|
| 5 people marked this as FAQ candidate. |
The Clustered Shots feat works on creatures with DR, but what about creatures like robots that have hardness?
Question: Does clustered shots take effect on such creatures (with hardness)?
Clustered Shots (Combat)
Source: Ultimate Combat
You take a moment to carefully aim your shots, causing them all to strike nearly the same spot.
Prerequisites: Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, base attack bonus +6.
Benefit: When you use a full-attack action to make multiple ranged weapon attacks against the same opponent, total the damage from all hits before applying that opponent’s damage reduction.
I tried looking for answers, but everything posted seems way too far back. Or concerns objects on creatures with hardness.
If this question has been answered already, please do link to the post/thread/faq, thank you.
there are monsters with Hardness? This is news to me.
|
there are monsters with Hardness? This is news to me.
Robots, found in some S6 PFS scenarios as well as the Iron Gods AP.
Hardness used to be for objects, not creatures. Using it on creatures is a very recent innovation, and one that's IMO not done very well.
There are a lot of powers that go something like "negate DR of constructs/negate DR/adamantine, and negate hardness of objects". Typical powers for anti-artifice, back to nature, barbarianesque things. But they don't work on constructs with hardness.
It looks like someone wanted to use Hardness as "DR X/adamantine AND Resist all energy X", but it doesn't take into account powers that avoid DR or Resistance.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Clustered Shots will not work, as it specifies DR only. If you were using unarmed strikes, Pummeling Style would work, as it lacks that limitation.
Admantine arrows/Weapon Blanch will work, as will the Martial Artist Monk/Steel Breaker Brawler, or a Stonelord Paladin's Stonestrike.
there are monsters with Hardness? This is news to me.
Same here.
By strict RAW, the DR and hardness are different, so it wouldn't apply.
|
|
It looks like someone wanted to use Hardness as "DR X/adamantine AND Resist all energy X", but it doesn't take into account powers that avoid DR or Resistance.
That's the feel I'm getting from creature's with hardness. Accept since DR and hardness are labeled separately, things that work on once, don't work on the other.
And if they try to FAQ or errata creatures with Hardness to mean DR, then it opens another can of worms, as there are powers, feats and spells that clearly states they work on hardness only.If anyone heard of any clarification, please link it.
Going to have to remember the hardness does not equal DR for now...
Technically speaking, despite monsters in the bestiary having hardness, there are no rules for creatures with a 'hardness' special ability. It is something only objects have. It is easy to intuit the ability, from the damaging objects section, but RAW it isn't there for creature.
I believe it is reasonable to consider Hardness a kind of Damage Reduction, given that it does indeed reduce damage, and it makes perfect sense for abilities that add attacks before applying DR also apply to hardness.
I do think though that abilities that bypass DR should not bypass hardness, as although it is similar to DR in some ways, it is also quite different.
Strict RAW Clustered Shots only applies to DR. However, as a house rule it is very reasonable to have it function against hardness in the same way. I think that the feat was written before it was common to see creatures with hardness (it's still not very common) so it was not considered if it should interact with hardness or not.
In my opinion, hardness is DR for objects so I would let it work.
But with the rules as written, hardness != Damage reduction
I agree that mechanically Hardness and DR are different things, but as I understood it the fundamental difference was that hardness is used for inanimate objects and DR is used for creatures.
If those things are starting to blur together, it makes me wonder what the difference between the two really is.
How would you describe that difference? What mechanical or thematic justification for the difference is there?
I dont think the devs intended for something bypassing DR to bypass hardness or they would have just used DR for the creatures.
I dont think the devs intended for something bypassing DR to bypass hardness or they would have just used DR for the creatures.
I agree.
My question is more of a "design theory" one I suppose. What do Hardness and Damage Reduction represent as concepts? Clearly they aren't quite what I thought they were if we are now seeing monsters with hardness, so now I'm trying to dig deeper.
What does it all mean, anyway?
/stonervoice
From a conceptual point of view Hardness is always just that - structural integrity for want of a better word.
DR on the other hand has a multitude of 'flavours'; including, but not limited to, physical toughness, instant regeneration, a kind of pseudo incorporeality, or even simply ignoring the wounds (in the case of invulnerable barbarian).
|
|
I dont think the devs intended for something bypassing DR to bypass hardness or they would have just used DR for the creatures.
Well, that's fair enough for some things that bypass DR, like for example lantern archon lasers.
However, there are some abilities where I think that wasn't really the intent; these were supposed to be "anti-artifice" powers, but written before hardness occurred on creatures.
Unstoppable Strike (Ex): At 19th level, a weapon master can take a standard action to make one attack with his chosen weapon as a touch attack that ignores damage reduction (or hardness, if attacking an object). This ability replaces armor mastery.
This reads like the writer never anticipated creatures ever getting Hardness.
(...)At 5th level, whenever you attempt to damage an object with a melee attack, reduce its hardness by an amount equal to your oracle level before determining the damage you deal with that attack.
At 10th level, any attacks you make against objects and constructs automatically bypass any damage reduction they may possess except epic. (...)
So you ignore the hardness of objects, and the DR of creatures and objects, but not the hardness of creatures.
The alchemists of Nex have found several uses for the toxic residue left over from their massive ooze cultivating experiments, including a variety of items known collectively as slime grenades. These ceramic ovoids are filled with caustic sludge and capped with a stone plug. You can throw a slime grenade as a splash weapon with a range increment of 5 feet. A successful ranged touch attack coats the target with green slime, dealing 2d6 points of acid damage to the creature. If the target is wearing wooden or metal armor or wielding a wooden or metal shield, a slime grenade eats through the material on a hit, dealing 3d6 points of acid damage to the equipment and ignoring the items’ hardness. Creatures in the splash radius of a slime grenade take no damage, but any wooden or metal armor or shields they are wearing take 1d6 points of acid damage (ignoring hardness). Affected creatures can attempt DC 15 Reflex saves to halve the damage dealt to their equipment.
The grenade ignores the hardness of weapons and armor held by the target. But does it also ignore the hardness of a robot that it's splashed on?
This spell transforms your hands into living stone. While this spell is in effect, your unarmed strikes do not provoke attacks of opportunity and deal 1d6 points of lethal bludgeoning damage (1d4 if you are Small). In addition, your unarmed strikes ignore the hardness of any object with a hardness less than 8. (...)
Again, the assumption is that only objects have hardness. Should the spell also work on creatures with hardness?
This +1 greatsword is often found among the robot-hunters of Numeria. Three times per day as a standard action, the wielder can envelop the blade with a razor-edged field of force for 1 minute. Thanks to this field, the sword ignores the damage reduction of creatures with DR 5 or less (other than DR/epic), and when it’s used to attack an object or sunder a weapon, the sword treats the item as having a hardness of 5 less than the item’s actual hardness.
Sadly for the robot-hunters, this sword doesn't actually help against robots because it doesn't reduce hardness of creatures.
Monk: Reduce the Hardness of any object made of clay, stone, or metal by 1 whenever the object is struck by the monk's unarmed strike (minimum of 0).
Should this also work against clay, stone or metal creatures with hardness?
And now for the big one:
(...) Weapons fashioned from adamantine have a natural ability to bypass hardness when sundering weapons or attacking objects, ignoring hardness less than 20. (...)
Unless there's a Universal Monster Rule definition of Hardness, Adamantine doesn't actually help against robots.
I dont think the devs intended for something bypassing DR to bypass hardness or they would have just used DR for the creatures.I agree.
My question is more of a "design theory" one I suppose. What do Hardness and Damage Reduction represent as concepts? Clearly they aren't quite what I thought they were if we are now seeing monsters with hardness, so now I'm trying to dig deeper.
What does it all mean, anyway?
/stonervoice
DR can mean tough skin or a fast regen rate for purposes of flavor. Hardness is normally just something hard such as stone or steel.
Effectively they do the same thing except that one is normally only applied to objects, but they are two different things for how they interact with the rules. I do like hardness since it means that you can't just use your +__ weapon to bypass it.
I agree the rule can not predict future rules, but when those future rules are written the devs can easily say "X counts as Y" or write in a counter-rule. In this case neither happened, and I see no RAW to say that hardness on a creature can by bypassed.
I would allow for anything that bypasses hardness on an object to bypass hardness on a creature, but I don't even know if that is RAI.
If creature hardness is meant exactly to work like objects, does that imply creatures with hardness automatically halve energy damage before applying hardness unless a type is called out as an exception?
On the one hand, giving that ability to, say, robots seems overkill. On the other, I don't see much of a reason why animating an object would suddenly make it more vulnerable to energy.
|
|
If creature hardness is meant exactly to work like objects, does that imply creatures with hardness automatically halve energy damage before applying hardness unless a type is called out as an exception?
On the one hand, giving that ability to, say, robots seems overkill. On the other, I don't see much of a reason why animating an object would suddenly make it more vulnerable to energy.
That's frankly how I always DM it. The half-energy damage.
|
|
If creature hardness is meant exactly to work like objects, does that imply creatures with hardness automatically halve energy damage before applying hardness unless a type is called out as an exception?
On the one hand, giving that ability to, say, robots seems overkill. On the other, I don't see much of a reason why animating an object would suddenly make it more vulnerable to energy.
No.
How does hardness work for creatures? Does energy damage such as cold deal half damage to creatures with hardness (Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook 173-174) even before applying the flat numerical reduction?
When a creature with hardness sustains damage, subtract its hardness from the damage dealt. The rules for halving damage, doubling damage, dealing damage with ineffective tools, immunities, and the like only apply to damaging inanimate objects.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
If creature hardness is meant exactly to work like objects, does that imply creatures with hardness automatically halve energy damage before applying hardness unless a type is called out as an exception?
On the one hand, giving that ability to, say, robots seems overkill. On the other, I don't see much of a reason why animating an object would suddenly make it more vulnerable to energy.
No.
How does hardness work for creatures? Does energy damage such as cold deal half damage to creatures with hardness (Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook 173-174) even before applying the flat numerical reduction?
When a creature with hardness sustains damage, subtract its hardness from the damage dealt. The rules for halving damage, doubling damage, dealing damage with ineffective tools, immunities, and the like only apply to damaging inanimate objects.
I'm not interested in PFS' houserules.
Half damage from energy attacks apply to objects only. That is a quality of an object, not hardness. Animated objects are considered creatures, it says this in the game.
If that is an official answer they need to FAQ it.
|
|
I'm not interested in PFS' houserules.
Hey, you're free to do it however you want in your home game. I don't care, I'm not there.
To call it a "PFS houserule" is IMO not entirely fair however. Some things in PFS are truly houserules, like the "no magic item crafting" thing. This however is a clarification, not a change in the rules.
EDIT: also, what are you interested in then? PFS is fairly close to RAW, so if you want to know how Paizo thinks something should be done, PFS is a good place to get information. If PFS deviates from the normal way of doing things, they're pretty clear about it when and why they're doing that.
|
|
If that is an official answer they need to FAQ it.
But under which FAQ? There's currently no PRD-book which has any creatures with hardness in it.
Anyway, it's still a blog post, which is a shade less official than an FAQ, but still fairly official.
It's not the handiest way to do it, I agree. I think it would actually be a lot handier if the FAQ system was overhauled a bit, to at least put them all on one big page so you can just Ctrl-F it if you don't know what book to look in. And then you could put this in it as well.
But for now, we all know Paizo rarely issues the same clarification twice just to satisfy people who want it posted on a different part of the website.
I also think it's making too much out of it to say that a blog post isn't official enough, that only an FAQ will do. PFS is the only place that's obligated to play strictly by RAW; any other gaming group can just decide for itself what Paizo clarifications they're gonna follow. And for PFS the blog post is official enough.
|
|
Anyway, to stick to the subject rather than procedural ramblings, let's take a look at the CRB;
(...)
Hardness: Each object has hardness—a number that represents how well it resists damage. When an object is damaged, subtract its hardness from the damage. Only damage in excess of its hardness is deducted from the object's hit points (see Table: Common Armor, Weapon, and Shield Hardness and Hit Points, Table: Substance Hardness and Hit Points, and Table: Object Hardness and Hit Points).
Hit Points: An object's hit point total depends on what it is made of and how big it is (see Table: Common Armor, Weapon, and Shield Hardness and Hit Points, Table: Substance Hardness and Hit Points, and Table: Object Hardness and Hit Points). Objects that take damage equal to or greater than half their total hit points gain the broken condition (see Conditions). When an object's hit points reach 0, it's ruined.
Very large objects have separate hit point totals for different sections.
Energy Attacks: Energy attacks deal half damage to most objects. Divide the damage by 2 before applying the object's hardness. Some energy types might be particularly effective against certain objects, subject to GM discretion. For example, fire might do full damage against parchment, cloth, and other objects that burn easily. Sonic might do full damage against glass and crystal objects.
(...)
As you can see, objects having hardness and objects halving energy damage are two separate things, separated by some paragraphs talking about different issues. The energy damage paragraph doesn't say that anything that has hardness will also halve energy damage, it only says that if you're an object, you halve energy damage before applying hardness.
Just because a creature has hardness doesn't make it an object.
Because creatures aren't objects, they don't halve energy damage.
So the Q&A I linked earlier doesn't change any rules. It just clarifies a rule because people were mixing up two parts of a section.
If that is an official answer they need to FAQ it.But under which FAQ? There's currently no PRD-book which has any creatures with hardness in it.
Anyway, it's still a blog post, which is a shade less official than an FAQ, but still fairly official.
It's not the handiest way to do it, I agree. I think it would actually be a lot handier if the FAQ system was overhauled a bit, to at least put them all on one big page so you can just Ctrl-F it if you don't know what book to look in. And then you could put this in it as well.
But for now, we all know Paizo rarely issues the same clarification twice just to satisfy people who want it posted on a different part of the website.
I also think it's making too much out of it to say that a blog post isn't official enough, that only an FAQ will do. PFS is the only place that's obligated to play strictly by RAW; any other gaming group can just decide for itself what Paizo clarifications they're gonna follow. And for PFS the blog post is official enough.
I did not know if it was in FAQ. I thought it was in some private message. As long as it is in writing so everyone can see it then that is official to me. Do you have the link or name of the blog title?
edit: I found it. I somehow missed the link.
|
|
Found the paizo blog post on hardness in Iron Gods.
It does not touch on how feats or class powers that affect DR interact with Hardess on creatures. :(
If you feel this should be looked into please FAQ!
Would just sundering the thing to death work then? seems it's the only way that you're suppose to really beat it, which kind of sounds like a counter intuitive combat play style
Sunder
You can attempt to sunder an item held or worn by your opponent as part of an attack action in place of a melee attack. If you do not have the Improved Sunder feat, or a similar ability, attempting to sunder an item provokes an attack of opportunity from the target of your maneuver.
If your attack is successful, you deal damage to the item normally. Damage that exceeds the object's Hardness is subtracted from its hit points. If an object has equal to or less than half its total hit points remaining, it gains the broken condition (see Conditions). If the damage you deal would reduce the object to less than 0 hit points, you can choose to destroy it. If you do not choose to destroy it, the object is left with only 1 hit point and the broken condition.
First, sunder is a combat maneuver that can be attempted only against an object held or worn by an opponent. A character cannot sunder a piece of the opponent itself; for example, you cannot sunder the claws of a tiger. A robot's hardness is part of the robot itself.
Sometimes, players use the word "sunder" to refer to any attack on an object, but an attack on an unattended object is really an ordinary attack. Stationary, inanimate, unattended objects that fit into a single square have AC 5.
Second, sunder would not help. As you can see in the quote above, hardness still works against damage from a sunder.
I began running the Iron Gods adventure path in December 2015. I did not find this thread when I searched for how hardness worked on robots. Thank you, hawkmitora, for bringing this thread to my attention. I made my own decisions as GM, but a few are confirmed by the links in this thread and that is nice. The thread did not answer the original question about Clustered Shots, but allowing it to work would fit with the other decisions I made.
Hardness on creatures isn't actually new, just refer to the rules for Animated Objects.
Just use adamantine arrows, you ignore 20 points of hardness every time you shoot.