Object AC? Attended Object AC?

[Bast L.]

Heya. I'm playing in an AP, and a certain creature attacked something another party member held. Its ability mentioned what happened if it hit the object, and it made me think about objects, damage, critical hits, saves.

In the CRB, objects have no immunity to crits, that I can see, but no AC either. I remember in one game, early on, a player with a dwarf character wanted to use his axe to chop down a tree that an enemy had climbed up. I think I arbitrarily gave the tree AC 10, and used the "wood" material on page 577 (mentions tree trunk). He crit and felled the tree in one swing, which, even as a barbarian dwarf, seemed a little wild.

Are there any clear rules for this? I know they don't have general sundering rules, but attacking objects is definitely a thing (see wrecker specialized companion).

Do unattended objects have AC, and do attended objects have a different AC?

BTW, what is a wrecker companion supposed to wreck? Hazards? Some environmental thing (like the tree example)? Or can it sunder things? Golems aren't objects, they're creatures.

[Unicore]

As a GM, I use athletics checks for most breaking objects attempts, unless it is specifically something that can be targeted by strikes. The wrecker companion gets this moved to master, even if it wasn't expert before, thus it is pretty good even on nimble companions for that.

If an object is attended, I usually require a disarm before it can attempt to be broken, which again the master athletics proficiency is really good for.

[Ravingdork]

Thats probably the way I'd handle it as well. But at what DC?

[Deadmanwalking]

There are no clear rules for this at the moment outside Hazards (which do have their own AC). It's perhaps the single biggest major rules gap in the PF2 core rulebook, and will hopefully see errata soon.

Personally, I'd assign unattended objects medium to low flat AC (like, 10 to 15-ish) but make most solid objects (like walls and doors) immune to crits. Or, as Unicore suggests, allow them to be effected by an Athletics check, DC depending on toughness of the object (this last is debatably the current official solution).

For attended objects, at the moment I'd probably stick with needing to use the Disarm rules to make them unattended before you can do much to them.

[Bast L.]

Hmm, I'm wondering about this creature:

Extinction Curse Spoiler:

Wrecker Demon using "wreck"

What AC is he targeting, when attacking a held item?

[KrispyXIV]

Making the creature target the wielders AC seems most in line with how difficulties and attacks progress otherwise.

Beyond that, other guidance might be to make it a check of a DC equal to the items level. Maybe a Hard (+2) or Very Hard (+5) check if the wielder knows better than to let it get hit.

[Deriven Firelion]

I thought about this for a while as well. I've come up with the following:

Most objects don't have an AC and are immune to critical damage by virtue of not requiring a hit roll to strike them. An unattended object should be hit automatically. I go off its hardness and hit points.

I also decide if the implement used is capable of damaging the object. If the implement isn't capable of damaging an object, then I don't let it damage the object.

I also determine if the object has weak points exploitable by precision damage. If I believe it does, I let precision damage work. If not, I don't.

I understand why they didn't make hard and fast rules. Objects are so varied in size, material, and location that a DM should think about how a situation involving objects would work when it comes up given the available means for dealing with the object.

[Unicore]

Personally, I much prefer rolling a D20 for determining effects than damage and hardness, that is why I like using athletics. Between the simple DC chart for items who's durability really are not a part of their complexity and the Level based chart for the objects that are, I generally find setting a DC to be relatively intuitive.