OK, adamantine weapons and armor have hardness 20 and "one-third more hitpoints than normal."
For magic weapons and armor, each +1 enhancement bonus adds +2 to the items hardness and +10 hitpoints to the items hitpoint total.
Now, mixing the two together--does the adamantine property increase the base items hitpoints by 1/3 or the enhanced items hitpoints by 1/3?
Example:
- a regular Greatsword has hardness 10 and 10 hitpoints.
- a nonmagical adamantine Greatsword would have hardness 20 and 13 hitpoints.
- a +1 Greatsword (thats not admantine) would have hardness 12 and 20 hitpoints.
So it seems clear that a +1 Adamantine Greatsword would have hardness 22. But would its total hitpoints be 23 or 26?
If I factor the adamantine property's adjustments to hitpoints first on the base item, that would make the base hitpoints 13, and then adding the +10 for being a +1 item would make it a total of 23. But if I factor the magic bonus first before adjusting it for being adamantine, I'd have a base hitpoint total of 20 (10+10), and an adjusted hitpoint total of 26 (20 x 1.33).
I'm inclined to think that the adamantine property gets applied first, as I can turn a nonmagic adamantine sword into a magic one, but I can't turn a magic nonadamantine sword into a magic adamantine sword. Anybody have any answers?
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Also, how would I apply the extra damage from say a flaming sword on a sunder attack? Say a succesful sunder attempt with a flaming sword does 20 damage plus 4 fire damage. I know that the fire damage would be halved before applying hardness. But do I apply the hardness to the total damage done after halving the fire damage, or would I apply the hardness separately for the base damage and the fire damage.
Against say a +1 greatsword (12 hardness, 20 hitpoints), if I apply the damage combined the total damage done to the weapon would be 10 hitpoints [(20 + 2 fire) - 12 hardness]. If I apply the damage separately the damage done to the weapon would be 8 hitpoints [(20 - 12 hardness) plus (2 - 12 hardness)], and the fire damage would have no effect as it can't overcome the hardness of the weapon. Any thoughts on that?
I would create the item first, then enchant it. That's probably how the wizard makes it in the first place: First he makes an adamantium greatsword and then he enchantes it. Probably. So 23 HP.
If nothing else, I would call that the default premise, and allow for the possibility that someone might sort of blend the two processes into one, which might alter the default premise on a case-by-case basis, which would allow me to make the weapon with 26 (or 27 if you prefer rounding to truncating) HP.
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I'm going to have to agree on the "step through as the creator does" approach. This leaves it with the lower value of 23 HP. There should be a +1 equivalent property that makes weapons/armor tougher, though. That'd be awesome.
"+1 Adamantine Greatsword of Being Really Really Hard to Break"
As far as the mixed physical + fire damage I would halve the fire damage, then add it to the physical, then apply hardness (i.e. your first method). Basically, treat it as one damage source but halve the effect the energy has because the item would be resistant. Either way is perfectly reasonable, but the damage is really only one "source" and so it should be treated as such.
Thanks for your input guys. I agree with the reasoning behind the adamantine items extra hitpoints applying to the base items hitpoints and not including the magical properties. I also agree with the extra energy damage being included as part of the overall damage of an attack, and not as separate damage (although against targets with damage reduction/vulnerability/etc specific to that energy attack it would still be calculated separately). Thats how I was intending to rule these in the first place, glad to see thats how you all have thought it through too.