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last night my group had an issue with sundering and objects made of special materials. i'm not sure our final decision is the proper way to determine hardness and hit points of objects. could someone run down how to determine the hardness and hit points of say a greatsword, mithril masterwork sawtooth saber, a +2 adamantine greataxe, and a whip? i'd like to see someone else interpret the rules. we were using the "Breaking and Entering" section on pages 173-175.
last night my group had an issue with sundering and objects made of special materials. i'm not sure our final decision is the proper way to determine hardness and hit points of objects. could someone run down how to determine the hardness and hit points of say a
greatsword: Two-handed blade hardness:10 Hitpoints: 10 right off the chart
mithril masterwork sawtooth saber: I would judge a sawtooth sabre to be a 1 handed blade because its bigger and heavier than a normal 1 handed light blade, but it could be argued that its a 1 handed light blade because that's how its supposed to be used.
base: hardness 10 hit point 5
masterwork does not appear to affect hardness or hp
mithril does not appear to affect hardness.
A +2 adamantine greataxe
A greataxe is a 2 handed hafted weapon. There is no option on the chart for a metal hafted 2 handed weapon, so the base hardness is
hardness 5 hit points 10
the +2 adds 4 points of hardness (as per the explanations at the bottom of the chart)
the +2 adds 20 hp
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.
- Now, by raw i have no idea if you're supposed to multiply for adamantine and then add for the bonuses.. but i think thats how its supposed to work, since you start with the base metal and then add the magic bonuses. That would give a 6 hardness (6.666 round down) and 13 hp for a regular adamantine axe. 10 hardness and 33 hitpoints for the +2 adamantine greataxe.
and a whip? i'd like to see someone else interpret the rules. we were using the "Breaking and Entering" section on pages 173-175.
A whip isn't on there. I would have to interpolate from the closest thing, which is a rope at 0 hardness and 2 hp. I would probably say 1 hardness and 4 hitpoints , slashing damage only.
A whip would be pretty hard to sunder as it would give, and it would have to be held very taut for there to even be a chance as otherwise it would just move with the blow and take no damage.
A whip would be pretty hard to sunder as it would give, and it would have to be held very taut for there to even be a chance as otherwise it would just move with the blow and take no damage.
Most things do that when they're in someone's hand, thats why sundering is hard. You can cut freestanding ropes with a sharp knife though, you just cut down and away from their anchor point , let your blade dig in and let tension do the rest.
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see, now if you go off table 7-12 on page 175, the only thing that all standard adventures would carry that benefits from being made of a special material is armor. even that only counts for the hardness.
what we came up with was that weapons and armor benefit from the hardness of the special material, but not from the hit points. i disagree with this. it doesn't make sense that an item would gain the hardness benefit, but no the hit benefit from being made of a special material. on page , there is a line that makes me thing the tables on page 175 are not complete, or kind of murky in their wording, "Hit Points: An object’s hit point total depends on what it is made of and how big it is (see Table 7–12, Table 7–13, and Table 7–14)." the way that makes the most sense to me would be the weapon or armor type from table 7-12 should be the base for the item, then you add any special material benefits on top of that. i don't think you can justify adamantine weapons ignoring hardness of items with 20 or less hardness unless you also say that that weapon would also gain the hardness and hit points from being made of adamantine.
can anyone see a reason why this would be wrong? maybe a designer could look at this and give the exact way this is supposed to work /wink.
also, the whip thing was just thrown in as something extremely random and out the ordinary. breaking the whip would be under the "Ineffective Weapons" section on page 174 i think. you wouldn't be able to break a whip with a bludgeoning weapon, but you could easily break it with a slashing weapon.
see, now if you go off table 7-12 on page 175, the only thing that all standard adventures would carry that benefits from being made of a special material is armor. even that only counts for the hardness.
Some things are under special materials. The big deal with mithril weapons is that they count as silver without taking the attack penalties. Mithril armor is lighter
Adamantite weapons ignore a hardness value of less than 20, making them insanely good to sunder with. Adamantite armor provides damage reduction.
what we came up with was that weapons and armor benefit from the hardness of the special material, but not from the hit points. i disagree with this. it doesn't make sense that an item would gain the hardness benefit, but no the hit benefit from being made of a special material. on page , there is a line that makes me thing the tables on page 175 are not complete, or kind of murky in their wording, "Hit Points: An object’s hit point total depends on what it is made of and how big it is (see Table 7–12, Table 7–13, and Table 7–14)." the way that makes the most sense to me would be the weapon or armor type from table 7-12 should be the base for the item, then you add any special material benefits on top of that. i don't think you can justify adamantine weapons ignoring hardness of items with 20 or less hardness unless you also say that that weapon would also gain the hardness and hit points from being made of adamantine.
Its not all listed on the chart. Some of it is listed with the special substance in question.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/equipment.html#adamantine
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.
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i know that there is other information held under different sections like the special materials themselves. what i'm getting at is that for weapons and armor, table 7-12 completely ignores what the rest of the book says. under table 7-12, #4 says to refer to table 7-13 for substance hardness and hit points. the only place on table 7-12 that is marked with the #4 is the armor under the hardness column. so by reading this table, only the hardness of armor is affected by being made of a special material.
with that being said, i refer back to my adamantine argument. how can you say an adamantine weapon would retain it's ability to ignore the hardness of items with a hardness of 20 or lower for sundering purposes if by table 7-12, only armor retains the qualities of adamantine. by that table, only the type of weapon or armor matters. this also contradicts the sentence on page 173 that i already quoted. it doesn't make sense to me.
i know that there is other information held under different sections like the special materials themselves. what i'm getting at is that for weapons and armor, table 7-12 completely ignores what the rest of the book says. under table 7-12, #4 says to refer to table 7-13 for substance hardness and hit points. the only place on table 7-12 that is marked with the #4 is the armor under the hardness column. so by reading this table, only the hardness of armor is affected by being made of a special material.
text always overrules tables. This is why. The book isn't perfect. There is no contradiction here. Move on.
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i've never heard that rule before. if you go by that. then the table is completely useless and anything made of adamantine would always have a hardness of 20 and 40 hit points. there has to be a cohesion between the text and tables somewhere. i guess i'll just hope that a designer looks at it and comments.
i've never heard that rule before. if you go by that. then the table is completely useless and anything made of adamantine would always have a hardness of 20 and 40 hit points. there has to be a cohesion between the text and tables somewhere. i guess i'll just hope that a designer looks at it and comments.
The table is for the hardness of the items because its a table for figuring out how hard objects are to break. Its not a comprehensive overview of the metals properties because its not supposed to be a comprehensive overview of the metals properties.
The hardness 20 and 40hp per inch of thickness is for walls and such, since an inch thick weapon or armor would be insanely heavy, even by D&D standards.
i've never heard that rule before. if you go by that. then the table is completely useless and anything made of adamantine would always have a hardness of 20 and 40 hit points. there has to be a cohesion between the text and tables somewhere. i guess i'll just hope that a designer looks at it and comments.
Wolf's right. Table over text.
And i agree on slashing vs whip for sunder attempts.
*edit* there is cohesion. Like Wolf said: Table 7-13 regards walls and other material where the thickness is quantifiable, ie. 2' wall etc.
In all other cases, like Wolf said, Weapons and armor normally made of steel that are made of adamantine have Hardness 20 and one-third more hit points than normal.
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tanis, if i'm going off only the text under the adamantine section, then an adamantine weapon would not have a hardness of 20. the hardness is only per inch of thickness. all it would get is the extra 1/3 more hit points than weapons made of steel.
so say i have an adamantine greataxe. it would have hardness 5 and 13 hp. now if i want to sunder this, all i need is like a small hammer. it would only take 2 or 3 good hits to destroy the axe. an adamantine greataxe, completely destroyed by a small hammer. if adamantine is supposed to be so hard and strong at sundering stuff, how can it be sundered so easily? you'd have to carry around stuff that's at least an inch thick to make it worth while. this is what i think doesn't make sense, and needs clarification.
From the PRD:
"Adamantine has 40 hit points per inch of thickness and hardness 20."
Given this phrasing, adamantine always has hardness 20. Compare to these sentences:
"Adamantine has hardness 20 and 40 hp per inch of thickness."
"Adamantine has 40 hp and hardness 20 per inch of thickness."
The 2 examples I posted put the hardness and hp together, then qualify them with thickness. The PRD statement gives 2 qualities for adamantine: hp per inch of thickness, followed by hardness. So an adamantine weapon would have hardness 20, as the mechanical aspects are separated by the conjunction "and". A weapon of adamantine would have the benefits of increased hp described in the sentence preceding the one I quoted, which is 1/3 greater hp.
If you try to look at it from the perspective you described, Morikyri, then all weapons and armor can be destroyed with only slightly more effort than aluminum foil. The hardness of a metal doesn't care about the thickness of it. It's easier to get through a piece of aluminum foil than a sheet of it because the sheet has more material to penetrate, reflected as hp, not because the foil has less hardness.
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thank you, lahtiira. breaking down that sentence makes things a lot clearer. we've been reading that was all one thing. it gets hardness and hit points per inch of thickness. now given this, it seems that the #4 on table 7-12 that denotes reference to the special materials table (7-13) seems to be placed in the wrong spot. i seems like it should be up at the top of the table by the word "Hardness". i think this should clarify things enough for my group.
I've always read the adamantite stuff as pretty clear, the mithril rules are where it's unclear, as it doesn't have the handy "have X more hitpoints than normal" wording that adamantite does. In fact, most of the special materials I see don't give HP for weapons or armor and instead use the "per inch" measurement. This seems really silly to me, I mean, how often do you find a mithril wall or door compared to a mithril rapier, or a crystalline sword?
I don't know, there's lots of reasons to use special materials, and few people really sunder, but it seems like a rules area that needs clarification.
The reason Mithral does not list an increase in hitpoints is because there isn't one. Steel has 30hp per inch, so does Mithral. They have the same hitpoints. Only the hardness is different.
If you are confused by it, simply compare the listing of HPs for the new material to HPs for the old material.
Steel: 30hp/inch
Mithral: 30hp/inch
Adamantine: 40hp/inch
Compare Mithral to Steel: 30mithral/30steel = 1
Compare Adamantine to Steel: 40adamantine/30steel = 1.3333333.... (the same 1/3 increase the Admantine text mentions)
Steel Greatsword: 10hp
Mithral Greatsword: 10hp*1 = 10hp
Adamantine Greatsword: 10hp*1.33.. = 13.3333hp = 13hp
- Gauss
Table 7-12 is for common weapons and armor. It's not meant to be comprehensive for special materials. Yes there are special materials on the chart armor refers to, but I believe it refers to that chart due to the mundane materials (leather and steel) rather than listing them out. The special materials just also happen to be on the chart since it's a more comprehensive materials chart (the weapons and armor chart isn't). Also look at the hardness of wood and steel & then at the hardness of hafted weapons. Wooden hafted weapons are not meant to gain the hardness of the material the head is made of. It doesn't matter how hard the head of the weapon is when the wooden haft is hit by sundering blow or is subject to area effect damage like fire. So it wouldn't work to have the chart put the "4" at the top.
The chart is a good example of how to apply hardness to weapons and armor that you can extrapolate from although many refuse to see it.
I would give same stats to weapons as James Risner except would have 15 hardness hardness for mithril sawtooth saber (I'm assuming that's a blade by description - don't have a picture).
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Not to nitpick, but can we resume the conversation HERE instead? That thread contains the most recent FAQ request.
If we combine our resources we're more likely to get the question answered.
Ugh, I'm not reading that entire thread. I did FAQ it, though.
The way I see it, RAW leaves a lot of this to the GM to figure out. The table makes it clear that hardness is determined by substance, and that a hafted weapon uses the haft to calculate hardness and hit points. So any weapon for which a steel version had a wooden haft would still have a hardness of 5 for the adamantine version, while those with metal hafts would likely be upgraded to 20. Which weapons have metal hafts? Gonna have to read the weapon descriptions for that one, but most large hafted weapons use wood.