Sword vs Door: Ineffectual Weapon?

[Darklone]

Personally, I'm just fine with it. The day that a character being able to knock a hole in a wall ruins my game is the day I quit DMing.

I'll quote you in the next 50 discussions on a German forum...

 

[XO]

Painful

When literature has a prisoner digging through a wall, aka Dantes digs out to become Monte Cristo, the wall and its cement are soft through years of exposure to a moist, humid and even wet environment...

An adamantine spoon would likely do the job of digging through a harder wall.... Given time, a lot of time...

Two D&D Hardness problems (amongst many)...

1 - excluding exceptional circumstances, striking a DR of 10 should mean 10 points of damage imposed on the striking object

2 - linearly scaling Hardness simply does not work; should you lunge at a 1" thick steel wall, your ability to damage it (RL) mostly depends on how wide apart are the backing supports and good those supports are. If the span is wide, you will likely dent that 1" plate. If they are close together, you will likely really hurt the lunging idiot...

Needless to say the Hardness system as we know it was not developed by engineering geniuses!

 

[Stalker0]

Just to recap, my initial question to everyone was not whether a sword should be able to break through a door...I mean comeon a barbarian can jump off a 200 foot cliff and live, my question is, should it do it as well as an axe (or in the case of greatsword vs greataxe) better?

 

[shilsen]

I'll quote you in the next 50 discussions on a German forum...

Danke!

When literature has a prisoner digging through a wall, aka Dantes digs out to become Monte Cristo, the wall and its cement are soft through years of exposure to a moist, humid and even wet environment...

Ah, but The Count of Monte Cristo is notably deficient in giant reptiles that can fly with no magical aid, archers who can fire four arrows in six seconds, people who can fall 200 feet and walk away with full functionality, warriors who can punch an elephant to death with their fists, and the like.

D&D has never really replicated literature. It has, however, done a pretty fine job of replicating D&D, which is a world of its own.

Remember, as a wise man once said, physics is a house rule.

Needless to say the Hardness system as we know it was not developed by engineering geniuses!

Not really surprising, since biology, chemistry, geology, and the like in the D&D world bear little resemblance to those sciences in real life.

Just to recap, my initial question to everyone was not whether a sword should be able to break through a door...I mean comeon a barbarian can jump off a 200 foot cliff and live , my question is, should it do it as well as an axe (or in the case of greatsword vs greataxe) better?

In real life, no. In a fantasy world, that's pretty much up to the writer, or in this case, being D&D, the DM. For me, that level of nitpicking really isn't going to help my game in any way, so yes, in my game a greatsword will do as well as a greataxe for taking down a door. Or at least close enough that I won't bother making up mechanical differences for it.

 

[Darklone]

Danke!

Bitte!

Remember, as a wise man once said, physics is a house rule.

Yoinked for new signature. Who said that btw?

In real life, no. In a fantasy world, that's pretty much up to the writer, or in this case, being D&D, the DM. For me, that level of nitpicking really isn't going to help my game in any way, so yes, in my game a greatsword will do as well as a greataxe for taking down a door. Or at least close enough that I won't bother making up mechanical differences for it.

Just to explain that: Every weapon in the D&D world is not supposed to do something else than killing so called soft targets: humans. Hard targets will damage any non-magical weapon in the PHB.

 

[shilsen]

Yoinked for new signature. Who said that btw?

Me

I think I've read someone (probably a couple of people) on ENWorld say it too, or at least the same general principle, but I've been saying it since 5 minutes after I first encountered D&D.

Just to explain that: Every weapon in the D&D world is not supposed to do something else than killing so called soft targets: humans. Hard targets will damage any non-magical weapon in the PHB.

I should have mentioned that I'm mostly talking about magical weapons, but I'm fine with a DM applying the above to non-magical weapons. And not allowing certain things with certain magical weapons, like the PHB (I believe) example of someone cutting a rope with a mace, however magical it be. I just don't think that getting into real nitty-gritty details, like whether a magical axe or a magical sword will do better, is necessary.

And, as I said above, it just comes down to what will help your game. That level of detail won't help mine. If it helps someone else's, I think they should absolutely go for it. But then I believe that if gaming stark naked with nothing on but a dinosaur mask and glitter makes a group's games go better, they should absolutely go for it. The game's the thing.

 

[Aaron L]

Me

I think I've read someone (probably a couple of people) on ENWorld say it too, or at least the same general principle, but I've been saying it since 5 minutes after I first encountered D&D.



I should have mentioned that I'm mostly talking about magical weapons, but I'm fine with a DM applying the above to non-magical weapons. And not allowing certain things with certain magical weapons, like the PHB (I believe) example of someone cutting a rope with a mace, however magical it be. I just don't think that getting into real nitty-gritty details, like whether a magical axe or a magical sword will do better, is necessary.

And, as I said above, it just comes down to what will help your game. That level of detail won't help mine. If it helps someone else's, I think they should absolutely go for it. But then I believe that if gaming stark naked with nothing on but a dinosaur mask and glitter makes a group's games go better, they should absolutely go for it. The game's the thing.

Heck, the flanges on a lot of maces are pretty sharp, almost like axe blades arranged in a circle, and I'll allow one of those to cut a rope, easy.

 

[Machiavelli]

I believe that if gaming stark naked with nothing on but a dinosaur mask and glitter makes a group's games go better, they should absolutely go for it.

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