Soft Metals Hardness

[Tharkon]

General advice? When you meet something trapped in a magic circle, don't break the circle. Not even when it holds out a pretty gemstone for you, and all you have to do is reach in and take it.

Reaching in a magic circle doesn't break it, as long as you watch where you put your feet. Of course nothing prevents the trapped creature from pulling you in once you reach in.

 

[Arkhandus]

Bronze is noted in the Arms & Equipment Guide as having hardness of 9, and 20 HP per inch of thickness (light bronze shields are listed as having 7 HP instead of the 10 of steel ones, while heavy bronze shields are listed as having 14 HP intead of the 20 for steel ones, for reference). Bronze weapons have -1 to attack and damage rolls. Break DCs aren't given.

 

[Greenfield]

Reaching in a magic circle doesn't break it, as long as you watch where you put your feet. Of course nothing prevents the trapped creature from pulling you in once you reach in.

Are there any actual rules for creating or breaking this sort of circle, the kind that binds an extraplanar in place?

Given the number of 3.5 books out there, I wouldn't be surprised. Given the number that I don't own or have access to, it's no surprise that I don't know them.

 

[lordxaviar]

Checked PHB, Stronghold Builder's Guide wall materials, Draconomicon treasure appendix and d20 Modern SRD. Didn't find anything on these or any similar materials.

From Stone to Steel is an excellent 3rd party book that offers a lot of information on materials (and the rules are OGC). Their hardness values...
Bronze: 3-5
Copper: 2
Gold: 5
Silver: 8
.

mmm only problem i have is that gold is actually softer than copper unless you add other metals... so i guess thats 14k gold and that has about the same as copper.
http://www.prater-sterling.com/hardness_table.pdf

 

[Celebrim]

Really interesting topic.

First, while the face hardness of objects is of some use 'hardness' in engineering really only means 'resistance to deformation' where as hardness in the D&D context means 'resistance to damage'. To understand the difference, note that in engineering terms glass is a very hard material (it doesn't deform) but that it is not a very hard material in game terms because it doesn't bend it just breaks. Game materials which are hard are those that are both hard (they don't bend) and not particularly brittle (they don't break). It's going to be hard to take a single value and turn it directly into a table.

Secondly, one thing I've always felt is that both hardness and hitpoints ought to scale with thickness. The easiest example for this is glass. According to D&D, glass has a hardness of 'zero'. In fact, this is only true for very thin glass. Thick glass has an appreciable resistance to damage. You can't take a 5" thick glass panel and expect to bash it with your fist. The problem with glass isn't so much lack of DR as it is lack of hit points. It may be hard to damage, but once you do damage it just shatters. However thin glass has little resistance to impacts so clearly glass hardness scales with level.

The same is equally true of things like wood and stone. Thin wood and thin stone have relatively low DR. An average person can splinter thin wood with a kick, or smash thin stone with a hammer. However, thick wood and stone not only takes more sizable blows to smash, but it takes more sizeable blows to even dent, deform, or damage. The same blow with a hammer that might shatter a 1" thick stone slab may do no damage at all to one that is 3' thick. It doesn't follow that if 1 blow smashes a 1" thick stone that 36 of the same will break through 3' of stone.

 

[lordxaviar]

Hardness according to varying real world scales:

Electrum is an alloy between gold and silver and is harder than gold, but might not be harder than silver. I'd give electrum gold and silver the same hardness, seeing how little gold and silver differ, it's probably not detectable on the small scale in D&D.

If I had to give some numbers, guess I'd use these:
Tin: 4
Gold, Silver & Electrum: 6 (I think they're still harder than wood)
Copper: 7
Bronze: 8
Platinum: 10[/quote]

Electrum has a hardness of 2.5-3 like gold and copper (it is more than 20% silver by weight) (Platinum is 4.3) (tin 1.5-1.8) (bronze has a brinell hardness of 65 just more than tin- that is bearing bronze most common usage) so I would alter this to 

tin 4
gold silver electrum and copper 7
bronze 5
platinum 8

my two cents

 

[Celebrim]

From Stone to Steel is an excellent 3rd party book that offers a lot of information on materials (and the rules are OGC). Their hardness values...
Bronze: 3-5
Copper: 2
Gold: 5
Silver: 8

I'd give it something more like

Gold: 4
Silver: 4
Copper: 6
Bronze: 9

Electrum is depending on its composition very slightly more durable than either gold or silver (one of the attractions of making coins out of it), so I'd give it a hardness of about 5.

I'd also increase hardness of Copper and Bronze by 1 per inch over 1 to a maximum of +10 or so. A foot thick bronze slab is going to be pretty much indestructible to anything much below a howitzer.

 

[lordxaviar]

I'd give it something more like

Gold: 4
Silver: 4
Copper: 6
Bronze: 9

Electrum is depending on its composition very slightly more durable than either gold or silver (one of the attractions of making coins out of it), so I'd give it a hardness of about 5.

I'd also increase hardness of Copper and Bronze by 1 per inch over 1 to a maximum of +10 or so. A foot thick bronze slab is going to be pretty much indestructible to anything much below a howitzer.

mmmm
electrum is a natural alloy and I still like where I put it... I like the the foot thick bronze slab comment.

still think thats too high for bronze.

 

[Drake M]

One of the important parts of the question is the word "canon".

So far, as per wotc (I'd even accept something by swords and sorcery):
Silver has a hardness of 8 and 10hp/inch (dmg)
Bronze has a hardness of 9 and 20hp/inch (arms&equipment)

I'm still blown away that no one at wizards (from what i can tell) ever decided to define the hardness/hp of one of the most common fantasy elements in history: gold.

 

[lordxaviar]

One of the important parts of the question is the word "canon".

So far, as per wotc (I'd even accept something by swords and sorcery):
Silver has a hardness of 8 and 10hp/inch (dmg)
Bronze has a hardness of 9 and 20hp/inch (arms&equipment)

I'm still blown away that no one at wizards (from what i can tell) ever decided to define the hardness/hp of one of the most common fantasy elements in history: gold.

that is alchemical silver unless you found it somewhere other than DMG pg 285

and right on about the bronze..have to concede to the book on that..

silver and gold would be the same but as there is no alchemical gold, we have to give the precious metals a lower number.

(pet peeve... there is no longer a WotC... its hasbro thats part of the problem)