OK, so I'm slightly confused about how shatter weapons works.
What exactly triggers the auto-broken part of this ability? For example, let's say someone attacks the column with a +1 longspear (hardness 7, hp 20).
1. If the column rolls 10 damage for shatter weapons, 3 damage gets through hardness. Does this qualify as taking damage in excess of hardness, or is the weapon only taking 3 damage, so it does not automatically become broken?
2. Assuming the spear does not become broken after the damage from question 1... let's say the spear-wielder attacks again, and the column rolls 12 damage. 5 damage will get through hardness, so the spear will have a total of 8 points of damage. Is the spear now broken, since the total damage it's taken from shatter weapons exceeds its hardness? Or does the weapon need to take damage in excess of hardness in a single triggering of shatter weapons in order to become automatically broken?
"Weapons that take any amount of damage in excess of their hardness gain the broken condition."
In your example, the spear hardness is 7. The column would need to roll 15 damage to auto-break it. 15 damage would be reduced to 8 remaining. 8 is more than the hardness of 7. Therefore the weapon automatically is broken (drop to half hp).
I believe, since I'm running an encounter with these coming up soon, that the item gains the broken condition as soon as any damage bypasses its hardness, but is not destroyed until its HP reach zero.
So, does that mean in general, if something deals X damage, but you have something that reduces the damage by Y, you still count as taking X damage for whatever may trigger from damage? I would think that you only count as taking (X-Y) damage.
"Weapons that take any amount of damage in excess of their hardness gain the broken condition."
In your example, the spear hardness is 7. The column would need to roll 15 damage to auto-break it. 15 damage would be reduced to 8 remaining. 8 is more than the hardness of 7. Therefore the weapon automatically is broken (drop to half hp).
Wait, I thought it only inflicted the broken condition? I don't think it also reduces the weapon to half hp, does it?
Well, if you want to rule that way, you can... but then how do you fix it?
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I read this as if it is above half hit points, it is not broken. And/or you could instantly repair it (to remove broken condition) with mending/make whole/craft because it would immediately be over half hit points.
Well, if you want to rule that way, you can... but then how do you fix it?
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""I read this as if it is above half hit points, it is not broken. And/or you could instantly repair it (to remove broken condition) with mending/make whole/craft because it would immediately be over half hit points.
Makes sense to me. If the spear in the example has 8 points of damage from shatter weapons (I'm going to avoid using the word "take" for now) and therefore has the broken condition, it just has the broken condition - it doesn't get an extra 2 points of damage just from the condition.
What you quoted just says that an item that has more damage than half its total hp gains the broken condition. It doesn't say that gaining the broken condition causes an item to fall to half hp. Continuing on to the second part of what you quoted, if an item is broken, but is above half hp, any amount of healing on the item would remove the broken condition.
Hmmm. I guess I could go with that. It is "broken" via explicit condition not HP loss and as soon as even 1 hp is repaired it is no longer broken.
Kind of like you can be unconscious explicitly (from sleep) without having been knocked to 0hp.
So then an adamantine weapon is completely immune to this ability?
As the only thing I can find states that adamantine has a hardness of 20, meaning even with max dmg rolled (18) it does not bypass hardness.
Or am I wrong?
Specific overrides general.
General is, your weapon gains the broken condition when it is below half hitpoints.
General is, you are fatigued if you fail a con save after hustling for more than an hour.
Specific is, the CC's ability grants the broken condition on any damage, regardless of how little it is.
Specific is, the spell 'Waves of Fatigue' can grant you the fatigued condition even if you didn't hustle/walk more than 8 hours/etc.
As to adamantine, adamantine is in general immune to the CC's special ability. Having said that, there may be some situations where it can overcome the adamantine weapon if there are some damage boost spells cast on it or something, or if someone casts a spell to suppress the hardness on the adamantine sword (note, not sure they exist, but I'm sure there's some somewhere in all the PF/3PP/homebrew etc).
So then an adamantine weapon is completely immune to this ability?
As the only thing I can find states that adamantine has a hardness of 20, meaning even with max dmg rolled (18) it does not bypass hardness.
Or am I wrong?
That's correct. Adamantine is immune to a caryatid column's special ability because the max damage cannot exceed the hardness of adamantine.
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I suppose in theory, a high level bard could bard song the CCs, giving them +3 to damage, then if they rolled max, they could break an Adamantine weapon, but otherwise, yeah.
I also vote for the "if they do any damage, it becomes broken" but I would also vote for "it stays broken till you fix all the damage they did." I might be flexible on that last part.
Ok, so what about a monk's unarmed strike? Would the shatter ability do 3d6 points of damage to the monk?
