Dragon mask AC confirmation

[Zaltman]

Draconic Majesty. While you are wearing no armor, you can add your Charisma bonus to your Armor Class.

So, is this right?
20 charisma = 5
18 dex = 4
Mage armor = 13
Shield = 2 (I don’t think it counts as wearing armor)

AC = 24

[Chronos]

Mage armor might count as "wearing armor". But the barbarian's or monk's Unarmored Defense, or a few races' similar abilities, definitely don't.

[Asmotherion]

Draconic Majesty. While you are wearing no armor, you can add your Charisma bonus to your Armor Class.

So, is this right?
20 charisma = 5
18 dex = 4
Mage armor = 13
Shield = 2 (I don’t think it counts as wearing armor)

AC = 24

That's right. For referance that's not the craziest AC one can accomplish via Magic Items though.

[Derpldorf]

You touch a willing creature who isn’t wearing armor, and a protective magical force surrounds it until the spell ends. The target’s base AC becomes 13 + its Dexterity modifier. The spell ends if the target dons armor or if you dismiss the spell as an action.

The spell description states that it requires the target to be Unarmored, and it ends if you don a set of Armor. It also states that it is an alteration to the targets Base Armor Class.

It does not count as armor and does stack with any bonus to your AC, so long as it isn't another alteration of the Base Armor Class.

The Dragon Mask line of items adds the wearers Charisma Modifier to its Armor Class, so long as it isn't wearing Armor. Therefor it will stack with Mage Armor or any of the Class gained Base Armor Class formulas.

[Rukelnikov]

Yeah, it works that way. The same way Bladesong stacks.

AC has two components Base Calculation and Modifiers

Armor gives you base calculation, many features give you base calculation as well, for example Unarmored Defense ("Your armor class equals X"), Mage Armor ("The targets base AC becomes X"). Modifiers instead are like Shield "You have a +5 bonus to AC", or Bladesong "You gain a bonus to your AC equal to".

[Chronos]

And then there's Barkskin, which isn't base armor nor a modifier, and so manages to be worse than either.

[Theodoxus]

Barkskin is great for fools who refuse to wear armor and tanked their Dex, Con and/or Wis. Fortunately, I've never played with any such fools, so have never had a reason to take, much less cast the spell.

In all honestly, it should do what Stoneskin does, and Stoneskin should (solely based on the cost) be: Until the spell ends, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage that you take from nonmagicalweapons is reduced by 10.

[loki_ragnarock]

In all honestly, it should do what Stoneskin does, and Stoneskin should (solely based on the cost) be: Until the spell ends, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage that you take from nonmagicalweapons is reduced by 10.
Hard disagree on stoneskin. The only thing it needs is no expensive material component. If someone wants to insulate themselves from damage entire, play an Abjurer.

Likewise, Barkskin as a second level spell shouldn't be doing what stoneskin a 4th level spell is doing.

Also, Barkskin is great if you - for instance - shift forms on the regular into low AC; a Brown Bear with a 16 AC is a whole different CR than a Brown Bear with their base 11 AC. Outside of the specific design parameters of the class that gets it? Eh, I'd agree it's not great. In the fuller context of the class that gets it, pretty solid selfish cast.

It's really only garbage on a ranger; comes too late to be useful, totally unsupported by class features. It's not even particularly useful to cast on an animal companion in the original conception of the Beast Master, but at least it has a minor niche in keeping your boar or mule modestly more tanky?

[Rukelnikov]

Hard disagree on stoneskin. The only thing it needs is no expensive material component. If someone wants to insulate themselves from damage entire, play an Abjurer.

Likewise, Barkskin as a second level spell shouldn't be doing what stoneskin a 4th level spell is doing.

Also, Barkskin is great if you - for instance - shift forms on the regular into low AC; a Brown Bear with a 16 AC is a whole different CR than a Brown Bear with their base 11 AC. Outside of the specific design parameters of the class that gets it? Eh, I'd agree it's not great. In the fuller context of the class that gets it, pretty solid selfish cast.

It's really only garbage on a ranger; comes too late to be useful, totally unsupported by class features. It's not even particularly useful to cast on an animal companion in the original conception of the Beast Master, but at least it has a minor niche in keeping your boar or mule modestly more tanky?

How often do you see stoneskin being cast? Personally I've never seen it cast once since playing 5e.

My change would be "Resistance to B/P/S". The bypass by magical is something I don't like, I'm not sure if that would be enough for the spell to see play though.

[Theodoxus]

Also, Barkskin is great if you - for instance - shift forms on the regular into low AC; a Brown Bear with a 16 AC is a whole different CR than a Brown Bear with their base 11 AC. Outside of the specific design parameters of the class that gets it? Eh, I'd agree it's not great. In the fuller context of the class that gets it, pretty solid selfish cast.

If someone else casts it on your Druid, sure. Casting it on yourself? Hope you picked up Warcaster, a 16 AC, while a lot better than 11, is still going to get hit often enough that you're gonna be making Concentration checks fairly regularly, especially if your playing tank.

The other problem is it's concentration and Druids have a lot of concentration spells that frankly would be generally better.

[Chronos]

And you also have the option of asking an arcane party-mate to cast Mage Armor on you. Lower-level slot, lasts longer, no concentration from anyone, and often a bigger bonus to AC (especially on high-dex forms).

Back on topic, yeah, I agree that the mask probably does stack with Mage Armor. I was just raising that as a possible objection, not one that I necessarily agree with.

[Evaar]

Mage armor might count as "wearing armor".

It does not, because it doesn't work with the Defensive Fighting Style.