Destructive uses for Craft skills

[Devon]

Has anyone come up with a mechanism for using one's constructive Craft or Profession skills for destructive purposes?

For example: a dwarven stonesmith (expert in Craft-Stoneworking) comes upon a set of iron bars set into a stonework wall.

She decides to remove the bars, armed only with her stonecutting tools, not being strong enough or well-armed enough to successfully overcome the hardness of either the stone or the iron with a physical attack.

Any thoughts?

- Devon

 

[Hypersmurf]

Has anyone come up with a mechanism for using one's constructive Craft or Profession skills for destructive purposes?

For example: a dwarven stonesmith (expert in Craft-Stoneworking) comes upon a set of iron bars set into a stonework wall.

She decides to remove the bars, armed only with her stonecutting tools, not being strong enough or well-armed enough to successfully overcome the hardness of either the stone or the iron with a physical attack.

Declare the wall your raw materials, and spend a week creating a statue of Moradin out of it.

-Hyp.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Re: Re: Destructive uses for Craft skills

Declare the wall your raw materials, and spend a week creating a statue of Moradin out of it.

Or only one or two rounds if you cast Fabricate.
Turning part of a wooden bridge into a table and chairs makes furnishing your home cheap.
Turning the stone door into a tastefully-done nude statue of the party's female Elves can be a big crowd-pleaser.
Turning the enemy's sword (that he's holding) into a small collectible figurine of yourself is another possibility.

 

[Pielorinho]

Craft: Bombmaking comes in handy sometimes.

Seriously, though, there's no demolition skill in D&D. What I'd probably do, using a seat-of-my-pants ruling, is allow somebody to do a two extra points of damage to an inanimate object if they were attacking it and had 5 ranks in crafting that type of object.

Note that this would mean folks with craft: weaponsmithing would be more effective at sundering weapons in combat. Considering how few PCs I've seen take craft: weaponsmithing, I don't think that would be terribly unbalancing, and in fact it'd be a little bit of cool flavor.

Daniel

 

[Devon]

For the discussion, let us assume that the example character does not have access to magic spells, magic items, or in fact any resources but :

- stonecutting tools
- a +10 to her Craft (Stoneworking) checks
- limited time



Just to stave off the plethora of "what-ifs" that we can fabricate.

(edit)
A good idea, Pielorinho... that suggestion easily fits within the +2 circumstance bonus philosophy. I'll keep that in mind, although I'd want to have a non-weapon solution ready as well.

- Devon

 

[Pielorinho]

For the discussion, let us assume that the example character does not have access to magic spells, magic items, or in fact any resources but :

- stonecutting tools
- a +10 to her Craft (Stoneworking) checks
- limited time

Just to stave off the plethora of "what-ifs" that we can fabricate.

- Devon

Interesting. Stone has a hardness of 8, and 15 HP/inch of thickness.

Again, a seat-of-my-pants ruling: I'd allow the stonecutting tools to do 1 point of damage per two points rolled on a craft (stoneworking) check.

At this rate, taking ten, the character will be doing 2 points of damage/round to the stone (take 10 + 10 on check = 20/2 = 10 points, -8 points of hardness/round). It'll take a little less than a minute to hack through one inch of stone.

I'd also rule that this will make a hole/crack in the stone about 1" wide.

Does anyone know if this sounds about right?

Daniel

 

[Spatzimaus]

Considering how few PCs I've seen take craft: weaponsmithing, I don't think that would be terribly unbalancing, and in fact it'd be a little bit of cool flavor.

Ironically, my last psionic PC (level 15) had 12 ranks in it, along with 25-30 ranks in other Craft skills (mostly in sculpting and armorsmith). He was a Shaper, what else was he going to spend all those skill points on?
Add +2 for an Artiste psicrystal, +2 for a luck bonus from an item, and another +2 from a Prestige Class ability. Oh yeah, as a Shaper he had a big INT bonus. If we had allowed all those +10 skill items it would have been ridiculous.
One of my main tactics was to figure out new and unusual ways to use the Fabricate power. It started off as a "hmm, a block of mithral? I'll make a masterwork sword!" ability and ended up as a far more destructive (and useful) ability.

The trick was, you could declare practically ANYTHING to be raw materials. The only question was what you could convince the DM of: "I'll make a suit of leather armor out of that monster's skin! What do you mean he's still wearing it? It's all just raw material, isn't it?" (DM didn't go for that one.)

Anyway, to the earlier point, my Craft check was so high that with the later rule you mentioned (the 1 damage per two points of success), if I looked at a sword funny it'd shatter.

 

[Pielorinho]

The trick was, you could declare practically ANYTHING to be raw materials. The only question was what you could convince the DM of: "I'll make a suit of leather armor out of that monster's skin! What do you mean he's still wearing it? It's all just raw material, isn't it?" (DM didn't go for that one.)

Anyway, to the earlier point, my Craft check was so high that with the later rule you mentioned (the 1 damage per two points of success), if I looked at a sword funny it'd shatter.

Heh! I like the "leather armor" idea, but I figure that if fabricate doesn't specify unattended material, I'm about to institute a house-rule (especially since I just gave the PCs IMC a rod that can cast fabricate). Somebody's skin = attended .

As for granting the 1 damage/2 points of success, that's only with the proper equipment. I might further limit that by establishing a max damage.

Another way to resolve it would be to establish a certain DC to bypass the hardness of an item when dismantling it with the proper tools, and then give a damage range. For example, you could rule that when dismantling an item, the DC=10+hardness for the item, and that the tools did 1d3 damage per round. It's fairly easy to dismantle paper, for example, but more difficult to dismantle stone.

I don't really think the rules cover this, though, so I'm just suggesting different systems here. My goal would be to set up a system that more-or-less accurately reflects the real world.

I'd guess my first system does that better. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if a master smith could break a sword with a single well-placed hammerblow; my first system, but not my second system (i.e., the one two paragraphs above), would allow that. On the other hand, anybody can dismantle a sheet of paper just by taking ten; my first system, but not my second system, would allow that.

Daniel

 

[Devon]

On the other hand, anybody can dismantle a sheet of paper just by taking ten; my first system, but not my second system, would allow that.

Usually, I suspect, if tearing paper is ever an important part of a puzzle or plot, a GM wouldn't need a mechanism for it.

I like the second system -- it reminds me of the beginning of "Planescape: Torment," wherein (if your character had the right skills or knowledge) you could simply dismantle a set of skeletal guardians, without having to fight them, by etching out specific rune sequences. I can easily see a mad scientist going from juggernaut to juggernaut to sabotage them, chipping away key gear points and other joint mechanisms because he has the skill to do so, but that begins to overlap with Disable Device (would it work on Constructs? an interesting questions).

By common sense, the example task can be done. My only real motivation for such a rule would be to determine how quickly it could be done (1 week, 1 day, 1 hour) and how much of the plot to advance during that downtime.

I wonder if the two ideas can be combined... have the tools bypass the item's hardness, and have the roll determine the damage that would get through.

- Devon