TheFinish's page

Right so, I had this conundrum ever since we got the ENWorld previews, and I thought the wording in the playtest CRB would help, but it hasn't.

So, the Shield Block reaction states:

"You snap your shield in place to ward off a blow. Your shield prevents you from taking an amount of damage up to the shield’s Hardness—the shield takes this damage instead, possibly becoming dented or broken. See the Item Damage section on page 175 for rules on dented and broken items."

And then, Page 175 states:

"An item can be destroyed if it takes damage enough times. An item reduces any damage dealt to it by its Hardness. The Hardness of various materials is explained in the Materials section on page 354. If an item takes damage equal to or exceeding the item’s Hardness, the item takes a Dent. If the item takes damage equal to or greater than twice its Hardness in one hit, it takes 2 Dents. For instance, a wooden shield (Hardness 3) that takes 10 damage would take 2 Dents. A typical item can take only 1 Dent without becoming broken. A second Dent causes it to become broken, though it can still be repaired. An item that would take a Dent or become broken while already broken is destroyed beyond salvage. Some magical or especially sturdy items can take more than 1 Dent before becoming broken, as noted in their descriptions."

This is also pretty clear, but the problem I have comes from the combination of both sections.

Lets say I have a Light Wooden Shield, which is Hardness 3. I get hit by an attack that does 15 damage. What happens?

Per Shield Block, the Shield would block 3 Damage, because that's the Hardness, and it can't block more than that. But then it also says:

"[...]-up to the shield’s Hardness—the shield takes this damage instead, possibly becoming dented or broken."

But...if an object reduces all damage taken by it's Hardness, how is the shield ever getting dented?

I get hit for 15. I block. The shield takes 3 Damage, which Hardness reduces to 0 damage. I myself would take the remaining 12, is that not correct?

Is the damage the shield takes not supposed to be reduced by Hardness?

Is the shield supposed to suffer the remaining 12 damage as well? And then I too take 12 damage?

I feel this could use some serious revision, but maybe I just can't wrap my head around it. Opinions?

I apologize in advance if this has been answered before; I'm new to the boards and while I used the search function I was unable to find an answer.

To the point, one of my players, while looking for an Archetype for his Barbarian brought the following ability from the Brutal Pugilist to my attention:

Improved Savage Grapple (Ex): At 5th level, the brutal
pugilist takes no penalties to Dexterity, attack rolls, and
combat maneuver checks when she has the grappled
condition. She also is treated as one size larger than her
actual size when determining whether she can grapple
or be grappled by another creature. This ability replaces
improved uncanny dodge.

Emphasis mine. From the APG, page 78.

My question concerns the bolded part. For the life of me, I've been unable to find any mention of size restrictions for grapple. Checking these boards, it seems that the consensus is there isn't. How does this ability work then? Should a Brutal Pugilist get CMB/CMD bonuses as if he was one size larger?

Any help is appreciated