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No, for a robots hardness, it only makes sense for it to just act like DR/-. Energy damage still does just its damage, then subtract for hardness. If it didn't work like that and instead did 1/2 damage, period and ranged attacks also do 1/2 then the lazer pistols would be doing 1/4 damage before factoring for hardness. Doesn't make much sense for the setting to design it like that so its clearly not rules as intended. If that was the case, robots would be all but invincible when fighting other robots.
Electricity will still do 150% damage but hardness is still subtracted from that number, same with crits, they still do damage but are subject to the creatures hardness.
Only objects take 1/2 damage from energy attacks. A robot having Hardness means it subtracts it's hardness from energy attacks as well as physical attacks, unlike DR, which only reduces physical attacks.
This means that a Robot would be very resistant to many types of tech firearms, since many of them do energy damage. The only one that would do enough damage would be electricity-based ones, since the robot's vulnerability would allow them to better bypass the hardness.
That being said, one could easily argue that, since a robot is specifically vulnerable to electricity, that its hardness doesn't apply to electricity. But no where in the rules does it state that.
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For example, say Creature #1 has DR 10/-, while Creature #2 has Hardness 10. Both are hit by a fireball, dealing 15 damage (And they both fail their saves). Creature #1 would take 15 damage, while Creature #2 would take only 5.
In that sense, it means that Hardness is like a combination of DR #/- and Resist Energy, all in one neat little package. Creature #2 in this example would effectively have Resist All 10 and DR 10/-.
At least, thats what I've gotten from reading up on this.
I guess another thing to note about robot hardness is that adamantine weapons bypass it if it is less than 20 (as per the rules for adamantine weapons).
Yep! That too. Adamantine Weapons would work wonders against robots :D
Creative Director
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Correct; robots aren't objects and thus take full damage from energy attacks. Their hardness reduces damage done by 10 (or whatever), regardless of if it's energy damage or force damage or slashing/piercing/bludgeoning damage or whatever. That's why it's not DR (which doesn't touch energy damage) or energy resistance (which doesn't touch slashing/bludgeoning/piercing damage).
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Correct; robots aren't objects and thus take full damage from energy attacks. Their hardness reduces damage done by 10 (or whatever), regardless of if it's energy damage or force damage or slashing/piercing/bludgeoning damage or whatever. That's why it's not DR (which doesn't touch energy damage) or energy resistance (which doesn't touch slashing/bludgeoning/piercing damage).
Necroing this thread a little bit, but I just want to get one clarification. The Dwarf FCB for Brawler/Monk states "Reduce the hardness of any object made from clay, stone, or metal by 1 whenever the object is struck by the brawler’s unarmed strike (minimum 0)." Will this or will this not work against a robot to reduce their hardness?
Unfortunately robots aren't objects:(
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Creative Director
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Yup; won't work on robots on account of them not being objects. It's a fine rule to house rule, though... but I believe the idea is that the brawler is continually hitting the same spot on the object weaken it, and a robot is moving so you can't really strike with that level of accuracy.
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Creative Director
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If robots aren't objects, then RAW would say that adamantine weapons won't ignore the hardness. You ignore hardness when sundering or attacking an object.
I guess I am wondering, from a designer perspective, is this a feature or a bug?
A bug. The description of how adamantine weapons bypass hardness should say "...when attacking creatures or objects with hardness..." or the like.
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How are the robots threated against ranged weapons? i have the last couple of times played a archer and gunslinger nad both times my GM has halved the damage before hardness against those things, even when i used adamantine bullets did my damage get halved because they stated the robot are objects and thus halve all ranged and energy (This is in Society play)
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Creative Director
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How are the robots threated against ranged weapons? i have the last couple of times played a archer and gunslinger nad both times my GM has halved the damage before hardness against those things, even when i used adamantine bullets did my damage get halved because they stated the robot are objects and thus halve all ranged and energy (This is in Society play)
Robots are not objects. As such, you do not halve damage to them from ranged attacks.
Having hardness does NOT mean you're an object, nor do all objects have hardness.
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portion that gets past, similar to resistances + weaknesses. There are creatures that have resistance as well as weakness to fire amazingly enough, and that's how it works.
Do you have a citation for that? Because I run it the other way (vulnerability then hardness/resistance) because yours I feel is too punishing, and takes it too easy on the vulnerable creature.
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Actually I don't, so I should rephrase it to that's what I believe is intended, there's no ruling for it. I see it akin to say protection and DR where it needs to bypass this threshold before it can even feel the effects. That's the logical positioning, and how I run it. I don't see it as punishing, but rather challenging for players. There's always disable construct for the especially difficult foes... if it can stick that is. But with heighten spell and the like, it will be a popular choice in terms of the nuclear option.
See
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2lyfg?Protection-Resistance-and-Vulnerability
Oh, and Merry Christmas (or something else or nothing pending on association)
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I haven't seen this explicitly stated (here, or any other threads).
If the official word is that robots are creatures and not objects (thus none of the hardness rules pertaining to objects applies to them), does that mean...
Adamantine weapons convey no special ability to bypass hardness possessed by robots?
Weapons fashioned from adamantine have a natural ability to bypass hardness when sundering weapons or attacking objects, ignoring hardness less than 20.
The rules seem to suggest they only bypass hardness when used against weapons or objects. As robots are not not considered objects, am I to believe that adamantine weapons also have their damage reduced by the appropriate hardness?
@wakedown
Read the 13th post of this very thread, here.
Correct; robots aren't objects and thus take full damage from energy attacks. Their hardness reduces damage done by 10 (or whatever), regardless of if it's energy damage or force damage or slashing/piercing/bludgeoning damage or whatever. That's why it's not DR (which doesn't touch energy damage) or energy resistance (which doesn't touch slashing/bludgeoning/piercing damage).
Darn, so Magic Missile (a force effect) is not a bypass. :(
In my campaign I ruled that Clustered Shots applied to Hardness, though that's more RAI than RAW.