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So, by your reasoning, since a katana does more damage than a pick does, then a katana is a better tool for tunneling through rock with.The problem is here isn't "appropriateness", but two oversights in the game-machinics:
1) Paizo should have made smashing objects analogous to coup de grace -- then the advantage of the pick over the sword is clear: it's a 4x crit weapon. If all attacks are automatic crits, a stone wall falls apart twice as fast under the pick.
2) Picks (and to a lesser extent axes) need updated text entries denoting special effectiveness at destroying objects. (Case in point: according to p173 of the CRB, under "Smashing an Object", you can't even use a pick because the section specifies bludgeoning or slashing weapons!)
...I'm gonna guess it's too late for anything to get tucked into the 5th printing....
Right now, the game mechanics do not permit a miner to mine by swinging a mining pick! (I.e., the argument in the other thread was moot because you can't even use a pick to break down a stone wall in the first place.)
"That rock will *never* break if you use a piercing weapon! You need an axe or a hammer!"
Fix: stationary objects should be subject to automatic crits per coup de grace, with hardnesses and/or HP tables upped accordingly. Certain weapons would be especially effective, such as picks versus stone and axes versus organic material like wood (and both being ideal for sundering armor and shields).
Agreeded.
Huh? The rules are pretty clear in that ONLY a hammer or pick could bring down a stone wall or door. Also, the rules don't say you need a slashing or bludgeoning weapon to smash an object, they say you GENERALLY need a slashing or bludgeoning weapon to smash an object. That means there are exceptions abound.
Perhaps you should read the ENTIRE rule section before posting?
Know the rules before changing them. I see too many young people make needless house rules out of ignorance.
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Why, hello, RD; you've arrived just in time with your customary tact to set us peasants straight, I see.
(I could rant at length upon the maddening lack of clarity a single arbitrary ("generally") will introduce, like a burst effect, into any body of rules into which it is dropped, but I digress.)Breaking and Entering
When attempting to break an object, you have two choices: smash it with a weapon or break it with sheer strength.
Smashing an Object
Smashing a weapon or shield with a slashing or bludgeoning weapon is accomplished with the sunder combat maneuver (see Chapter 8). Smashing an object is like sundering a weapon or shield, except that your combat maneuver check is opposed by the object's AC. Generally, you can smash an object only with a bludgeoning or slashing weapon.
Armor Class: Objects are easier to hit than creatures because they don’t usually move, but many are tough enough to shrug off some damage from each blow....<snip>
Ineffective Weapons: Certain weapons just can’t effectively deal damage to certain objects. For example, a bludgeoning weapon cannot be used to damage a rope. Likewise, most melee weapons have little effect on stone walls and doors, unless they are designed for breaking up stone, such as a pick or hammer.
...and we are thus treated to an incongruity: an adamantine katana, a marvelous weapon in every way for chopping apart stone , is, in the other thread, house-ruled "ineffective" at chopping through a stone . Likewise, I could, with the knowledge of p174 in my head, smash through a stone wall with a pick, but be unable to sunder stone-plate armor with it due to the requirement of slashing or bludgeoning on p173.
(Note also that Ch.8/Sunder doesn't say anything about bludgeoning or slashing being required, as is alluded to on p.173.)
Feh.
This is why I recommended a rewrite.
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Why, hello, RD; you've arrived just in time with your customary tact to set us peasants straight, I see.
Know the rules before changing them. I see too many young people make needless house rules out of ignorance.
Just because someone sounds like an old coot doesn't mean he's wrong. In fact, I'd say he's more apt to be right than not ;D
But anyway.
Let's point out that applying the rules for breaking an object to breaking a wall is potentially a fallacy.
Sure, the 1/4" thick wooden walls inside a tavern are more or less 'made to be broken'.
Carving a bypass tunnel with a katana OR a pick around some encounter you'd rather not deal with shouldn't be possible under any rules RAW, not unless you want to see mining rules implemented.
Far easier to just let a GM adjudicate whether or not a tunnel may be dug for each specific instance.. book is thick enough w/o delving into the finer points of physics, dynamics, geology, etc.
I think weapons should be categorized by 2 things: damage type (slash/pierce/bludgeon) and mechanic (thrust/swipe).
For some examples...
Default: No sundering with thrusting weapons, such as spears and rapiers.
Exceptions: Spears can sunder shields (many a spear has been used as a shield-breaker in warfare history)
Default: Ropes cannot be damaged by bludgeoning damage
Default: Thrusting weapons are not meant to be used for the Whirlwind Attack, Cleave or Great Cleave feats. -4 penalty applies.
Thrusting weapons should get +2 on lunge attacks, and a damage bonus on charges.
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Sure, the 1/4" thick wooden walls inside a tavern are more or less 'made to be broken'.
Why are you posing this as an argument when you would also, I assume, reasonably conclude that a stone golem is not "made to be broken" by its creature?
If anything, the stone golem should be tougher than a stone wall.
Carving a bypass tunnel with a katana OR a pick around some encounter you'd rather not deal with shouldn't be possible under any rules RAW, not unless you want to see mining rules implemented.
My suggestion in the OP covers it.
Also...(kiting in a statement from the other thread):
Silly is the way of RAMVORD
RAMVORD: Rules As My Views Of Reality Dictate
Rantlike: Also known as the theory of martials can't have nice things because reality only ceases to exist in relation not to your actual level but only in relation to how many levels of caster you can possible manage. The audacity of some to think that it is broken that a well built fighter can go through door with a sword that ignores its hardness while next to him the mage is making a tunnel through the solid stone wall in a fraction of the time pains me.
..... Wow I'm getting quoted. And for the record i agree the simplest fix is to of course do a quick look over and rewrite like with the stealth rules.
I think weapons should be categorized by 2 things: damage type (slash/pierce/bludgeon) and mechanic (thrust/swipe).
For some examples...
Default: No sundering with thrusting weapons, such as spears and rapiers.
Exceptions: Spears can sunder shields (many a spear has been used as a shield-breaker in warfare history)Default: Ropes cannot be damaged by bludgeoning damage
Default: Thrusting weapons are not meant to be used for the Whirlwind Attack, Cleave or Great Cleave feats. -4 penalty applies.
Thrusting weapons should get +2 on lunge attacks, and a damage bonus on charges.
Good thought, but I think this would quickly get muddled down with corner cases and outlying factors. I already disagree that spears are strictly thrusting weapons. I will not deny that is the primary function and preferred use, but a spear is a weapon in its entirety if you are sufficiently familiar with it.
If I learned anything in the military it's that your rifle is not called a gun, because guns only shoot things. Your rifle is a weapon, because it can be used to stab, choke, hammer, and generally beat the living hell out of an enemy, long after you run out of ammo. We were never allowed to call our training rifles "guns." They are "weapons."
So I don't think that narrowing down how weapons are used and making it a mechanic is the best route. If anything I fear it would take away from the game.
I think a better way to deal with it is to simply make a web enhancement and put it up on the blog at some point. A list of commonly sundered objects and weapons that are mostly or only partially ineffective for doing so. It would be easier to list the ineffective ones. I also think that there should be a short blurb in there about adamantine and how it affects these things. Then there's at least something official to go on, and maybe it can be put into the next version of PF, whenever that comes about.
