Is breaking mundane objects too easy?

[hyphz]

I've seen people here report having lockpicks break 3 or 4 times across 30+ rolls to open locks in The Lost Star.

What makes this even stranger, though, is what happens if you take the approach our party barbarian took and just beat down the door. A mundane wooden door has hardness 10 (5 for standard wood, doubled for structural), and a stone door has 14 (7 for standard stone, doubled for structural), meaning that many classes can easily Dent them twice and break them in two hits.

Chests are even worse. The trapped chest in Lost Star had hardness 5 (the adventure doesn't say what it's made of but the Equipment chapter says the default chest is made of wood) and therefore could potentially have just been punched open. This made it rather silly that the owner bothered to install a trap to catch people picking the lock.

[Cantriped]

Per RAW you can only Strike Creatures... not objects (which includes doors, chests, hazards, etc). You have to use the Break Open action to bust a chest or door (against hazards you're SoL til they fix the rules). Their listed Hardness is literally irrelevent.

The DC to Break open the chest in room A12 is 27... well beyond any 1st level PCs best Athletics Check.

[hyphz]

Ah, ok. I forget that this silly game puts doors in the "bestiary".

However, it doesn't quite clarify things. On Bestiary page 7 it says that the Break Open DC for a locked structure is the Thievery DC for the lock plus 5. This is kind of odd, since if that value is within reach, it's a much better bet than Thievery because most locks apparently require multiple Thievery checks to open.

But Bestiary 7 also has a section on Demolishing Structures, describing that a character "might want to smash their way through a door.." and listing values (which does indeed give Wooden and Stone doors values similar to the ones I listed)

At the same time you are quite right that Strike does not say it can target objects. In fact after a PDF search, the only things which do deal damage to objects appear to be the Sunburst spell and the Barbarian's Quaking Stomp feat. At the same time, many of the hazards in the Bestiary have Hardness scores and immunities to a number of things, including "precision damage" even though neither of those things can deal precision damage.

So this is presumably a bug.

[Draco18s]

The Break DC being 5 higher than the Thievery DC is intentional, but is based on the assumption that the door/chest is made out of comparable quality materials as the lock.

E.g. no one puts a bank vault lock on a prefab wooden door.

[Erbander]

Are we allowed to chop through a door in this game? I was looking to chop through a door and also found the rules in the bestiary on Demolishing structures. So it provides rules on how damage affects an object, but it doesn't tell us how to deal that damage with a weapon. Does the door have an AC for example or did I miss that in my reading?

[Cantriped]

Objects and Structures (or their parts) do not currently have an AC, nor can you Strike them (as they aren't creatures). Currently it seems you are intended to be using the Break Open action exclusively (even for Demolition).

I stipulate there is supposed to be a 'Smash' action to attack objects and structural elements... but it must have been omited because it tied into (or was) the sunder mechanic. Which IIRC they said the purposefully left out because sunder is unpopular?

Technically it is all but impossible to attack a Hazard (as they're defined as noncreatures)... which indicates that is indeed a bug as Hyphz suggests above, and not a feature. I'm sure they'll get 'round to it one of these updates. But until then your table may vary.

[DerNils]

Yeah, Hazards are the Thing where it get's really weird, as they explicitly give an AC, number of dents and regularly refer to Hitting it as an alternative to disabling it.
I have a whole thread discussing the AC of a Door, but Cantriped has summarized it quite well. We don't know, because they removed that mechanic.

[hyphz]

Draco18s wrote:

The Break DC being 5 higher than the Thievery DC is intentional, but is based on the assumption that the door/chest is made out of comparable quality materials as the lock.

E.g. no one puts a bank vault lock on a prefab wooden door.

Which makes sense. But if Doomsday Dawn is anything to go by, it's expected that a door requires multiple Thievery attempts to open. If it requires more than 2, then breaking it down is actually a better bet because +5 to DC is much less of a penalty than requiring several rolls.

[GreatCowGuru]

hyphz wrote:

Draco18s wrote:

The Break DC being 5 higher than the Thievery DC is intentional, but is based on the assumption that the door/chest is made out of comparable quality materials as the lock.

E.g. no one puts a bank vault lock on a prefab wooden door.

Which makes sense. But if Doomsday Dawn is anything to go by, it's expected that a door requires multiple Thievery attempts to open. If it requires more than 2, then breaking it down is actually a better bet because +5 to DC is much less of a penalty than requiring several rolls.

Thats looking at like a DC 25 athletics check for a standard lock which might be a problem, but under no pressure a character can attempt to break open a door 3 times a round and just has to roll till they get a nat 20.

This seems to be an odd situation to beginwith because even if you have almost no hope of picking it, enough attempts to break open is guaranteed to suceed.

[PCScipio]

It should be possible to get through a wooden door with an axe, because that's what a fire axe is designed to do.

[Cantriped]

It totally should be...

The 5 sp Expert-Quality Crowbar gives a +1 Item Bonus. So I'd be comfortable as a GM giving a wood axe (a Short-Tool) a similar bonus when breaking wooden objects. Same for other tools like mining pick (+1 to Break Open stone containers and structures).

[ErichAD]

hyphz wrote:

At the same time you are quite right that Strike does not say it can target objects. In fact after a PDF search, the only things which do deal damage to objects appear to be the Sunburst spell and the Barbarian's Quaking Stomp feat. At the same time, many of the hazards in the Bestiary have Hardness scores and immunities to a number of things, including "precision damage" even though neither of those things can deal precision damage.

So this is presumably a bug.

There's a few more spells. Hold on, I made a list.

targeted spells: Acid Splash, Acid Arrow, Polar Ray, Disintegrate, Disjunction
Powers:Force Bolt, Fire Ray, Moon Beam
AoE: Sunburst

I don't have quaking stomp on the list due to it not being able to break objects, only structures.

[graystone]

ErichAD wrote:

Acid Splash

Cool: that just means casters with this cantrip are now the new lockpickers. ;)

[Xenocrat]

graystone wrote:

ErichAD wrote:

Acid Splash

Cool: that just means casters with this cantrip are now the new lockpickers. ;)

It's damage is really low, though.

[ErichAD]

Xenocrat wrote:

graystone wrote:

ErichAD wrote:

Acid Splash

Cool: that just means casters with this cantrip are now the new lockpickers. ;)

It's damage is really low, though.

True, but hardness is low enough that you could crack anything at heightened 2. You also do an extra dent against anything with 5 hardness or lower. I assume locks are thin metal at 5, but even if they aren't, wood is only five as well.

It's not a perfect replacement, so I'd say it's fine.

[Data Lore]

If the DM deems its possible for them to break a chest or door (and thus allows a roll), they will do it since they can just roll Break Open until they get a 20 as stated above.

To me, Break Open is only for time critical checks when the DM deems that the chest or door can feasibly be broken.

If its not possible, no roll.

Seems fine to me - much better than the silly Mountain Hammer cheese I remember from 3.5.

[graystone]

Xenocrat wrote:

graystone wrote:

ErichAD wrote:

Acid Splash

Cool: that just means casters with this cantrip are now the new lockpickers. ;)

It's damage is really low, though.

*shrug* even so, it'll take much less time and be much less frustrating to do that than try lockpicking as it is now.

[DerNils]

I just realised this makes Acid Arrow/Splash the new sunder. With Acid Arrow, it's trivially easy to break a Sword (Weapons Count as Thin) in one Hit.

[Zwordsman]

Except for the "can't target " issue anyway..
but like missing the sunder thing.. breaking stuff in general seems to be missing.

i'd ad Empowered Acid Flask to that list too though, for alchemists