This is hardly GM BS or GM fiat we are presenting here. These are logical understandable consequences to poorly thought out actions. You can hardly cry for more realism then complain when someone gives realistic and logical answers as to why someone shouldn't do something.
Please note that the poster that I was originally quoting referred to his own use of Rule Zero as "GM BS". That's from the guy that uses the technique - his words, not mine.
And I still maintain that relying upon this rule and rule alone isn't sufficient to hold the rules lawyers at bay. Especially the ones that saw the beginning of Star Wars: Episode 1.
I see what you are saying about rule zero now. I would say to rely on what's there and native intelligence. What's there is hardness, magical hardening, and lots and lots of HP.
If they want to pound through a blast door (which is rather thick and probably has a high hardness and HP) I'll let them go at it. It's assumed they do the maintence on their weapons regularly, and magical weapons in mythology and fantasy both tend to not get dull, dirty, chipped, et al. as a standard, I would say that adamantine weapons hit that level rather easily too. Of course we did see in episode one that the Jedi were stopped at the blast doors by Destroyer Droids and that even they with their laser swords and amazing skills couldn't get through the door quickly.
I think this would actually be a great example for a DM to use. Why didn't the Jedi go through the wall? They didn't want to risk hitting something important and killing themselves, plus the walls are even thicker and sturdier than the blast doors where.
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Since we are looking at movies with regards to the use of Doors stronger than the Wall it is attatched to Burglar (Whoopie Goldburg) Has a Steel Door Painted up that is actually harder than the Walls of her apartment. But It is not the Door that must be overcome. It is the Reinforced Frame holding it to the Wall. An Adamantium Door in a Wooden Dwelling is at best a Psychological test.
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So perhaps the best solution would be to keep the current hardness values, massively increase the HP of the objects in question, but still only allow Adamantine Weapons to ignore 10 points of hardness.
At a certain point the capacity to Mine Rock (tunnel through a thousand cubic feet of Granite or what ever) becomes the rule. If five 0-level labourers can cut down a Granite block for Stone in a week when their capacity to overcome hardness is insignificant, it is unlikely that a two foot thick Granite wall is going to be something a Bunch of Adventurers cant cut through given time.
I posted earlier a formula for mine collapse based on three things:
- (h)depth below next surface,
- (w)cross-section of the cave or dungeon,
- (k)Specific Gravity of the Stone to next surface.
(w/h)/k=%Subsidence
K Values
Granite 2.7
Limestone/Marble 2.6
Sandstone 2.5
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Rules Lawyer Types to which Sueki Suezo refers: "But I saw the Jedi do it in Episode One, the Phantom Menace."
GM: "Well, in case you haven't noticed, we ain't playin'Star Wars, dude!"
Problem solved. Again. :-)
And if they had been Sith they would have used an angry face :-< and the door would have fallen open.
wow! lots of posts on this subject 8)
I've seen players dig through walls, ceilings, mountains and floors in my time
Agree with the collapse rules and such, but can get increasingly fiddly
Simplist solution I found was calculating total HP for the area,
and requiring that amount to be achieved with a single attack.
This takes into consideration the load from the surrounding area.
Success means a partial chunk taken out and does not reduce area HP.
Several such hits needed, per material, to make a weapon sized hole.
Anything short of a full HP hit, reverberates back through the weapon
on the wielder in full and triggers a weapon breakage check.
If a magical weapon fails that breakage check, it permanently loses -1 to the bonus instead of breaking.
For spells like "Dig", +10% accrued chance of collapse per casting in a single area.
Each attack and spell also has a +5% accrued chance of an encounter,
like angry earth elementals with a headache from all the ruckous,
tapping into a volcanic vent, river, geyser, or oil gusher,
releasing an ancient forgotten evil trapped there by a deity,
penetrating the formerly "secret" chamber of a nesting mama dragon,
or whatever the occassion inspired.
Never had a problem again, after implementing this ;)
As a DM, I've encountered this sort of thing a handful of times in over 30 years of play. Some groups have lame plans which make no sense; other groups have solid plans, dwarves with Profession (miner) or (seige engineer), and appropriate tools. I've let the first groups fail (with appropriate consequences) and let the prepared groups succeed (also with appropriate consequences).
I've also used the tactic twice as a player: Once, our crew needed to quickly enter a mage's tower through a hastily bricked-up entrance; the second time, we brought mining gear so we could excavate our way into a solid stone crypt. If the DM had arbitrarily declared we failed without even giving our plans a fair shot, I'd have been quite angry.
My point is that a DM's job includes fairly arbiting the results of such odd tactics. Letting players browbeat the DM into allowing ill-conceived schemes to succeed is just as bad as arbitrarily shutting them down. ("You unearth a dormant dragon/oil well/balrog." Forsooth!) Rules specifically intended to stop "dungeon tunnelling" seem as lame as 4th edition D&D's restrictions on PC's buying and selling items for a profit. If a DM has problems with PCs who like to dig, there are plenty of sources that describe the historical risks and countermeasures used against such schemes.
Rules specifically intended to stop "dungeon tunnelling" seem as lame as 4th edition D&D's restrictions on PC's buying and selling items for a profit.
First, kudos on bringing mining gear to your excavation instead of just saying 'my axe'll work'.
But I think the point of this thread (at least as far as I'm concerned), isn't to get tunneling banned. Because you are correct, it's a perfectly valid approach to a door you can't beat or find.
The point is to get a set of rules designed to allow tunneling in a reasonable way, because as-is, a DM basically needs to pull a number out of their ass for how long tunneling takes. On the other hand, if a player just insists on rolling the attacks, they cvan get througha wall rather rapidly.
All that would really be necessary is a small table in the 'damaging objects' section explaining how long it takes to excavate a large segment of stone, how much faster adamantine tools help, and the Profession (miner) checks involved., etc.
For smaller segments, doors, and thin walls, the current rules are sufficient.
Better yet, just have a GM who has the guts to say "No, that is ridiculous."I think that's far too simple, Nigel. Obviously hard, fast, clear and explicit rules are needed on saying, "No, that is ridiculous."
lol
I'm not worried about ridiculous situations -- those I'm comfortable with ruling on. I wouldn't allow someone to cut through a stone wall with a hacksaw.
But what if a human fighter wanted to bash down a stone door with a (wooden) greatclub? I'm not sure if that's ridiculous or not. It wouldn't seem ridiculous to allow a frost giant to bash down a stone door with a big wooden club, but it would seem fairly silly to allow a halfling to bash down a stone door with a big (for a halfling) wooden club. But in D&D land, it's entirely possible that they all do the same amount of damage (e.g. it's the world's strongest halfling fighter with a belt of giant strength)!