Monks and magic weapons

[Philip]

Well, to further illustrate my argument I present to you quotations from both the 3.0 and 3.5 DMG and PHB.

3.0 DMG on Shields, p. 179

An attacker cannot damage a magic shield with an enhancement bonus unless his own weapon has at least as high an enhancement bonus as the shield struck. Each +1 enhancement bonus also adds 1 to the shield's hardness and hit points. (See Attack an Object in Chapter 8: Combat, page 135 in the Player's Hanbook for common shield hardness and hit points).

3.0 DMG on Weapons, p. 184

An attacker cannot damage a magic weapon with an enhancement bonus unless his own weapon has at least as high an enhancement bonus as the weapon or shield struck. Each +1 enhancement bonus also adds 1 to the weapon's or shield's hardness and hit points. (See Attack an Object in Chapter 8: Combat, page 135 in the Player's Hanbook for common shield hardness and hit points).

So far so good, two almost identical entries. Only changed shield into weapon or weapon and shield in the second entry. On to the 3.5 DMG:

3.5 DMG on Shields, p. 179

Each +1 of enhancement bonus adds 2 to a shield's hardness and +10 to its hit points. For example, a +3 heavy steel shield has a hardness of 16 and 50 hp. (See Table 8-8, page 158 of the Player's Handbook, for common shield hardness and hit points).

That's quite a change from the 3.0 version, and in accordance with the rules described in the 3.5 PHB. Now for the weapon entry:

3.5 DMG on Weapons, p. 184

An attacker cannot damage a magic weapon with an enhancement bonus unless his own weapon has at least as high an enhancement bonus as the weapon or shield struck. Each +1 enhancement bonus also adds 1 to the weapon's or shield's hardness and hit points. (See Attack an Object in Chapter 8: Combat, page 135 in the Player's Hanbook for common shield hardness and hit points).

Except for the Table reference, the entry is an EXACT copy of the 3.0 text. And anyone with some publishing knowledge knows that references in such works are usually created dynamically. Moving on to the 3.5 PHB:

3.5 PHB on Damaging Objects, p. 165

Each +1 of enhancement bonus adds 2 to the hardness of armor, a weapon or a shield and +10 to the item's hit points. For example, a +1 longsword has hardness 12 and 15 hit points, while a +3 heavy shield has hardness 16 and 50 hp.

This entry is almost exactly like the shield entry, except for the fact that it also mentions weapons next to shields. Based on these entries you could:

A. Assume that they forgot to update the weapons entry to 3.5

B. Assume they intentionally wanted damage to weapons in 3.5 to conform to another set of rules than objects in general and did not change one word of the old 3.0 text in the DMG on purpose, while mentioning weapons using the new rules in the PHB, because they wanted weapons to have different hit points and hardness dependent on the way the weapons are attacked, and didn't think this was worth mentioning in the PHB.

C. Changed the rules concerning damaging objects, update the 3.5 book, but then changed their minds and reversed the ruling, and the forgot the change the paragraphs on p. 165 3.5 PHB and p. 179 3.5 DMG to reflect it.

Take your pick, but I am going with A, solidly.

 

[Philip]

This would be the errata'd text (when they finally come around to it):

Weapon Hardness and Hit Points
Dungeon Master's Guide, page 222
Change the first paragraph to read as follows:
Each +1 of enhancement bonus adds 2 to a weapon's hardness and +10 to its hit points. For example, a +1 longsword has hardness 12 and 15 hit points. (See Table 8-8, page 158 of the Player's Handbook, for common weapon hardness and hit points).