Fist of the Forest and Wild Shape

[MadSeer]

I always thought the bonus AC from the Fist of the Forest didn't work while using Wild Shape or other Polymorph effects because it would be a far too massive AC bump, but then I saw that it was base CON only. I'm curious to know why our version of the PrC is so much weaker than it's PnP counterpart.

I'm assuming the damage was nerfed because it would be a huge increase for Monks over just 3 levels and it couldn't be made to simply progress the unarmed damage table like in PnP, but the leap from constitution modifier as an AC bonus to only using the character's base Constitution and remove its functionality while polymorphed takes away a lot of that class's "hmph".

I don't think we need +10 boosts to AC when polymorphed, but feels like base CON bonus could still be used?