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Good evening,
Recently I am playing the Iron Gods adventure path. I'm playing a Magus and start fighting robots now. So some doubts about hardness came to my mind.
The first one is that robots are vulnerable to electricity. When I read about hardnes I read that some elements may bypass this hardnes, but that was in animated objects hardnes rule. So does this apply? Is is at GM will?
The other thing was that I made an attack with my weapon having loaded a shocking grasp first. So I deal physical damage and electricity damage in the same attack, my surprise was when my GM told me that hardnes applies to each of the damages so a hardnes 10 would reduce 10 from physical damage and 10 from the electricity damage. So I did no damage at all. I was shocked because I couldn't do anything then. My question is, where can I find the rule that says that hardnes applies to all damage types even when they are part of the same attack?.
Thanks all.
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This blog post covers some of your first question. hardness
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.
(This is apparently a question the Design Team has received a few times during the development of Iron Gods, so they were ready to go with an answer!)
First, Year of the Sky Q&A Blog has the Design Team's ruling about robot hardness for Iron Gods.
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.
(This is apparently a question the Design Team has received a few times during the development of Iron Gods, so they were ready to go with an answer!)
The first one is that robots are vulnerable to electricity. When I read about hardnes I read that some elements may bypass this hardnes, but that was in animated objects hardnes rule. So does this apply? Is is at GM will?
By default, you'd reduce energy damage by hardness amount first, then apply extra vulnerability damage with whatever energy damage remaining.
Rob McCreary had this to say on another AP:
The animated objects are constructs, so they are now creatures, not objects. As creatures, energy damage is not halved against them (in effect, becoming a creature trumps the normal object rules). So they take full damage from energy attacks (150% if they are vulnerable to that energy type), then hardness is applied. However, page 174 of the Core Rulebook states (under "Vulnerability to Certain Attacks") that "Certain attacks are especially successful against some objects.In such cases, attacks deal double their normal damage and my ignore the object's hardness."
Even though the animated objects are no longer "objects," I would still apply this rule about overcoming hardness to them in this adventure (but the 150% creature vulnerability trumps the double damage to an object part of the rule), as hardness can be quite difficult to overcome for low-level PCs. So if the PCs use fire against the warrior dolls, for example, it would deal 150% the normal damage, and ignore the hardness. Other energy damage would deal full damage which would ten be reduced by hardness, the same as for any other attack against it.
His vulnerability before hardness statement doesn't seem accurate as defensive abilities always apply before vulnerability, such as with saving throws and energy resistance, I don't see why it wouldn't be the same with hardness.
His second statement would support "The GM chooses if special energy attacks bypass creature's (or object's) hardness".
The other thing was that I made an attack with my weapon having loaded a shocking grasp first. So I deal physical damage and electricity damage in the same attack, my surprise was when my GM told me that hardnes applies to each of the damages so a hardnes 10 would reduce 10 from physical damage and 10 from the electricity damage. So I did no damage at all. I was shocked because I couldn't do anything then. My question is, where can I find the rule that says that hardnes applies to all damage types even when they are part of the same attack?.
Thanks all.
Your GM is correct. Your energy damage and physical damage aren't the same thing and aren't combined together. Energy resistance only applies to your energy damage, hardness applies to both. If you had done 5 energy damage and 4 physical damage, you wouldn't expect energy resistance or damage reduction 10 to completely negate a total damage of 9, it would just affect the energy damage for resistance or physical damage for damage reduction. Since hardness applies to energy and physical damage (unlike resistance or DR) it applies to both types separately even if done as the same attack such as with magus's spellstrike or kineticist's composite blasts that does half physical/half energy.
And if you do physical, electricity and, for example, fire damage. Will the hardness apply to each of the damages?
No.
And if you do physical, electricity and, for example, fire damage. Will the hardness apply to each of the damages?No.
Yes. Each source of damage has to overcome hardness.
If you have a flaming shocking sword all three sources of damage encounter hardness.Just like having DR and energy resist fire 5 electricity 10. Since the damage doesn't total for these it doesn't total for hardness.