I'd guess it doesn't have any hardness, though depending on what it is attacked with, it might not take damage. Slashing might work fine for example, but bludgeoning is probably not gonna do anything.
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.
Honestly, the AC would be my biggest question. It might fall to this.
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. An object's Armor Class is equal to 10 + its size modifier (see Table: Size and Armor Class of Objects) + its Dexterity modifier. An inanimate object has not only a Dexterity of 0 (–5 penalty to AC), but also an additional –2 penalty to its AC. Furthermore, if you take a full-round action to line up a shot, you get an automatic hit with a melee weapon and a +5 bonus on attack rolls with a ranged weapon.
Besides the obvious penalties to attack for being entangled. But... that seems extremely easy to break via weapon, compared to a relatively high strength check and escape artist check. So, YMMV, I guess. I'm not so sure on this.
The idea was likely that you can not properly hack at something that is warped around you. Doing so would be clumsy and/or risk hurting yourself. Hench you ether need to wiggle out of it or just rip it up hulk style.
Otherwise as darkwolf said it would be trivially easy and make net fighting worthless. And we know net fighting was indeed not worthless as it was common and well used in gladiatorial combat.
Bumping this as I still have no idea on how to run this if someone wishes to cut a net open while another person is entangled in it. Or how to rule it if the person entangled wants to cut himself out.
Cutting someone else out would probably just be a Sunder. Cutting yourself out could also be a Sunder (with a -2 attack penalty). I might also rule that you could only do it with a Light or One-handed weapon (as when Grappled) but that isn't strictly RAW.
It is relatively easy to escape (although Sundering yourself out would provoke AoOs without Improved Sunder), but the net isn't really meant to shut someone down. It just makes them choose between wasting a round getting out or dealing with all of the penalties.
A mundane net has 0 hardness and 5 hp. If the attacker is still holding on to it (such as by a trailing rope) you must first succeed at a sunder attempt.
Cutting someone else out of a net would almost certainly risk hurting the person in the net, unless you take your time (and provoke AoO's in the process).
Cutting a net off someone seems a hell of a lot less risky then cutting studded leather armor off someone, but that's exactly what Sundering armor does, and there's never any risk of damaging the creature inside the armor. It does provoke, though.
A mundane net has 0 hardness and 5 hp. If the attacker is still holding on to it (such as by a trailing rope) you must first succeed at a sunder attempt.
This is pretty much it. The 0 hardness comes from the additional rules section of the PRD, under the substance hardness and hit points table. Rope and cloth have 0 hardness.
Everything else is to be moderated by GM. I would agree that it would be sensible to require a light one handed slashing weapon to hit the net while inside, for similar reasons that you can only use light melee weapons while grappled -- while you're not grappled, the limited space idea applies. The slashing idea is of course because of the way it's made.
Well, the real issue isn't that dealing damage to the rope is hard (even though it's awkward), it's that you can't just cut a section of rope and be done with it. Cutting one bit of rope isn't going to be enough to let you out.
Does the Hardening increase the break DC?
As an aside, why the hell is that such a high level spell?
Does the Hardening increase the break DC?As an aside, why the hell is that such a high level spell?
Because it is permanent.
Well, the real issue isn't that dealing damage to the rope is hard (even though it's awkward), it's that you can't just cut a section of rope and be done with it. Cutting one bit of rope isn't going to be enough to let you out.
Hence why the net has 5 hp and 1/2" rope has only 1. You have to cut a big enough hole to facilitate escape.
Well, the real issue isn't that dealing damage to the rope is hard (even though it's awkward), it's that you can't just cut a section of rope and be done with it. Cutting one bit of rope isn't going to be enough to let you out.Hence why the net has 5 hp and 1/2" rope has only 1. You have to cut a big enough hole to facilitate escape.
Ah, I didn't think to look.
Honestly, I'd really prefer to see a better simulation of dealing with a net than just giving it a little more HP. It's hard to bring a non-small weapon to bear on the thing, you're not swinging at it, and it's hard to employ all of your strength while attempting to do so.
Just not sure how to do that with the rules without writing something a paragraph long that no one will ever remember...
Maybe...A character entangled by a net can try to cut themselves loose as a full-round action. You may only use a slashing weapon for this purpose, and deal 1d4+1/2 your Str bonus. In order to escape, you must deal 5 damage to a net sized for a creature of your size, 1/2 that for a net of a creature one size smaller than you, and twice that for one sized larger than you. Nets bigger or smaller than that do not continue to scale, and may cease to be effective.
I think that's exactly why it's the kind of thing that just needs to be left to the GM. I really don't think we need explicit rules for every teeny tiny permutation of an event. The rules we have are that it has 5 hit points. A GM who wants to go by the rules can let you try to deal 5 HP of damage to it and be done (or use the printed rules for breaking out or escaping). A GM who thinks it should be more complicated can rule it as they see fit. Some people don't want to have to deal with an item description that's a mile long. And the people who want a more explicit rule tend to be the kind of people who won't like a rule unless it exactly, perfectly suits their playstyle, meaning that whatever the devs come up with may not suit them anyway. So better to leave it simple (and it's still a fairly complex weapon) and let the people want it to be more complex make a call as they see fit.