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I'd like to talk about energy attacks and objects.
On page 173 of the core rulebook it says:
Energy Attacks: Energy attacks deal half damage to most objects. Divide the damage by 2 before applying the object’s hardness. Some energy types might be particularly effective against certain objects, subject to GM discretion. For example, fire might do full damage against parchment, cloth, and other objects that burn easily. Sonic might do full damage against glass and crystal objects.
Page 174 says:
Vulnerability to Certain Attacks: Certain attacks are especially successful against some objects. In such cases, attacks deal double their normal damage and may ignore the object’s hardness.
Page 174 also has a statement about weapons that I think can be applied here with a little stretching.
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.
Page 175 then gives us table 7-13: Substance Hardness and Hit Points.
This table lists 10 different materials, some of which I think can be lumped together for purposes of this discussion (i.e. iron/steel/mithril/adamantine = metal).
We know there are 5 different energy types: Fire/Cold/Acid/Electricity/Sonic. Force I feel can be precluded for purposes of this discussion.
All rules available for reference here: PRD
My question is:
Can there be some form of consensus for PFS as to which of these rules;
Vulnerable (double damage and no hardness), Particularly Effective (full damage after hardness), Mostly Effective (1/2 damage after hardness as normal), and Immune (no damage).
Is applicable to the materials listed on the table; Glass, Paper/Cloth, Rope, Ice, Leather/Hide, Wood, Stone, and Metal.
When exposed to one of the five energy types; Fire, Cold, Acid, Electricity, and Sonic.
I personally vote that ice is immune to cold and vulnerable to fire, but I leave the rest of the choices up to all of you.
Maybe if someone could be so kind as to make some sort of table we could tally votes and come up with a final model for most general situations.
Or we could just leave it all.......subject to GM discretion.
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No, I wouldn't call it frustrating, just puzzling.
The scenario that played out was this:
There was a creature in a 10 wide corridor that opened up to a room where there were a couple characters.
One of the characters seals off the opening to the corridor with Wall of Stone. The creature on the other side doesn't much appreciate this and proceeds with a full attack routine on the wall that leaves the right half destroyed and the left half with 6 hit points.
The next round the creature unleashes a 30 cone of acid into the room from 5' back from the wall. The template is cut down the middle, one half impacting the weakened wall and the other side spraying into the room. The breath weapon does 30 points of damage.
So the wall is stone and takes half damage from the acid (15). Then we applied the hardness of 8 (Stone) and the remaining 7 points of damage destroy that half of the wall with one point left over.
Our question was what happens next? Do the characters that were previously shielded by the wall take 30 points of acid? 1 point of acid? No damage?
At the time we went with the full 30 as the acid blew through the cracks and dissolved the wall, but I wasn't sure that was the correct ruling.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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I think your ruling was right. Probably, on spot I'd process that the same. If only I wanted to "save" ones of those, who are behind the wall, I'd probably give them +2 Reflex roll bonus (as per hard cover rules), but on the other side, I see no objections.
@Netopalis, I don't see why is it bad to have some common ground. For example, in my area, I lack GMs and currently have 3 of those, who are ready to GM for Society. Most of players are pretty new to game or organized play idea. If we have a recommended reference table, this make our players experience (20+ players) a bit more similar and than we have less complains like .
Aleksandrs,
Oh, no, I agree that common ground is generally a good thing. I just don't believe these rules come up often enough for it to really be a thing we all have to come to an agreement on. There's a certain school of thought in PFS that believes that all table variation anywhere is bad, and that GMs should be more like referees than like active participants. These people want to have campaign rules for everything, which both limits GM creativity and makes the rulebook even more unwieldy.The initial question was for there to be a consensus regarding what damage type bypasses what hardness. First of all, this question comes up very, very rarely, especially as it relates to some of those materials. If you have trouble getting through rope or paper, the hardness is the least of your worries. Second, this is exactly the type of thing that a GM should feel free to adjudicate at the table, weighing the specific nature of the material and the energy damage type.
In conclusion, I'm not saying that we shouldn't work off of the same ruleset. I'm just saying that we don't need rules to cover every bit of GM discretion. I fear that, as we continue to add more and more of these things to the library of knowledge that GMs are expected to master, new potential GMs will become more and more intimidated by the sheer scope of what they have to understand.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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So you both want new GMs to not have to be afraid of the rules. One of you wants to accomplish this by offering a helpful tool, while the other wants to accomplish the same thing by allowing a comfortable margin for error.
Maybe, since you both want the same thing, you could help each other refine your methods to be the best they can be, rather than try to convince each other to stop?