Adamantine and the uses thereof.

[The Redwolf]

I've kinda been wondering about some of this for a while now, and I figured I should get it straightened out. How exactly does an adamantine weapon function with regards to other objects, people, etc.? I mean, based on hardness values there isn't anything harder than adamant, so you could use it to break anything and bypass the hardness of anything. Since from what I've seen things are rather loosely defined, it almost seems like someone with an adamant sword could just push it point-first into a stone wall and it would go because it completely ignores the stones hardness. I get that they could swing and cut it as one thing, but it almost makes me think from how little they explain this stuff, at least in the books I have, you could cut it up like a cake.

Then there are armor and weapons, if part of the function of armor and where AC comes from is the fact that it can hold back a blow or deflect it and you have something like adamant that is that much more solid that it ignores how strong the armor is, wouldn't it be able to punch through if you can hit the armor? So shouldn't adamant weapons negate some of the target's AC?

I realize I may be thinking about this more than was intended when they wrote the rules for this, but it really has me wondering, because from the things I've read the RAW for it isn't that well defined in these regards which makes some very interesting RAI. Any explanation of this that can point me to specific RAW for it would be appreciated, and other peoples' interpretations would be nice too.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Well, if you mean the crystalline material, it's not as strong as Orichalcum, and...

Okay, I'll stop going off on a tangent because you're calling it by the wrong name.

Don't try to bring realism into this. It ignores hardness less than 20, and we'll leave it at that.

[Andvare]

In D&D it is best just to ignore such things IMHO. Otherwise, how come putting on 50lbs of armour (full plate) makes you harder to hit? IRL, it makes you easier to hit, though that is mostly because of the helmet and the limited vision there from.
It is a weird mix of damage reduction, damage negation and miss chance.

But you could look at it this way. When you try to hit a person, you want to hit the weak spots to kill as fast as possible, and armour, even with its hardness negated, does deflect the blow.
You also have to factor in the hit points, because you might not care about hardness, put unless you destroy the hit points, the thing is still there (re. sunder).

[The Redwolf]

Don't try to bring realism into this. It ignores hardness less than 20, and we'll leave it at that.

I'm not trying to bring realism, I'm trying to figure out how exactly that makes it work in the context of the game. What effects exactly does ignoring the hardness of 20 have when it actually ignores that, that's what I'm trying to figure out.

[awa]

first their are things harder then adamant for example enchanted stone. also remeber that you ignore hardnes but not hp. Stone walls have between 90 and 540 hp.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/exploration.htm

edit ninja + ignoring hardness is good for knocking down doors, sundering, and killing animated objects

[The Redwolf]

It's adamantium. Adamant is actually a real thing (really hard metal or diamond). :smalltongue:

In D&D it is best just to ignore such things IMHO. Otherwise, how come putting on 50lbs of armour (full plate) makes you harder to hit? IRL, it makes you easier to hit, though that is mostly because of the helmet and the limited vision there from.
It is a weird mix of damage reduction, damage negation and miss chance.

But you could look at it this way. When you try to hit a person, you want to hit the weak spots to kill as fast as possible, and armour, even with its hardness negated, does deflect the blow.
You also have to factor in the hit points, because you might not care about hardness, put unless you destroy the hit points, the thing is still there (re. sunder).

And if you dealt enough damage to destroy the hitpoints and sunder the object would the attack then go through as though not blocked or would it now be against a lowered AC, how would that function?

[Andvare]

A sharp sword doesn't automatically cut through flesh, even though flesh AFAIK doesn't have hardness.
It, apparently, takes a fair bit of force to ignore hardness.

[awa]

i belive their may be a feat that allows you to sunder someones armor and cleave into them but under normal circumstances no

[Urpriest]

It's adamantium. Adamant is actually a real thing (really hard metal or diamond). :smalltongue:



Adamantine, actually. You're thinking of the thing in Wolverine. /pedant

[The Redwolf]

Adamantine, actually. You're thinking of the thing in Wolverine. /pedant

I keep having to change it because people are pointing out my mistake! :smallsmile: I figured it was adamant because you would describe something made of adamant as adamantine, dangit.

[Andvare]

And if you dealt enough damage to destroy the hitpoints and sunder the object would the attack then go through as though not blocked or would it now be against a lowered AC, how would that function?

One attack is not really just one attack, but a series of fighting manoeuvres. You are explicitly not standing still, but always moving, which is why there is no face direction. Combat is not described through the rules. The actions are not singular. A sunder attempt against an armour, might be seen as a Zorro-esque snipping of the armour bindings, instead of one HULK SMASH! attack.
One sword swing does not take six second, nomatter how little training you have.

[Andvare]

Adamantine, actually. You're thinking of the thing in Wolverine. /pedant

Yes, but not from Wolverine, it's because it's adamantium in my native tongue, and my communication skills are on the fritz today.

Edit:
Which also makes it sorta correct, because adamantine is another word for... Adamant.
:smallredface:

Adamantine does mean diamond though.

[The Redwolf]

One attack is not really just one attack, but a series of fighting manoeuvres. You are explicitly not standing still, but always moving, which is why there is not face direction. Combat is not described through the rules. The actions are not singular. A sunder attempt against an armour, might be seen as a Zorro-esque snipping of the armour bindings, instead of one HULK SMASH! attack.
One sword swing does not take six second, nomatter how little training you have.

That is a fair point, I hadn't looked at it quite like that, that helps to address the issues with armor and the like, but what about interacting with walls of stone and such, would you need to slash it enough times to reduce the hp for that segment before you really leave a mark then? Like if you deal 15 points of damage to a stone wall that breaks 1 inch, so do you just have to approach it like that then? Yeah, that makes sense actually, nevermind. It's starting to make more sense now...

So, can we shift the focus of this topic to fun things that can be done with the material?

[Hiro Protagonest]

I'm not trying to bring realism, I'm trying to figure out how exactly that makes it work in the context of the game. What effects exactly does ignoring the hardness of 20 have when it actually ignores that, that's what I'm trying to figure out.

Realism, physics, verisimilitude...

It does nothing to armor. If you attack or sunder an object, and you succeed on whatever attack/sunder roll you're supposed to, you deal damage, and hardness basically acts as DR. If an object has hardness 19 or lower, an adamantine weapon ignores it.

[Requiem_Jeer]

I like calling an adamantine dagger the ultimate lockpick, personally. Cuts through Iron and stone like butter, although it usually takes a few minutes of carving to get anything done. Enchanting it so that it can turn into a big heavy weapon is the next step up, as that means you can have the barbarian just carve large swathes of stone out of the walls, floor, whatever.

[TypoNinja]

So, can we shift the focus of this topic to fun things that can be done with the material?

Adamantine tipped miners picks, we hit on this while trying to harvest stone for a wall and realized we needed shenanigans to get us decent volumes of rock in any real timescale.

We did the math and ended up with 20 guys who could pull over a million lbs of rock out of a mountain in very short order. We couldn't cart it away fast enough actually.

[The Redwolf]

I like calling an adamantine dagger the ultimate lockpick, personally. Cuts through Iron and stone like butter, although it usually takes a few minutes of carving to get anything done. Enchanting it so that it can turn into a big heavy weapon is the next step up, as that means you can have the barbarian just carve large swathes of stone out of the walls, floor, whatever.

I'm going to be doing something similar soon with a monk who has adamantine fists enchanted with greater mighty wallop. 12d8 plus str per hit will be turning most things to rubble fairly often.

And the pick sounds like a lot of fun too.

[Leon]

Ignoring Hardness just speeds up damage to the material but if you have a Adamatine longsword and are trying to cut a hole in a 3" wooden floor its still going to take a while

[Coidzor]

I'm not trying to bring realism, I'm trying to figure out how exactly that makes it work in the context of the game. What effects exactly does ignoring the hardness of 20 have when it actually ignores that, that's what I'm trying to figure out.

When you do damage to something that has hardness, you don't subtract that hardness from your damage roll. That's... most of it right there.

So a regular sword sundering a [ITEM] with HP 200 and Hardness 5 would have to hit it 200 times to destroy it if the wielder kept getting results of 6 on his damage rolls.

An adamantine sword sundering the same [ITEM] would take 34 hits with the result of 6 on his damage rolls to destroy it.

[The Redwolf]

Alright, I actually just thought of something to go along with this, if you attack and make a hit on the enemy, does their armor also take damage, or only if you sunder it? I know that most times that doesn't happen because you just damage them, but is there a rule variant that does that?

[The Random NPC]

I believe armor is explicitly immune to sundering.
EDIT: Yup, page 158 in the PHB, you can't sunder armor worn by another character.

[The Redwolf]

I believe armor is explicitly immune to sundering.
EDIT: Yup, page 158 in the PHB, you can't sunder armor worn by another character.

Oh, that sucks.:smallfrown:

[Downysole]

Oh, that sucks.:smallfrown:

Not when the bad guys have Improved Sunder...

[Kelb_Panthera]

There are a few ways to get around that magically, e.g. the shatter spell can outright destroy a non-magical armor if the person wearing it fails his will save.

[The Redwolf]

Not when the bad guys have Improved Sunder...

Fair enough. :smallamused:

[Azoth]

I gotta say I like adamantine for utility purposes. Use it to tip arrows and you are never without a ladder. Make your lockpicks out of it if in a game with fumble rules...no more broken lockpicks. Crowbar that will hold any door open.

[Spuddles]

Also, bookkeeping both HP and armor. Super lame.


In 3.0, adamantine made weapons count as non-magical +1 or something, so they punctured armor better and did more damage. Personally, I'd like to see adamantine give +3 to hit and damage that stacked with enhancements.

[The Redwolf]

In 3.0, adamantine made weapons count as non-magical +1 or something, so they punctured armor better and did more damage. Personally, I'd like to see adamantine give +3 to hit and damage that stacked with enhancements.

See, that makes sense to me because it shouldn't just be deflecting, it should pack more of a punch and should be damaging what it hits even if you don't go through to the person, and if you do hit with it it would likely do more.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Also, bookkeeping both HP and armor. Super lame.


In 3.0, adamantine made weapons count as non-magical +1 or something, so they punctured armor better and did more damage. Personally, I'd like to see adamantine give +3 to hit and damage that stacked with enhancements.

On this note, was glassteel ever updated or errata'd, or does it still give the non-magical enhancement bonus adamantine used to?

[ericgrau]

I've kinda been wondering about some of this for a while now, and I figured I should get it straightened out. How exactly does an adamantine weapon function with regards to other objects, people, etc.? I mean, based on hardness values there isn't anything harder than adamant, so you could use it to break anything and bypass the hardness of anything. Since from what I've seen things are rather loosely defined, it almost seems like someone with an adamant sword could just push it point-first into a stone wall and it would go because it completely ignores the stones hardness. I get that they could swing and cut it as one thing, but it almost makes me think from how little they explain this stuff, at least in the books I have, you could cut it up like a cake.

Then there are armor and weapons, if part of the function of armor and where AC comes from is the fact that it can hold back a blow or deflect it and you have something like adamant that is that much more solid that it ignores how strong the armor is, wouldn't it be able to punch through if you can hit the armor? So shouldn't adamant weapons negate some of the target's AC?

I realize I may be thinking about this more than was intended when they wrote the rules for this, but it really has me wondering, because from the things I've read the RAW for it isn't that well defined in these regards which makes some very interesting RAI. Any explanation of this that can point me to specific RAW for it would be appreciated, and other peoples' interpretations would be nice too.

RAW is quite well defined here:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/exploration.htm#breakingAndEntering
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/dungeons.htm#walls

Basically you deal damage to the object while ignoring its hardness. For example a 10 foot square of stone has 15 hp per inch and tends to be 3-5 feet thick. 540 hp of thwacking later and you've cut out a nice shortcut in the dungeon with your adamantine greatsword. Works well with power attack since its AC is almost nonexistent (4 AC I think).

The general answer to all these questions though, without any book flipping, is quick enough to do outside of combat but too slow to do during combat. Basically if you're not in combat and you want to break something, it'll break. Adamantine weapons are a lot of fun.

[Downysole]

Good use for Adamantine: Wedding ring.

You know, they use Tungsten Carbide as the indenter on a lot of hardness tests IRL. Also, a popular wedding ring material IRL.

Look up the various uses for Tungsten (aka Wolfram) and you can probably come up with some other mundane ideas (though not as romantic as a wedding ring).