A call to all the innovative minds of the House Rules forum...

[Sonofapreacherman]

I am in the process of trying to assign some sensible values to the "Hardness" values of certain types of natural armor, but I don't want to do so in a vacuum.

My premise operates from a sense of universality. Meaning, I only want to assign one Hardness value to each type of natural armor; for example, 1 Hardness value for all types of shell armor, and so on.

What we know is this.

Leather and studded leather have a Hardness of 5 (see the Main D&D FAQ for errata).
Stone has a hardness of 8.
Metal armors have a hardness of 10 (being made out of iron).
Mithral is 15.
Adamantine is 20.

I don't really think that anything should have a Hardness greater than 20.

The other things to keep in mind are that Hardness and damage reduction are two separate things, and that each Hardness rating should not necessary equal to the (natural) armor bonus. Take a chain shirt for instance. Armor bonus +4, Hardness 10 (but far less hit points than full plate mail, which is also Hardness 10).

What I need are well-informed estimations about what the universal Hardness ratings should be for ...

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Bone:
Scale:
Sinewy (calloused) skin:
Shell:

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... and any other natural armor types that do not fall into these categories.

Thanks in advance to anybody willing to lend their informed guesses.

 

[Drawmack]

I think the reason this is not done is because it would nerf a lot of creatures.

For example - a turtle dragon's shell get's smashed with a hardness of 15, well no he dies a lot easier.

For the most part with creatures that get a natural armor bonus once that armor is expended they are sitting ducks. Just some points to consider while working on this.

 

[Sonofapreacherman]

I don't really see how "shell" could have the same Hardness as Mithral.

Perhaps one or two steps lowers than stone; in the 7 or 6 range.

 

[Drawmack]

I saw a snapping turtle on the news today.

It had just come out of hibernation and therefore was extremely underweight. It's shell looked like a saddle.

Exactly how hard is something that contorts when it is missing the body mass to support it.

 

[Desdinova]

Well, for what help it might be, the new A&EG lists a few new types of armor. Among these are bone and wood. Except for the weight, which isn't vastly different, they have the same stats.

So, I would imagine that bone would be around the same as wood.

 

[Sonofapreacherman]

I agree about bone and wood. I would probably both of them at Hardness 5, and shell at 6.

 

[Sonofapreacherman]

I have cobbled together the following values to represent the universal hardness of certain natural armor types.

Natural Armor Hardness (Example)
Calloused Sinewy skin: 3 (Bugbear)
Bone/Exoskeleton: 5 (Umber hulk)
Hide/Leathery skin: 5 (Ogre/Lizardfolk)
Shell: 6 (Dragon turtle)
Scale: 7 (Great gold wyrm)
Stoney skin: 8 (Gargoyle/Stone Giant)

Can anybody find fault in these values?

 

[Maximillian]

Under what circumstances do you need the hardness of these materials? Certainly the creatures don't get the hardness applied in combat. Is it just for the possibility of making armor out of it?

 

[Sonofapreacherman]

That's a long and complicated question for me to answer (based on the campaign setting I have been developing for the last year), but for all intent and purpose, I will say "yes" (for attacking armor that is unattended). The real answer is much longer and requires a URL to my web site.



Right now, I'm more interested in what people think of the values I posted above.

 

[Maximillian]

I think you've done a perfectly fine job with those values:

Calloused Sinewy skin: 3 (Bugbear)
Bone/Exoskeleton: 5 (Umber hulk)
Hide/Leathery skin: 5 (Ogre/Lizardfolk)
Shell: 6 (Dragon turtle)
Scale: 7 (Great gold wyrm)
Stoney skin: 8 (Gargoyle/Stone Giant)

But I might suggest that a Great Wyrm dragon of any variety has denser, tougher skin than even a stone giant. Look at the Natural Armor values and the DR of those creatures...

Actually, what do you think about this:

Hardness = 1/2 Natural Armor Bonus (Plus weapon bonus needed to penetrate DR).

This gives some pretty decent numbers, at least as a starting point. The afformentioned Great Wyrm Gold's skin will have hardness 22, while a Stone Giant produces 5. Maybe these don't work for you, it's just an idea. You could play with the formula if you like.