I always understood hardness to be a single thing.
Then someone quoted the rule on adamantine, which specifically states it ignores hardness of less than 20 on sunder attempts and attacks against objects. Nothing is said about attacks against creatures.
A very narrow reading of the rule seems to indicate there is OBJECT hardness and CREATURE hardness. I have personally never seen a GM rule this way, but I'm sure some could/do.
Is my adamantine longsword now less valuable against constructs?
My understanding is that objects have hardness and creatures have damage reduction.
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Here's one of the creatures in question—with hardness 10 and no DR.
Here's the thread Derek was talking about.
So your longsword is still valuable against constructs with DR/adamantine, it's just table variation as to whether or not it bypasses creatures with hardness, like gearsmen or animated objects.
Also, the rules forum would probably get you an official answer if you started this thread there and requested an FAQ on it.
My understanding is that objects have hardness and creatures have damage reduction.
Its for the corner case of animated objects which have stat blocks like creatures and hardness like objects.
Animated Objects: Animated objects count as creatures for purposes of determining their Armor Class (do not treat them as inanimate objects).
This is found in the Additional Rules section on Smashing an Object. Since Animated Objects fall under Objects and this is the only exception called out, normal rules of Hardness (and the bypassing thereof) apply.
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Agreed with posts above.
Hardness and Damage Reduction are two totally separate rules phenomenae. Golems and other constructs, being creatures, don't have hardness.
A couple things that ARE often overlooked is that the GM is given the prerogative to not only allow certain energy types to ignore hardness (this is the caveat that allows a GM to say Fire can ignore wood's inherent hardness that would otherwise be doubled vs energy damage).
Likewise, a GM is allowed to rule that certain weapon types are ineffective against certain objects. The GM is allowed to say that even an adamantine mace will not ignore a rope's hardness, because blunt weapons are just Bad at damaging ropes..no matter what the mace is made out of.
If, for whatever reason, you don't want an adamantine longsword slicing through walls and doors with the greatest of ease, the rules have your back. You can say the sword, even adamantine, does not ignore such things' hardness.
Interesting. I wasn't trying to confuse DR with hardness. I guess I WAS thinking of animated objects. And redward's quote makes things even more confusing.
Is an animated chair a creature? Is it still an object (at least for hardness purposes?)
As a GM in a home game I can interpret this as I please. As a Pathfinder Society GM I'm supposed to follow the letter of the law.
See, the authors were pretty writing Golems as having Dr/adamantine. That's because they are "hard".
And I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but adamantine swords just don't work like lightsabers on walls. You still need to destroy the wall's hit points, so unless you can do that simply by pressing the blade into the wall (as opposed to swinging it to attack), that's just not the visual RAI suggests. Now MAYBE if you have an astronomical STR score, and your weapon does both piercing AND slashing damage...
This probably won't even come up. Much.
I would guess adamantine is supposed to ignore all hardness less than 20 regardless of whether it is a creature or an object. I think the line referring to objects was made with the thinking that creatures have DR. I do not think they were meant to be excluded.
Interesting. I wasn't trying to confuse DR with hardness. I guess I WAS thinking of animated objects. And redward's quote makes things even more confusing.
Is an animated chair a creature? Is it still an object (at least for hardness purposes?
My reading is that since there is an entry for Animated Objects listed within the section on destroying objects, they are objects and treated as such, with the sole exception being their AC. Thus an Adamantine weapon overcomes its Hardness.