Yes, I Chopped Through The Wall (2002 thread)

[Corlon]

That was a +3 mithrall shield, I was using Power Attack for 10, Smite, and had Bull's Strength! That's perfectly reasonable!

(note: not holy smite, but the Templar's ability.)

The bull's strength, power attack, and the mithrall wouldn't help its durablility now would it?

Its still not really plausible

 

[Celebrim]

Well, in a perfect system any object that inflicted X amount of damage would have X-Y-Z amount of damage inflicted back on it where Y depends on the deformation of the object in question and Z depends on the deformation of the object being struck. This is simply Newton's laws.

However, our system is far from perfect because 'damage' X is an abstract concept that assumes as its basic assumption that the thing being damaged is human flesh (or something very similar)
and that damage is proportional to some ability of the damage to disrupt the biological function of that flesh. These are conveinent assumptions for what weapons are primarily used for, but are not particularly conveinent when weapons are turned on things that are not very like human flesh and are not biological objects at all.

In a perfect system, a weapon is generally has a hardness much higher than the amount of damage it normally inflicts. This hardness protects it from damage from regular use. Alternately, the object could generally be used only on soft objects that deformed easily (those with high Z) so that the force of the impact was absorbed by the mechanical deformation of the thing being struck. Alternately, the striking object is itself pliant and deforms in responce to striking a harder object.

In the case of a sword chopping down a metal door, I wouldn't want to write a system out for handling every case with weapon, but I can make several observations:

In the case of a sword, a large part of the damage it inflicts is dependent upon the ability to cut the object easily, and by extension, that biological tissue doesn't take well to being severed. The door is not alive so being scratched doesn't effect its function all that much. If the object being struck has a hardness higher than the hardness of the sword, it will not be cut easily (if at all) and so the damage actually inflicted should be reduced by some ammount (probably only 1/4 normal damage for a sword). Secondly, the admantium door is probably not very pliant at all and does not easily deform. The sword is normally intended to strike things that are fairly yeilding so we might assume that the damage done to the sword by the door is higher than what the swords hardness normally overcomes. Thirdly, the sword itself (if it is a quality sword) is designed to be somewhat pliant (because it must strike other swords and armor) but not excessively so (otherwise it wouldn't cut), and that deformation to the sword ruins the swords function. So, over time, damage will be done to the sword. I would rule that with each blow the sword took essentially the ammount of damage inflicted minus the sword's hardness. A strong man would probably shatter, dent, or bend his sword against an adamantium door without doing significant damage to the door at all.

 

[Corlon]

Well, in a perfect system any object that inflicted X amount of damage would have X-Y-Z amount of damage inflicted back on it where Y depends on the deformation of the object in question and Z depends on the deformation of the object being struck. This is simply Newton's laws.

However, our system is far from perfect because 'damage' X is an abstract concept that assumes as its basic assumption that the thing being damaged is human flesh (or something very similar)
and that damage is proportional to some ability of the damage to disrupt the biological function of that flesh. These are conveinent assumptions for what weapons are primarily used for, but are not particularly conveinent when weapons are turned on things that are not very like human flesh and are not biological objects at all.

In a perfect system, a weapon is generally has a hardness much higher than the amount of damage it normally inflicts. This hardness protects it from damage from regular use. Alternately, the object could generally be used only on soft objects that deformed easily (those with high Z) so that the force of the impact was absorbed by the mechanical deformation of the thing being struck. Alternately, the striking object is itself pliant and deforms in responce to striking a harder object.

In the case of a sword chopping down a metal door, I wouldn't want to write a system out for handling every case with weapon, but I can make several observations:

In the case of a sword, a large part of the damage it inflicts is dependent upon the ability to cut the object easily, and by extension, that biological tissue doesn't take well to being severed. The door is not alive so being scratched doesn't effect its function all that much. If the object being struck has a hardness higher than the hardness of the sword, it will not be cut easily (if at all) and so the damage actually inflicted should be reduced by some ammount (probably only 1/4 normal damage for a sword). Secondly, the admantium door is probably not very pliant at all and does not easily deform. The sword is normally intended to strike things that are fairly yeilding so we might assume that the damage done to the sword by the door is higher than what the swords hardness normally overcomes. Thirdly, the sword itself (if it is a quality sword) is designed to be somewhat pliant (because it must strike other swords and armor) but not excessively so (otherwise it wouldn't cut), and that deformation to the sword ruins the swords function. So, over time, damage will be done to the sword. I would rule that with each blow the sword took essentially the ammount of damage inflicted minus the sword's hardness. A strong man would probably shatter, dent, or bend his sword against an adamantium door without doing significant damage to the door at all.

clear as mud, but I get the basic point.

In DnD rules format, anyone have rules fer dulling weapons, lets get off teh adamantine wall, and to more stuff like trees, or somethin.

 

[Jeph]

The bull's strength, power attack, and the mithrall wouldn't help its durablility now would it?

Its still not really plausible

It would make it 8 points harder than steel, I think.

IIRC, Mithrall has Hardness 15, and the +3 enhancement gives it +3 hardness. And you seemed not to care actually when I did it . . . anyway, I only made a dent in the side before smashing in the door under the thing (With curran's help, of course. I think he had Bull's Str, too.).

-Jeph

 

[jodyjohnson]

Hardness system

In our first 3e campaign I developed a complicated Hardness system to solve this very problem.

It became too cumbersome so it got dropped.

Current system:
1. How would it take damage from this type of attack?
2. Set resistance: immune, 1/4, 1/2, Full, or Double.

 

[Caliban]

I don't know about any rules, but there's perhaps one decent rule of thumb - in a contest of hardness, the harder object wins.

If you use this, and attack a adamantine (hardness 20) wall with an iron (hardness 10) weapon, the weapon takes damage before the wall does.

Or, alternatively - both object take damage, and whoever runs out of hit points breaks first. Again, most steel weapons will break before getting through an adamantine wall...

You'd probably have to alter this for particularly well designed or massive weapons - you should still be able to whack down a gate with a large enough wooden battering ram.

According to the DMG, adamantite weapons or armor have a natural enhancement bonus. It would seem logical that other objects made of adamantite would have a similar natural enhancement bonus.

A wall of adamantite would seem to be equivalent to at least heavy armor, and would thus have a +3 enhancement bonus.

If you use the Sunder rule, you would need at least a +3 weapon to even hurt the wall.

Just one way of looking at it. (Technically you can't sunder armor, only weapons and shields, and a wall is none of the above. Another case where the rules seem to be written to deal with only melee combat, and don't take other situations into consideration. Basically I'm saying to treat the wall as a really big shield. )

 

[AuraSeer]

Sort of the opposite of Caliban's post: since it generally takes magic to hurt magic, a magic weapon could probably whack nonmagic items with impunity. If you saw down a normal tree with your +1 dagger, it might take you a week, but the dagger should still be sharp afterward.

 

[Corlon]

It would make it 8 points harder than steel, I think.

IIRC, Mithrall has Hardness 15, and the +3 enhancement gives it +3 hardness. And you seemed not to care actually when I did it . . . anyway, I only made a dent in the side before smashing in the door under the thing (With curran's help, of course. I think he had Bull's Str, too.).

-Jeph

actually, you were about 2/3 the way through the wall


I kinda did care, but hey!, it was in the rules, so we used it

 

[Jeph]

actually, you were about 2/3 the way through the wall

And outta Smites. Why I wasted 2 on a stupid wall, we'll never know.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Corlon is the use of a +3 mithral shield to damage a adamantite wall the thing that brought this issue up?

Yeah sure I can see problems with the rule as is. Right now a 30str fighter might argue that he can chew through the rough hewn wall, because stone has a hardness of 8 and he does +10 to damage with his str, and teeth should cause actual damage. (don't ask it actually came up in my game)

But to me using a +3 mithral shield against adamantite is perfectly aceptable, realistic, and plausible. Heck if taking the direct approach suits the character, I would of awarded XP at the end of the session for the idea, if he had gotten through the wall that way.