Talk:Armor Class/@comment-68.230.13.84-20180918171623/@comment-3234315-20180918183816

It's also confusing by saying "the AC number in that line will be changed", because as of now we don't do this on creature infoboxes. (I had something about that in mind, though.) Sorry, that was not your concern …

Unfortunately I have no idea why there are those two values in a creature file: "natural" and "effective" AC. But I have never experienced any difference between them. Usually the base AC of 10 any player-generated character has is called "natural armor class". Some classes/kits give bonuses to it, but those are applied via effects, not by altering the base value.

Armor does set the natural AC to a different value: wearing Chain Mail alters 10 to 5. If the natural AC of the wearer would be 8 instead of 10, wearing chain mail still makes it 5. If the natural AC of that creature would be 4 they only benefit from the -2 bonus against slashing damage, their overall AC isn't altered anymore.

So, what your inventory or character screen shows you as (effective) armor class is what you have as AC. As I mentioned above, most (if not all) ACs on creatures here on the wiki that are stated in their infoboxes will not reflect the armor they're wearing. So you'd also have to check their inventory (also in the infobox, if it's complete) or any possible "Gameplay" sections. If you see a creature with an AC below 10 that's wearing armor, you (for the moment) would have to calculate the factual effective AC. (Applying changes to the infobox that allow implemented display of all bonuses by equipment is a huge effort.)

Uhm, does this answer your question and solve your confusion?