Many creatures of the world possess thick hides, iron-hard scales or even chitin or shells to protect them from danger. Some of these develop natural over the eons, and some receive an unnatural boost. Spellcasters experimenting with augmenting species or breeding monsters for war often adopt the adage "the best offense is a good defense."

An armored creature is one who has naturally or unnaturally developed a physical toughness and resistance to damage. This can be in the form of thick skin, scales, hide, shells, bony plates, chitinous growths, or any other protective covering one could imagine. Most armored creatures breed true once introduced into the world; thus, a scale-covered lion would reproduce more scale-covered lions. It would not suddenly spawn lions with bony plates or other armored variant.

Armored creatures tend to be bulkier, more powerful and more resilient to damage at the expense of mobility.

CREATING AN ARMORED CREATURE

"Armored" is an inherited or acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature with a solid physical form (thus creatures like oozes, air and water elementals and other amorphous creatures are excluded), which is referred to hereafter as the "base creature". It uses all of the base creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Size and Type: The creature's type, subtypes and size remain unchanged.

Hit Dice: Same as base creature.

Speed: All of the base creature's movement rates are reduced by 10 ft. (with a minimum of 10 ft.). In addition, flying maneuverability drops by one category (so average becomes clumsy, and so on).

Armor Class: An armored creature's natural armor class improves by +8.

Attacks: Same as base creature.

Damage: Same as base creature.

Special Attacks: An armored creature has all the special attacks of the base creature. An armored creature's natural attacks can overcome damage reduction equivalent to the damage reduction it possesses itself.

Special Qualities: An armored creature has all the special qualities of the base creature and those listed below.

Damage Reduction (Su): An armored creature possesses damage reduction based upon the Hit Dice of the base creature.

Hit Dice	Damage Reduction
1-3	—
4-7	5/magic
8-15	10/magic
16 or more	10/adamantine and magic

Fortified (Ex): An armored creature has a 25% chance of negating the extra damage caused by a confirmed critical hit, sneak attack, or skirmish damage.

Stability (Ex): An armored creature gains a +2 bonus on ability checks made to resist being bull rushed or tripped when standing on the ground (but not when climbing, flying, riding, or otherwise not standing firmly on the ground).

Saves: Same as base creature.

Abilities: Str +2, Dex -2, Con +4, Int +0, Wis +0, Cha +0.

Skills: Same as base creature.

Feats: Same as base creature.

Environment: Same as base creature.

Organization: Same as base creature.

Challenge Rating: Same as base creature +1.

Treasure: Same as base creature.

Alignment: Same as base creature.

Advancement: Same as base creature.

Source: Charles W. Plemons III.

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