Sundering and damaging weapons (tale of DM BS)

[Balor01]

Lvl 4 PCs.

So I'll tell you a little tale and you tell me what you think, especially mechanics wise.

In our last session we encounter an iron door with some sort of push-the-right-button riddle on it. Now, I dont like riddles thats for sure but I also play dnd because unlike PC games you can go around things. Well, not with our DM. Whenever gate would be touched (the buttons that is), gate would apply electrical shock. So we took a paddle we had, but lo and behold! "Current" was so strong it actually burnt like 3 or 4 inches of the paddle away each time we touched it. (even if it was like 2d6 electric). Then a player wanted to tie a stone to a stick and press the buttons with this. Well, stone fell off after five or-so attempts.

Eventually one of the players solved the riddle and I was already pretty pissed with such fiat blocks by DM, so after we looted the dungeon I went around, power attacking all the walls. (actually might have found a secret door or something. Or a trap.). I was dealing 2d6+10 dmg, so 16 on average, cca 25 on crits. According to SRD, stone has Hardness 8, so I should be able to severely damage the walls. Guess what? There was practically no damage to the walls. Almost none. But! First time in game a fumble (nat 1) actually dealt damage to someone who fumbled, in this case, my character.

Then I checked out the now opened doors which were at first described as "pretty tough to get trought". I inspected the hinges, wondering if we could take the door with this ****ty electricy contraption on it (btw I also wanted to short-cuircit it by casting create water on it before. Lo end behold! No efect, because these are PLOT DOORS and **** you!). I started banging on the hinges with my cold iron morningstar and guess what info I get then: Your weapon gets damaged.

And I am surprised and I ask the DM, since this is interesting since NO WEAPONS EVER BEFORE got damaged during having them hit something else, how come? Well, he says, if you are hitting a harder material with softer, then softer material gets damadged. Well, interesting. But, since you just invoked this houserule all of a sudden, I do not accept it, I said. Same for crits and fumbles. Was quite a heated discussion.

But I also stated that I am willing to ablige by this if he sends me an email with mechanics of this homebrew clearly written in it. So I am waiting on this email now.

Now, what I'm interested in is your opinion on how will these "durability" mechanics affect the game? I was thinking of getting a weapon made from the metal doors are made of. That would be best, I guess.

And since "Logic" seems to be in the game here, how about I ask him how does magic get durable?

General comments also welcome.

Anyone who intends to suggest "talk to the DM" - no need to post.

[Sliver]

Weapons getting damaged when striking something harder... Adamantine is hard, but with enough force, even it can break, and as armor it only gives up to DR 3/-. If you say that the weapon is damaged if its hardness is less than the hardness of the material it is striking, then you need to decide when an attack is hitting the armor so that the weapon gets damaged. The logical step is that if you would miss by the bonus the armor gives, you missed because of the armor and thus hit the armor, so the weapon is damaged. But, the armor gives DR, which only applies when you actually hit, so that means that part of the damage is soaked by the armor and the rest is by the foe. So if you hit, your weapon should be damaged too.

And then the inverse, of hitting your opponent, his shield or his armor, with a weapon harder than their defenses. You will be destroying that, too.

What this does is punish the melee characters, as well as destroy potential loot and your own weapons.

To the idea of making your weapon out of this hardened material, your DM might say that it is so hard that it can't be worked into a weapon. Then you'll start a mini-quest to take the weapon to the fires of hell and then your DM will give some other excuse...

The moment your DM starts punishing you for trying to do something besides his pre-planned solution, you are just listening to his story. He'll come up with more excuses to block your attempts to go off the rails.

[Blackhawk748]

Im with Sliver on this. When your DM wants to shove a railroad tie up your bum theres not alot you can do about it except activate the Rule of Feet.

And this is needlessly punishing the melee guys, does your DM want everyone running around in Adamatine?

[Thiyr]

Im with Sliver on this. When your DM wants to shove a railroad tie up your bum theres not alot you can do about it except activate the Rule of Feet.

Well, you can always implement Code R(un rapidly from rails), but I prefer Option S(it the party in a tavern and refuse to leave, regardless of what happens.) if the railroading gets bad. That said, I'm hesitant to call this malice. Not to say its something I'm okay with, but it seems more like over-reacty panic-response more than "HAH! You said the answer was 3.1416 but it should have been 3.14159! Your rounding leads to your doom!"

If he intends to stick with it without providing written rulings, or at least stating that this was a one-off thing due to the nature of the door itself? Yea, Option S is my preferred method of making a point when it gets real bad. Otherwise, Code R, or the more courteous Plan P(olitely quit the game because reasons).

[Blackhawk748]

Actually giving it more thought i think you should make a Dungueoncrasher Fighter decked out in Abjurium Armor, weilding and Abjurium Executioners Mace, with Imp Sunder. BREAK ALL OF HIS STUFF!!! :smallwink:

[Balor01]

@Thiyr

Not to say its something I'm okay with, but it seems more like over-reacty panic-response

Your gut feeling is completely right here. And that is also a part of my decision not to quit (well to quit after ONE such event would be a bit childish). This guy is a new DM and poor with "power and leadership" if I say so. When he as a DM is put in a place where players outwit him or just brootalize his masterful plan, he panicks.

If I am DM-ing, you will get a statted gate and stone and if I happened to forgot the entry shaft which you will find and reach the main chamber, so be it. But i will not throw additional caltrops (or anti-tank obstacles) in order to get my will trought.

In fact I think your answer cleared the things for me pretty good.

@Blackhawk748
Not bad. :smallbiggrin:

[Lightlawbliss]

Your DM is railroading and doing so badly.
First off: House Rules that significant should be run by the players and should be established before the campaign starts.

second: there are spells to do what he is doing without house rules (There's an app spell for that). for example, the walls could have had hardening cast on them (with dm power ignoring the size limit).

third: you can't crit the wall.

4th: It wouldn't be all that hard to make a button that shocks you but a few gallons of water doesn't make a short.

[Blackhawk748]

I figured some silliness was warranted. Might i recommend sitting down with him and telling him some of this? As you said hes new so this is to be a bit expected. Tell him why railroading is bad and then maybe point him in this direction, dont worry we wont Venomfire bite the new guy............... hard.

[Harlot]

Obviously he was punishing your behavior (which is OK - he didn't like you wreaking havoc and wanted to stop you). He IS the DM. It IS his right to be a jerk. He can damage your weapon or loose the wizard spellbook or shrink the barbarian if he wants to.
The rule makes sense logic-wise, but as pointed out elsewhere, it makes no sense rule-wise and in a magic universe, logic has no place.

I am pretty sure that if you state that you want the door-metal, it cannot be identified, or it fell from a star, or its ancient and lost knowledge etc.

I know you don't want to talk to the DM, but it is hard to stop in-game without spoiling the game. If you want revenge (not recommended, but seems like that's where you're at): Talk to the other players and agree that you ALL follow this new rule 100%. Then collectively change the game dynamics as a response to this rule:

1) Get adamantine armor, fast.
2) If ever an enemy hits you, ask the DM what the weapon is made of. If it is softer than adamantine, ask the DM to roll damage given to the enemy weapon.
3) Whenever any of you spot an enemy, ask what armor/shield that enemy is wearing. Then ask the DM: "Is that softer than my weapon?" DO this even though you know, just to make a point every single time.
4) If it is harder than your weapon, say: "You know my sword is a family heirloom. I can't risk it."
5) If it isn't, say "There might be some glamor or fortifying magic on that armor, I can't see. I may still be tougher than my sword - I can't risk it.")
6) Flee the encounter - flee all encounters. You all really like your weapons and you are a very tight group, always sticking together.
7) Repeat 3-6 at all encounters.

If you keep fleeing any encounter because of his armor rules, he might change them.

Obviously this only works if all of you players agree on the rulefidgeting/homebrewing being unfair. Also it IS haressing the DM and stepping up the conflict instead of finding a solution.. But you do say that you cannot talk to the DM... So there.

[madtinker]

+1 vote for making the DM regret the rule by forcing him to do all the book keeping it requires. I don't know I would go as far as avoiding all encounters; that seems a bit extreme. Maybe invest in craft (weapons) and repair your weapons after every encounter. But by forcing him to keep track not only of the enemies HP but also the HP and hardness of their weapons AND armor, he should get so sick of the rule he'll drop it.

Unless he is subject to the human foible of pride, and unable to admit he was wrong. Then he'll just resent you and punish you in some other way.

[Captnq]

Eventually one of the players solved the riddle and I was already pretty pissed with such fiat blocks by DM, so after we looted the dungeon I went around, power attacking all the walls. (actually might have found a secret door or something. Or a trap.). I was dealing 2d6+10 dmg, so 16 on average, cca 25 on crits. According to SRD, stone has Hardness 8, so I should be able to severely damage the walls. Guess what? There was practically no damage to the walls. Almost none. But! First time in game a fumble (nat 1) actually dealt damage to someone who fumbled, in this case, my character.


If you tried that in Undermountain, a Xorn would have ate you by about the 50th swing or so. Sound travels rather nicely through solid objects. Hardening is a free spell to cast and only takes time. When you are a thousand year old mage, you got time.

I don't play with critical fumbles myself. But, other do. So. Meh.



Then I checked out the now opened doors which were at first described as "pretty tough to get trought". I inspected the hinges, wondering if we could take the door with this ****ty electricy contraption on it (btw I also wanted to short-cuircit it by casting create water on it before. Lo end behold! No efect, because these are PLOT DOORS and **** you!). I started banging on the hinges with my cold iron morningstar and guess what info I get then: Your weapon gets damaged.

If you attack a door that does damage with a weapon, the weapon will take the damage. And It's magic, so it works the way the creator set it up.



And I am surprised and I ask the DM, since this is interesting since NO WEAPONS EVER BEFORE got damaged during having them hit something else, how come? Well, he says, if you are hitting a harder material with softer, then softer material gets damadged. Well, interesting. But, since you just invoked this houserule all of a sudden, I do not accept it, I said. Same for crits and fumbles. Was quite a heated discussion.


It's not a house rule, it's a judgement call about you doing something stupid. If you try to hit the hinges of a magically enchanted damage aura door in my campaign, I might make your weapon explode. Halaster Blackcloak loves that sort of stuff.



But I also stated that I am willing to ablige by this if he sends me an email with mechanics of this homebrew clearly written in it. So I am waiting on this email now.


Here's what I would send you:

IT'S MAGIC, FOOL.
Give me a DC 45 (the wizard who created it's caster level+20) spellcraft roll or STFU.



Now, what I'm interested in is your opinion on how will these "durability" mechanics affect the game? I was thinking of getting a weapon made from the metal doors are made of. That would be best, I guess. And since "Logic" seems to be in the game here, how about I ask him how does magic get durable?


The doors could be made out of balsa wood, but with hardness and a damage aura, they'd mess you up, son.

How do you ask him? You just ask him, "How does magic get durable?"
And he replies, "Click HERE (http://dndtools.eu/spells/spell-compendium--86/hardening--4682/)."



General comments also welcome.
Anyone who intends to suggest "talk to the DM" - no need to post.

Okay, my general comment is, you are 4th level, stop bitching so much about not being allowed to be creative when wandering around a dungeon created by someone who's at least 12th level (to craft the Wondrous Architecture you were bumping into). But just because you can't find it in the stronghold builder's book doesn't give you the right to complain about how he's running things.

You know what I do to players who pull out rulebooks and shove them in my face? You get to do it once. After I say, "I'll think about it, let's move on." You'd better move on or you'll be facing my infamous Hundred Headed Hydra.

Sounds like he's got the patience of a saint, if you ask me.

[jiriku]

Your DM is just uncreative and railroady. If you're better, offer to run a one-off game some time when he's busy, and show him how it's done. Maybe he'll pick up a few things from watching you do your stuff.

[Dimcair]

While poor railroading is a bad DM's trait, it could be easily excused in the case of a new DM.

And under no circumstances has he to provide you with a sandbox game ala minecraft, in which you can dig yourself through the ground at your whim.

Also I consider it bad form to try and just ignore a riddle given to you in a dungeon. Others might welcome the challenge and why would anybody build a dungeon-riddle door which you can disable by casting a cantrip on it? Please...

/edit: Also +1 to everything Captnq said.

[Balor01]

@Captnq
We had checked out entire area with detect magic. Only magical items were the tiles. No hardening, no actually magical door, nothing.

[prufock]

In our last session we encounter an iron door with some sort of push-the-right-button riddle on it.... Whenever gate would be touched (the buttons that is), gate would apply electrical shock. So we took a paddle we had, but lo and behold! "Current" was so strong it actually burnt like 3 or 4 inches of the paddle away each time we touched it. (even if it was like 2d6 electric). Then a player wanted to tie a stone to a stick and press the buttons with this. Well, stone fell off after five or-so attempts.
I'm assumnig a wooden paddle, so hardness 5 and 10 hp per inch of thickness. In that case, 2d6 would be able to damage it on average 1 out of 12 times, but it would only be taking 1 or 2 damage each of those times. Rope is much easier to damage though, and probably would have snapped the first or second try. The stone itself shouldn't have been affected. At worst, your DM's timing is off, but he hasn't made any egregious errors.


after we looted the dungeon I went around, power attacking all the walls.... I was dealing 2d6+10 dmg, so 16 on average, cca 25 on crits. According to SRD, stone has Hardness 8, so I should be able to severely damage the walls. Guess what? There was practically no damage to the walls. Almost none. But! First time in game a fumble (nat 1) actually dealt damage to someone who fumbled, in this case, my character.
Well, you can't crit against stone, but otherwise you should have been able to damage it... assuming it was ordinary stone. Fumbles suck, so if you hadn't been using them before, the DM shouldn't have introduced them without pretext.


I also wanted to short-cuircit it by casting create water on it before. Lo end behold! No efect, because these are PLOT DOORS and **** you!).
OR the door is a magical trap, not a technological one, and pouring water on it simply has no effect.


I started banging on the hinges with my cold iron morningstar and guess what info I get then: Your weapon gets damaged.And I am surprised and I ask the DM, since this is interesting since NO WEAPONS EVER BEFORE got damaged during having them hit something else, how come? Well, he says, if you are hitting a harder material with softer, then softer material gets damadged. Well, interesting. But, since you just invoked this houserule all of a sudden, I do not accept it, I said. Same for crits and fumbles. Was quite a heated discussion.
This is not a D&D rule, and introducing "house rules" without group consent isn't kosher. Rule 0 for the sake of "realism" can be okay, though, in some cases. Trying to crack open an adamantine chest with a gold ax should damage the ax, for instance. But he IS getting into unsupportable territory.


Now, what I'm interested in is your opinion on how will these "durability" mechanics affect the game? I was thinking of getting a weapon made from the metal doors are made of. That would be best, I guess.
My immediate instinct is that this is a terrible rule. Get adamantine armor. Anyone who hits you will have their weapon damaged, unless it is likewise adamantine or something harder.

Sounds like a new GM or one that simply isn't comfortable or good at improvising. He may not have as strong a grasp of the rules, but normally a DM call sticks for that game, and you can dispute it after the session, hopefully coming to an agreement for the future.

[Iron Angel]

Do you have a rogue? If not, get one, as a Rogue can disable magical traps and he could have just turned the shock damage off so you could mash buttons until it opened. Thats one way to solve such a simple puzzle. I suspect, however, your DM would have just gone NO! and found a way to invalidate a class feature.

The worst possible thing you can ever do with a puzzle is punish failure instead of reward success. If failing the puzzle means taking a bunch of pointless damage people will just want to go around it or ignore it completely because its tops being a puzzle and starts being a trap. And you do one of two things with a trap: Disarm or avoid.

Instead you should be rewarded for success. My dungeons have puzzles in two types of locations. The first is side areas that contain a bit of extra loot and a couple monsters, and there's nothing stopping the Dragon Disciple from simply kicking the door down with her 26 strength boot if that's the route they want to go. Unfortunately that will destroy anything valuable that was in the puzzle door itself but they got through. The other is in very key plot points and they are generally unavoidable, but I'll drop hints in the room if they can't noodle it through. These are generally large mechanical or magical puzzles that simply destroying the puzzle would render the door or plot object inoperable so nobody has tried to actually destroy or tamper with the mechanisms of the puzzle yet.

Having a puzzle that shocks you for doing it wrong makes sense but it also makes the players not want to play. Nobody wants to go fiddling with a keypad that electrocutes you, they would rather just knock the door off its hinges, and any feature of a dungeon that makes people not want to play at all is representative of an unhealthy gameplay mechanic.


As for weapons taking damage when striking a surface harder than themselves, that is the single most asinine thing I have ever heard and it sounds a lot like the DM is just punishing you for trying to find ways around his electric trap. Once again, indicative of an unhealthy gameplay mechanic.

Escalating the situation by being passive-aggressive with your DM might feel satisfying but all you're really doing is making your DM pissed off at you and that can be even worse, and can even lose you your DM. Don't *****-foot around with it. If you're going to fire back at the DM, talk to everybody and agree that if he pulls any more shenanigans you're going to invoke the almighty Extraordinary Ability "Taking my minis and going home" or simply vote him off the podium and let someone else take over. More preferably, talk with him about it and try to come to a compromise. Ultimately however if your DM is bad your DM is bad and the only real solution is getting a new one. It seems like your DM is just new though so maybe teaching him could go a long way. I'm in a campaign with a new DM who isn't really sure how to do things and I'm taking over for a story arc and hopefully he will watch what I do and take notes.

[Balor01]

I really need to say: Good input, playground.

When I DM, I always allow my PCs to rape my plots. I go home, learn from it and do things a bit better(more difficult but not railroad-y) next time.

The leaving option is definitely here but as I have said it, this was DMs first slipup. Also we are discussing things on email and I have fortified my case with arguments. We'll seee if he listens.

Problem with this guy is also his over-confidence and at the same time lack of it. He is sure he knows 3.5 well but does not, but at the same time when he is caught on the wrong foot he starts to spout such nonsence. We will see how things go, I am in the end, interested in his campaign.