Need Clarification on when exactly an item takes a Dent

[Jurassic Pratt]

Item Damage, page 175 wrote:

An item can be destroyed if it takes damage enough times. An item reduces any damage dealt to it by its Hardness. The Hardness of various materials is explained in the Materials section on page 354. If an item takes damage equal to or exceeding the item’s Hardness, the item takes a Dent. If the item takes damage equal to or greater than twice its Hardness in one hit, it takes 2 Dents. For instance, a wooden shield (Hardness 3) that takes 10 damage would take 2 Dents. A typical item can take only 1 Dent without becoming broken. A second Dent causes it to become broken, though it can still be repaired. An item that would take a Dent or become broken while already broken is destroyed beyond salvage. Some magical or especially sturdy items can take more than 1 Dent before becoming broken, as noted in their descriptions.

So there appear to be 2 equally common interpretations of the rules for items taking damage and the text is vague enough that either could be correct.

Position 1: An item takes a dent if the total damage before subtracting hardness matches or goes past it's hardness.

Example: A fighter hits a wooden door for 11 points of damage. It is reduced by the hardness (10) to 1 point of damage, denting the door.

Position 2: An item takes a dent if the total damage after subtracting hardness is equal to or greater than the objects hardness.

Example: A fighter hits a wooden door for 11 points of damage. It is reduced by the hardness (10) to 1 point of damage, which does not dent the door because the damage actually given is not "equal to or exceeding the item's hardness" of 10.

This has come up in multiple threads and is especially important for how shields work. The sooner this gets a clarification the better.

Thread 1
Thread 2

[Jurassic Pratt]

Bumping for visibility since I posted this late at night.

[DerNils]

Thank you for this thread. I guess it Comes down to if damage absorbed by Hardness Counts as damage dealt to it.
I do think that the example of the wooden shield makes it clear that Option 2 is RAI:

page 175:
For instance, a wooden shield (Hardness 3) that takes 10 damage would take 2 Dents.

Only in Option 2 does the shield take 2 Dents - Option 1 would mean it has taken three times ist hardness damage and takes 3 Dents.

[Jurassic Pratt]

It certainly seems to lean that way. But I'd still like to see an official clarification and the rule to be rewritten more clearly.

I've certainly seen multiple instances of people interpreting it different ways so far.

[Asuet]

The maximum amount of dents you can get is 2 in one hit.

How it works with a door 10 hardness as an example:

The door takes 9 or less damage - no dent
The door takes 10-19 damage - 1 dent
The dooe takes 20+ damage - 2 dents

[DerNils]

Damn it, Asuet is right that items can take a Maximum of two dents per hit (whyever)
If the item takes damage equal to or greater than
twice its Hardness in one hit, it takes 2 Dents.

This invalidates the example as proof for Position 2. I still think this is the right interpretation, otherwise it would be a uselessly complicated example. The could have made the same Point with 6 damage if they wanted to.

Why do I think that? Because that is how resistances work. If your damage is reduced to 0 by resistances, you are not affected by any rider effects to damage. Unfortunately, this is shaky ground as resistance is not the same as hardness, but it is the only Point of comparison I can find in the rules.

Therefore, back to "We need this spelled out clearly"

[Rameth]

It's position 2. It states it reduces damage done to it and then says if it takes damage up to hits hardness it takes a dent. It cannot take damage that never happened. So if a wooden shield gets hit and you got a total of 4 first you reduce the damage, so it would reduce the damage by 3. So the shield would take a total of 1 damage. It has not taken its hardness in damage and takes no dent.

If it worked the other way then someone with a -1 Str could punch a shield, roll a 4 and dent it. That wouldn't make any sense at all. Now someone with a +2 Str could roll a 4 and punch a shield and cause 1 dent which makes more sense. As obviously he is very strong and if lucky could cause damage to it.

[Jurassic Pratt]

I believe it's position 2 as well. However, there definitely has been a decent amount of confusion on the matter so I think it's worth clarifying.

[Lee Wells]

So if a shield has hardness 3 and it only takes damage when you use the reaction shield block then why does padded armor have the fragile quality? When do items take damage? Do you have to target the item to damage it or use the item to take the damage and in shield block? If all items take damage (which gives a need for the fragile quality) then now we have a whole lot more to keep up with and item quality plays a much bigger roll.
The amount of damage then becomes an issue when dealing with only shields because we need to know how much damage we take. I mean if I was hiding behind the door Asuet was talking about would I take any damage until the door was destroyed? With that same theory would a shield only "deflect" its hardness away from my damage or does it absorb the damage received. If it was dealt 6 damage does it take 3 and dent with me taking three, or would it deflect 3 from me and break with two dents being delivered from the strong blow?
Now my first read through the rules I understood them this way and explained it to my group as such. "If a barbarian (18 strength) hits a goblin (6hp) wearing leather armor (hardness 4) and carrying a wooden shield (hardness 3) with a wooden maul (hardness 5) [all basic items] doing max damage on a critical hit it would deal 32 damage. When the goblin holds up its shield to block the blow, the shield would be destroyed, the goblin would be hit so hard the leather armor would be shredded of its lifeless body as the maul shattered on impact!" This is how I read the rules! They are very brutal and my group does not feel that is the way they are intended. There are to many variables in to any places to truly understand until someone "officially" offers a clarification.

[DerNils]

Well, to take some weight of your shoulders - items very rarely take damage, and only if targetted specifically. As there is no Sunder Action, in combat this only applies to shields with Shield Block and specific Monster abilities, e.g. the Ankhravs Armour rending bite.
Out of combat, players sometimes lack Thievery, which is why we are talking about destroying doors.

[Asuet]

Rameth is right. My bad. The correct values in the example i gave above would be:
(wooden door hardness 10)
19 or less damage - no dent
20-29 damage - 1 dent
30+ damage - 2 dents

[Lee Wells]

Ok I understand if everything except if you are using shield block. If the shield reduces the damage by its hardness first where does the rest of the damage go? Shield block says it "prevents you from taking an amount of damage up to the shields hardness-the shield takes this damage instead, possibly becoming dented or broken." If this is true and you use position 2 then your shield did not take enough damage to be dented or broken.

[dragonhunterq]

re: shield block - the rest of the damage goes to the character.
Do not use p175 when deciphering shield block as that is about damaging objects. Shield block doesn't really intersect with that as the incoming attack isn't trying to damage the shield.

[Asuet]

shield block p. 255:
You snap your shield in place to ward off a blow. Your shield
prevents you from taking an amount of damage up to the
shield’s Hardness—the shield takes this damage instead, possibly
becoming dented or broken. See the Item Damage section on
page 175 for rules on dented and broken items.

As dragonhunterq said, it only prevents damage equal to the shields hardness. I have seen a lot of posts where people said it would still block all damage.
They really should make a dedicated section about blocking with examples. It's one of the rules that is all over the place.

[Ghilteras]

Seems pretty clear to me on p.175

If an item takes damage equal to or greater than its Hardness it takes a dent, twice the Hardness 2 dents:

so if a door has Hardness 10 and you hit it twice for 8 and 10 dmg you make 1 dent, if you hit it twice for 10 and 11 dmg you break it. If you hit it once with 20+ dmg you break it with one single hit.

[PossibleCabbage]

Page 175 makes the opposite clear to me.

Since

Quote:

An item reduces any damage dealt to it by its Hardness.

and

Quote:

If an item takes damage equal to or exceeding the item’s Hardness, the item takes a Dent.

So I interpret the damage *dealt* to be the damage which is rolled, and the damage *taken* to be the rolled damage minus hardness, since what hardness means is "you take less damage than is dealt".

[Rameth]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Page 175 makes the opposite clear to me.

Since

Quote:

An item reduces any damage dealt to it by its Hardness.

and

Quote:

If an item takes damage equal to or exceeding the item’s Hardness, the item takes a Dent.

So I interpret the damage *dealt* to be the damage which is rolled, and the damage *taken* to be the rolled damage minus hardness, since what hardness means is "you take less damage than is dealt".

Exactly. It has to be this way because items do not have HP. As dents are the only way to know if an item is 'damaged' or not it HAS to reduce the damage first and then calculate if it has a dent. If it did it the other way it would take a dent first and then reduce nothing from nothing because it has no HP.

[Jurassic Pratt]

I've seen at least 2 more threads where this has been debated since the original post here. I think it's pretty clear this needs to be worded better/clarified.

[PossibleCabbage]

Jurassic Pratt wrote:

I've seen at least 2 more threads where this has been debated since the original post here. I think it's pretty clear this needs to be worded better/clarified.

Cleanest way to do it is with an example of something like "shield block" somewhere in the text.