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Can the Fortification augmentation be applied to defensive walls?
Given that Defensive Walls are listed as rooms, and the augmentations can be applied to any room, it would seem to be "yes", strictly speaking.
However, doing so allows one to build a 200' wall 20' tall with the same hardness and hp as a wall of iron (3" thick), for the ridiculously low price of 820gp.
On a related note, can the "Fortification" augmentation be stacked? If one has a forge, for instance, that one really wants to be fireproof, could one fortify it multiple times to give it a fire resistance of 10 or 15?
Yes, but it's NOT a wall of iron, it's a wooden wall reinforced with iron (or stone wall reinforced with iron). The difference is there, mainly if you compare the hardness and hp of both of them.
The hardness of a reinforced stone wall may be the same as an iron wall, but the health isnt increased with Fortification.
Stone is 15 hp per inch of thickness, while iron/steel is 30 hp per inch of thickness.
If you consider that you could build 3 walls for the same cost, it isnt that exploitable.
As for stacked, no, no augmentations can stack unless specified so.
You can put more than one augmentation in a room, as long as they aren't the same augmentation.
OK, so I guess there's some confusion here, given that there's several different walls that we could be talking about. For the purposes of this question, I'm assuming that the "Defensive Wall" in the Downtime rules (the double cost stone version) is referring to a masonry wall, since that matches the climb DC, but it doesn't mention anything special about it. For the purposes of initial comparison, I think it is best to use what the environmental rules list as the standard thicknesses. Which means 1' for masonry walls, and 3" for iron walls.
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As best I can tell, a stone defensive wall would be thus:
hardness: 8
hp: 90 hp per 5' section (20' tall)
climb dc: 20
break dc: 35
Walls from various sources.
Stone wall (as per Wall of Stone spell.)
hardness: 8
hp: 15 hp/inch for a 5' square (180hp for a 1' thick wall, per 5' section)
break dc: 20 +2/inch (34 for a 1' wall)
Masonry wall (as per Environmental rules)
hardness: 8
hp: 90 hp for a 10'x10' section 1' thick (45 hp for a 5' section 10' tall)
break dc: 35
Iron wall (as per Wall of Iron spell.)
hardness: 10
hp: 30 per inch (360 for a 1' thick wall) per 5' section.
break dc: 25 +2/inch (31 for a 3" wall, 39 for a 12" wall
Iron wall (as per Environmental rules)
hardness: 10
hp: 90 hp for a 10'x10' section 3" thick (360 for a 1' thick wall)
break dc: 30
Note: Environmental rules state that typical thickness is 3"
Given all that, if one is comparing a stone defensive wall with fortification (which is 90hp per 20' tall/5' wide section, hardness 10) it is exactly the same hp for a standard iron wall, 20' tall ( 90 hp, hardness 10)
Interesting. So a fortified defensive wall would be actually *harder* to break than a standard iron wall, would have the same hp, the same hardness, but would be thicker and easier to climb.
So the only real differences from the fortified stone wall to the iron wall is that the iron wall has -5 to its break DC, +5 to its climb DC, and takes up 1/4 the space.
It is unfortunate that the environment page doesn't give construction costs so we could compare those too.
We are looking at different tables i guess.
There are multiple ways the system handles them, the spell, the wall on the enviromental rules, and the walls on the damaging object rules.
I believe each of them is a different example of a wall, while the spell one being non-standard, we can only compare the other two.
How thick is THAT iron wall on the damaging object rules?
I personally wouldnt compare any of them with spells.
The reinforcement augmentation doesnt turn it into an iron wall, it turns it into a reinforced stone wall. We gotta use the simple stone wall hardness and hp, then apply +2 hardness and the other benefits. Nowhere it states that the hp increases, so it's not the same as building a stone wall.
To compare them using the damaging object hardness and hp using the measures you gave me:
Stone Wall: 8 hardness (10 for reinforced), 180 hp for a 12 inch thick wall (1 feet = 12 inch right?).
Iron Wall: 10 hardness, 90 HP for a 3 inch thick wall.
An iron wall made of the same thickness of our stone wall would have twice the HP (360 hp).
Comparing our math, it seems we reached the same conclusions.
It seems those rules are there more as guidelines than a builder's guide to downtime.
So the only real differences from the fortified stone wall to the iron wall is that the iron wall has -5 to its break DC, +5 to its climb DC, and takes up 1/4 the space.
Well, it seems to make sense to me. It's not as thick to break through, it's harder to climb, and does take less space.
Hmmm, I forgot about the table in the damaging objects section.
Environmental:
So at their standard thicknesses, the two have the same hp, but if both are the same thickness, iron has 4x the hp. (90hp vs 360 hp when both are 10x10' areas at 1' thick.)
Damaging Objects:
If both are at 1' (12") thickness, then stone has 90hp and iron has 360hp. (it is unclear what size a wall this is referring to)
It seems that the numbers in the two sections (Environmental and Damaging Objects) do actually agree, they're just confused a little bit due the variety of terms and criteria they use.
Given that a standard masonry wall does have the same hp as a standard iron wall (just takes up 1/4 the space) I'm still not convinced that being able to cheaply boost the hardness of it up to be on par is particularly balanced. Regardless, though, I don't think it is game-breakingly so.
Thanks for pointing out the damaging objects section and for bouncing numbers!