Shadowdweller said:
Well, I must confess that I must have overlooked Hypersmurf's post earlier. However:
The PHB most definitely does not EXPLICITLY say this. What the PHB states is
"Acid and sonic attacks deal damage to most objects as they do to creatures; roll damage and apply it normally after a successful hit."
Yes, yes semantics. But this could VERY EASILY be interpreted to mean that acid and sonic damage ignore hardness. Furthermore, there USED to be an FAQ entry that directly stated that hardness was ignored. As Hypersmurf quoted above.
And where in the sentence "Acid and sonic attacks deal damage to most objects as they do to creatures; roll damage and apply it normally after a successful hit." does it state that it overrides the general rule "Whenever an object takes damage, subtract its hardness from the damage."???
The PHB most definitely DOES explicitly state that objects subtract their hardness from damage. Any damage unless noted otherwise. For example, non-lethal damage is explicitly called out as an exception to this rule.
It is understandable how someone could misinterpret this at first (the Energy Section on Fire, Cold, and Electricity needed to call out the exact calculations in order to indicate halving/quartering order whereas the Sonic and Acid ones did not) and it is easy to understand how both DMs and even WotC personel could do so. But once the actual rule is called out, then it becomes a word game and ignoring RAW to continue with the "ignores hardness" line of reasoning.
With the "ignores hardness" interpretation, does this mean that when "applying damage normally to a creature" with Damage Reduction, you ignore it's Damage Reduction???
Obviously not.
So, why would you think that applying damage normally means to ignore an object's hardness when NOWHERE in the book does it state that?
When you can post a line from the PHB or DMG that states that Acid and Sonics ignore hardness, I will re-consider. I doubt you will find any such sentence.
Now, you can find some spells (Sympathetic Vibration) and powers (Energy Ray) that ignore hardness when used, but that is a property of that explicit spell or power, and not the same as a general rule.
And since the FAQ has two conflicting answers, the FAQ must by default be irrelevant to the discussion in this case.
Shadowdweller said:
In any event, I can no longer find this passage in the current FAQ (version 4/29/2005). At least on p.41 as Hypersmurf lists it above. Which suggests that it's been reinterpreted so that hardness DOES apply.
Incorrect.
FAQ version 4/29/2005
Page 32 under the Spells Section:
"Hardness applies to acid and sonic attacks."
"Hardness applies to force attacks."
Page 42:
"Acid, sonic, and force attacks ignore hardness."
Another note on this. Some people might also confuse Hardness for non-animated objects, animated objects and constructs with Damage Reduction for creatures.
Damage Reduction does not decrease any form of energy damage, including that from spells and spell-like abilities. Damage Reduction also does not decrease any form of bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage from spells or spell-like abilities.
Hardness does decrease all forms of damage except non-lethal damage, including energy damage and including that from spells and spell-like abilities.