Unarmored Defense - whoa, that looks interesting
Honestly as i have checked around, since this particular feature interested me too ...
And sadly it seems like Unarmored Defense is some kind of trap for unexperienced Barbarians ...
(Especialy in game where nothing forces you to give up your armor.)
I mean its not "bad", not really ... but it takes some time to get your ability scores high enough so you are actualy better protected than when wearing Medium Armor, WICH (again as i understand it from discusions, so feel free to corect me) dont actualy prevent you from using any Barbarian features ... that restriction apply on Heavy Armor only. O_o
Trap is harsh, but it's true you don't necessarily want to dress down your Barbarian. Unlike Monks, Barbarian's Unarmored Defense seems to be there to give the
option of living the barely-clothed Barbarian fantasy, rather than being something you'll always want to take advantage of. Barbarians get medium armor proficiency and, while both armoured and unarmoured Barbarians are basically viable, the armour tends to be better for them outside of high-level gameplay (which we might not see in
BG3).
To put some numbers on it. Let's say you're playing to type and are picking races with STR/CON boosts: Human, Shield Dwarf, Half-Orc, potentially Half-Elf. You could start with 16 Str, 14 Dex, 16 Con. This gets you 15 AC, and unlike Monks you can wear a shield to boost your AC higher. It's decent enough, on par with a Chain Shirt. But certainly you can find medium armour that does more, especially if you don't care about disadvantage on Stealth checks. (As it stands you could nick Lae'zel's Half-Plate, 15+2 AC, right off the bat.)
One thing that might be interesting, is if we ever get any magic clothing with Barbarian- or Monk-themed effects. So far we have some robe magic items, but of course Poisoner's Robes aren't much use to your average Barbarian! ("When the wearer casts a spell that deals Poison damage...")
