Hardness and hit points of body parts?

[heavyfuel]

It's known that you can't target body parts in combat, but what if you want to, say, behead a corpse? Sure, it can be done eventually if you have all the time in the world, but in case you don't, is there any guideline or rule about the hardness and hp of things like bones and muscles so you can sunder them?

[Albions_Angel]

It's known that you can't target body parts in combat, but what if you want to, say, behead a corpse? Sure, it can be done eventually if you have all the time in the world, but in case you don't, is there any guideline or rule about the hardness and hp of things like bones and muscles so you can sunder them?

Beheading a corpse I dont know, but intuition would say that beheading a prisoner would be a coup de gras, as they are "...otherwise at your mercy". Failing the roll (thus them having to take a fort save) would be like hitting them badly and mangling their shoulders and/or neck (ie if they fail the save and die anyway, you failed to behead but did significant damage that they bled out quickly, making the roll would mean you hit their shoulders, injuring them, or maybe you slipped, or they shifted and you hit the floor, table, wall, companion).

Beheading a corpse? Well how? Like execution style? Do the same as above but without the fort save. Success = instant behead, fail = try again. Or are you knifing it? Well I would guess that with a large knife designed for skinning/butchering (hunting knife of some kind, a dagger would do) would get through most of the flesh in the neck within a couple of minutes. The spine and muscle around it would take the longest. Got a cleaver? No? Well, 5 minutes to cut through the gap between 2 vertebrae.

So, execution or execution style, coup de gras. Butchery, 5 minutes for a human. 10-12 for an orc or dwarf. Lots of muscle there. Maybe only 3 for an elf.

Why?

[Hand_of_Vecna]

I'd assume you'd work down from this:

Leather or hide 2 5/inch of thickness

Neck circumferences range from around 13 for a small man to the low twenties for power lifters. One third of circumference is safe enough for this instance.

[Extra Anchovies]

Hardness: 0. Hit points: equal to target character's HP.

If you want hit locations, use the called shot rules (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/called-shots).

[Albions_Angel]

I'd assume you'd work down from this:

Leather or hide 2 5/inch of thickness

Neck circumferences range from around 13 for a small man to the low twenties for power lifters. One third of circumference is safe enough for this instance.

Eh, leather is tough and has been treated. Have you seen how special forces are trained to kill someone silently? One of the ways is to slip a knife in behind the windpipe and cut forward, severing the windpipe and carotid artery. Thats 50% of the thickness right there. The tough part is the spinal column, but a skilled butcher or hunter should be able to slip a sharp knife point first between two vertebrae and rotate to sever.

You cut leather with a special leather cutting tool which is super sharp and fine. You wont get the same results with a knife designed for cutting meat.

[Extra Anchovies]

Eh, leather is tough and has been treated. Have you seen how special forces are trained to kill someone silently? One of the ways is to slip a knife in behind the windpipe and cut forward, severing the windpipe and carotid artery. Thats 50% of the thickness right there. The tough part is the spinal column, but a skilled butcher or hunter should be able to slip a sharp knife point first between two vertebrae and rotate to sever.

That's not a sunder. That's an extra 1d6 damage from sneak attack, because special forces have levels in rogue :smallbiggrin:

[heavyfuel]

So, execution or execution style, coup de gras. Butchery, 5 minutes for a human. 10-12 for an orc or dwarf. Lots of muscle there. Maybe only 3 for an elf.

Why?

It would be more execution style. Guy is dead, but his corpse remains, so you cut of the head so he can't be raised with a Raise Dead spell. This particular beheading would be something along the lines of holding the corpse by the hair and using an ultra sharp (crit 15-20 x4) blade to cut the head off.

However, I don't think the style should matter as I'm looking for more of a general rule. Similar to how wood has hardness 5 and 10 HP per inch (is this right? I'm AFB right now and can't find this in the SRD)

So it takes 15 damage to break through an inch of wood. How much damage does it take to break through a neck?


I'd assume you'd work down from this:

Leather or hide 2 5/inch of thickness

Neck circumferences range from around 13 for a small man to the low twenties for power lifters. One third of circumference is safe enough for this instance.

From what I just Googled and common sense, 13 inches seems about right if a bit small. Lets assume 16 inches, which gives a diameter of little more than 5 inches.

I agree that hide is thicker than human skin, since humans don't get a Nat AC bonus I think it's safe to assume Hardness 0 for skin. But what about muscle and bone? Muscle might be hardness 1. Bones are actually quite hard so about 7 hardness seems right.

But what about HP per inch?


Hardness: 0. Hit points: equal to target character's HP.

If you want hit locations, use the called shot rules (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/called-shots).

Please read the OP. There is no current HP because the target is already dead. I want to behead a corpse (an object) not a character (a creature)

[Lightlawbliss]

Skin is comparable to cloth: 0 hardness and 2 hp/in

Muscle density depends on the person. That guy who swings a great-sword like a toothpick while wearing mountain plate and having a tower shield and 5 backup weapons on his back might literally have stone hard muscles (hardness 8 and 15 hp/in). The guy who body builds for volume might have muscles that makes glass look strong (you could literally be looking at mostly water).

Bone Armor and it's stats are given somewhere, I'm forgetting where.

[atemu1234]

Better question: what would the severed parts weigh?

[heavyfuel]

Skin is comparable to cloth: 0 hardness and 2 hp/in

Muscle density depends on the person. That guy who swings a great-sword like a toothpick while wearing mountain plate and having a tower shield and 5 backup weapons on his back might literally have stone hard muscles (hardness 8 and 15 hp/in). The guy who body builds for volume might have muscles that makes glass look strong (you could literally be looking at mostly water).

Bone Armor and it's stats are given somewhere, I'm forgetting where.

This is a fair argument and all, but the same argument could be made for the various types of stones and wood that exists, and yet, the game only has a single value for hardness/hp of "wood" and "stone". As far as I know, there is no stats for "oak" or "ash" or "granite". You get the point.

Give me something average. Just so I can have a guideline to build from.

Edit: Doesn't the Dark Sun setting have bone armors? I don't remember if AD&D had a Hardness system, but maybe 4e has one. Anyone know of this?

[Jowgen]

According to Arms and Equipment guide, bone has hardness 6, and bone weapon hp ranges from 1 (tiny weapon/dagger) to 3 (large weapon/ greatsword). It doesn't give hp/inch, but those should definently be within the 1-3 range.

As bone represents the hardest part of the common physical body, it should probably be the main guideline for chopping a head off. If you want to be able to take the head off in one go, you need to overcome the bone's hardness; so to keep it simple and straightforward, I'd personally give the hardness of bone to the whole neck, and then set the overall HP at a fraction of what it would roughtly be like if the whole thing was bone, plus size , constitution and other bonuses.

My recommeded stats for a human's neck: Hardness = 6; HP= 5 + Con-mod

[heavyfuel]

Thanks for the reference to A&EG Jowgen! It does sound about right that little homebrew, and the additional info about 1 HP bone dagger will work for things like fingers if I ever want to give them a go.

[Jowgen]

Thanks for the reference to A&EG Jowgen! It does sound about right that little homebrew, and the additional info about 1 HP bone dagger will work for things like fingers if I ever want to give them a go.

It's what I do. :smallcool:

[Taveena]

Book of Vile Darkness, in one of its few dalliances with half-competency, includes a section on DCs for execution! Beheading is a Profession (Executioner) check. Failing it means you just do coup de grace damage.