D&D 3E/3.5 Hardness. Dumbest rule in 3E?

[JacktheRabbit]

Re: Re: Hardness. Dumbest rule in 3E?

When did a Golem suddenly start having a metabolism?

And since doors don't have a metabolism, you can't get critical hits against them (otherwise, you would coup-de-grâce them each round, they are helpless; and they would probably fail the saving throw against destruction since, with no Con score nor HD, their Fort save is 0).

 

[JacktheRabbit]

How can they possibly be the same thing?

Hardness is subtracted from your damage no matter what weapon or attack you are using. I can draw my +5 vorpal battleaxe and I will still have 5 points deducted from each hit when I chop through that wood door.

On the other hand no matter how big the monster is my +5 weapon will beat its DR and do full damage.

That is plain stupid.

Errr... with a few exceptions, Hardness X and DR X/-, are the same things. The most significant difference is that DR does not protect from energy damage, where hardness does.

So a door with hardness 10 and DR 10/- both are resistant to your meager dagger +2. which in my opinion is perfectly desirable.

In my opinion, that you can do full damage to a Stone Golem with a dagger +3 but not the Stone Wall, is not the fault of the hardness rules but a fault of the creator of the Stone Golem, who should have given the Stone Golem DR 10/- and or instead of DR 35/+2. But that a stone wall should be perfectly resistant to your little knife doesn't bother me in the slightest.

As a side note, I might allow a critical against a stone wall, but only if the player had successfully made a Craft(Stonework) or Knowledge(Architecture) check of reasonable difficulty - simply because I as a DM love calling for obscure and seldom taken skills.

 

[Henry]

How can they possibly be the same thing?

Hardness is subtracted from your damage no matter what weapon or attack you are using. I can draw my +5 vorpal battleaxe and I will still have 5 points deducted from each hit when I chop through that wood door.

On the other hand no matter how big the monster is my +5 weapon will beat its DR and do full damage.

That is plain stupid.

I think that your problem is not with inanimate objects having hardness, but with animated objects having damage resistance instead of hardness. Technically, animated objects REALLY should have a hardness instead, because all they are, IMHO, is animated versions of same. I don't THINK a stone golem is hollow, or has a soft, chewy center; but then again, I've never seen one.

Hardness is a great rule to me; think of it as unbeatable damage resistance, which most objects have; you can't kill them by wearing them down, or hitting a vital spot; you just have to BUST THEM UP.

 

[Psion]

I wouldn't call it stupid so much as I would call it odd. I think the golem is not given hardness more or less as a concession to player survival. Very often, the player will have to destroy a golem to survive. The same is seldom true of doors.

Oddly, animated objects often have hardness.

At any rate, I reconcile this thought by thinking that the damage you inflict on a golem is less on the body and more on the animating spirit.

 

[Deadguy]

Doc, that's the reason that Gez used the example of the 'unbeatable' Damage Resistance, rather than standard 'beatable' resistance.

The only difference between Hardness and Unbeatable DR is that Hardness offers half its protection against energy attacks.

Of course, as it stands, there's little value in the distinction between Hardness and this subset of DR - they should probably have rolled them up together.

 

[Frostmarrow]

I saw Clash of the Titans yesterday. You know that Harryhousen flick with Harry Hamlin as Perseus. Well, Perseus is given a magical sword from the gods (he also gets a shield and a helmet of invisibility). Perseus let's the sword drop into a slab of marble which is instantly shattered. The playwright who is with Perseus at the time is astonished.

I don't know what the hardness of marble is but I think it's cool and also a staple of fantasy fiction that magical weapons can cut through stone as if it was butter.

 

[Psion]

How can they possibly be the same thing?

Hardness is subtracted from your damage no matter what weapon or attack you are using. I can draw my +5 vorpal battleaxe and I will still have 5 points deducted from each hit when I chop through that wood door.

On the other hand no matter how big the monster is my +5 weapon will beat its DR and do full damage.

Did you read his statement? He said hardness X is the same as DR X/-, not DR X/+Y. He is absolutely right; for most practial purposes, harndess X = DR X/- + Energy Resistance (all)

 

[IceBear]

How can they possibly be the same thing?

Hardness is subtracted from your damage no matter what weapon or attack you are using.

And that's what DR X/- means too - subtract X damage no matter the weapon or attack. So they ARE the same thing (at least when it comes to physical attacks). As other's have said, it the golem that's in the fault and not the hardness rules themselves.

IceBear

 

[JacktheRabbit]

I find nothing great about the rule. All I see is complete inconsistency. I see that an average Joe with a +5 dagger can stab and hurt the most vile of creatures up to and including the Gods themselves (assuming he hits). Yet that same average Joe cannot do a damn think to a Hardness 10 steel door with his +5 dagger no matter how many eons you give him to beat on it.

Yep, great rule.

I think that your problem is not with inanimate objects having hardness, but with animated objects having damage resistance instead of hardness. Technically, animated objects REALLY should have a hardness instead, because all they are, IMHO, is animated versions of same. I don't THINK a stone golem is hollow, or has a soft, chewy center; but then again, I've never seen one.

Hardness is a great rule to me; think of it as unbeatable damage resistance, which most objects have; you can't kill them by wearing them down, or hitting a vital spot; you just have to BUST THEM UP.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

What sort of creatures run around with this sort of DR?

Did you read his statement? He said hardness X is the same as DR X/-, not DR X/+Y. He is absolutely right; for most practial purposes, harndess X = DR X/- + Energy Resistance (all)