Siege problems with Power Attack

[Norfleet]

I think we can rule that an axe is considered to be an inappropriate weapon for lopping through stone walls, as per the "inappropriate weapon" rule, because the vision of a barbarian chopping down the Empire State Building with an axe is just too silly.

 

[reapersaurus]

I really don't see what the concern here is...

 

[Jhyrryl]

For every action...

I've often considered applying the "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction" law of physics to these kinds of attacks. For every point of damage the attack does to the wall, have the wall do that much damage back to the weapon, before applying hardness in both cases. If the wall's attack would break the weapon at a lower damage level than the weapon breaking the wall, then that's what happens.

For some reason though, it's usually more fun to just let my players do things this way, if that's the route they want to go. It's not like they couldn't accomplish the same goals in a less destructive manner, usually. So it just adds to their enjoyment of the game.

 

[Janos Audron]

I've often considered applying the "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction" law of physics to these kinds of attacks. For every point of damage the attack does to the wall, have the wall do that much damage back to the weapon, before applying hardness in both cases. If the wall's attack would break the weapon at a lower damage level than the weapon breaking the wall, then that's what happens.

Whatever happened to the part where a magical weapon can't be broken by something that has a lower enhancement bonus? Do you have +1 walls?

 

[LuYangShih]

Even if the Barbarian or Fighter type could actually knock down walls in a few rounds, I fail to see the problem. A wall is a laughable barrier to mid and high level characters. Once they get to 10th or so everyone will just fly or teleport around the walls anyway. Sometimes I think the whole idea of a fortress in a D&D world does not make sense, considering how easy it is to ignore them.

 

[hong]

I think we can rule that an axe is considered to be an inappropriate weapon for lopping through stone walls, as per the "inappropriate weapon" rule, because the vision of a barbarian chopping down the Empire State Building with an axe is just too silly.

True. Now if it was a KATANA, that would be different.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64892

 

[Garboshnik]

I don't know, I consider level 5 to be a bit low to be chopping through stone walls. 10th level maybe, but not 5th.

Siege engines also seem a bit weak, are there any improved versions in books like the Stronghold guide?

 

[Xeovke]

We once had a gnoll barbarian in one of our games. We were quite lucky and rolled a Maul of the Titans as a magic item (which deal triple damage against structures). It was pretty useful as we simply stopped passing trough doors: walls did not last very long and weren't trapped. However as many have pointed out its not exactly unbalancing as by the mid-levels, there are plenty of ways to avoid walls. And in our particular case, having a rogue on the team would have been a lot better, bashing trough walls just isn't very subtle.
I actually found it a nice scenario to have the players try to defend a town against an (barbaric) army, letting them get overconfident with the enemy's lack of siege weapon and make their wall/gates crumble under the blow of a barbarian with a MotT. Just at 6th level, such a character can get around with (1d10+3+6+12)*3=79.5 on avg per hit (assuming 18 str and rage) with an average of 151.05 -1.9*hardness (if a roll of 1 always fail) per round. If the barbarian is correctly prepared (protection from arrows, prot f/ elements), and with a handy cleric by his side, he can make a good deal of dmg before falling. It would probably be a nice surprise for the defenders. But I do admit that this strategy feels somehow silly.
Cheers,
Xeovke

Edit: small error in maths

 

[Pielorinho]

I don't think it's unbalancing to allow a barbarian to chop down a wall. I just think it's really silly, and not a very cinematic image.

It wouldn't be unbalancing to give the barbarian such bad breath that he could, with a ranged touch attack, deal 1d4 points of damage to an opponent. It would be really silly, though. For that reason, I allow neither the chopping down of stone walls or ranged halitosis attacks in my game.

Daniel

 

[S'mon]

I think barbarians chopping through castle walls (IRL typically 15-20' thick at the base) in a non-Epic game is very silly, unless perhaps they have a mattock of the titans or other magic item specially intended to do this. Not a battleaxe, anyway. It's only possible because of D&D's poor hardness rules, which give everything a single 'face' hardness and take no account of thickness. A more realistic system would make hardness proportional to thickness, up to a certain limit, eg the thickness of blocks of stone in the wall. Damage equal to hardness would break that block.

IMO the currently used hardnesses are about right for items around 1" thick.

So a stone wall would have hardness 8/", 96/foot. If faced with 1' stone blocks, 96 damage would break a 1'x1' block of stone. 480 damage from one blow would destroy a 5'x5' block, and so on.