Rules says you lose your Dex bonus. That's what I expect to happen, since it doesn't mention losing a Dex penalty as well :smallconfused:

[Chronos]

Negative natural armor isn't the way to model such a condition. Your hypothetical creature would have as its outermost layer something that is itself vulnerable to wounds. The same is true of a human. If a weapon hits a turtle's carapace or a lion's mane, it won't do any actual damage to the animal: Thus, they have natural armor. If a weapon hits a human's skin, the skin will break, and that in itself causes damage to the human: Thus, humans do not have natural armor. If a weapon hits the surface of a skinless creature, again, it's directly affecting a part that's vulnerable to damage, same as the human, so the skinless creature has the same natural armor (or lack thereof) as the human.

[dascarletm]

Negative natural armor isn't the way to model such a condition. Your hypothetical creature would have as its outermost layer something that is itself vulnerable to wounds. The same is true of a human. If a weapon hits a turtle's carapace or a lion's mane, it won't do any actual damage to the animal: Thus, they have natural armor. If a weapon hits a human's skin, the skin will break, and that in itself causes damage to the human: Thus, humans do not have natural armor. If a weapon hits the surface of a skinless creature, again, it's directly affecting a part that's vulnerable to damage, same as the human, so the skinless creature has the same natural armor (or lack thereof) as the human.

I think the idea is that our skin has a real world effect of being fairly tough. Our skin would look like a turtle's shell to something very fleshy and weak.

[Sgt. Cookie]

How WOULD one represent such frailty of flesh, then?

Perhaps the creature has a quality like "Attacks made by weapons are made at a +X bonus. Any effects that rely on touch attacks do not gain this bonus."

[dascarletm]

I think the assumption is that any weapon without a penalty to damage or to hit is assumed to puncture the natural protection of anything with natural armor equivalent to human skin or less. Thus if you said any weapons that have penalties to hit/damage due to inferior quality/sharpness (like silver?) ignore X of that penalty when attacking said creature.

[eggynack]

I think I'm going to need some sort of argument for how anything could have less natural armor than an ooze, before we start talking about theoretical skinless humans. I'm not even really sure what negative natural armor would mean. It'd basically have to be a creature that shot its vital organs in the way of your blade.

[dascarletm]

I think I'm going to need some sort of argument for how anything could have less natural armor than an ooze, before we start talking about theoretical skinless humans. I'm not even really sure what negative natural armor would mean. It'd basically have to be a creature that shot its vital organs in the way of your blade.

Oozes have surface tension keeping them in their shape(s). Cubes break the laws of fluid dynamics clearly. Thus, armor?:smallconfused:

[BowStreetRunner]

Within the rules there is a 'natural armor bonus'. It is not just 'natural armor'. Since the rules stipulate that a bonus is always a positive number, you cannot have a negative natural armor bonus.

So any such vulnerability would have to be presented in the form of some other quality.

[NichG]

I've used things like 'any melee attack landed upon the creature is an automatic crit' or an expanded crit range for attacks against the creature for this sort of thing. Generally more of a negative status condition that can be applied to PCs by something that can expose their internal organs directly to attack (e.g., like someone getting hit by a Teratomorph or Chaos Beast), but the principle is the same.