So, to be brief: I'm playing a wild shape focused druid and and we're fighting a couple caryatid columns. They've got an ability called "Shatter Weapons":
Quote: Whenever a character strikes a caryatid column with a weapon (magical or nonmagical), the weapon takes 3d6 points of damage. Apply the weapon’s hardness normally. Weapons that take any amount of damage in excess of their hardness gain the broken condition. My question is, how would this interact with natural weapons? Can teeth and claws be broken? Do they even have a hardness score?
As far as I know, there are no rules for breaking your teeth.
Previously given answer: affects manufactured weapons only.
I believe in this case the answer is no, but many abilities similar abilities specify that the attacker is damaged if they use natural weapons.
In old DnD there was a rule about applying enough (maybe more than half the total hitpoints) damage to an appendix would render it unusable, which is how I'd rule it if you were really keen on disabling the enemy attacks.
Natural weapons can only be broken when an ability specifically targets natural weapons. As a house rule, my group does allow natural weapons to be the target of a sunder attempt, although you take a -4 called shot penalty to the attempt, unless you take the old feat Sunder Natural Weapon. My advice here is this. In any given round, the creature can choose to affect either one or the other (natural or manufactured), but once they switch, they may not change it until after their turn on the following round. As for breaking them, look at a weapon of similar size and damage, beginning with simple weapons, and working your way to exotic. Give the attack form half that many hp, and if it breaks, the druid takes half the excess damage to himself. This is not such a big deal, since he can always wild shape again to regain the natural weapon, even retaking the same form again if need be. And he can always use healing spells to recover his health. It takes a bit more math, but it's basicly fair. (Example. Monster deals 18 points to the natural weapon. It has 8 hp. 18-8=10 half that is 5 points of damage to the druid.) Doing this can also get the party to work together better to defeat the monster. Most hold their initiative until after the druid attacks. The monster damages the druids natural weapon, so now the parties weapons are safe for the round, and they focus their attacks on one monster. And things progress from there.
Trish Megistos wrote: In old DnD there was a rule about applying enough (maybe more than half the total hitpoints) damage to an appendix would render it unusable, which is how I'd rule it if you were really keen on disabling the enemy attacks. Losing a limb causes you to take 1/4th your max hp in damage. As a house rule, you could say that a called shot would disable a limb, uhh nless the target succeeds on a fortitude save with a DC equal to the damage dealt to that limb. That means that concecuative attacks to the same limb will increase the chance that the limb would be disabled. On the other hand, this allows a person to target the neck, and if they hit and deal enough damage, they could kill the target. Realistic, but it can make a DM pull out their hair when the Pcs wind up killing your boss monster too easily. It also lessens the desirability of vorpal weapons. If anyone can do it, why spend that much for the ability. If you use this house rule, I would consider lowering the market price of vorpal to a +4 ability, instead of a +5.
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