jgbrowning, Rystil Arden, and Hypersmurf talk amongst themselves

[rowport]

Hey, guys! At the risk of interrupting a perfectly good rules... debate... I have a few quick follow-up questions on the item repair bit. And, thanks for breaking down the details, Patryn, you helped answer some questions for me before I asked them on the boards! But, I still need some clarification:

Here is my situation. I wear +2 Dwarvencraft Mithral Heavy Plate that I created and enchanted myself (as a paladin/battlesmith). In our last session I was hit with a rend attack that caused 33 points of damage to the armor, stopped by 12 points of hardness due to it being dwarvencraft (Races of Stone 159), for a total of 21 points of damage.

1. Regarding Craft DC to repair:
I get how to calculate the DC, which is as if you were creating a new masterwork item (DC 20) which in this case is a dwarvencraft item (DC 22). That is the same that it took to make the armor in the first place. Right so far?

2. Regarding Cost to repair:
Here is where I get fuzzy. I think I understood the repair cost to be 1/5 base price in materials. (I presume that is the total base price- materials plus "armor" plus "dwarvencraft"?) If that is correct, because he has Mithral Plate, that is:
Heavy plate 2,000 gp
Dwarvencraft +300 gp
Mithral Material +8,850 gp
Materials Cost to Create: 11,150 gp
So it is 1/5 * 11,150 = 2,230 gp
That just seems insanely expensive to me, especially compared to just casting...

3. "Make Whole" spell
If Make Whole is only a Cleric 2 spell without spell components, and works to repair items with the magical bonus enhancements in place, then is this not crazy useful compared to the effort and expense of using the Craft skill?

I mean, if I understand correctly (and I guess my point is to make sure that I do), then this is a no-brainer. I should not plan to ever repair anything, but just ask my cleric buddy to memorize Make Whole when needed and fix me up for free. That just makes me wonder how useful my Craft skills are!

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

1. Regarding Craft DC to repair:
I get how to calculate the DC, which is as if you were creating a new masterwork item (DC 20) which in this case is a dwarvencraft item (DC 22). That is the same that it took to make the armor in the first place. Right so far?

Good so far.

2. Regarding Cost to repair:
Here is where I get fuzzy. I think I understood the repair cost to be 1/5 base price in materials. (I presume that is the total base price- materials plus "armor" plus "dwarvencraft"?)

Correct.

If that is correct, because he has Mithral Plate, that is:
Heavy plate 2,000 gp
Dwarvencraft +300 gp
Mithral Material +8,850 gp
Materials Cost to Create: 11,150 gp
So it is 1/5 * 11,150 = 2,230 gp
That just seems insanely expensive to me, especially compared to just casting...

Keep in mind that 2,230 gp is the amount needed to take a completely broken (0 hp) Dwarvencraft Mithral Heavy Plate to completely remade (Full HP).

Talk to your DM about prorating that. If your plate has 1/2 the HP, it only costs 1/2 the GP to repair (1,115gp).

I'm not sure how damaged your plate is, so it might be worthwhile to recraft it.

Make Whole will still likely be cheaper in the long run, however.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Yes, Make Whole is really superior to craft-repair. The Craft-skill is still useful, but mostly for the Fabricate spell.

 

[rowport]

OK, cool! Thanks guys!

Here I was thinking about how I was going to find a handy forge and raw mithral in the Underdark next session, and instead I just have to get our cleric to memorize a spell- only level 2, no less. Much easier!

(BTW, Patryn, I forgot to give the base damage- it was down 21 points from 55 total, so even prorated by percentage of damage it would not be cheap to fix- well over 1,000 gp at least.)

 

[Pickaxe]

I'm afraid you missed my point: I DON'T think that's a good reading of the rules, and I offered my example to demonstrate why I think it's a poor reading of the rules. If you define Sunder in its plain English meaning instead of by inferring a definition from what seems to me to be a topic sentence, then we don't get these wonky results.



I agree. However, I think the difference is that he looks at things in a very literal fashion, whereas I'm more interested in getting the gist of a passage. When the gist contradicts a literal reading (even when that reading is, in my opinion, extreme), I think Hypersmurf tends to favor the literal reading, whereas I favor the gist reading.

With this particular example, I think even a literal reading favors my viewpoint: in order to reach the conclusion y'all are reaching, you must infer a definition where I believe none exists.

Daniel

Pielorhino, I understand how you came to read the sunder rule in this way, but I have to say that your interpretation sets off my own common sense alarm far more than the alternative.

1) The mechanic we are discussing specifically describes weapon (or item) hit points, drawing a direct analogy with creature hit points. The mechanics for creature hit points do not say, "If you do not do enough damage to kill the creature, you fail to do any damage." Thus, by using the term "hit points" for items, the designers are communicating to me a concept that should be familiar from my experience with creatures in the game. If your interpretation is correct, why did the designers bother to use the term "hit points"?

2) As much as the designers are maligned in this forum, I generally find that they make at least some attempt to be clear, especially if the point is easily confused. Thus, if your interpretation were correct, I'd expect to see some language to the effect of, "If the damage after hardness is greater than the hit points of the item, it is destroyed or rendered useless; if the damage is less than the item's hit points, it is treated as undamaged with the same number of hit points as it had to begin with." There is no such language describing a mechanic that clearly differs from the use of hit points elsewhere.

Note that even Hypersmurf's point about the distinction between hardness and hit points does not weaken these points. Energy and adamantine are still supposed to do damage to the item, just as they do damage to creatures. Why, then, should we expect that hit points for items behave differently than those for creatures?

3) Your argument regarding weapons starting with some damage is not compelling. Randomly generated monsters come with full hit points, why shouldn't randomly rolled items? Even with your interpretation of sunder, shouldn't we consider knocking off hit points from items that have been affected not by sunder but by energy spells or other forms of damage? We don't, which is consistent with how we treat creatures; if you want a good reason why the designers made it this way, you've already provided it: easier bookkeeping.

--Axe