Just How Fast Can you Burrow Through Stone / Adamantine?

[Balkoth]

Let's look at a level 1 character with 18 strength, power attack, and a greatsword (could be a Fighter/Barbarian/Bloodrager/Paladin/Ranger/Slayer/whatever).

He does 6 (1.5 * str) + 7 (greatsword) + 3 (power attack) = 16 damage per hit.

Now let's look at a Wall of Stone:

"Like any other stone wall, this one can be destroyed by a disintegrate spell or by normal means such as breaking and chipping. Each 5-foot square of the wall has hardness 8 and 15 hit points per inch of thickness. A section of wall whose hit points drop to 0 is breached. If a creature tries to break through the wall with a single attack, the DC for the Strength check is 20 + 2 per inch of thickness."

Imagine this wall is 60 inches thick (5 feet). Like if you were tunneling through a cave wall, each 5x5x5 square is pure stone.

Per these rules, that would seem to mean each 5 foot square has 900 hit points with 8 hardness. Our greatsword Fighter deals 8 average damage after subtracting hardness, so he needs 113 attacks to do 900 HP. At 10 attacks per minute (1 per round), this means in less than 15 minutes he can destroy a solid stone block.

So if you told him "there's treasure inside the mountain but it's sealed away behind 20 feet of stone in all directions" then our level 1 character could just hack away with his greatsword for an hour and reach it.

Am I missing something here?

But let's try something harder -- like the hardest known material (AFAIK), adamantine. It has 20 hardness and 40 HP per inch (so 2400 for a 5 foot square).

At this point our level 1 character only has a 1/36 chance of even doing 1 damage, so this is probably beyond what he could reasonably do.

So let's advance our character 8 levels. He should have a +2 weapon, +2 str from leveling, +2 str belt, and +6 damage from power attack. His average damage is now 28, so 8 per swing. Without any class features. He also attacks twice per round. His average damage per round is 16, so that now takes 150 rounds to break through, or...still 15ish minutes.

So even a solid encasement of adamantine that extends 20 feet out in all directions is not enough to hold back a classless martial at level 8 for more than an hour.

Now, a sentence that gives me hope is

"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."

but that's not exactly well defined. How does an Earthbreaker fare (same damage as a Greatsword)? Or a Monk's unarmed strikes? Even a Pickaxe is a whole 2.5 damage less, so not much of a difference here.

I mean, a level 12 Fighter is now in the range of 9 (1.5 * str) + 12 (Power Attack) + 4 (Greater Weapon Specialization) + 4 (Weapon Training with Gloves of Dueling) + 3 (Greatsword +3) + 7 (base weapon damage) = 39 damage per swing three times per round. So 57 per round to adamantine...or less than 5 minutes to break through a solid cube of adamantine.

Am I missing something here? Is it not possible to have a barrier significant enough at mid level that the PCs can't simply break through?

I mean, I can live with the idea of a level 20 Barbarian just exploding through the castle wall or something Juggernaut style, but I didn't think that sort of thing was expected at half that level.

[Hugo Rune]

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2up4u&page=5?Rule-you-never-see-used-thoug h-it-is-RAW#218

[Firebug]

Under Smashing an Object rules: Ineffective Weapons: Certain weapons just can’t effectively deal damage to certain objects. 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.

A greatsword should not be effective at excavating stone. Most GMs handwave it once adamantine comes into play. However, Adamantine does not cut through stone like butter but rather like ice. And 5 times slower than cutting through ice at that (3 hp/inch vs 15/inch). Next time say ok, then give them a block of ice, a butter knife and tell them to cut it in half. Hardness 0, so just the HP to deal with, right? Then give them an ice pick(ie a tool designed for the job) and ask if its any different.

[Balkoth]

Firebug wrote:

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.

Um, yes, I even specifically quoted that in my post.

Level 12 classless martial (literally no class features) still will be doing 10 (1.5 * str) + 12 (power attack) + 3.5 (Heavy Pick -- or could use a Pickaxe for 1 more damage) = 25.5 damage per hit, so 5.5 damage per hit to even adamantine. With three attacks per round that's still less than an hour to tunnel through four 5 foot cubes of Adamantine according to the rules, apparently.

With a mundane Heavy Pick and, again, no class features.

Hugo Rune wrote:

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2up4u&page=5?Rule-you-never-see-used-thoug h-it-is-RAW#218

Looked at the Mattock of the Titans, now THAT is interesting. Like you said, it's specifically designed for this kind of thing, is adamantine, is intended for huge creatures, and is quite magical. But even while used by a huge creature is "only" a 10 foot cube an hour for stone.

[Meirril]

If you want to blow your mind, imagine a dwarven monk who takes his races preferred class ability to the max.

Honestly though I thought this thread would be about the burrow movement ability and its poorly defined characteristics.

[Ryze Kuja]

dot for interest

[Balkoth]

Meirril wrote:

If you want to blow your mind, imagine a dwarven monk who takes his races preferred class ability to the max.

Yeah, again, being able to punch through an inch of adamantine seems very different from literally tunneling through it, but the rules don't specify how.

Also, one would think an "unarmed strike" would fall into the category of "Likewise, most melee weapons have little effect on stone."

Meirril wrote:

Honestly though I thought this thread would be about the burrow movement ability and its poorly defined characteristics.

In retrospect I should have called it tunneling, forgot about the burrow ability. Can't change it now, though.

[Daw]

I do have to ask, what godly demiplane has enough adamantine available that you are digging through many feet of it? I assume it reverts to base metal when removed from said demiplane. I sense the exploit of a novice GM here, especially with Balkoth's other threads.

Just say no.

[blahpers]

Balkoth wrote:

Firebug wrote:

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.

Um, yes, I even specifically quoted that in my post.

You quoted it, but then you proceeded to ignore it. The rule is in place so that the GM can say "you deal no damage. I don't care how strong you are; you aren't knocking down that door with a cat o' nine tails." If a weapon is not designed to break up stone, it simply won't work, or will work at reduced efficiency, against a stone wall.

There's also the possibility that smashing your weapons against a solid mass of inert adamantine over and over and over and over again will simply break your weapon. The things aren't designed to be used that way.

[Balkoth]

blahpers wrote:

If a weapon is not designed to break up stone, it simply won't work, or will work at reduced efficiency, against a stone wall.

How about a monk punching a wall with their hands? Does your answer change for a Dwarf monk?

blahpers wrote:

There's also the possibility that smashing your weapons against a solid mass of inert adamantine over and over and over and over again will simply break your weapon. The things aren't designed to be used that way.

Same question as above.

I agree with your general point but trying to be fair here.

Daw wrote:

I do have to ask, what godly demiplane has enough adamantine available that you are digging through many feet of it?

I was going to an extreme to how even a 20 foot solid barrier of adamantine would hold up. In reality we'd be looking at a door of adamantine or something.

Daw wrote:

I sense the exploit of a novice GM here, especially with Balkoth's other threads.

They're actually unrelated, interestingly enough.

This one is me saying "Is it even possible to have a physical barrier stop mid-range PCs?"

The other one was me saying "The PCs found an adamantine lined pit and are trying to 'harvest' it by lifting up the walls and carrying it out of the dungeon or something." In reality I was just trying to communicate that the pit was really designed to be hard to break out of. Since if we allow a monk to punch through steel then a high level naked martial could also do so with power attack.

[Daw]

I believe your monk gets more wall crashing credibility than naked martials because entertainment media tends to blur the lines between martial artists and superheroes. Frankly most of your destructive examples bend credulity and to a lesser extent RAW, but since a great many games push into the superhero genre, even without the Vigilante class. Your take is valid and fun, just not universal. At my table, your examples would have lead to broken swords and pulped fists without specific magicks, or maybe just doorways.