Tables 7-12 and 7-13 in the core rulebook (pg. 175) give examples on Hardness and HP's for different items. Most are self explanatory, but in regards to weapons or armor, from my understanding, you substitute the base numbers on table 7-12 depending on the material of the weapon or armor.
For example, a 'one-handed blade', let's say long sword, has a hardness of 10 and HP's of 5. However, I am assuming that is for a steel blade? If that is the case, it is a bit confusing as the 'materials' table (7-13) assigns steel as 10 hardness (which does agree with the above example), however, the HP's are 30/inch of thickness. Now I know a blade may not necessarily have an inch of thickness, but to go from 30 HP's (for an inch) to 5 HP for a long sword seems like a big jump. I wouldn't think a long sword would be 1/6 of an inch thick.
And armor, table 7-12 indicates Hardness is 'special' and HP's 'armor bonus x5'. Again, the 'special' under hardness is easy to figure out as you just go by material of the armor. Let's go with something different this time, let's go with Mithril, and having it be full plate. That would be of course a hardness of 15, but a bit foggy on the HP's. As just said above, HP's is calculated as armor bonus x5. That part is simple enough, it would of course be 45 (9x5). However, on table 7-13, Mithral is stated as having 30 HP's/in. of thickness. How does that translate to the 45 figured out with the armor bonus x5?
Is there a formula here I am missing, or do you basically disregards the x/in. of thickness for the HP's and go strictly by armor x5?
And again, what about weapons? What about if you want that adamantite long sword? I would assume it would have that hardness 20 (of adamantite) but would hope it wouldn't only have 5 HP's? Since admantite is a whopping 40/in of thickness.
Any help on this would be appreciated.
I would use the first table for items that don't have a listing on the second table. I wouldn't worry too much about getting the two tables to mesh with each other.
Adamantine is a little different. When you look up adamantine, you will notice "Weapons and armor normally made of steel that are made of adamantine have one-third more hit points than normal. Adamantine has 40 hit points per inch of thickness and hardness 20." So the long sword would have 6 hit points. That's pretty good since it means that someone would have to do 26+ hit points to destroy the sword. They would have to do 23-25 points just to break it. Making it magical will make it more durable. A +1 adamantine longsword would have Hardness 22 and 16 hit points. A +5 adamanine longsword would have Hardness 30 and 56 hit points.
Thanks for the reply!
One of the reasons I brought it up is one of the issues of our current 3.5 campaign, is that is too easy to break items. Even with a standard steel sword that has a +5 enhancement bonus, that is still only 20 hardness and 55 HP's. It may sound like a lot, but my Frenzied Berserker Barbarian can do an average of 24 points of damage an attack (with up to 5 attacks a round in being a Frenzied Berserker) And that is even without using Power Attack. If I really wanted, I could chew up a really nice +10 weapon/armor (+5 of abilities) pretty quick. And this is for actual strong items, what about that Bag of Holding that is made of leather or other 'magical' leather item that may need to be exposed?
Now I know Paizo have toned down Barbarians and also there is no such thing as a Frenzied Berserker, as well as changing how Power Attack works. So maybe it wouldn't be as much of an issue in Pathfinder, but I guess I was also hoping there was better way to protect against someone wanting to Sunder, as you could possibly lose a very nice item way too quick.
I did not know about the "1/3 extra rule" for adamantite. Was hoping that you'd get more HP's than that, considering it does give 40 HP's/in. of thickness. So I am guessing table 7-13 is more for walls than items? At least for the HP portion?
And how many HP's would a Mithril suit of armor have? Or does the material not factor in on HP's for armor? Just the armor bonus x5 rule?
The rules don't come out and say that it, but I would use 7-12 for anything that isn't on 7-11 or 7-13. Here's something interesting about the longsword (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longsword): the blade is about 0.12 to 0.16 inches thick. 1/6th of an inch is 0.16 inches. So Table 7-11 is right.
As for sundering through items, yeah it can be easy if you are able to deal a lot of damage but you still have to hit. In 3.5, if you were dumping all you could into Power Attack, you still had to hit. In Pathfinder, you need to use your CMB to hit the CMD of your target. You may find that more challenging. In addition, each hit still needs to get past the Hardness. Using your +5 longsword example you would need to make 5 attacks, each would have to deal 31 points of damage with each attack to destroy it. That's a little more difficult.
The Game Mastery Guide actually has a Champion gladiator barbarian 5/fighter 5 who specializes in sundering and uses a +1 adamantine greatsword. His CMD is 30 against sundering. His greatsword has Hardness 22 and hit points of 23 (or 26 depending on how you interpret the bonus hit points from adamantine, let's use 23 for this). His CMB is +20 for sundering and he has 2 attacks. His greatsword does 2d6+13 damage.
So if he were fighting his clone he would have a difficult time. His average damage is only 20 so he couldn't even damage the sword. If he power attacks, his damage goes up by 9 points. He still would only be dealing 7 points of damage to the weapon. That's assuming he hits. His CMB drops to +17 when he power attacks and on his second attack it drops to +12. So he would need to roll a 13 and then an 18 to deal 14 points of damage to the weapon on each round. He would need to get very lucky to sunder the weapon in 2 rounds.
For the mithril armor:
Hardness 10 (15 for mithril) for all suits
Armor Bonus +1 = 5 hp (1/6 inch thick)
Armor Bonus +2 = 10 hp (1/3 inch thick)
Armor Bonus +3 = 15 hp (1/2 inch thick)
Armor Bonus +4 = 20 hp (2/3 inch thick)
Armor Bonus +5 = 25 hp (5/6 inch thick)
Armor Bonus +6 = 30 hp (1 inch thick)
Armor Bonus +7 = 35 hp (1 & 1/6 inch thick)
Armor Bonus +8 = 40 hp (1 & 1/3 inch thick)
Armor Bonus +9 = 45 hp (1 & 1/2 inch thick)
I don't know how accurate those thicknesses are but that's what it would come out to. I don't have a problem with each of those being thicker than the previous suit. It would certainly explain the arcane spell failure and the armor check penalties.
Don't forget that if it is a magical item you need a magical weapon with as much of an enchancement bonus as the one you are trying to break.
If it's a +5 sword and you are using a +4 sword it doesn't matter how much damage you can do you can't break the +5 sword.
General Dorsey, thanks for the great and informative post! What you say makes a lot of sense and certainly seems like it is much more difficult to Sunder in Pathfinder.
Abraham, I actually was not aware you needed a weapon with the same enhancement bonus (or greater) to do damage to another magical weapon. Is that just in Pathfinder, or was 3.5 that way as well?
pathfinder specific, is in the magical weapons section.
Also don't forget that adamantine doesn't take 20 off the hardness -- it bypasses hardness under 20. 20 and over and it doesn't matter what weapon you use.
Also don't forget that adamantine doesn't take 20 off the hardness -- it bypasses hardness under 20. 20 and over and it doesn't matter what weapon you use.
I think you lost me there. Are you saying someone using an adamantite weapon will bypass anything besides other weapons/armor with a hardness of 20 (I think adamantite is the only thing)? Similar to bypasssing DR?
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I think you lost me there. Are you saying someone using an adamantite weapon will bypass anything besides other weapons/armor with a hardness of 20 (I think adamantite is the only thing)? Similar to bypasssing DR?Also don't forget that adamantine doesn't take 20 off the hardness -- it bypasses hardness under 20. 20 and over and it doesn't matter what weapon you use.
Someone using an adamantine weapon will bypass anything that has a hardness of 20 or higher; this can be an adamantine wall, an adamantine weapon or suit of armor, a +5 normal metal weapon/metal armor (which has a hardness of 20), or a +3 (or better) mithril weapon/armor (which has a hardness of 21).
Bypassing DR only comes into play when you're up against something with DR X/adamantine. Do you have an adamantine weapon? yes. Then you bypass DR, congratulations! It doesn't bypass DR X/magic, DR x/cold iron, DR x/silver, DR x/-, ect...
The Game Mastery Guide actually has a Champion gladiator barbarian 5/fighter 5 who specializes in sundering and uses a +1 adamantine greatsword. His CMD is 30 against sundering. His greatsword has Hardness 22 and hit points of 23 (or 26 depending on how you interpret the bonus hit points from adamantine, let's use 23 for this). His CMB is +20 for sundering and he has 2 attacks. His greatsword does 2d6+13 damage.
So if he were fighting his clone he would have a difficult time. His average damage is only 20 so he couldn't even damage the sword. If he power attacks, his damage goes up by 9 points. He still would only be dealing 7 points of damage to the weapon. That's assuming he hits. His CMB drops to +17 when he power attacks and on his second attack it drops to +12. So he would need to roll a 13 and then an 18 to deal 14 points of damage to the weapon on each round. He would need to get very lucky to sunder the weapon in 2 rounds.
I was reading up more on CMB and CMD and it is pretty much impossible to use any of the CMB maneuvers (sunder, bull rush, disarm, etc) against anyone who is of equal level and class as not only does the person who is defending, receive a Str. AND Dex bonus (compared to just Strength or Dex for the person doing the CMB), they also get a base +10.
Or am I misunderstanding how that works? I know the player actually performing the CMB makes a roll on top of their modifiers. But does the person defending (CMD) get a roll as well? Or is the 10 + base attack + St. bonus + Dex. bonus + size modifier the final number?
No
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I think you lost me there. Are you saying someone using an adamantite weapon will bypass anything besides other weapons/armor with a hardness of 20 (I think adamantite is the only thing)? Similar to bypasssing DR?Also don't forget that adamantine doesn't take 20 off the hardness -- it bypasses hardness under 20. 20 and over and it doesn't matter what weapon you use.
Yessir. Adamantite weapons ignore hardness of anything that isn't at least as hard as itself.
i.e. A sundering specialized fighter has a pair of +2 Adamantite Sai's. He can snap your puny little mithral greatsword without even thinking twice.|
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Or am I misunderstanding how that works? I know the player actually performing the CMB makes a roll on top of their modifiers. But does the person defending (CMD) get a roll as well? Or is the 10 + base attack + St. bonus + Dex. bonus + size modifier the final number?
Think of the CMD as a maneuver AC someone has to hit to be successful in performing a maneuver. Now think of the CMB as the +hit for the player attempting to do the maneuver. This is pretty much how it works, except performing a maneuver often provokes attacks of opportunity if you don't have the requisite feat.
Here is a SUPER simplified scenario
Monster A has a CMD of 21
Joe the fighter has a CMB of 14. He rolls to sunder, he gets a 9. You add 9+14, and come up with 23.
Joe the fighter beat the opponents CMD of 21 and is therefore successful.
I think you lost me there. Are you saying someone using an adamantite weapon will bypass anything besides other weapons/armor with a hardness of 20 (I think adamantite is the only thing)? Similar to bypasssing DR?Also don't forget that adamantine doesn't take 20 off the hardness -- it bypasses hardness under 20. 20 and over and it doesn't matter what weapon you use.
Someone using an adamantine weapon will bypass anything that has a hardness of 20 or higher; this can be an adamantine wall, an adamantine weapon or suit of armor, a +5 normal metal weapon/metal armor (which has a hardness of 20), or a +3 (or better) mithril weapon/armor (which has a hardness of 21).
Bypassing DR only comes into play when you're up against something with DR X/adamantine. Do you have an adamantine weapon? yes. Then you bypass DR, congratulations! It doesn't bypass DR X/magic, DR x/cold iron, DR x/silver, DR x/-, ect...
Yes, I understand how DR are works, I just wasn't sure exactly what Abraham was referring to in his description and was only asking was it similar to DR in what he was saying.
But adamantite only bypasses a hardness of 20 or higher? That seems kind of backwards. You would think it would only be able to bypass something with the same hardness or less.
And so much for your higher bonus (+5) weapon or armor having protection against that weapon that is non-magical if the attacking weapon is made out of adamantite. I would rather the same rule applied where the higher enhancement bonus repelled admantite as the metal is considered non-magical. And if you do want to bypass those higher enhancement bonuses with your adamantite sword, you could always enchant it.
Oh well.
Or am I misunderstanding how that works? I know the player actually performing the CMB makes a roll on top of their modifiers. But does the person defending (CMD) get a roll as well? Or is the 10 + base attack + St. bonus + Dex. bonus + size modifier the final number?
Think of the CMD as a maneuver AC someone has to hit to be successful in performing a maneuver. Now think of the CMB as the +hit for the player attempting to do the maneuver. This is pretty much how it works, except performing a maneuver often provokes attacks of opportunity if you don't have the requisite feat.
Yes, that is pretty much what I was asking, except you did so without being so wordy. :) Thanks.
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I think you lost me there. Are you saying someone using an adamantite weapon will bypass anything besides other weapons/armor with a hardness of 20 (I think adamantite is the only thing)? Similar to bypasssing DR?Also don't forget that adamantine doesn't take 20 off the hardness -- it bypasses hardness under 20. 20 and over and it doesn't matter what weapon you use.
Someone using an adamantine weapon will bypass anything that has a hardness of 20 or higher; this can be an adamantine wall, an adamantine weapon or suit of armor, a +5 normal metal weapon/metal armor (which has a hardness of 20), or a +3 (or better) mithril weapon/armor (which has a hardness of 21).
Bypassing DR only comes into play when you're up against something with DR X/adamantine. Do you have an adamantine weapon? yes. Then you bypass DR, congratulations! It doesn't bypass DR X/magic, DR x/cold iron, DR x/silver, DR x/-, ect...
Yes, I understand how DR are works, I just wasn't sure exactly what Abraham was referring to in his description and was only asking was it similar to DR in what he was saying.
But adamantite only bypasses a hardness of 20 or higher? That seems kind of backwards. You would think it would only be able to bypass something with the same hardness or less.
And so much for your higher bonus (+5) weapon or armor having protection against that weapon that is non-magical if the attacking weapon is made out of adamantite. I would rather the same rule applied where the higher enhancement bonus repelled admantite as the metal is considered non-magical. And if you do want to bypass those higher enhancement bonuses with your adamantite sword, you could always enchant it.
Oh well.
that is backwards. adamantine bybasses hardness 20 or less. Magic adamantine has hardness greater than 20 and screws over sunderers. a +1 admantine sword cant sunder a +2 steel sword, even if it ignores all of its hardness (a rule i dont like, but its RAW)
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that is backwards. adamantine bybasses hardness 20 or less. Magic adamantine has hardness greater than 20 and screws over sunderers. a +1 admantine sword cant sunder a +2 steel sword, even if it ignores all of...
Correct. Get a +5 adamantine sword and and you're A-OK against everything though! :)
BTW, adamantine ignores hardness LESS than 20, so that's hardness 0 through 19.
Anything 20 or more, you take that hardness off the damage as normal...
