Question about Awaken

[scott2978]

@ Greenfield - By RAW, you are mistaken. Object hardness and DR are not the same, and are not interchangable. One is used for sunder and break attempts, the other applies to hit point damage. Even if they just happen to be the same, the two are not really related. For instance, an Iron Golem is made of Iron (hardness 10) but it's DR is 15. Also, you cannot attempt to "sunder" the arms and legs of an enemy in combat with specific, noted exceptions like Hydra heads. You cannot, for instance, attempt to "sunder" the neck of a human fighter. Thus, you cannot attempt to sunder a construct either, and so it's hardness would never come into play, the same way a human's hardness wouldn't.

Under RAW you would never use the hardness value for an animated object during combat, you would use it's DR. DR represents how difficult it is to cause the thing damage, based on it's inherent, extraordinary, supernatural or magical properties. It does not seem out of place for an object made of sand to have DR/Bludgeoning, but that's up to the monster creator. Remember construct traits.

And, unless the resulting animated sand is magic resistant, then the "repair damage" spells would work on them just fine, since they specifically state that they heal constructs.

 

[Greenfield]

A creature of Awakened Sand is a construct, and the rules say to use Animated Object from the Monster Manual for stats.

You damage an Animated Object the same way you would a non-animated one: You roll your attack and your damage, deduct the material or object hardness, and apply what's left to the object's hit points.

In essence, Stone (for example) has DR8/- because it has a hardness of 8.

An Animated Object of stone, such as a statue, therefore has what amounts to a DR8/- against all attacks.

Or perhaps that should be DR 8/Adamantine, since Adamantine weapons ignore the hardness of objects they strike if that hardness is less than 20.

Under RAW you would never use the hardness value for an animated object during combat, you would use it's DR.

Look in the SRD or your MM, whichever is convenient. Look up Animated Object, as a monster.

Do you see DR listed for any of them? I don't.

What I do see is:

Hardness (Ex): An animated object has the same hardness it had before it was animated.

 

[scott2978]

You damage an Animated Object the same way you would a non-animated one: You roll your attack and your damage, deduct the material or object hardness, and apply what's left to the object's hit points.

The rules you are reading are referring to inanimate objects, like doors and shields. According to the Rules Compendium pp106 Animated Objects are treated as Creatures, not objects. You would therefore not use their hardness value in normal combat situations.

Look in the SRD or your MM, whichever is convenient. Look up Animated Object, as a monster.

Do you see DR listed for any of them? I don't.

The reason you don't see it is because they don't have it. If they were supposed to have DR it would be listed in the stat block just like for every other creature in the Monster Manual.

The hardness extraordinary quality is for Sunder and break attempts against it, not normal combat. This is included in the case of a construct wielding weapons or shields that are an integral part of the object. Just because a substance is animated does not mean that it automatically gains DR.

Take the case of elementals for instance. A large air elemental has DR5/-. Does this mean that "air" has a hardness of 5?

Even paper has hardness 1, so maybe a human fighter should wrap himself in paper to gain DR1/- ?

The argument that because the substance that a creature is made of has a hardness value that it also gains this as DR is incorrect, though I can see how it could be misconstrued as otherwise.

 

[Greenfield]

So by your interpretation of the rules, Animated Objects are to be treated as creatures, yet you can still Break or Sunder these creatures?

Sorry if it looks like I'm making fun of you, but your position, taken as a whole, doesn't make sense.

The Animated Object listing gives stats by size, then follows with special considerations that may or may not apply to any given Animated Object, or which may apply differently on a case by case basis. For example it talks about special abilities that some forms might have, but which are denied to others. An Animated carpet, for example, can wrap someone and possibly blind them by covering their face.

Since the hardness of the material or base object will vary from object to object, they list it separately below.

But you can't Sunder a creature, by the rules, nor do they have a Break DC, so why would they bother even mentioning it? It has no function in play, does it?

You might expect that an animated statue of bronze or iron would have it's material toughness reflected in its Armor Class, but it isn't. And iron, as a material, has hit points per inch of thickness that go far beyond the hit points granted to the animated version (assigned by size). So, by casting Animate Object on a statue, you make it easier to damage and destroy? That makes no sense at all.

 

[ghostwasp]

Animated objects have a hardness rating based on the material they were made of before being animated. In combat any attack (magic or not) has to over come the animated objects hardness to deal damage (some attacks deal 1/2 or 1/4 damage based on effectiveness-determined by the DM).
Since sand has no hardness every attack would deal damage to the awakened sand. Think of a sand castle, while you cant destroy the particles of sand you can destroy the object as a whole.

 

[Greenfield]

That's kind of where I was headed. I just wasn't sure if there was a Hardness for it or not.

When the time comes I'll talk to the DM and see what he thinks should go. (Actually I'll talk to the group, since we take turns in the DM's seat.)

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

[MENTION=6669384]Greenfield[/MENTION] I totally see where you're coming from.

I think the problem lies in the complication in the entry of the Animated Object, I personally dislike the mention to hardness at all, and have always played an Animated Object like any other sort of construct and have never taken hardness into consideration, even though the entry provides the info for doing such.

Because the Awakened Sand has an Engulf ability, I can see a train of thought that says "If I know the sand's hardness, and I can beat that hardness, then I should be able to break out of the Engulf". This complicates things in that no other creature that might Engulf or swallow whole would be defeated by breaking, instead by dealing damage.

I decided for myself personally to treat it as a construct that acts like an Ooze, and I've found that approach to make the most sense for me.

Good luck figuring what makes the most sense for you and yours.