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Is a Warforged considered to be wearing armor?

The Warforged race from The Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron has a unique feature that affects their armor, detailed below:

Integrated Protection

Your body has built-in defensive layers, which determine your armor class. You gain no benefit from wearing armor, but if you are using a shield, you apply its bonus as normal.

You can alter your body to enter different defensive modes; each time you finish a long rest, choose one mode to adopt from the Integrated Protection table, provided you meet the mode's prerequisite.

Image courtesy of D&D Beyond.

Nowhere in this description does it say anything about the "built-in defensive layers" counting as armor for the purposes of wearing armor, but this is heavily implied by the table's parenthetical descriptions following each mode, such as the medium mode Composite Plating (armor). This is important in a number of cases, such as the Defense fighting style fighters and paladins get at first level:

Defense

While you are wearing armor, you gain a +1 bonus to AC.

PHB 72, 84

(Emphasis mine)

and the Rage feature that barbarians receive at first level:

Rage

In battle, you fight with primal ferocity. On your turn, you can enter a rage as a bonus action.
While raging, you gain the following benefits if you aren't wearing heavy armor:

...

PHB 48

(Emphasis mine)

Is the feature text more authoritative, not specifying the Integrated Protection as armor worn, or is the table with its parenthetical descriptions more authoritative, meaning that the second and third options count as wearing armor for the above features?

1 Answer
1

Yes.

It would certainly be helpful if it said, "composite plating and heavy plating count as armor for you", that would make it very clear, but it doesn't say that.

However as you noted, it is heavily implied in the Mode column. I think it goes beyond heavily implying, it's telling you that one of those modes is unarmored and two are armored. Plus, there's that column about the proficiencies.

To read it in the opposite way ends up with a lot of strangeness, where with heavy armor proficiency you can get the benefits of armor, but you also get the benefits of not having armor.

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