Does anything "cut" Adamantine?

[FrozenLaughs]

So I'm reading about adamantine, and I see that it ignores hardness less than 20. Cue the typical mental image of Wolverine cutting through everything except something else made of adamantine.

Progress to reading about how magical enhancements boost the hp and hardness of the base material, essentially making it even harder and stronger than normal. Despite this, I can't find anything that states the metal would cut more effectively. Have I missed a rule somewhere?

Basically, I'm wondering why a +1(2,3,4, 5)Adamantine weapon wouldn't be even 1 point more effective at actually cutting (i.e. Ignores hardness less than 21, 22, 23 etc.) vs a non magical adamantine item.

Shouldn't a +1 adamantine sword be better at cutting thru a standard adamantine sword/armor? It has more hardness, more hp, even does more damage, but nothing in all of existence makes it ignore any more hardness?

[Dimminsy]

The +1-5 add to your sunder attempt in the form of a + to your CMB check and your damage to overcome the hardness of the material. You're still gaining a benefit, but the +'s don't change the material properties. It's similar to how adding +'s to a Mithral armor does not increase the Dex. cap or lower the ACP further.

It's a reasonable houserule, but I think the + already gives enough benefit to the user. It also prevents someone from using a +5 Impervious weapon to nearly auto-sunder almost everything (not that Barbarians basically do that anyway).

[Bob Bob Bob]

No, it's a special property of the actual material itself. A +5 mithral sword has the same hardness as adamantine, does this mean it cuts through anything with hardness 20 or less? And a +X adamantine weapon does cut better, by doing more damage (+X more damage).

Also, barbarians don't count. They break adamantine with their tea cup.

[AndIMustMask]

Bob Bob Bob wrote:

No, it's a special property of the actual material itself. A +5 mithral sword has the same hardness as adamantine, does this mean it cuts through anything with hardness 20 or less? And a +X adamantine weapon does cut better, by doing more damage (+X more damage).

Also, barbarians don't count. They break adamantine with their tea cup.

It's a soup cup

[Hark]

AndIMustMask wrote:

It's a soup cup

If your barbarian is from pretty much any culture that even resembles any Asian culture it's probably a tea cup. Central Asia and the Middle East love tea too.

[Charon's Little Helper]

FrozenLaughs wrote:

Cue the typical mental image of Wolverine cutting through everything except something else made of adamantine.

Wolverine's claws are adamantium NOT adamantine. GOSH!

*brought to you by the nerd police*

[Charon's Little Helper]

Of note - I'd prefer it if adamantine simply reduced hardness by 10 rather than ignore hardness below 20. That way adamantine could cut through adamantine with the same ease as steel through steel.

[Thelemic_Noun]

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

Of note - I'd prefer it if adamantine simply reduced hardness by 10 rather than ignore hardness below 20. That way adamantine could cut through adamantine with the same ease as steel through steel.

That's actually pretty freaking hard (hehe). There's a reason drill bits have diamonds on them.

In fact, steel is often cut using high explosives arranged in a linear shaped charge, or melted with thermite, or cut with oxyhydrogen or oxyacetylene.

Or even friggin laser beams.

[Kazaan]

More to the point, remember that Hardness =/= Strength. The same Diamond that is the hardest substance known to man, unable to be scratched except by another diamond and very good at lining drill bits for the purpose of grinding, will shatter if struck with a hammer (or fracture cleanly if carefully cut by a good jeweler). And then, different materials have different kinds of strength. Concrete has great compression strength; it is hard to compress concrete. However, it has poor tensile strength; if you try to bend it or pull it apart, it breaks easily. By contrast, steel has high tensile strength; it resists bending and pulling. But it is easier to compress steel than it is to compress concrete. This is why we use rebar in concrete; it's the best of both worlds combining the tensile strength of the rebar with the compression strength of the concrete. So not only does Hardness not equate to Strength, but Strength doesn't even equate to Strength.

[FrozenLaughs]

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

FrozenLaughs wrote:

Cue the typical mental image of Wolverine cutting through everything except something else made of adamantine.

Wolverine's claws are adamantium NOT adamantine. GOSH!

*brought to you by the nerd police*

Actually this whole series of thought originated after watching a scene in X Men Origins: Wolverine when:

Spoiler:

The Silver Samurai mech solves the "unbreakable" adamantium issue by cutting through Wolverine's claws with a Hot adamantium sword.

One of the few times I literally screamed at my television in a nerd rage.

[Zwordsman]

FrozenLaughs wrote:

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

FrozenLaughs wrote:

Cue the typical mental image of Wolverine cutting through everything except something else made of adamantine.

Wolverine's claws are adamantium NOT adamantine. GOSH!

*brought to you by the nerd police*

Actually this whole series of thought originated after watching a scene in X Men Origins: Wolverine when:

** spoiler omitted **

One of the few times I literally screamed at my television in a nerd rage.

response to above spoiler:

haha yeah... I ended up fluffing it my brain that the super heating wasn't just a hot piece of metal, but that he actually had a mini chainsaw going at super speed, which heated the metal and that it saw through hhis metal (Different situation but same proccess has been used in the comics) or that they gave him his mutant powers, and augmented it with the super heat blade (or chainsaw blade) so he could cut other adamantium.

I wanted him to pick up the cut bits and let the bones inside refuse to each other instead of regrowing bone claws. I think having a slight fracture in his claws would have been neat looking. Well in either case I guess magneto fixed it for him later.
I did wonder though, if they just upped his mutant powers from the comics. In the comics his power was to cut anything (but generally adamatum, but maybe they gave him the adamatium sword to augment his powers. And they simply never discussed his mutant abilities in the movies.
I took more exception to the idea that the random business guy found that much adamantium. The rest of the xmen movies implied that the metal is even more rare than it is in the comic world. Granted maybe the xmen movies don't have that one dragon stealing all the adamatium meteors falling to earth.