Lizard said:
[P]resenting the choice of "The world is made of cheese" vs. "Just house rule it" is, frankly, bad game design, unless someone can articulate WHY hardness had to be removed -- something I notice no one here has done. No one has come forth with a horror story about how their entire campaign crashed to the ground because of hardness. No one had said "We never attack objects in our game, the hardness rules are just too complicated". No one's said why this change is good, needed, or beneficial, just that "You can ignore it if you don't like it."
Believe it or not, I actually have a horror story that is not derived from the hardness rules, per se, but the copious list of rules, charts and tables displayed in the DMG & PHB.
During my time at college, I introduced a group of about 8 people to D&D in 2004, and DMed for them till summer 2005. After a bit of transition, one of the people I introduced took 5 of us on for a group in early 2006, and served for DM in 3 campaigns spanning 2006 to 2008 here, with breaks and lulls forcing each campaign to only exist for so long.
At the start of his career, I would have rated the DM rather highly. For the most part, he was imaginative and new how to run a fun game. We were all happy with how it ended, and he moved on to his next campaign. I had to step out for much of it, but I made it back in around the 1/2 to 2/3 mark. Unfortunately, I noticed my friend's style of DMing had changed.
The problem was that one of the players, a good friend of everyone in the group, had turned into a rules lawyer since I last played, and a min-maxing rules lawyer at that. He was specifically playing a Dancing Dervish that was capable of producing 200+ damage a round, all through legal avenues open to 3.5 characters. His constant argument for allowing this (and what caused the DM to lock up over time) was that it was "by the rules".
As time progressed, this player increasingly bullied the DM with the rules book. If something didn't make sense, entire hour long arguments and discussions could ensue regarding spell or action taken. The longer this went on, the less the DM was willing to fudge or just play loose and fast because he
knew that he would have be able to point to the book for anything he ever did. This eventually led to a gaming environment where +9 to +12 total stat bonuses were
required for playing, PCs would come very close to dying after a single bad roll, and the entire session grinded to a halt when there was a misinterpertation in the rules.
Now, I realize some will criticize me and my friends for not doing more to stop this ruleslawyer, either by discussion or exclusion. This was touchy, though, as we were all close friends and several were roommates. Discussion was used a few times, but produced few results. Exclusion was unsatisfying because we wanted to do something as a group, so kicking him out was never a viable option. So we kept playing, muddled along, and just dealt with it.
Still, this brings me to my point: it MUST be supported by the rules that the DM has absolute authority, even over the rules themselves. Every table, every chart, every description of ability and effect does not add to but
detracts from the power of the DM because they provide opportunity for the players to say "no, you're wrong". Sure, the DM can hammer away with fiat, but unless the characters expect fiat to routinely trump, the gaming mood suffers. So, for that reason alone, the hardness table needed to go. Otherwise, a player could just point to it and you can't do too much to stop them, even if this particular course of action destroys the story.
So the reason the rule wasn't included, and why it needs to stay out unless a DM wants it in, is because the 3.X system did not seem to support the power of DM fiat. 4.0 does, and I like it better because of it.