Broken Animated Objects

[richard develyn]

If an animated object takes more than half its hit points does it gain the "broken" condition?

I'm thinking, in particular, about animated weapons.

What about constructs and golems, though?

Richard

[karkon]

They use the monster rules. So they do not gain the broken condition.

Animated Object

When they lose all their hit points then they are "broken".

[richard develyn]

karkon wrote:

They use the monster rules. So they do not gain the broken condition.

Animated Object

When they lose all their hit points then they are "broken".

It isn't clear to me from the rules, particularly since they maintain their "hardness" feature which isn't part of the monster rules (Golems, after all, don't have hardness, they have DR).

Richard

[karkon]

Think of the hardness as a DR/adamantine.

It would be silly for them to gain the broken condition at half hit points. An alternate way to think of it is that an animated object's hit points at in fact half its hit points.

[Thod]

Let's see what is written in the rules:

Broken Condition wrote:

•If the item is a weapon, any attacks made with the item suffer a –2 penalty on attack and damage rolls. Such weapons only score a critical hit on a natural 20 and only deal ×2 damage on a confirmed critical hit.
•If the item is a suit of armor or a shield, the bonus it grants to AC is halved, rounding down. Broken armor doubles its armor check penalty on skills.
•If the item is a tool needed for a skill, any skill check made with the item takes a –2 penalty.
•If the item is a wand or staff, it uses up twice as many charges when used.
•If the item does not fit into any of these categories, the broken condition has no effect on its use.

I think what the OP asks is - should a construct that is an animated weapon suffer a -2 penalty on attacks and damage rolls once it lost half it HP as it is classified as 'weapon' or does the constuct 'not fit into any of the above' and therefore it has no effect.

So far I have never seen a penalty being applied to a weapon construct and have never done so myself. I don't do that - but the rules for the broken condition should give you the option to do so if your players are fine with that.

[HaraldKlak]

I can't really find anything that suggests that animated objects count as 'items', which the broken condition applies to.
Being creatures, I'd say, that they are unaffected by the condition.

One case in which I would rule broken when half hp, is if someone tries to use the animated object normally. For example, your animated sword has lost half its hp, you gain the penalties for using a broken sword, but the sword itself is unaffected.

[richard develyn]

I'm not sure to what degree an animated object has any "life" as such, and in fact I'm more inclined to believe that it is an object, i.e. item, which has been animated, as opposed to a monster which happens to have the form of an object.

What happens, otherwise, if you animate my sword, and in the course of combat (all by itself) it loses over half its hit points. Does it only gain the "broken" condition when the spell runs out?

Richard

[karkon]

An animated object is a construct. Constructs have different rules than objects. You can see that they are classified as constructs in the bestiary entry.

[richard develyn]

Ok - I can run with that.

Richard