I would focus on the description of the spell as per Niara’s explanations in this thread and the linked Sage Advice. I’m no 5e expert (unlike Niara) but as far as I’m aware all the spell functionally does is increase your AC to 16 if it’s not that already.
EDIT: So from your edit, it sounds as though BG3 is representing this as the bear’s base AC as its default 12, plus 2 from Shield of Faith. This is under 16, so when you add Barkskin it raises AC by 2 to 16. However, as Barkskin raises AC to 16 no matter what it was previously, the Shield of Faith isn’t doing anything useful here. If the bear had its base AC of 12 that I believe it has without Shield of Faith, then Barkskin would raise it to 16 anyway. I don’t have the game in front of me, so hope those numbers are correct.
EDIT2: You may want to look back in this post to see some screenshots I posted of Barkskin on Gale with Mage Armour. Unfortunately, that’s where the tooltip bug kicks in, but similarly to you’ve found with Shield of Faith, casting Barkskin and Mage Armour is pointless, as if Mage Armour doesn’t increase AC to 16 then Barkskin would have raised it to 16 anyway. Whereas if the AC is already 16 or more with Mage Armour but without Barkskin, Barkskin has no effect as all it does is guarantee a minimum.
Last edited by The_Red_Queen; 10/01/23 08:09 AM.
