Alright so I'm sure everyone has run into this situation.
Players need to or decide to cut through a stone wall, say hardness 8 90 hitpoints per foot and three feet thick. Mechanics wise I don't see any real reason to say that they couldn't eventually batter the wall down (using weapons or not) and mechanics wise if they have power attack it probably won't take that long.
Is there some rule or reference out there about breaking your weapon and maybe how it would happen? I mean maybe even have a break check on the weapon when hitting hard materials? Just seems silly to wail away on a wall with your masterwork or magic weapon, but its doable.
Ok now what about when the players start busting out adamantite weapons? Are other dm's letting them cut through stone and steel like a hot knife through butter?
Just curious.
Edit: Most of the rules say x hitpoints per foot/inch, is that a 5'x5' section? How big is the hole they cut?
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I think there's a rule under damaging objects that mentions something like this:
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.
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The CRB already addresses this:
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.
But that isn't enough. By this rule, a warhammer can bring down a castle if you give it enough time. There are sieges in Earth history that lasted a full generation (Siege of Candia, for example) - surely those sieges did not last for decades purely because the attackers forgot to bring a few warhammers - the Turks had cannons at Candia.
The PRD says stone is hardness 8 and 15 HP/inch, that's 540 HP. Weapons are indestructible in Pathfinder, more or less, unless they are specifically attacked or sundered. Beating a warhammer against a stone wall is not specifically targeting or sundering the warhammer, so it is effectively indestructible, so there is no RAW way that the warhammer will break.
A typical fighter with a non-magical warhammer and only a 14 STR would do about 3 points of damage to a stone wall every 8 swings of his hammer (he would do 1d8+2 damage, but after subtracting the wall's hardness, only the best two rolls on the d8 would even hurt the wall). That means if he swings his hammer 1,440 times, he would break down the wall.
Conveniently, that works out to exactly 1 swing per minute for 24 hours. Or one swing per round for 2 hours and 24 minutes.
Faster if he wields it with both hands.
Does that mean he could make a human-sized hole in the wall? Maybe, or maybe just a hammer-sized hole in it (so more time to enlarge the hole is required) - it's up to the GM at that point.
Obviously, someone much stronger with a magical warhammer could greatly reduce this time. An 18 STR with a +2 warhammer swinging with both hands would do 1d8+8 damage to the stone wall, averaging 4.5 damage per swing. That would only require 120 swings or just twelve minutes if he is swinging only once per round.
This is silly. A non-magical Earth-standard warhammer should not have breached the walls of Candia in a day when cannons could not do it for 21 years.
Back to the GM's discretion then.
The "Ineffective Weapon" rule says it's up to the GM to decide what is or is not "ineffective"
My rule is that a weapon is ineffective if the wielder cannot penetrate the hardness before STR and feats and any other modifiers (except magic). In other words, that warhammer can only deal 1d8 damage and stone has a hardness of 8, so it CANNOT damage those walls, even if a strong person wields it. Magic can ruin this, but magic ruins everything so it's OK for a +1 warhammer to do what a non-magical one cannot.
But even that fails, because my rule means a greatclub (1d10) COULD break down a castle wall, with enough muscle and time.
So my second rule is that when using weapons for smashing rather than for combat, the weapon takes the same damage as what you're smashing. A greatclub would have hardness 5 and 10 HP. If a strong man (STR 18) wields it against a stone wall, he will likely do about 11-12 damage on average. Subtract the wall's hardness of 8 and that leaves about 3-4 damage. But he would also do 11-12 damage to the greatclub. Subtract the weapon's hardness of 5 means 6-7 damage to the weapon, already giving it the broken condition on the first swing and destroying it on the second swing.
Side note: the Broken condition imposes -2 on the damage rolls. This would take a greatclub from 1d10 to 1d10-2 damage (from 1-10 to 0-8). Since it's new maximum damage is incapable of penetrating the wall's hardness, I would rule that the broken greatclub has become "ineffective".
Now, as the OP suggested, magical adamntine weapons change things a whole lot. The old adamantine dagger of castle breaking is entirely possible in Pathfinder. I bet the Turks at Candia wished they had brought one or two...
Finally, to answer the OP's last question, I rule for the sake of digging that the hole is the size of the tool - want a bigger hole, dig some more. So if you really want to get through a castle wall in a hurry, use an adamantine greatsword instead of an adamantine dagger.
None of this is RAW, it's all my own standard for judging what is or is not "ineffective".
If the digging weapon takes the same damage how would we ever make progress with picks?
My group has always played that if you deal hit point damage equal to what a 5ft wide section section has, you have effectively destroyed that entire section. As you are attacking the wall and weapons do not by any circumstances of RAW receive damage for doing so, the weapon is not damaged.
I would rules that, with an adamantine sword, it would not cut through a wall that is thicker than the sword is long. Or rather, it could pierce and make a cut, but it would just do that: make a long gash that does little to ruin the wall's structural integrity. Now, an adamantine hammer would be an entirely different story, but the point remains.
Maybe allow them to eventually carve their way through a wall with any weapon, but make it a definite time factor. I mean, given time, a man can dig his way out of a prison with a spoon (given a large number of spoons or a convenient mending spell in game). Just build things so that it would take far too long to practically use weapons to get in or out. Have guards eventually come up during the 2 hours it takes them to get through the wall.
But even without weapons, there are plenty of spells (shatter specifically, especially since it can be taken as an SLA by demonspawn tieflings making it a factor from level 1) that could be used to tear down walls.
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Nobody in my game would waste their sword on a brick wall. They just know better. It doesn't matter that there is no RAW for breaking it on the wall; their own experience tells them things break and blades dull. They use their common sense and they don't test whether I will come up with a ruling they don't like.
Common sense is important at our table.
Nobody in my game would waste their sword on a brick wall. They just know better. It doesn't matter that there is no RAW for breaking it on the wall; their own experience tells them things break and blades dull. They use their common sense and they don't test whether I will come up with a ruling they don't like.
Common sense is important at our table.
But Magic Weapons are always sharp and never dull or rust.
But Magic Weapons are always sharp and never dull or rust.Nobody in my game would waste their sword on a brick wall. They just know better. It doesn't matter that there is no RAW for breaking it on the wall; their own experience tells them things break and blades dull. They use their common sense and they don't test whether I will come up with a ruling they don't like.
Common sense is important at our table.
I hope that's sarcasm.
The only reason to not allow this is to force a group to resort to magic to bypass it or use disable device (if there is a door). Since disable device is only a class skill for the rogue and alchemist and most players wont take the skill your basically forcing someone to either take the skill or the class as opposed to being able to bash through. Why punish the fighter here? Allow him to bust down the wall. It takes more time (than picking the lock most likely) and will create a lot of noise.
Call me old school (I am in many ways, though not a grognard), but I remember when a well-equipped party carried tools for the express purpose of breaking through things and/or digging.
Oh yeah. I remember it so well because it was the other day. I guess I'm blessed to have players who don't think the "right tool for the right job" qualifies as "punishment."
Strangely the rules are better fleshed out for hitting it with a weapon and breaking it down than figuring out how long it takes to dig through the wall.
I hope that's sarcasm.But Magic Weapons are always sharp and never dull or rust.Nobody in my game would waste their sword on a brick wall. They just know better. It doesn't matter that there is no RAW for breaking it on the wall; their own experience tells them things break and blades dull. They use their common sense and they don't test whether I will come up with a ruling they don't like.
Common sense is important at our table.
Why would it be sarcasm? It's true.
The CRB already addresses this:
But that isn't enough....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.
IMO
Thank everyone for their replies and thoughts. I think DM Blake's explanation and dm fiat will be good enough for me. My personal understanding will be that unless a weapon is designed for that particular excavation the weapon will be ineffective against stone and harder barriers unless it is made of adamantite, in which case it will cut through said materials, but said materials become rubble which then needs to be carted away etc. I think ruling that any barrier can be broken down by a harder weapon in a few rounds by human average strength without appropriate tools makes the game to simplistic for me and at least in my own games I will require my players to be more inventive.
As far as the question of weapons breaking if they are used ineffectively I haven't seen any good reason to have them become broken unless the material they are hitting is the same or better hardness, ie steel sword vs steel wall, in which case I'd have them take equal damage.
As far as magic weapons never dulling, if they can break they can dull. I'm not saying that comes up alot or there isn't a CRB sentence contradicting me, but that's just my opinion. It's up to interpretation what "broken" looks like whether it is dulling, cracking, shattering, chipping, etc.
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Why would it be sarcasm? It's true.I hope that's sarcasm.But Magic Weapons are always sharp and never dull or rust.Nobody in my game would waste their sword on a brick wall. They just know better. It doesn't matter that there is no RAW for breaking it on the wall; their own experience tells them things break and blades dull. They use their common sense and they don't test whether I will come up with a ruling they don't like.
Common sense is important at our table.
i dont recall that rule, where is it? it is something i would likely miss.
Huh I'm actually having difficulty finding it again. You can infer it from not being able to use a whetstone with it. Hrm.
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This is why you have a GM instead of a computer.
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I was thinking about punching some trees and dirt... And then building a house out of the square blocks of those materials.
It's just not something very "Adventurous", so it's not really included in the rules. It's also something most people don't really do (short of a prison escape with a sharpened stick or spoon, lol).
The game has rules for improvised weapons (using something not designed for use as a weapon), however the reverse (improvised tools) really only applies to craft checks.
Which actually makes some sense here, you are actually "digging a hole" as a feat of engineering, rather than just outright breaking something (like attacking a normal object).
If, as a GM, you wanted some ad hoc rules to go by (say it's a prison escape game, or something with more fluid deadlines like Kingmaker), I'd probably use the following:
- Use a craft (masonry) check to attempt to dig a hole through the object (wall, etc). Use the break DC - 20 as your check to determine if you can cause damage.
Time it takes to cause the damage depends on how effective a "tool" you have. 1 round for a hammer or pick, etc. 1 minute for a sword or other "smaller impact" weapon (although I'd only allow them if they severely outweigh the hardness, like adamatine weapons, or magical weapons vs wood etc).
- Weapons made of something with lower hardness than the object they are attempting to whittle down will not effectively transfer the damage (eventually cause the broken condition if you keep trying, perhaps take 1 damage per "attack"?). Might have to do maintenance or use multiple weapons.
- A weapon used as an improvised tool to break down a wall like this will be reduced to basic stats (pick a similar handed simple weapon for damage, don't need to worry about crits).
- Magic and better materials will help, obviously. Adamantine ignoring hardness and magic enhancement increasing the weapon's hardness and hitpoints, etc.
Or, you can take that all into account, and basically get a guesstimate and tell the player "Even your limited knowledge in engineering tells you that your weapon will break first, and even if it didn't it'd probably take a good week or so, care to come up with a better idea?"
..
On a note about castle walls...
The exterior castle walls, historically, were an amalgamation of materials (usually two masonry walls filled with looser stone), however they were at a minimum 5' thick and could be upwards of 25 feet thick.
Hitpoints for a 25 foot thick (even mixed material wall) will have something to the order of 3-4k hitpoints for a 10'x10' area, and you then have to worry about moving all that rubble out of the way.
And since that would take a looong time, I'd imagine that the noise might attract archers or hot oil or whatever. And since cannon-fire can only cause damage (not clear out the rubble), it will likely only get so far in a 25 foot thick wall.
If the digging weapon takes the same damage how would we ever make progress with picks?
You're referencing my post, it seems.
I'm sorry, I should have been a little more clear - that "rule" (rather, my application of the GM guideline regarding "ineffective weapons") was my second self-rule to handle "ineffective" weapons - picks wouldn't apply when used against stone.
This is one of those times where common sense has to be used swords and the like are not ment for breaking stone so would have very limited use in this
Now a pick is better but if you compare a war pick to a mining pick there's a lot of difference in how they are made and the weight you can put behind each blow the weapons aren't ment to do this job so i would rule that they can try but stand a good chance of breaking in the attempt
I would rule even a pick would do limited damage. Just because they're the tools that we use to tunnel through rock doesn't mean that using a pick to tunnel through rock is fast or easy.
As I recall, this and the next couple of pages contain pretty relevant discussion.
One thing saying it's possible, reasons why it's not generally done, and some relevant rules and more reason it's uncommon.
Apologies for unintended tone of the first and last post came later.
Mostly, I think it comes down to the facts that:
a) higher level people are uncommon
b) it's far, far easier to hit the door with a battering ram
c) most anyone or anything is going to die badly if they try the tactic
That said, if they're game to try it (and probably die terribly) I'd let 'em. But that's just me, and I'd make sure they understood the very, very real (not like "story time real" but like "this is a game your character can die in from taking enough damage - damage that will be headed your way" real) probability (not possibility) of very big time death. And see what they come up with to prove me wrong. I just love players. :)
This is one of those times where common sense has to be used swords and the like are not ment for breaking stone so would have very limited use in this
Now a pick is better but if you compare a war pick to a mining pick there's a lot of difference in how they are made and the weight you can put behind each blow the weapons aren't ment to do this job so i would rule that they can try but stand a good chance of breaking in the attempt
Common sense? Here is your common sense!(edit: ok, I am inexperinced with linking videos, and the 'copy URL at current time' function....just does not actually do that. Just go to about 5:50 on the video)
Since adamantine ignores most hardness, would it really be that different than a lightsaber through a wall? Admittedly, if the wall is too thick for you to actually cut out the segment like that, then it is a useless tactic. You can see how it would work in the above clip, since the character has to resort to melting the steel door once it was reinforced enough that he could not cut straight through. Since that is not really a mechanic in the game, even with a flaming weapon, then nothing to worry about.
Admittedly, I think cutting through a wall should still take time, which would be noticeable enough that someone could walk in or the people on the other side of the wall could prepare themselves. Remember to use readied actions and stealth. Some nice arrows in the face and axes waiting over the hole might discourage players from trying this tactic too often.