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View Full Version : wait. wut? hardness question



big teej
2011-02-07, 06:09 PM
if a character takes damage greater than their clothing/armour's hardness

does the armor take damage?


(assuming nonmagical I guess)


because lately I've read lots of things on THESE forums (I'm looking at you dragon climber thread) that seem to imply that armor can be damaged like this.

sooooo

is armor damaged like this?
is this written down somewher?

has anyone run this as a houserule if its not in a book?
how did that work?


so confused!!!!

Ryuuk
2011-02-07, 06:16 PM
You can't sunder (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm#sunder) armor, unless you have a feature that specifically allows you to, like the Bebilith Demon:

Rend Armor (Ex)

If a bebilith hits with both claw attacks, it pulls apart any armor worn by its foe. This attack deals 4d6+18 points of damage to the opponent’s armor. Creatures not wearing armor are unaffected by this special attack. Armor reduced to 0 hit points is destroyed. Damaged armor may be repaired with a successful Craft (armorsmithing) check.

Likewise, it may be possible to damage items, but you have to target said item instead of your opponent. Normal attacks are just against an opponents HP.

There's also the possibility to damage items on if you roll a 1 on a saving throw, as spelled out here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#savingThrow), but I've never seen these rules see play.

Starbuck_II
2011-02-07, 06:19 PM
if a character takes damage greater than their clothing/armour's hardness

does the armor take damage?


(assuming nonmagical I guess)

so confused!!!!
Nope. Only certain monsters harm armor (armor is immune to being sundered normally).

Jack_Simth
2011-02-07, 06:28 PM
Nope. Only certain monsters harm armor (armor is immune to being sundered normally).
That's not strictly true. If you roll a nat-1 on a save vs. an effect, it has a chance of harming one of your garments, as well. Theoretically, your armor *could* be melted by a Fireball that's been metamagic'd up the wazoo, if you roll a 1 on the associated save.

But no, you can't deliberately sunder worn armor without a special ability (see Shatter), and it's not accidentally harmed by things. Even if it is odd that the fullplate of the Fighter who takes 1,000 acid damage from the Mega-Black-Dragon's breath weapon has his fullplate left completely untouched - even though it pretty much completely encompasses him.

holywhippet
2011-02-07, 06:34 PM
Keep in mind, generally speaking any attack that actually connects is considered to have gotten past the target's armour. As such, damage shouldn't be applied to it because it was the one thing that didn't get hit.

TheCountAlucard
2011-02-07, 06:36 PM
System, please?

In Exalted, for instance, questions involving armor and hardness are a whole other thing...

panaikhan
2011-02-08, 08:24 AM
I've seen people play variants, where you can break your own weapons by doing too much damage with them. This was coupled with mundane armour taking damage if you hit it too hard but not well enough (enough to beat touch AC, not enough to hit full AC).