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Message: <blockquote data-quote="airwalkrr" data-source="post: 5062585" data-attributes="member: 12460">Okay, some clarification is in order because you may have misunderstood. The maximum amount of damage that can be dealt per hit is ONE point, never more.Furthermore, each +1 enhancement bonus to a weapon, armor, or shield adds +2 to hardness and +10 to hit points (that rule is in the DMG). Thus, your +1 vicious lance is more resilient than a standard lance. A lance, as a two-handed hafted weapon, has a hardness of 5 and 10 hit points. Thus, your lance has a hardness of 7 and 20 hit points (special abilities do not count, only enhancement bonuses). While that does mean you are limited to twenty hits dealing 8 or more points of damage, it will be extremely rare to do so during the course of a typically battle. Mending your weapon afterward will be fairly easy. A simple wand of repair light damage (a level 1 item worth a mere 750 gp) should suffice for fixing weapons and armor after battle. Armor and shields are even tougher than most weapons. Your +3 mithral full plate has a hardness of 21 and 70 hit points. Your +2 animated heavy steel shield has a hardness of 14 and 40 hit points. And once you feel your armor is too damaged, you can opt to start letting your shield take the damage. Thus, you can absorb 69 hits dealing over 21 points of damage then 39 hits dealing over 14 points of damage before even needing repairs. That's 108 hits. If you have to take more hits than that during the course of a battle, you clearly have more problems than armor durability.Casters rely on items with charges like wands and single-use items like scrolls. Thus, in the first place, it's only fair that characters that rely on melee ability like fighters and rogues have to pay a reasonable maintenance cost (it really doesn't cost much if you use magic). In the second place, it makes sense that weapons will degrade over time. Even magic items aren't indestructible.If you are extremely concerned about weapon durability, then purchase mithral or adamantine weapons, which are much tougher on the whole (hardness 15 and 20 respectively) and don't cost a whole lot of cash. Adamantine also boosts base hp by 33%.Also, to address the issue of whether special weapon abilities count for overcoming a weapon's hardness, it depends on the ability. The fire from a flaming weapon doesn't damage the weapon because it explicitly says so. Also, the nature of a vicious weapon is caused by a burst of disruptive energy that is a necromantic effect, so it wouldn't necessarily harm the weapon. Merciful weapons deal nonlethal damage, which doesn't affect objects, hence merciful weapons wouldn't take any damage at all from a successful hit (unless the merciful ability was suppressed). Vorpal weapons on the other hand, would always damage the blade if a natural 20 was rolled and confirmed, since it increases the force of the weapon on such blows. Bane weapons would work the same, although the effective +2 to the enhancement bonus would increase the hardness for the purpose of attacks against the specific type of creature the weapon is keyed to.</blockquote>

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