hong said:
Recall that absurdity is not a function of the rules, but rather the _interaction_ between rules and everyday knowledge; it's possible for something to be consistent with the rules and yet inconsistent with everyday knowledge, and hence be "absurd".
True, this is one of the ways to reach absurdity. Another is to make up a rule that directly contradicts the rules as presented.
In this case, metals that are specially treated to increase hardness, eg by rapid quenching, also tend to have increased brittleness --
You have just defined the word "hardness" differently than they do in the PHB. Also, you have used real-world science on a make-believe substance. Shame on you. More on this later...
This isn't particularly "absurd" either, since it's perfectly consistent with how one might treat regular arrowheads.
Yet perfectly inconsistent with game balance...
Also, listing both this and the previous item as "failings" is highly misleading, because they're mutually exclusive. You can have one, or the other, but not both.
That's because your interpretation leads you to that conclusion. My interpretation, on the other hand, does not have that inconsistency because adamantine arrowheads do not give an enhancement bonus.
I don't see how this is absurd at all. The damage a greatsword deals is because of its ability to be swung about to hit people; the damage an arrow deals is because of its ability to puncture people.
Which shows they have different base damages.
And you don't find it a
tad absurd that both an arrowhead and a greatsword receive the same enhancement bonus even though a greatsword weighs
at least 300 times more? (15 = .05 x 300)
Even when the description states, in full:
"...this ultrahard metal adds to the quality of a weapon or suit of armor based on how much of the material is used. Thus, adamantine plate offers a greater increase in protection than adamantine chainmail, and an adamantine battleaxe offers a greater increase in offensive capability than an adamantine dagger." pg. 242 DMG
And if you call this passage "flavor description" and therefore utterly meaningless, then I have full rights to say that a fireball is not a ball of fire, even though the PHB describes a fireball as "a burst of flame that detonates with a low roar..."
I don't see how this is absurd at all.
(as per the spearhead thingy...)
Well, if I take a steel spearhead and interchange it between a halfspear and a shortspear, I only change the base damage.
But when I take an adamantine spearhead and interchange it, the enhancement bonus changes, too.
This is perhaps because you haven't thought it through deeply enough to recognise the absurdities in it -- or perhaps you're willing to gloss over these absurdities for the sake of your interpretation of the rules.
Actually, the only absurdity in my position that I can see would be that studded leather would not gain an enhancement bonus. And neither would an arrow. Or a composite longbow. But that's a price I'm willing to take.
For instance, the contention that the damage dealt by an axe depends on what its haft is made of is self-evidently absurd. No, I don't think your example of making the haft out of jello or whatever is relevant. All that example shows is that if you render the axe unusable, it fails to deal damage -- not particularly enlightening.
Actually, I said Nerf foam. If the haft
were made out of Nerf foam, it would gain a negative modifier to attack and damage. Thus it would be usable, it would just not be as effective as wood. And if Nerf foam bothers you, I can use bone, instead.
"Weapons made out of inferior materials, such as bone or stone, have a -2 attack and damage penalty." pg. 162 DMG
And I repeat my previous stance: since there are materials less efficient as a haft, it seems plausable that there might be materials more efficient as a haft.
Let's look at a spear:
An adamantine head and nerf foam shaft would be really inaccurate because it's so flexible, and it wouldn't be able to damage very well because it would bend under the weight of the attack.
A adamantine head and a 10 foot long wood shaft is still somewhat flexible, and therefore it is difficult to aim with pinpoint accuracy, and you would damage an area less vital.
And adamantine head and a 10 foot long adamantine shaft is not flexible at all. You can easily aim attacks at vital regions because the shaft does not bend.
.
.
Oh yeah, on a side note, using your:
Explain to me how making the shaft of a spear or battleaxe of a different material can have any conceivable effect on how hard it hits or how deeply it penetrates.
Explain to me why anything other than the very tip of a short sword would have to be adamantine to gain the enhancement bonus with your interpretation, considering it is a piercing weapon.
This is not a proof. All you've demonstrated is that the interpretation that weapons must be fashioned completely from adamantine isn't inconsistent with the rules. It certainly doesn't demonstrate the falsity of the converse -- since the rules also don't say that weapons _must_ be fashioned completely out of adamantine.
Well, don't you think if the game designers meant for weapons to be partly fashioned from adamantine, they would have said so? Seems like a pretty big exclusion from the rules, considering that using your interpretation, you can make multiple different, yet effective, versions of the same weapon using extremely varying amounts of adamantine, and get the exact same price for each version.
No. It's a matter of knowing which parts of the rulebook take priority.
Actually, my stance agrees with both the amount of material guidelines and the damage chart. Yours only agrees with the damage chart. So who's interpretation is more correct, since we are using circumstancial evidence?
I fail to see the problem. An arrowhead will do d8+2 points of damage. A greatsword (which should weigh a lot less than 15lb; the weights in the PHB are nonsensical in this case) will do 2d6+2. The greatsword will still do a lot more damage than the arrowhead, all other things being equal.
See above.
"Feh, I could write a lot more but Eric's grandmother wouldn't like it."
Since this is as close as I'll get to a retraction, I'll take it.
This doesn't have any relevance to the topic at hand, as far as I can tell.
Since you said this:
By your interpretation, an arrow that's used in melee combat wouldn't do any damage either, because of that "---".
I just pointed out that since the chart is listing the ranged damage of the weapons, the "---" has no bearing on the melee damage. My position still holds.
You are grasping at straws. All you've shown is that if you render a spear ineffective for its purpose, it isn't very useful. This doesn't demonstrate how going from a wooden shaft to an adamantine shaft _enhances_ a spear for its purpose.
See above.
You could indeed, and that certainly wouldn't contradict the rules. The point is that arrows made of swiss cheese are _not_ plausible. Because they're not plausible in the first place, I don't have to bother arguing about the rules at all. Try again.
And I will continue to point out where your assertion is not plausable. And please define "plausable" for me, as you define it...
No. You made the original assertion: And hence you need to back it up. In particular, you need to show why your interpretation necessarily follows from the rules, if blanket statements like that are to be taken seriously -- and that means showing how opposing interpretations must be ruled out.
Okay then, I'll get to it.
Besides which, I fail to see why you _can't_ make ammunition out of adamantine. You can make anything you want out of it; it's just a substance, after all. You can make even doors and fittings out of it (I believe RttToEE has something like this).
Sure, you could make fully adamantine arrows or arrowheads. But adamantine arrows could not effectively fly using normal bows(since they weigh the same as steel arrows) and arrowheads are not made up of enough of the material to gain the bonus.
The issue is whether ammunition made out of adamantine gains any special _benefit_ from it, and again, I fail to see how the answer should be anything but yes.
Please explain to me why you think this, and then maybe I can counter your assertion.
I pointed out the irrelevance of your example. Not very difficult.
Actually, no you didn't. Because:
A) Leather armor can be made with adamantine buckles.
B) Leather armor is light armor.
Therefore, by your rules, leather armor with adamantine buckles should gain an enhancement bonus, regardless of how many buckles it has.
Which is not the same as adamantine leather. Not that there's anything wrong with that; but you're just as guilty as anyone else of making up rules if you think it's necessary.
Actually, I made a mistake. A person could not make adamantine leather in the first place because it would break:
3) Items that cannot be fully crafted from adamantine and still remain effective cannot gain the enhancement bonus.
Substituting a metal for leather would worsen the maximum Dexterity allowed and increase the armor check penalty. Thus, it would be ineffective as leather armor.
And unfortunately, there aren't any rules for determining how much damage an arrowhead takes when it hits (or misses). So we're back to the situation I described -- the DM has free rein to make up rules to fill the gap.
True, the DM has free reign to assign how much damage an iron arrowhead would take, but does not have the freedom to assign hardness and hit points. These are already a part of the system.
Hardly. Only to people who think the rules are the be-all and end-all in running a game would such a conclusion be warranted.
Well, the rules
are the be-all and end-all in this forum. Hence why "it's magic" is worthless in this forum. Unless you'd like to move this to house rules...?
So far, you haven't shown anything of the sort, and in fact, you haven't even demonstrated the validity of the precedent. If anything, you've demonstrated that your interpretation is even more absurd than mine.
Oh.
"Hardness" as defined by D&D has absolutely nothing to do with hardness, the physical property.
So true.
I'm talking about hardness, the physical property -- the measure of how difficult it is to scratch a material. This is entirely distinct from _toughness_, which is the measure of how difficult it is to drive cracks through a material.
"Hardness: A measure of an object's ability to resist damage.
Hit points: A measure of object integrity." ---pg. 279 PHB
Notice how the PHB's version of hardness applies to all situations, including driving cracks though it or projecting it from a bow. Also notice, that in DnD, diamonds would have a really high hardness and really low hit points. Whereas adamantine has both high hardness and high hit points.
Try again.
Everything in this discussion is a house rule.
Interpretations of rules are house rules?
Amount of adamantine in an arrowhead leads to a glaring contradiction. Shattering adamantine combined with DnD hardness definition leads to a glaring contradiction. Allowing ammunition to be made out of adamantine, even though the rules state that ammunition does "---" damage.
I think that about covers it.
