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A Babau is supposed to damage weapons that strike it with it's protective slime ability, but RAW it simply can't damage anything:
Okay, as you can see in the above, Protective Slime does 1d8 acid damage to a striking weapon, now let's assume the save was failed and max damage was rolled, so we apply 8 acid damage to the weapon... then we half it because it's energy damage... then apply hardness, assuming even a best case scenareo protective slime simply can't damage weapons, at all.
Please tell me that there's been errata on this, because that's just silly.
Edit: well okay it could destroy a whip maybe, or a wet towel, but it really looks like something's wrong with the ability.
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I'm guessing that the part where is says
Some energy types might be particularly effective against certain objects, subject to GM discretion.
means that the acid damage should not be halfed. Even if that is true, you're still looking at only damaging hafted weapons, projectiles, wooden shields, tower shields, and armor made of stone, wood, leather/hide, ice, paper/cloth, or glass if they roll over a 5. Plus, ammunition should be destroyed after a hit anyway.
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Raving Dork quotes two relevant sources here; it essentially boils down to: Up to the GM. Haven't been able to find any "official" word on this, despite a large number of threads about acid damage to objects. Likely, the Paizo staff would like it to remain up to the GM.
I'm guessing that the part where is saysSome energy types might be particularly effective against certain objects, subject to GM discretion.means that the acid damage should not be halfed. Even if that is true, you're still looking at only damaging hafted weapons, projectiles, wooden shields, tower shields, and armor made of stone, wood, leather/hide, ice, paper/cloth, or glass if they roll over a 5. Plus, ammunition should be destroyed after a hit anyway.
So just a fairly undewhelming ability overall then, but if the acid damage is supposed to be left unhalved you'd think that would be in the ability description.
I like to be consistant with gm ruliings too, and if I was to say that this effect does full damage to weapons, I'd have to deal with it as precident, full acid damage against wood is reasonable, full acid damage always and forver on metal and stone? Not so much.
RAW answer: I don't know of any definite fix to this, except that not all weapons are made of materials with 4+ Hardness -- bone weapons, for example, are common fantasy weapons yet might easily be Broken by the protective slime depending on what Hardness they're assigned.
Further, there are two sections that further modify attacks on objects.
CRB, page 173Energy Attacks: Energy attacks deal half damage to most objects. Divide the damage by 2 before applying the object’s hardness. Some energy types might be particularly effective against certain objects, subject to GM discretion.
For example, fire might do full damage against parchment, cloth, and other objects that burn easily. Sonic might do full damage against glass and crystal objects.CRB, page 174
Vulnerability to Certain Attacks: Certain attacks are especially successful against some objects. In such cases, attacks deal double their normal damage and may ignore the object’s hardness.
So I think the quick fix here would be to treat the corrosive slime as not being halved or reduced. The solution is perhaps inelegant - there's no indication that this is super-special acid, or that normal acid arrows or acid fogs are supposed to be exceptionally good at ruining gear -- but the metagame presentation seems clear (at least to me) that this ability is designed to do just that, and if it only worked against bone weaponry then it wouldn't even be worth mentioning.
Anyway, I really hate seeing abilities that grant the Broken condition independently of hit point damage. It doesn't make sense to me that a weapon would be at full or near-full hit points and be Broken. What is a Broken weapon without damage? How do you fix it? How do you fix an object affected by rusting grasp, for that matter? Bah.
Moving forward, I'd like to see Pathfinder tie the Broken condition together with a weapon's hit points. A monster ability would cause weapons to gain the broken condition because it would be exceptionally good at reducing objects' hit points to half -- such as by ignoring the halving of energy resistance and/or reduction by Hardness. If a particular designer is absolutely bent on creating an effect that just outright gives the Broken condition, then say that the object is reduced to half its hit points (and make this kind of ability rare - you're screwing over people who bought adamantine equipment for its durability). This treatment would at least be consistent with how death effects are run.
Anyway, I really hate seeing abilities that grant the Broken condition independently of hit point damage. It doesn't make sense to me that a weapon would be at full or near-full hit points and be Broken. What is a Broken weapon without damage? How do you fix it? How do you fix an object affected by rusting grasp, for that matter? Bah.
This is just how I'd house rule it, so take it for what it is, but I'd treat it as though it was damaged to half HP for the purposes of rpeair, and possibly only allow repear via magic, after all no amount of hitting with a hammer is going to fix a sword that's rusted through.
Depends on the acid. Depends on the weapon.
If you are going to shoehorn houserules to make an ability even more powerful, you should at least have the decency to figure out how they work.
Where is my chemist friend when I need him?
Does your friend spend a lot of time in the Abyss then?
Houserule territory: Don't half damage and hardness doesn't apply!
HOORAY for all the broken weapons! Players love it when you break their weapons!
Houserule territory: Don't half damage and hardness doesn't apply!
HOORAY for all the broken weapons! Players love it when you break their weapons!
That's an unfair arguement, I never suggested that it should destroy any weapon on one hit, just that it should do something to mundane gear, being the acidic sweat of a demon and all.
And sometimes you put something the players usual tactics don't work on against them, keeps them on their toes.
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I think it is an issue with the change from 3.x to pathfinder, in 3.x it would have been a very powerful ability actually ignoring hardness and dealing full damage, frankly a bit hesitant to rule it that way even though that was likely the intent.
In pathfinder the ability does not do anything since halving damage before hardness will be unable to do anything at all.
Houserule territory: Don't half damage and hardness doesn't apply!
HOORAY for all the broken weapons! Players love it when you break their weapons!
That's an unfair arguement, I never suggested that it should destroy any weapon on one hit, just that it should do something to mundane gear, being the acidic sweat of a demon and all.
And sometimes you put something the players usual tactics don't work on against them, keeps them on their toes.
In reality I think not halving damage and applying hardness is actually fair. However, against magical weapons it isn't going to get you very far.
Players will still be unhappy when you damage their weapon, especially if you break it or destory it. It will gimp them until they can get it repaired and they will probably be vocally unhappy.
Well... in my opinion (and this is houserule territory as well) you would not halve the damage (since this acid is particularly effective at damaging gear) and hardness does not apply: Scientifically, an object's hardness is merely an expression of what other materials it can scratch and what materials it is scratched by. This is not linked to its resistance to corrosion in any way. Consider steel, which is pretty hard, but will dissolve in reatively weak acid and common plastic, which is cut by steel, but resistant to the acid.
To me it seems hardness was meant to express resistance to physical (kinetic)force; not heat, acid etc.
However, you should make the ruling unique to the Babau's acid to prevent things spiraling out of control for other types of acid as well.
Well... in my opinion (and this is houserule territory as well) you would not halve the damage (since this acid is particularly effective at damaging gear) and hardness does not apply: Scientifically, an object's hardness is merely an expression of what other materials it can scratch and what materials it is scratched by. This is not linked to its resistance to corrosion in any way. Consider steel, which is pretty hard, but will dissolve in reatively weak acid and common plastic, which is cut by steel, but resistant to the acid.
To me it seems hardness was meant to express resistance to physical (kinetic)force; not heat, acid etc.
However, you should make the ruling unique to the Babau's acid to prevent things spiraling out of control for other types of acid as well.
Smashing an Object
Smashing a weapon or shield with a slashing or bludgeoning weapon is accomplished with the sunder combat maneuver (see Combat). 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. 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.
Hardness: Each object has hardness—a number that represents how well it resists damage. When an object is damaged, subtract its hardness from the damage. Only damage in excess of its hardness is deducted from the object's hit points (see Table: Common Armor, Weapon, and Shield Hardness and Hit Points, Table: Substance Hardness and Hit Points, and Table: Object Hardness and Hit Points).
The rules do very much disagree with your statement, unless you want to houserule that for this specific ability hardness does not apply. Hardness applies universally to all damage an item takes, regardless of the source unless you have an item that specifically bypasses that hardness (such as adamantine).
"The babau slime ignores hardness of less than 15 and the damage is not halved against objects."
Fixed! ^_____^
EDIT: Revised Protective Slime babau demon special ability (homebrew, but it does the job without being either worthless or overwhelming)
Protective Slime (Su) A layer of acidic slime coats a babau's skin. Any creature that strikes a babau with a natural attack or unarmed strike takes 1d8 points of acid damage from this slime if it fails a DC 18 Reflex save. A creature that strikes a babau with a melee weapon must make a DC 18 Reflex save or the weapon takes 1d8 points of acid damage; this acid damage ignores hardness of less than 30 and is not halved for dealing damage to objects. Ammunition regardless of hardness that strikes a babau is automatically destroyed after it inflicts its damage.
"The babau slime ignores hardness of less than 15 and the damage is not halved against objects."
Fixed! ^_____^
So every weapon now gains the broken condition per the original ability?
IT'S A BABAU DEMON, RUN AWAY! IT'LL BREAK OUR WEAPONS!
Houserule territory: Don't half damage and hardness doesn't apply!
HOORAY for all the broken weapons! Players love it when you break their weapons!
Yeah no doubt. I have a +2 bane weapons thats broken. We don't have a spellcaster who has Make Whole, and I can't afford the cost to have someone else fix it.
Yeah no doubt. I have a +2 bane weapons thats broken. We don't have a spellcaster who has Make Whole, and I can't afford the cost to have someone else fix it.Houserule territory: Don't half damage and hardness doesn't apply!
HOORAY for all the broken weapons! Players love it when you break their weapons!
If the weapon hasn't been destroyed, you need a 3rd level cleric and a day for the cleric to prepare the spell for you. Go to whatever town you know of that has a 3rd level Cleric - which is to say, most any significant community - that you even vaguely get along with, pay him the 60 gp, problem solved.
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From a weapon standpoint, the broken condition is a penalty but it's not exactly like it's destroyed.
Is it an annoyance? Yes, because it gives you a negative on attack and damage rolls, and (potentially) reduces your crit range and damage. But the weapon is still usable.
Now, you'd probably not want to attack the demon again with it, because then you probably would wind up with melted slag. But that's what mundane back-up weapons are for. And afterward, you just need to find someone with a level 0 spell and the appropriate caster-level for the weapon's enchantments.
The Wizard is fine though.
Picking on the martial PC is where it's at.
Yeah, it's not like casters overshadow martials on a regular basis...oh wait...
mending won't fix a magical item, he needs make whole. However, he only needs the bare minimum ability to cast the mending, which is CL 3rd since the weapon isn't destroyed. And at the level at which you have a +2 bane weapon, your group should have made at least some basic preparations for repairing your stuff in the field.
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mending won't fix a magical item, he needs make whole. However, he only needs the bare minimum ability to cast the mending, which is CL 3rd since the weapon isn't destroyed. And at the level at which you have a +2 bane weapon, your group should have made at least some basic preparations for repairing your stuff in the field.
This spell repairs damaged objects, restoring 1d4 hit points to the object. If the object has the broken condition, this condition is removed if the object is restored to at least half its original hit points. All of the pieces of an object must be present for this spell to function. Magic items can be repaired by this spell, but you must have a caster level equal to or higher than that of the object. Magic items that are destroyed (at 0 hit points or less) can be repaired with this spell, but this spell does not restore their magic abilities. This spell does not affect creatures (including constructs). This spell has no effect on objects that have been warped or otherwise transmuted, but it can still repair damage done to such items.
Unless it has been errata'd, it can fix magical items. Mending cannot restore magical properties to an item that has been completely destroyed, but if it simply has the broken condition, then mending will work fine (assuming the caster is of CL equivalent to that of the weapon\item).
I dont know where it is mentioned. But it says somewhere that some elements can ignore hardness. Basically the Babau's slime ignores hardness as appropriate and then becomes scary. Its not a house rule as the elements ignoring hardness is in the books. Solves the whole problem.
mending won't fix a magical item, he needs make whole. However, he only needs the bare minimum ability to cast the mending, which is CL 3rd since the weapon isn't destroyed. And at the level at which you have a +2 bane weapon, your group should have made at least some basic preparations for repairing your stuff in the field.This spell repairs damaged objects, restoring 1d4 hit points to the object. If the object has the broken condition, this condition is removed if the object is restored to at least half its original hit points. All of the pieces of an object must be present for this spell to function. Magic items can be repaired by this spell, but you must have a caster level equal to or higher than that of the object. Magic items that are destroyed (at 0 hit points or less) can be repaired with this spell, but this spell does not restore their magic abilities. This spell does not affect creatures (including constructs). This spell has no effect on objects that have been warped or otherwise transmuted, but it can still repair damage done to such items.Unless it has been errata'd, it can fix magical items. Mending cannot restore magical properties to an item that has been completely destroyed, but if it simply has the broken condition, then mending will work fine (assuming the caster is of CL equivalent to that of the weapon\item).
As long as Pathfinder has been out, we're still learning stuff about it. Good catch!
Of course, this means that Ciaran Banes' party only needs an 8th level caster with that 0-level spell to not easily remedy that broken condition. Assuming that the +2 bane weapon in question doesn't weigh more than (CL) pounds for the mending to be effective. If not, make whole it is!
Its a rapier. I don't remember the specifics right now, but when I researched it a month ago (after an ooze battle) I determined that Mending doesn't work. Neither my magus nor oracle has make whole.
Can someone show me that I figured incorrectly?
UPDATE: We're 9th level. It looks like the oracle wil get her last orison at 10th level. Time to start schmoozing. Her cha is 10 points higher than mine, so this might take cookies.
Its a rapier. I don't remember the specifics right now, but when I researched it a month ago (after an ooze battle) I determined that Mending doesn't work. Neither my magus nor oracle has make whole.
Can someone show me that I figured incorrectly?
In order for mending to restore a magic item to full functionality:
-The item cannot be completely destroyed (it must have at least 1 hit point left); if the item is destroyed mending can fix it, but it will not restore its magical properties
-The item must be above half its hit points before the 'broken' condition is removed (the spell restores 1d4 hit points to the item per casting)
-The spellcaster casting the spell must be of a caster level equal to or higher than the item's caster level
[edit]-The caster must actually have the spell mending (which appears to not be the case in Ciaran's example ;) )
Magus does not get this as a class spell, but oracle does. Assuming that your oracle has at least 8 levels in that class specifically, and the item is not destroyed, they should be able to repair it.
Sweet, one fixed +2 bane rapier coming up ... erm, at 10th level ... but still!
Wait, don't Oracles get the ability to swap out known spells at 4th, 8th, etc as Sorcerers do? Could've done it at 8th (if something else wasn't swapped then)...
Whoops - I stand corrected. I admit not having reread the RAW prior to posting. Still, it seems a little counterintuitive to me.
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I ran into the same discovery. I ended up house ruling by having the Acid linger for one extra round at half damage. Rolling 1d4 the second round and adding it to the first - in other words they may take 8 acid damage the first round (no effect to metal weapon) but the second round take up to 4 more - TOTAL of 12 Acid damage. This is enough for the slime to bypass the hardness of 10
With this rule, the Protective Slime ability some chance of working, and making it at least a threat, but at the same time making it very unlikely the player will have a ruined weapon.
According to the rules a BROKEN weapon is -2 to hit and has a diminished crit / 75% value / and a few other stuff. This does not make it useless - and it can be mended by spells.
I based this off of the real world fact that acids dissolve metal. In contrast maybe we could have a creature covered in a Protective Base Slime that cleans up the players weapon real nicely!
Fire melts metal.
Cold makes it brittle.
Only extremely strong acids will hurt metal (especially steel) enough to materially damage it in 6 seconds.
Acid that lingers and does damage on the second round has to go through hardness AGAIN, it doesn't add. Just like fire has to go through resistance AGAIN, not add to the first round's fire damage.
Holy necro, Batman!
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Given the CR of the babau, and given the description of the acid, I might rule that metals are slightly vulnerable to the acid and take 50% more damage.
Thus:
Against wood weapons, the babau deals 1d8 damage vs DR 5
Against Metal Weapons, the babau deals 1d8 * 1.5 damage vs DR 10
Metal magial items are still going to be more or less immune, and even magical wood items are going to be very hard to break.
I would also rule that this is a case where if the head of the weapon is metal, you treat it as metal even if it is a hafted weapon (under the "in special cases, such as dipping the head of the weapon in acid, use the head's hardness, not the haft.")
Oh-hoh!
That is a change, and I hadn't realized it was an intentional change:
So this is a case where the monster wasn't updated for the new rules, and the "GM discretion" clause means huge table variance.Energy Attacks
Acid and sonic attacks deal damage to most objects just as they do to creatures; roll damage and apply it normally after a successful hit. Electricity and fire attacks deal half damage to most objects; divide the damage dealt by 2 before applying the hardness. Cold attacks deal one-quarter damage to most objects; divide the damage dealt by 4 before applying the hardness.
When I read all the earlier posts submitted to this thread, many people assumes that acid damage should be halved against equipment, but "d20" rules full damage. Is this an errata or what?
When it comes to the Babau protective slime, I would use the old 3.5 rules instead, where only magical weapons get a DC 18 Reflex save, and where the hardness of all weapons is ignored (Monster Manual 1, pg. 40).
I guess it would take a hardcore demonhunter some serious grit to be able to work his way through dungeon walls with the corpses of Babau demons.
When a player wants to waste time using acid to "burn" a hole through a wall.. well something nasty might pass by during this VERY lengthy ordeal.
In other words: I don't regard this as a problem, since it would take forever to go through a dungeon wall with acid (my ruling). I don't know the official ruling on this, but I would simply use common sense. No friggin Aliens runing wild in my world. ;-)
Area is not a factor. The wall has a number of hit points. You do that many hit points, you have taken out the wall...
Except I can't finding anything in the rules stating that Acid Splash doesn't get it's damage halved. Or that hardness is ignored for that natter.
A walls hardness is 15, (as I remember), and Acid Splash is simply too wrak for the kind of work you propose.
Wrak??
I mean weak.. ;-)
If I recall from 3rd edition, Acid damage was special in it, very often, dealt full damage to objects and/or bypassed hardness. But with the change to Pathfinder, many of the monster abilities that deal with breaking equipment (like being swallowed or many oozes) became, effectively, useless because they couldn't hurt anything.
Still, 3rd editions rules weren't nearly as bad as 2e and older, as my GM is fond of reminding us every once in awhile. He told me in 2e, if you failed a save vs something like fireball, you had to make a save for every piece of gear or it took damage. Basically, anything made of wood or paper was just automatically destroyed (massive penalties on the saves). He said spells like Cone of Cold were great because they had the smallest chance of destroying magical items.
The slime does nothing! Lol.