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I have two questions about hardness.
Does clustered shots work against hardness?
Clustered Shots (Combat)
You take a moment to carefully aim your shots, causing them all to strike nearly the same spot.
Prerequisites: Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, base attack bonus +6.
Benefit: When you use a full-attack action to make multiple ranged weapon attacks against the same opponent, total the damage from all hits before applying that opponent's damage reduction.
Special: If the massive damage optional rule is being used (Core Rulebook 189), that rule applies if the total damage you deal with this feat is equal to or exceeds half the opponent's full normal hit points (minimum 50 points of damage).
and also does weapon blanch work against hardness?
Weapon Blanch: These alchemical powders have a gritty consistency. When poured on a weapon and placed over a hot flame for a full round, they melt and form a temporary coating on the weapon. The blanching gives the weapon the ability to bypass one kind of material-based damage reduction, such as adamantine, cold iron, or silver. The blanching remains effective until the weapon makes a successful attack. Each dose of blanching can coat one weapon or up to 10 pieces of ammunition. Only one kind of weapon blanch can be on a weapon at one time, though a weapon made of one special material (such as adamantine) can have a different material blanch (such as silver), and counts as both materials for the first successful hit.
I get the sense that they would not, as hardness is different from DR, but was looking for input. I'll try to contribute something besides asking questions about rules today, maybe i'll wade through the Magic item shop by RAW thread.
edited for spelling
Going strictly by the rules as written they do not...
I could a case being made for allowing clustered shot to work on hardness, and if a player asked me I might allow that as a house rule.
I wouldn't even have considered not doing that; I've always interpreted Clustered Shot as basically meaning "count all these arrows as one attack for purposes of damage."
Not that that's what it says, that's just how I treat it, since I believe that to have been the intent.
except overcoming an objects hardness doesn't make an object less hard, it simply mans that you are dealing damage to that object's structural integrity, your next attack still has to bypass the objects total hardness.
From that point of view I can see how a tight cluster of shots would be more damaging to a block of wood then a single shot (or several widely scattered shots).