How hard of a material can you get?

[Tvtyrant]

For the sake of making the strongest mech type body a Fiend of Possession can animate, what is the hardest material? So far I know how to get a material up to 30 (adamant+Hardening spell). Riverine is a magical material, so it doesn't count.

[Alefiend]

Start with obdurium instead. It has a base hardness of 30, and is nonmagical. It's described in the Stronghold Builder's Guide.

[SiuiS]

There is a metal which exists only in one source that is not duplicatable which has a natural hardness of 60.

Hardening increases it by ten, and each +1 of enchantment also increases it's hardness and hit points. Make a suit of +10 hardened armor out of this stuff for hardness 80.

[TuggyNE]

The matter manipulation power, depending on whether it stacks with hardening, might be useful.

[VGLordR2]

Races of Stone has Dwarvencraft Items, which increase the hardness of an object by two. I'm not entirely sure whether or not it works on a mech suit, though.

There is also a Psionic power called Matter Manipulation (http://dmreference.com/SRD/Psionic/Powers/G-P/Matter_Manipulation.htm). It increases hardness by five. The duration is Instantaneous (meaning that it's permanent, and cannot be dispelled). Also, I am not entirely sure about this, but you may be able to manifest this power multiple times and have the effects stack, similar to the Return to Nature trick. I'm not too confident about this, though; someone more well-versed in Instantaneous effects will have to figure out whether multiple manifestations will stack or not.

EDIT: I found this:

Instantaneous Effects

Two or more spells with instantaneous durations work cumulatively when they affect the same target.
So it appears that Matter Manipulation does stack with itself.

[Tvtyrant]

There is a metal which exists only in one source that is not duplicatable which has a natural hardness of 60.

Hardening increases it by ten, and each +1 of enchantment also increases it's hardness and hit points. Make a suit of +10 hardened armor out of this stuff for hardness 80.

Do you remember the source book? Sounds fun :D

As for what the mech is; basically a big statue made of really hard metal which the person animates. Fiend of Possession can animate an object which it is possessing, basically giving you a big robot to fight in.

[Kelb_Panthera]

It's not the hardest of metals, but have you considered aurorum from BoED? If it breaks, you can put it back together as a full-round action. If they drop your statue, you put it back together and get back to work.

[Wookie-ranger]

There is also a Psionic power called Matter Manipulation (http://dmreference.com/SRD/Psionic/Powers/G-P/Matter_Manipulation.htm). It increases hardness by five. The duration is Instantaneous (meaning that it's permanent, and cannot be dispelled). Also, I am not entirely sure about this, but you may be able to manifest this power multiple times and have the effects stack, similar to the Return to Nature trick. I'm not too confident about this, though; someone more well-versed in Instantaneous effects will have to figure out whether multiple manifestations will stack or not.

EDIT: I found this:

So it appears that Matter Manipulation does stack with itself.

If it stacks or not is debatable.
As a player i would argue that it should, as it is instantaneous (and those effects stack) and even costs xp to cast!
As a DM (aka party-pooper) i would say that it does not stack because it says in the spell-description : "You can increase or decrease an object's hardness by up to 5 from its original hardness"
Original harness can refer to the hardness the material usually has or the hardness the material had before the casting. This is iffy (beware of suddenly animating DMGs coming your way)

If your DM does not want to allow it, but is open for a compromise, may be you can make a house rule that for every additional casting it is double the xp.
so first casting is 250x5=1,000
second is 500x5=2,500
third is 1000x5=5,000
forth is 2000x5=10,000
total cost of +20 hardness = 18,500xp

this is NOT RAW, but it seams relatively balanced or at the very least not too broken. that wy you can increase the harness a lot, but not indefinably.

[Cruiser1]

Hardening increases it by ten
Actually the Hardening spell increases hardness by 2 per CL, with no cap (see most recent printing in SPC). If you're caster level 20, it will increase hardness by 10, however optimized casters tend to have CL slightly or significantly beyond their character level. Use all your raising caster level optimization techniques (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19872350/Raising_Caster_Level) to get your CL, and hence hardness of any base material, as high as you want. :smallsmile:

[Rubik]

You can use Metamorphosis on your psicrystal to turn it into an object of up to hardness 15, which can then be augmented via Share Pain and Vigor for up to (effectively) 10x your manifester level in temporary hp, which is basically a pseudo-hardness.

[Slipperychicken]

Since it looks like the possessed Object is still treated like an object by the rules, have your Fiend-Friendly Cleric prepare Make Whole (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/makeWhole.htm) a few times for you. Also, have some defenses active against Disintegrate or Shatter.