Adamantine Weapons = / = LightSabers


Advice

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Need some quick advice/thought:

I have a player who obtained a Adamantine NoDachi.

All the players are dungeon crawling around.

They come across a room with a lock display with a magical dagger inside.

Said player uses his Adamantine Nodachi to easily sunder the lock.

A more than reasonable action and effect. Woo, players did not have to use disable device.

Later on in the dungeon, they find a room. A perception check detects a slight draft coming from a certain section of the wall.

Player with nodachi steps up, and sunders the wall. Said wall (for flavor reasons) is about 10 feet long, and already fractured through antiquity (secret hallway probably closed by a hastily cast stone shape)

I let him roll, and slash away through 10 feet of wall after a good 20 minutes.

I let him know that since a Nodachi is not an effective weapon, that he is now "tired" from using a sword to dig through wall and thus takes a -1 penalty to attack rolls until he gets magically healed or rested.

Then we get the famous argument "BUT IT CUTS THROUGH LIKE BUTTER BECAUSE IT BYPASSES HARDNESS"

I find myself to be more than reasonable GM for allowing the tunneling to begin with, and felt it was not an ABSURD penalty to give him only a minus 1 to attack rolls because of using an inappropriate weapon.

Do you think I was too harsh? He felt upset that his "lightsaber" was being nerfed, especially since he spent a good 3k on it.

Bonus question:
Say we go with the "cuts through like butter and a knife argument":
1. Does that make adamantine arrows target Touch AC if the enemy is wearing anything less than adamantine armory? Firearms are strong enough to only target touch because normal armor provides no defense. By proxy, adamantine arrows bypass hardness thus by such butter through knife assumptions, Armor is useless.

2. If the above is true, then if you are ever against an enemy with a steel tower shield and full plate, all one has to do is knock an arrow straight at the tower shield to effectively hit the player because "IT CUTS THROUGH LIKE BUTTER BECAUSE IT BYPASSES HARDNESS"

3. By THAT extrapolation, if you are ever sieging a castle, all you would need to do is get an army of archers to shoot adamantine arrows at the castle. The castles's wall composed of mainly stone, would be no match for ADAMANTINE, effectively cutting through the castle walls like butter, and skewering the people inside.

What are your thoughts?

Scarab Sages

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Oh, this again.

Adamantine will cut through stone, but it still doesn't make a sword a useful tool move stone.


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There's already been a massive thread that eventually became about exactly this. I'm sorry that I'm not better at linking, otherwise I'd post it.

My take, however, is that Adamantine is canonically two steps below certain types of space metal that retain extreme heat or cold in complete defiance of the laws of physics as well as one type that by its mere presence, alters the flow of time.

Adamantine acting as a proxy for lightsabers, by contrast, isn't even being imaginative yet.


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Well, Adamantine weapons don't ignore all hardness. They ignore hardness of less than 20.

So, pretty much, they cut through such less-hard materials in a similar fashion that a regular blade cuts through flesh (something with no hardness). So, a person would have to offer sufficient effort to work through 10' of stone as they would through 10' of meat. Heck, even if it was "only" as hard as butter, I can imaging hacking your way through 10' of butter wouldn't be a physically easy task.

Additionally, weapons have to get through the HP of the object in question. According to the CRB, a 3' thickness of hewn stone has 540 HP. So, a 10' thick section would have about 1800 hp. So, he'd have to take enough swings with the weapon to do 1800 points of damage to work his way through.

However, there's no rule about such fatigue, other than Rule 0. I do agree that simply having an Adamantium weapon shouldn't be something that instantaneously allows a character to bash/slash his or her way through any obstacle with impunity.

Sovereign Court

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I agree with you setting reasonable limits. I'd have probably gone with a Fatigued condition rather than a miscellaneous -1 to hit, but that's about it.

I use a lot of adamantine weapons and even with those reasonable limits they're still a good investment.


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You were more than fair.

CRB wrote:
Ineffective Weapons: 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.

A nodachi is not designed for this purpose. You would have been justified saying that it literally couldn't damage the wall. You can say that adamantine bypasses the "most" part there (again, totally reasonable GM call), but as GM, you are the arbiter of both the story and the way the world responds to player actions. There are lots of ways to justify any number of rulings.


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This is an area full of GM discretion as the rules are not well written. It was argued about lengthily quite recently HERE.

My own view is that the Ineffecitve Weapons section makes dungeon tunnelling with a nodachi a non starter regardless of what it is made of. If your weapon cannot cause damage it doesn't matter what the objects hardness is treated as.

Of course then your PC's may just invest in an adamantine pick or similar and that is fine. However, nothing makes dungeon tunnelling a guaranteed safe effort. If players want to go burrowing through dungeon walls with adamantine picks then I would expect to see some knowledge: engineering or profession: miner type checks or they may find their tunnel is far from either straight or sable.

Also dungeon tunnelling is far from quiet and you might expect to attract attention from local residents.

Ultimately this is very much an are where you should expect table variation.


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Imbicatus wrote:

Oh, this again.

Adamantine will cut through stone, but it still doesn't make a sword a useful tool move stone.

My exact thought, It's a little worrying having doors in dungeons that can easily be sundered, but I guess that should be properly adjusted with traps on the other end, or the sound that it would attract.

Tectorman wrote:

There's already been a massive thread that eventually became about exactly this. I'm sorry that I'm not better at linking, otherwise I'd post it.

My take, however, is that Adamantine is canonically two steps below certain types of space metal that retain extreme heat or cold in complete defiance of the laws of physics as well as one type that by its mere presence, alters the flow of time.

Adamantine acting as a proxy for lightsabers, by contrast, isn't even being imaginative yet.

It's certainly an odd concept to wrap your head around Metal that can cut most anything being absurd, but having wizards create other worlds out of thin air more reasonable. Also, I think I have stumbled upon the thread that you are referencing and I found the whole thing so muddled and silly at the end.

Saldiven wrote:


Well, Adamantine weapons don't ignore all hardness. They ignore hardness of less than 20.

So, pretty much, they cut through such less-hard materials in a similar fashion that a regular blade cuts through flesh (something with no hardness). So, a person would have to offer sufficient effort to work through 10' of stone as they would through 10' of meat. Heck, even if it was "only" as hard as butter, I can imaging hacking your way through 10' of butter wouldn't be a physically easy task.

Additionally, weapons have to get through the HP of the object in question. According to the CRB, a 3' thickness of hewn stone has 540 HP. So, a 10' thick section would have about 1800 hp. So, he'd have to take enough swings with the weapon to do 1800 points of damage to work his way through.

However, there's no rule about such fatigue, other than Rule 0. I do agree that simply having an Adamantium weapon shouldn't be something that instantaneously allows a character to bash/slash his or her way through any obstacle with impunity.

These are some handy numbers to keep in mind, I hope I wont have to pull them up in the future.

Ascalaphus wrote:

I agree with you setting reasonable limits. I'd have probably gone with a Fatigued condition rather than a miscellaneous -1 to hit, but that's about it.

I use a lot of adamantine weapons and even with those reasonable limits they're still a good investment.

I was thinking about going with fatigued at first, but for story sake and to prevent opening up a can of worms that would interrupt game play, I wrote it off as a -1 to attacks. Perhaps if more extravengent endeavors are made to tunnel with adamantine tools I will implement a fatigued or slightly more fatigued condition.


Serisan wrote:

You were more than fair.

CRB wrote:
Ineffective Weapons: 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.
A nodachi is not designed for this purpose. You would have been justified saying that it literally couldn't damage the wall. You can say that adamantine bypasses the "most" part there (again, totally reasonable GM call), but as GM, you are the arbiter of both the story and the way the world responds to player actions. There are lots of ways to justify any number of rulings.

I have made that point before to the PC before when he had a greatsword and was hacking away at things, in which I explained that such endeavors are up to me to reasonably decided on success. Its hard when you give an inch and players take a mile.

andreww wrote:

This is an area full of GM discretion as the rules are not well written. It was argued about lengthily quite recently HERE.

My own view is that the Ineffecitve Weapons section makes dungeon tunnelling with a nodachi a non starter regardless of what it is made of. If your weapon cannot cause damage it doesn't matter what the objects hardness is treated as.

Of course then your PC's may just invest in an adamantine pick or similar and that is fine. However, nothing makes dungeon tunnelling a guaranteed safe effort. If players want to go burrowing through dungeon walls with adamantine picks then I would expect to see some knowledge: engineering or profession: miner type checks or they may find their tunnel is far from either straight or sable.

Also dungeon tunnelling is far from quiet and you might expect to attract attention from local residents.

Ultimately this is very much an are where you should expect table variation.

I try to make my dungeons effectively interesting and with a bit of spookyness around every corner that the PC's can easily defend against. But cave in's would defintely be a thing to consider for an unexperienced PC in such tunneling related skills.

So other big question is, how do I prevent locked treasure chests to guarded against such sundering mechanic?

Same player referenced other party's and tales of PC's who had an "utility Adamantine Dagger" that could be jammed in locks to open doors, or as I had pointed out, leverage against an external lock or swung at to open.

Any thoughts on that?


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Fernn wrote:

So other big question is, how do I prevent locked treasure chests to guarded against such sundering mechanic?

Same player referenced other party's and tales of PC's who had an "utility Adamantine Dagger" that could be jammed in locks to open doors, or as I had pointed out, leverage against an external lock or swung at to open.

Any thoughts on that?

There isn't much you can do about that and honestly you probably shouldn't. Locked chests are not a terribly interesting device and are only really an issue for fairly low level parties.

You might include the occasional mimic, infrequently have delicate stuff that might be broken with all the bashing about or very infrequently have something with unusually high hardness but don't overdo it.

These things are there to be found and if the players have invested in ways of dealing with them don't go out of your way to circumvent that on a regular basis.


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Anything is possible if you're angry enough.

Sincerely,

~Barbarians

But seriously (Well that comment was partially serious), short of amazing strength and an adamantium Earth Breaker, just busting through any wall willy nilly is a little absurd. You didn't nerf it. Just tell him to get a more appropriate tool for the task.

As for the dagger... Imma say, "Nope" to that. That's basically a common tool replacing several abilities far too easily. I know that happens frequently but with magic, but still, it too easily invalidates locks, security and privacy. Even if allowed, it should be the same as basically just destroying the lock.


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andreww wrote:
Fernn wrote:

So other big question is, how do I prevent locked treasure chests to guarded against such sundering mechanic?

Same player referenced other party's and tales of PC's who had an "utility Adamantine Dagger" that could be jammed in locks to open doors, or as I had pointed out, leverage against an external lock or swung at to open.

Any thoughts on that?

There isn't much you can do about that and honestly you probably shouldn't. Locked chests are not a terribly interesting device and are only really an issue for fairly low level parties.

You might include the occasional mimic, infrequently have delicate stuff that might be broken with all the bashing about or very infrequently have something with unusually high hardness but don't overdo it.

These things are there to be found and if the players have invested in ways of dealing with them don't go out of your way to circumvent that on a regular basis.

That sounds like reasonable enough. Put in some occasional porceline figures that could fetch a good price, or glass blown objects.

I suppose locked chests at their levels and beyond (lv5) are just minor nuisances for them to handle.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Yeah, I've always ruled you need a pick or hammer to go through walls, per the rules Serisan quoted above.


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For our wall friend, a few things stand out to me as a GM.

1. Did the player's PC say they were starting to hack at the top of the wall, because if they did not, hacking apart the middle or bottom leads to...PC being buried by tons of stone.

2. Sure, you sword slices through stone like flesh, however all that cutting has made, a giant difficult rubble pile of terrain. Also, sure, the sword ignores hardness 20 or less, the PC however does not ignore, moving heavy arse stones to the tune of, many tons, thus, I would have made him exhausted if he was trying to both destroy and remove the wall so the party could pass through.

3. Very much agree with, welcome to wandering monsters, as the amazingly loud din you created REALLY carries in the still quiet of the dungeon, have fun!

(nope, sword still not a digging tool, despite what some may say)


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swords can't dig through stone beams


GM_Beernorg wrote:
Sure, you sword slices through stone like flesh, however all that cutting has made, a giant difficult rubble pile of terrain. Also, sure, the sword ignores hardness 20 or less, the PC however does not ignore, moving heavy arse stones to the tune of, many tons, thus, I would have make him exhausted if he was trying to both destroy and remove the wall so the party could pass through.

Are your PCs also exhausted after they grapple Tigers? Or are you a hypocrite?


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Pretty sure grappling a tiger, while tiring, is over much faster than moving a stone wall. Thankfully, never had to find out, hopefully never will.

Also, to answer your question, I am not a hypocrite when ever possible, though as I am not perfect, sure, occasionally I am a hypocrite.


Are your PCs exhausted after 4-6 tiger encounters a day?


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I approach the "problem" from the other direction. Rather than nerfing adamantine weapons, I look at what they do, and at the fact that pretty much everyone always gets them, and think, "Ya know, it seems like that material is really, really underpriced!"

For a magic item that lets you passwall at will, what would the price be? (Hint: 5th x CL 9 x 1800 = 81,000 gp). For adamantine tools that do the same thing, shouldn't they cost a similar amount?


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If they did nothing but grapple in every encounter, took no steps to rest, and we had agreed before hand on certain actions taxing you greatly, sure. Any other tiger questions you want to pose, or can we go back to the OP's issue now?


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I think the OP is better off not adding in surprise rules for getting tired and explaining that while adamantine is pretty hard it still has to follow the rules, and some an adamantine dagger, sword, and warhammer will have varying affects based on their design.

An adamantine warhammer will not destroy a rope because it is the wrong tool, and a dagger would not cut through a stone wall. A sword might, depending on the GM, but it wont happen as quickly as it would with a bludgeoning weapon, or something like a pick.

PS: Sometimes players just dont agree with GM's no matter how much talking/explaining we do, so we just have to let them huff and puff and keep the game moving.


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*shurgs*

I pretty much allow you to cut anything that is smaller than the blade of your weapon and that you can then move.

For example , if the wall was too thick for the actual small blade of a nodachi to cut completely , then you wouldnt be able to dig in it , BUT if the awesome sealed door to the boss treasury wasnt , then it would be cut in no time at all.

If PC actually tried to cut something larger than the blade and used an argument about cutting it little by little , then yeap , a penalty will be given.


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Frosty Ace wrote:

Anything is possible if you're angry enough.

Sincerely,

~Barbarians

But seriously (Well that comment was partially serious), short of amazing strength and an adamantium Earth Breaker, just busting through any wall willy nilly is a little absurd. You didn't nerf it. Just tell him to get a more appropriate tool for the task.

As for the dagger... Imma say, "Nope" to that. That's basically a common tool replacing several abilities far too easily. I know that happens frequently but with magic, but still, it too easily invalidates locks, security and privacy. Even if allowed, it should be the same as basically just destroying the lock.

perhaps integrating a lock into a chest, and then their attempt to unlock it would just jam up the lock might be the best way to go if this ever came up.

GM_Beernorg wrote:


For our wall friend, a few things stand out to me as a GM.

1. Did the player's PC say they were starting to hack at the top of the wall, because if they did not, hacking apart the middle or bottom leads to...PC being buried by tons of stone.

2. Sure, you sword slices through stone like flesh, however all that cutting has made, a giant difficult rubble pile of terrain. Also, sure, the sword ignores hardness 20 or less, the PC however does not ignore, moving heavy arse stones to the tune of, many tons, thus, I would have made him exhausted if he was trying to both destroy and remove the wall so the party could pass through.

3. Very much agree with, welcome to wandering monsters, as the amazingly loud din you created REALLY carries in the still quiet of the dungeon, have fun!

(nope, sword still not a digging tool, despite what some may say)

Note that I try to be relatively benevolent in my GMing:

1. The part of wall they were hacking at was used to be a hallway that was stoneshaped frequently to open and close the hallway, thus by hasty spellcrafting the integrity of the wall was relatively compromised by fractures through antiquity. The surrounding walls were more in tact.

2. By himself I would take it would be a difficult endeavor, his allies could have easily helped carry the rubble away, so I am not too worried. However, in case he goes solo and wants to excavate holes in the wall, then I would Highly consider exhaustion.

3. I always make it a habit to tell the players that hacking away at doors and chests and the likes is no silent task and each round they continue doing so might alert surrounding creatures or enemies of their attempts/locations.

On a random side note, I had a nice riddle door present itself in the dungeon. The door led to a small treasury. The door had the riddle engraved on it:
"What can physically fill a man to make him lighter, that a trap can provide?"

Our monk inquisitor was stumped and then told the party: " I DONT HAVE TO SOLVE THIS RIDDLE, I have Knock as a spell!"

And so the monk inqusitor cast knock, and I didn't bother looking at the dc save, and so the door opened.

Inside the room there was some expensive looking china in some well build cabinets, and a dagger in a well build case on the far west side. And a curious looking pillar in the middle of the room.

The monk rushes over to detect magic on the dagger, while the sorceror of the party decided to roll perception on the pillar, only to reveal that it was a pillar of 1000 arrows trap.
At the moment the sorceror yells ITS A TRAP.

And arrows fill the room, and the sorceror barely makes it out alive, the monk (with sortof high ac) decides that he will drop prone (+4ac to range attacks) and knickknack patty wack and roll out of there. At the time we thought the rule was moving at half speed while prone.

So the monk makes it out BARELY, and the teams wizard relays that the trap should stop in a bit.

WELL turns out that moving while prone only lets you move 5 feet, so this monk would have taken about 10 (1d4 +10(1d8 nonlethal arrows)

SO what can fill a person to make them lighter that a trap can provide?

Holes.


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DominusMegadeus wrote:
GM_Beernorg wrote:
Sure, you sword slices through stone like flesh, however all that cutting has made, a giant difficult rubble pile of terrain. Also, sure, the sword ignores hardness 20 or less, the PC however does not ignore, moving heavy arse stones to the tune of, many tons, thus, I would have make him exhausted if he was trying to both destroy and remove the wall so the party could pass through.
Are your PCs also exhausted after they grapple Tigers? Or are you a hypocrite?

Well, when you are grappling something consistently, it can be assumed that you are well equipped in the arts of grappling. You could say you are EFFECTIVE .

Slashing your way through stone with a sword, could more or less be considered INEFFECTIVE

Just my two cents.


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Imagine if you will a dungeon room, that is actually made of butter.
Butter flagstones on the floor, huge slabs of butter for the walls, butter beams on the ceiling. Everything is butter.

Now go cut through the wall with your sword. Cuts like butter! Your sword cuts the butter wall easily. Now it is a butter wall with a slash in it. Wall still standing, because one slash isn't enough to compromise the structural integrity of a wall (butter stick to itself or melting back together notwithstanding). So you cut the wall again. Easy, it's butter! Still, wall standing.

So now you are hacking and thrusting and drilling into the wall with your sword, trying to make a hole. And while cutting the wall is easy, it's butter, man that sword is heavy and so is all this butter you're trying to move around. Eventually, you're just plum tuckered out.

Now, things would have been much easier if they had been using an adamantine spoon, adamantine shovel, or adamantine hot fresh loaf of bread, all of which are much better at getting through butter, but not one ever thinks to bring those.


Kirth Gersen wrote:

I approach the "problem" from the other direction. Rather than nerfing adamantine weapons, I look at what they do, and at the fact that pretty much everyone always gets them, and think, "Ya know, it seems like that material is really, really underpriced!"

For a magic item that lets you passwall at will, what would the price be? (Hint: 5th x CL 9 x 1800 = 81,000 gp). For adamantine tools that do the same thing, shouldn't they cost a similar amount?

That is a cool way of looking at it, even if it is a Mundane "Passwall" spell it is still repeatable. with only a small investment, so, time permitting, why would a wizard ever want to learn passwall if all he needed was a adamantine spoon?


It's fine if you don't let them hack through dungeon walls, but if you do let them, don't make up exhaustion rules that I have a hard time imagining ever come up except when your party pisses you off.


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There's a difference between "I wrassle some tigers for roughly a minute or two" and "I dig through ten feet of stone for twenty minutes, crafting a tunnel".

Frankly, letting it be done in a mere twenty minutes is downright merciful. I would've had it take an hour or two.

This is exactly the place to be making up rules, since they're attempting something the rules don't actually allow—there's nothing in there about using a long, thin, traditionally decorative sword designed to be wielded by cavalry to dig a tunnel you and your teammates can fit through. I could have gone with Fatigued, too, but it's not really a big deal and not the point of this discussion.

Scarab Sages

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Kobold Cleaver wrote:

There's a difference between "I wrassle some tigers for roughly a minute or two" and "I dig through ten feet of stone for twenty minutes, crafting a tunnel".

Frankly, letting it be done in a mere twenty minutes is downright merciful. I would've had it take an hour or two.

And I would also have set some high DC Knowledge: Engineering checks to avoid a cave in.


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DominusMegadeus wrote:
It's fine if you don't let them hack through dungeon walls, but if you do let them, don't make up exhaustion rules that I have a hard time imagining ever come up except when your party pisses you off.

The character, even if the player would not, should have known the event would be tiring so I would have told the player in advance. Then he could have decided to go through it or not.


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Yeah, who knows what consequences that stone shape had for stability?


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Nox Aeterna wrote:


*shurgs*

I pretty much allow you to cut anything that is smaller than the blade of your weapon and that you can then move.

For example , if the wall was too thick for the actual small blade of a nodachi to cut completely , then you wouldnt be able to dig in it , BUT if the awesome sealed door to the boss treasury wasnt , then it would be cut in no time at all.

If PC actually tried to cut something larger than the blade and used an argument about cutting it little by little , then yeap , a penalty will be given.

wraithstrike wrote:

I think the OP is better off not adding in surprise rules for getting tired and explaining that while adamantine is pretty hard it still has to follow the rules, and some an adamantine dagger, sword, and warhammer will have varying affects based on their design.

An adamantine warhammer will not destroy a rope because it is the wrong tool, and a dagger would not cut through a stone wall. A sword might, depending on the GM, but it wont happen as quickly as it would with a bludgeoning weapon, or something like a pick.

PS: Sometimes players just dont agree with GM's no matter how much talking/explaining we do, so we just have to let them huff and puff and keep the game moving.

DominusMegadeus wrote:


It's fine if you don't let them hack through dungeon walls, but if you do let them, don't make up exhaustion rules that I have a hard time imagining ever come up except when your party pisses you off.

These are valid points, I should really hold one belief to be stoic in regards to how its handled in future situations. Its just hard to impose a firm NO its no possible to a YES it is possible interpretation on rules especially on such odd mechanics such as adamantine.


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I missed who it was, but it is also not unreasonable to require something like a Knowledge: Engineering or Profession: Miner check to make a tunnel safely. There's a reason that mining is a very dangerous profession. It wouldn't be crazy for a failed check to result in a collapse of the attempted tunnel, potentially even with injuries to those involved.


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wraithstrike wrote:
DominusMegadeus wrote:
It's fine if you don't let them hack through dungeon walls, but if you do let them, don't make up exhaustion rules that I have a hard time imagining ever come up except when your party pisses you off.
The character, even if the player would not, should have known the event would be tiring so I would have told the player in advance. Then he could have decided to go through it or not.

Dungeoneering checks made it possible to know that there was something on the other side of these walls, the width of the wall was indeterminable. As the cracks on the walls were not big enough to provide light. It was a matter of, the PC is making progress, but is tiring because it was an ineffective weapon, which I relayed to the player that a sword was not a good weapon for such a task.

By extension I try to my best to relay the consequeneces of their actions to the players. If they jump off a cliff, I tell them its going to hurt. If they wrestle a flaming skeleton, I tell them its going to hurt. I told this player that digging your way through rock was going to be inconvenient and will be tired.


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Fernn wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:
DominusMegadeus wrote:
It's fine if you don't let them hack through dungeon walls, but if you do let them, don't make up exhaustion rules that I have a hard time imagining ever come up except when your party pisses you off.
The character, even if the player would not, should have known the event would be tiring so I would have told the player in advance. Then he could have decided to go through it or not.

Dungeoneering checks made it possible to know that there was something on the other side of these walls, the width of the wall was indeterminable. As the cracks on the walls were not big enough to provide light. It was a matter of, the PC is making progress, but is tiring because it was an ineffective weapon, which I relayed to the player that a sword was not a good weapon for such a task.

By extension I try to my best to relay the consequeneces of their actions to the players. If they jump off a cliff, I tell them its going to hurt. If they wrestle a flaming skeleton, I tell them its going to hurt. I told this player that digging your way through rock was going to be inconvenient and will be tired.

Well in that case he has no right to complain about being tired if he was told in advance. Of course I know it won't stop the complaints.

PS: He might still complain about the fact that the ruling was made, but that is different.

Grand Lodge

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Only thing I think you should have done differently is when he was doing it tell him maby 1/2 way throught this is starting to get to you from the act of hacking at the wall and moving the stones. This way they could have though about changing tactics before he got hit with it. If he keeps going he knows that it is so.

Even with the weapon cutting though air if you swing it a couple of hundred times you will start to get tired. Then again if you fight in combat for your con score in rounds with out take the Rest action (full round action that you take a -2 ac) I put you to fatigue unless you are raging.


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Kirth Gersen wrote:

I approach the "problem" from the other direction. Rather than nerfing adamantine weapons, I look at what they do, and at the fact that pretty much everyone always gets them, and think, "Ya know, it seems like that material is really, really underpriced!"

For a magic item that lets you passwall at will, what would the price be? (Hint: 5th x CL 9 x 1800 = 81,000 gp). For adamantine tools that do the same thing, shouldn't they cost a similar amount?

Thing is that adamantine doesn't let you passwall.

1)You still need to deal damage and hurt hitpoints.
This means time, damage, and noise.
All things that can, and should, attract wandering monsters and alert foes in nearby rooms.

2)Special materials are part of what keeps martial characters viable.
Consider if you would hose the wizard in the same way if they had a solution for the problem (such as a scroll of rusting grasp or of gaseous form).
Note that by making it harder to obtain, you also limit the martial's ability to deal with fights, such as golems.

3)Adamantine is supposed to be rare.
If you have problems with it in your game, consider restricting its availability, rather than increasing its price.

4)This is probably something the player worked for.
Be careful on how you deal with it, because noone likes it when the DM silver bullets that thing you built up for/ saved up for.


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DeathMvp wrote:

Only thing I think you should have done differently is when he was doing it tell him maby 1/2 way throught this is starting to get to you from the act of hacking at the wall and moving the stones. This way they could have though about changing tactics before he got hit with it. If he keeps going he knows that it is so.

Even with the weapon cutting though air if you swing it a couple of hundred times you will start to get tired. Then again if you fight in combat for your con score in rounds with out take the Rest action (full round action that you take a -2 ac) I put you to fatigue unless you are raging.

I guess granting greater foresight would reduce the soreness.

The penalty wasn't meant to be Debilitating, However I guess from a player's perspective, he solved a problem, and now he is penalized for it would make anyone upset.

But it was suppose to be a slap on the hand. a -1 to attack rolls that comes off with any magical healing or a sleep.

Lord Twitchiopolis wrote:

4)This is probably something the player worked for.
Be careful on how you deal with it, because noone likes it when the DM silver bullets that thing you built up for/ saved up for.

I find this to be a dangerous balance between, here is a weapon that you have been working for, use it to sunder your enemies weapons to your heart content

To

Here is a lightsaber capable of cutting through any material at no risk outside of combat.

Scarab Sages

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Not even lightsabers are good at cutting through everything. It would have taken Qui-gon longer than 20 minutes to melt through the blast door in episode 1, and that's assuming he could use TK to get the molten slag out of the way safely.

Scarab Sages

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I am in complete agreement that Adamsntine does not cut through like butter. You get to deal full weapon damage each round if you swing the weapon as if making an attack. Pressing the blade against something and pushing isn't going to do the same damage as swinging or thrusting a weapon designed to use the weight of the weapon and the force of the swing/thrust to deal damage.

What I do not like about the ruling is that the minor fatigue effect was automatic and did not take the character's physical stats into account. A character with a high constitution/good fort save should be able to work longer without getting fatigued. Also, the amount of effort should affect the pace. Do you want to swing as hard as you can until you are through? Then it will take x minutes and make a fort save to avoid becoming fatigued. Do you want to work at a slower pace to avoid the fort save? Ok, it will take twice as long. As for the choice of tool, maybe the DC is higher for it being an ineffective weapon, but it shouldn't be automatic.

Just my thoughts.


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Also, have you ever cut through a wall of butter? Hacking through it for twenty minutes with a superlong curved butterknife would get exhausting.

Hell, swinging a superlong sword through water would get exhausting.

Liberty's Edge

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I don't think you are wrong to impose fatigue or exhaustion on players who want to use their resources in a way that would technically possible, but probably tiring. I think that's a very good use of the mechanic.

Just to use a non-martial example, I've had two different players in PFS want to spam guidance on every player in the party continuously for the entire adventure. I said that they would be able to do so, but that continuously walking while casting a spell every ten seconds would result in fatigue. I would have done the same thing if a player insisted that his character would spend the entire adventure walking on his hands or in your case, wanted to use a sword as a digging/excavation tool.

Grand Lodge

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DominusMegadeus wrote:
It's fine if you don't let them hack through dungeon walls, but if you do let them, don't make up exhaustion rules that I have a hard time imagining ever come up except when your party pisses you off.

Exhaustion rules exist, but they tend to cover more common situations in the game (swimming, long marches, running, raging). There are many examples of heavy labor causing exhaustion in modules, adventure paths, and PFS scenarios though, so it isn't unreasonable to ask a player to make checks along those lines, assuming the player is aware that what they want to do is heavy work that may wear them out before they attempt it. In all cases it's either moderate or high levels of exertion over shorter periods of time (a few hours), or extreme levels of exertion over rounds/minutes of time, with the outcome usually causing Constitution saves to avoid non-lethal damage or fatigue/exhaustion status effects (and things like raging not even allowing saves). While digging through a solid stone wall isn't expressly mentioned, it isn't a leap to say that trying to rapidly dig through a 5' stone wall would cause Constitution saves. The Endurance feat would help for all of those types of rolls.

As per rules others have mentioned, you'd need a digging implement, not just any old thing made of adamantine. I'd also ask the kind of pace the player wants to keep up, and ask for rolls accordingly. The faster they want to go, the more I'd increase the DC and penalty for failure. If the player wants to go really slow, like take 6 hours to go through the 5' wall (alone... quicker with more people), I wouldn't bother with more than a single roll (or take even longer and have no risk at all).

Loud noise would attract attention too, so be ready to deal with the consequences of that as well.


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Divvox2 wrote:
DominusMegadeus wrote:
It's fine if you don't let them hack through dungeon walls, but if you do let them, don't make up exhaustion rules that I have a hard time imagining ever come up except when your party pisses you off.

Exhaustion rules exist, but they tend to cover more common situations in the game (swimming, long marches, running, raging). There are many examples of heavy labor causing exhaustion in modules, adventure paths, and PFS scenarios though, so it isn't unreasonable to ask a player to make checks along those lines, assuming the player is aware that what they want to do is heavy work that may wear them out before they attempt it. In all cases it's either moderate or high levels of exertion over shorter periods of time (a few hours), or extreme levels of exertion over rounds/minutes of time, with the outcome usually causing Constitution saves to avoid non-lethal damage or fatigue/exhaustion status effects (and things like raging not even allowing saves). While digging through a solid stone wall isn't expressly mentioned, it isn't a leap to say that trying to rapidly dig through a 5' stone wall would cause Constitution saves. The Endurance feat would help for all of those types of rolls.

As per rules others have mentioned, you'd need a digging implement, not just any old thing made of adamantine. I'd also ask the kind of pace the player wants to keep up, and ask for rolls accordingly. The faster they want to go, the more I'd increase the DC and penalty for failure. If the player wants to go really slow, like take 6 hours to go through the 5' wall (alone... quicker with more people), I wouldn't bother with more than a single roll (or take even longer and have no risk at all).

Loud noise would attract attention too, so be ready to deal with the consequences of that as well.

Next time, I will try to make some good calculations on how fast he would like to dig. Normally it wouldn't be too relevant, however We did have an alchemist with a congnatogen up that only lasted a good 50 minutes, so I didn't want to gimp him on that based on the excavating.

Badblood wrote:

I don't think you are wrong to impose fatigue or exhaustion on players who want to use their resources in a way that would technically possible, but probably tiring. I think that's a very good use of the mechanic.

Just to use a non-martial example, I've had two different players in PFS want to spam guidance on every player in the party continuously for the entire adventure. I said that they would be able to do so, but that continuously walking while casting a spell every ten seconds would result in fatigue. I would have done the same thing if a player insisted that his character would spend the entire adventure walking on his hands or in your case, wanted to use a sword as a digging/excavation tool.

I think everybody on this thread has made some good points. Using non traditional tools to complete tasks would be inefficient, and I should really make it a point of what penalties might incur if they go at it at an accelerated rate.

Also on a side note, having two players continously casting guidance seems... overreacting odd. I suppose it gives you an edge, but a very minimal one at that. At the end of the day, its just a wee bit disrupting with the normal flow of how things should go. Which is not to say they cant cast guidance in most situations, but if your friend is talking to a merchant, and I run up behind him, say a couple of magic words and flail my arms around and then pat him on the back and leave, that just doesnt seem kosher.


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Only the edge of the blade actually cuts things. Even an adamantine blade can get stuck in stone. The Nodachi has a triangular blade with only one sharp edge. The blade will end up getting wedged in the cut made by the blade because of the shape of the blade.


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Badblood wrote:

I don't think you are wrong to impose fatigue or exhaustion on players who want to use their resources in a way that would technically possible, but probably tiring. I think that's a very good use of the mechanic.

Just to use a non-martial example, I've had two different players in PFS want to spam guidance on every player in the party continuously for the entire adventure. I said that they would be able to do so, but that continuously walking while casting a spell every ten seconds would result in fatigue. I would have done the same thing if a player insisted that his character would spend the entire adventure walking on his hands or in your case, wanted to use a sword as a digging/excavation tool.

Wait , you mean you wouldnt let a witch cackle all g+* d#~m day long :P?

honestly , there are somethings that arent in the rules , like a limit to how much you can just keep using this over and over , that doesnt meant the Gm should just turn a blind eye , the gm isnt there to follow the rules blindly , he is there to adjudicate them so everyone can have fun lols.


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Try to explain it to your player like this:

The nodachi is to the wall what an axe is to a dirt floor.

Then explain to him that using the nodachi to chip away at the wall is like using an axe to dig a hole in a dirt floor.

20 minutes is probably being generous.

Sovereign Court

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I think this is one reason that you see a lot of adamantine earthbreakers. Although I've used an adamantine no-dachi to cut through locks often enough.


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Luckily for GMs, it isn't up to players to declare what is and is not an 'appropriate tool' for digging through walls.

You have every right to say a weapon won't work for digging. They can either accept this, or not.

Lightsabers don't exist in Pathfinder, and shouldn't be used as a basis for comparision.

If Adamantine weapons granted a burrow speed, the rules would say so.


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Even if the Noachi cut through stone like butter it still weighs 8 pounds. Tell your player if can dress up in heavy clothes and swing around an 8 pound weight as hard as he can for a solid twenty minutes without breaking a sweat he may have a point. While he is sure to say that he does not have the STR of his character remind him he is also not wearing armor or carrying the other gear the character is.

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