|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm wondering how folks interpret the rules for the following situation.
Say the party, relatively low level, is in a room in a dungeon. The walls of the dungeon are 2 feet thick worked granite.
The party triggers a trap and the room begins to fill with water. The party has several minutes to solve some puzzle or riddle (a magic trap?) to get the stone plug that is the door to open and let them out.
Say a 3rd level warrior has picked up a masterwork adamantine longsword.
Can this party forever ignore these dangers as the warrior walks up and just cuts through the stone door, Jedi-style?
How do you handle adamantine weapons and cutting a path through a dungeon or maze?
While the adamantine "ignores the hardness" of most objects (hardness 20), this doesn't relegate them to butter, right?
Certain weapons just can't effectively deal damage to certain objects. For example, a bludgeoning weapon cannot be used to damage a rope. Likewise, most melee weapons have little effect on stone walls and doors, unless they are designed for breaking up stone, such as a pick or hammer.
The above makes it seem that even an adamantine longsword wouldn't be able to quickly carve through a stone door. And that in fact it would take an adamantine pick or hammer, and likely still a good amount of time to get through, right?
I'd imagine an adamantine pickaxe is like a real-world lutetium pickaxe (if someone could afford that). While it would make tunneling through stone quicker (say turning an hour of work into 30 mins of work), it doesn't make it seconds of work...?
I would agree completely with your take on the situation. A longsword simply does not have the mass to cut through stone that thick, especially not granite!
|
|
And I'll be sending out updated Chronicles to some of you, with a new condition added ("died").
You bastard!! :)
Yes, this scenario has long sat in the back of my head as I debated what I'd do if it was used to shortcut certain upcoming challenges that I am preparing...
And, I think it wouldn't actually be a viable shortcut.
Now, casting stone shape is a whole other story...
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
Well, it says "most" melee weapons will have little effect; the GM gets to decide exactly which ones have how much effect.
Once you've decided on a weapon that will work (such as a pick), there are already mechanics in place for getting the work done: you deal melee damage with the weapon/tool being used, subtract hardness (which is 8 for normal stone, but would be ignored if adamantine is involved), and apply the remaining damage against the substance's hit points (stone has 15 HP per inch of thickness).
For minor things, like breaking through a 2-inch door, go ahead and make some damage rolls.
If they intend to tunnel through solid rock, I don't recommend that level of detail. Instead, I suggest figuring average damage (an 18 STR guy with Power Attack and +4 BAB wielding a d8 weapon will average 16 damage per round). At 15HP/inch, it's now just a matter of doing a little quick math to see how many rounds/minutes/hours to get through a given distance of rock.
Hope that helps!
I would also start applying fatigued and eventually exhausted conditions to characters after a while.
|
|
Building on this conversation, since it's the most interesting one I'm paying attention to today...
A one foot thick stone wall would have 180hp (12 x 15).
An adamantine sword (longsword/greatsword) isn't "the right tool" based on the ineffective weapons block, thus while it could certainly chip away at it, it couldn't tunnel through it.
Now an adamantine pickaxe or hammer...
"Hero":
18 Str, power attack, BAB 1 to 3 = 3 + 6 + 3 = 12dmg/round = 15rds
18 Str, power attack, BAB 4 to 5 = 3 + 6 + 6 = 15dmg/round = 12rds
18 Str, power attack, BAB 6 to 7 = 3 + 6 + 6 = (2 swings) 30dmg/round = 6rds
"Miner":
14 Str, regular attack = 3 + 3 = 6dmg/round = 30rds
Basically, a regular "miner" could create a hole through 1 foot of stone in 3 minutes if he had an adamantine pickaxe.
There's some question about how big this hole is, but I can totally imagine a strong person using modern materials (comparable to adamantine) carving a small hole in a foot of granite in a few minutes.
Maybe pass #1 opens space for tiny creatures, pass #2 for small, and pass #3 for medium. Just to keep it simple?
I'd say that, even if it did cut through like butter, you can solve the problem by making it impossible to actually move the butter out of the way.
What I mean is: the jedi lightsaber method doesn't work if you can't actually cut the piece out. If the wall is thicker than the sword is long (taking out the handle length...maybe 2 feet for a longsword?), then a sword slash would just leave a gash. You could not be able to cut the very back, which would be essential in removing the slab.
You could also bring in the rather realistic problem: moving the stone slab out of the way. That makes this into a strength check (or some spell is used), which takes time. And it is a rather obvious action, which remove any element of surprise you might have.
Of course, this is generally awesome enough that you should also give them ample opportunities to use it anyway. To just burst in spells blazing after cutting down a thin wall. Heck, maybe make knowledge (engineering) useful by making it the skill for determining whether you are going to let them pull stuff like this off.
|
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
There's some question about how big this whole is
If you look at the chart for substance hardness and HP, you'll find that wood has 10HP/inch and that iron has 30HP/inch.
If you look at the nearby chart for object hardness and HP, you'll find that a simple wooden door has 10HP and a 2-inch iron door has 60HP.
What conclusions can you draw from that data?
|
|
More pondering...
If it only takes 36 seconds for an 18 Str, Power Attacking Warrior 6 to carve through one feet of stone wall with picks, then that could fundamentally change the game world.
For example, an army could use a fairly small orc squad and carve through the stone walls of most keeps in about a minute of effort, assuming they could equip the mining strike team with a handful of adamantine picks.
There's some budget constraints, but they aren't as crazy as you might think - an adamantine pick (3000gp) costs essentially the same as 3 rams (1000gp each).
There's some question about how big this whole isIf you look at the chart for substance hardness and HP, you'll find that wood has 10HP/inch and that iron has 30HP/inch.
If you look at the nearby chart for object hardness and HP, you'll find that a simple wooden door has 10HP and a 2-inch iron door has 60HP.
What conclusions can you draw from that data?
The standard unit for area in the pathfinder universe is "door".
But breaking down a door requires breaking the little bit of door around the lock, not turning the entire mass of the door into tiny bits like digging through a wall would.
|
You should be choosing carefully which section of wall you're going to tunnel through. But yeah, if you have the time, this can be a viable tactic.
Also worth considering: using the adamatium weapon to create a blockade in whatever is filling the room with weapon, or "breaking off the cover" of the casing of the puzzle's mechanism so they can try to manipulate it's inner workings.
Also note: adamantium is really quite expensive. It costs 3000gp for a weapon; that'll consume most of a low-level PC's WBL. It's only a little less money than a +1 sword AND +1 armor. So don't think he's getting a free ride here. The player PAID for the option of thinking/cutting out of the box.
===
An insight recently surfaced when I was discussing traps with a friend. While any idiot can get past a trap by "cattletech" - summoning monsters to feed it, or actually wading cattle into the dungeon, that's not always a good idea.
Maybe the trap isn't designed to damage you, but to crush and smash the treasure you were hoping to get. Or triggering it collapses the entry behind you. Or sounds a general alarm to make all monsters in the dungeon converge on the party together instead of in nice CR-fair separate encounters.
|
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
But breaking down a door requires breaking the little bit of door around the lock, not turning the entire mass of the door into tiny bits like digging through a wall would.
A couple things:
First, breaking down a door is a single STR check (the DC is listed in that same chart), so the hardness/HP issue is for something else; what do you suppose it might be?
Second, why does the entire mass of the wall have to be turned into tiny bits? Why can't that damage be represented as cracks that spread and intersect and result in several large pieces falling out?
|
|
Lots of good discussion here.
The_Lake has a good point about breaking a door really being about breaking enough of the door "mechanism" rather than shattering the door into hundreds of pieces. To break a door, you just need to break the dead bolt/hinges/etc mechanism. Or break it into 2 large pieces down the middle, and gravity does the rest.
A 5x5 section of foot-deep granite would weigh 4000lbs (160lbs per cubic foot). I've seen medieval walls at two feet deep, so 8000lbs.
If you managed to create 1, 2 even 3 major cracks in a 5x5 section of stone, it's not necessarily rolling itself out of the way to make a passage. I can think of some ruins I've explored in the real world with massive stone walls that are riddled with cracks, and I still don't know if a team of 10 of the world's strongest Olympians could get the wall moved away in a few seconds with no additional tools. Just getting a grip on a massive chunk of stone is non-trivial.
First, breaking down a door is a single STR check (the DC is listed in that same chart), so the hardness/HP issue is for something else; what do you suppose it might be?
I would assume it would be just enough damage to make it not function as a door (break it around the lock/hinges or neatly down the middle).
But I looked it up in the CRB and the table specifically lists the wall hp as per 10-foot by 10-foot section.
If it only takes 36 seconds for an 18 Str, Power Attacking Warrior 6 to carve through one feet of stone wall with picks, then that could fundamentally change the game world.
You can only take that sort of logic so far. Magic users can overturn the economy/culture without even breaking a sweat. If fighters occasionally get their turn to disrupt things, it's only fair. This is a fantasy scenario, and if you overthink it too much you'll start to see the flaws. You can't really afford to think through all the global economic/cultural ramifications of a gameplay mechanic like that.
What is more reasonable to worry about is whether the precedent would allow your adventurers to just bypass all your content and ruin the fun. It's one thing to allow a creative solution like that to get around a few specific obstacles. But the ability to rapidly tunnel through walls is a pretty generic ability that would come up again and again, spoiling carefully designed maps that assume people will travel through them like normal people.
|
|
If it only takes 36 seconds for an 18 Str, Power Attacking Warrior 6 to carve through one feet of stone wall with picks, then that could fundamentally change the game world.
Dire badgers reside in deep burrows and warrens dug with their monstrous claws—but unlike typical badgers, a dire badger’s claws are capable of tunneling through solid rock.
They've got a burrow speed of 10ft. Note that a level 8 druid's Wildshape also gives access to that rock-burrowing speed.
If it only takes 36 seconds for an 18 Str, Power Attacking Warrior 6 to carve through one feet of stone wall with picks, then that could fundamentally change the game world.You can only take that sort of logic so far. Magic users can overturn the economy/culture without even breaking a sweat. If fighters occasionally get their turn to disrupt things, it's only fair. This is a fantasy scenario, and if you overthink it too much you'll start to see the flaws. You can't really afford to think through all the global economic/cultural ramifications of a gameplay mechanic like that.
What is more reasonable to worry about is whether the precedent would allow your adventurers to just bypass all your content and ruin the fun. It's one thing to allow a creative solution like that to get around a few specific obstacles. But the ability to rapidly tunnel through walls is a pretty generic ability that would come up again and again, spoiling carefully designed maps that assume people will travel through them like normal people.
Eh, Pickaxing through a wall is pretty loud. Most monsters have ears. If it gets to be a problematic tactic in terms of skipping large portions of dungeons, you could have the denizens come to investigate en masse.
Also, depending on the structure you're digging through, there is always the possibility of a cave-in. And if the ceiling caves in, it could end up blocking your progress further into the dungeon (since tunneling through a cave-in is likely to just fill up with more rock).
/nostalgia
Ahh good old Stonecutter from The Book of Swords. How i miss thee.
The Sword of Siege struck a hammer's blow
With a crash, and a smash, and a tumbled wall.
Stonecutter laid a castle low
With a groan, and a roar, and a tower's fall.
'Like Butter' indeed.
To the OP, i think you have a fair handle on how to adjudicate it based on above posters. good luck!
An adamantitite sword is NOT Stonecutter.
Of course not, but the visual described triggered the memory.
I imagine with the wrong type of tool (e.g. sword), it might be possible for it to get wedged or pinched in the groove it cut, trapping it. Isn't that sad...
Does the cost of an adamantine pick include the cost of an adamantine handle? You might go through a lot of those...
One: It's not jedi style, as it's not a matter of effortlessly cutting through. You've got to be able to swing the blade, and it's not really built to "saw" through things with any efficiency or grace.
Adamantine Longsword: 3,015 gp
A sawback adamantine sword: 3,020.
So yeah, completely relevant for this argument, no? Having a sawed edge in your sword would definitely make it more viable for this tactic. You simply need to stab the sword in through the wall (I suppose for a longsword, that would need you to use it as an improvised weapon, but still possible), and then just sawback and forth.
Of course, as I said earlier, if the sword isn't long enough to pierce through the wall, it will not be able to actually cut it. The saw edge does nothing to change that.
Oh, and thinking about it, the stats for saws might help here: Saw description.
It does 5 points of damage, plus your strength modifier, when you saw. I'd also assume any magic bonuses apply too. Hmmm... I'll let someone else handle the math (would it be easier than using a pick, since you are only cutting the stone in your line, rather than all the stone in the hole?) Might take a while to actually make an entrance, but it is possible. But doors would be nothing to you, since you would simple have to cut off the hinges (which are hardly ever even an inch).
So, again, I go back to knowledge(engineering)- how is the sealed stone door in the original scenario actually made? Could I just cut one side out and it would just serve as a loose slab that could be pushed out of the way? How much water is coming in per minute, and could I cheat the puzzle by cutting out a small drainage hole to give us more time to solve the puzzle? .....I am actually having fun with this. I need to make more martials with this skill (plus a GM willing to roll with it)
I'd think it would be similar to using a titanium bit or diamond bit...you can drill through wood and in many instances stone very quickly and very easily...but it still takes a LOT of work, makes a LOT of noise, and if you are doing it manually, still takes a LOT of energy.
I'd think it would be similar to using a titanium bit or diamond bit...you can drill through wood and in many instances stone very quickly and very easily...but it still takes a LOT of work, makes a LOT of noise, and if you are doing it manually, still takes a LOT of energy.
Well, the saw DOES give a fairly solid reference point for 'noticing' at a DC 10 perception check. But that is what you poison the castle well with sleep poison for.
|
|
Heh, the water-filling room was just one specific example (that actually happened) that a player could cut their way out of.
The question was more meant to be Friday afternoon spit-balling for how folks play with adamantine as a material and what it means to the game world.
I love the idea of the adamantine traveler's any-tool, at 1250gp a pop, it would make sense in any safe cracker's arsenal, depending on how the GM rules adamantine tools.
Given the relative hardness comparing adamantine to iron, my gut tells me that adamantine isn't magical a la "Stonecutter", but is akin to modern titanium or steel alloys.
Thus, in most cases, if a character went up to an iron lamp post and wanted to use his adamantine sword to sever said iron lamp post, it would play out much the same way if you took a carbon steel based alloy sword and started whacking at one in your neighborhood. It would take a while to "chop down" the iron light post. Heck, it would take a while to hack down a tree with such a sword.
For kicks, here's a guy taking what I'd consider "power attack" style swings and has above average strength (14? 15?) and is using a composite alloy axe: Guiness record wood block chop
It takes over a minute, and it's just wood (white pine, ~5000psi or so?).
Imagine Sandpoint was holding such a competition, and the competitors were using adamantine axes. Would the benchmark be that they'd be competitive if they were finishing it in ~60 seconds?
I'd just like to point out that as a general tactic to avoid/escape traps of this sort, the gloves of shaping make a much better way of doing so. In addition, it makes for a model to determine what exactly you can do if you can ignore hardness... so it's like cutting through clay, thus, easy enough to cut in a way that it will fall on its own, even with a sword or ax.