What's your take on: Weapons vs Wall Hardness

[Ualaa]

One of the players in my group regularly decides to chop his way through doors, or if it is an Adamantine door and resistant to bashing then he goes for the surrounding wall to tunnel his way around the obstruction.

At our level, and his level of optimization, as a Aegis/Fighter (2H archetype)/Soulknife he hits for around 40 on average. That's enough damage to destroy a Greatsword (after hardness), which his Mindblade resembles. It's also enough to overcome the hardness of metal, stone, or wood.

Even if he breaks his Mindblade, he can just create another one... so he effectively has infinite weapons.

How long would it take to smash through a 5 ft. x 5 ft. x 5ft. square of rock, or to smash the thinner wall surrounding a door?
It is a rather noisy process, and already attracts wandering monsters if any are present.

[Psyren]

Hardness aside, Stone has 15HP per inch of thickness. That means a 5ft. square of stone has 900 hit points, and the resulting rubble should result in difficult terrain to boot, and we haven't even gotten to the effects if he smashes through something load-bearing or loudly attracts monsters.

In short, you have lots of ways to discourage this behavior.

[icefractal]

I believe the 15 hp/inch is for a 10x10 area. So to make a 5' hole, it would just be 225 hp (for a 5' thick wall) - still a lot, but not too long out of combat. And is that really an issue? At the point when people can slice up a stone or iron golem, why would a non-animate wall pose much problem? Not to mention, spells have been bypassing walls and doors for a while by that point.

Adamantine doors attached to an ordinary stone wall have always been questionable - stick them on an adamantine vault or why bother? Although a thin layer of adamantine for the hardness could be worthwhile.

There are options for a secure door though. One is a door that's actually a portal, either to another location (maybe a sealed chamber deep underground) or to a demiplane. Smash it open? Ok, now you have a broken portal, congratulations.

[Psyren]

I believe the 15 hp/inch is for a 10x10 area.

I just checked my CRB and it doesn't specify anything like that. Could you point me to this?

[icefractal]

I just checked my CRB and it doesn't specify anything like that. Could you point me to this?http://www.d20srd.org/srd/dungeons.htm#walls
First footnote on the wall table.

[Extra Anchovies]

Have one or two of the wall segments turn out to be load-bearing and your players will become a lot more cautious.


At our level, and his level of optimization, as a Aegis/Fighter (2H archetype)/Soulknife he hits for around 40 on average. That's enough damage to destroy a Greatsword (after hardness), which his Mindblade resembles. It's also enough to overcome the hardness of metal, stone, or wood.

Even if he breaks his Mindblade, he can just create another one... so he effectively has infinite weapons.

I'm imagining them taking out a chunk of the wall and breaking their mindblade with the same swing, creating a new mindblade, breaking it against the wall, then making another mindblade...

[Topaz]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/dungeons.htm#walls
First footnote on the wall table.

That's d20, not Pathfinder, but the 10'x10' section note is also in the Pathfinder CRB (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/environment.html).

It's also worthwhile noting this section in the CRB under Smashing an object (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/additionalRules.html#smashing-an-object): "Ineffective Weapons: Certain weapons just can't effectively deal damage to certain objects. For example, a bludgeoning weapon cannot be used to damage a rope. Likewise, most melee weapons have little effect on stone walls and doors, unless they are designed for breaking up stone, such as a pick or hammer."

So you are perfectly justified in describing how his swings are making small gashes in the wall.

[Shackel]

I feel like going down the route of a blade breaking because its damage exceeds a certain amount could lead to a lot of trouble for martials, since high damage is really the best thing they've got. It also brings up questions of "Well that guy just hit me for 90 damage with his axe, shouldn't it shatter?" or "If this guy has DR 15 and I overcome it, what's the point if I just start dealing damage to my own weapon?"

[Extra Anchovies]

I feel like going down the route of a blade breaking because its damage exceeds a certain amount could lead to a lot of trouble for martials, since high damage is really the best thing they've got. It also brings up questions of "Well that guy just hit me for 90 damage with his axe, shouldn't it shatter?" or "If this guy has DR 15 and I overcome it, what's the point if I just start dealing damage to my own weapon?"

Perhaps it could only function when attacking objects with hardness. First thing that comes to mind is that if the damage to the target is (raw damage – target's hardness), the damage to the weapon could be (damage to target – weapon's hardness), or (raw damage – target's hardness – weapon's hardness). That could still run into some problems, but it could be further modified by a) only applying when the weapon is inappropriate for the targeted object, e.g. breaking stone with a sword, or b) only using damage from the weapon's dice, the wielder's Strength, and Power Attack in place of the raw damage for calculating damage to the weapon, i.e. (weapon dice result + str (or str*1.5 if two-handed) + power attack – target's hardness – weapon's hardness).

[Psyren]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/dungeons.htm#walls
First footnote on the wall table.

I was referring to the Breaking and Entering (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/additionalRules.html#breaking-and-entering) table which describes stone as 15hp per inch of thickness. However, yours is more specific if we're talking about a 10x10 wall.

[Knitifine]

I am going to chime into the choir of people saying "Busting down a load bearing wall is a bad idea".

[Malroth]

I say let the entire dungeon hear this wanton destruction, fully buff themselves and all attack at the same time since there's no possibility this process is any quieter than a jackhammer. but if all the monsters are already dead go ahead and let him smash through the walls.

[weckar]

Psh, hardness. Come back when you have an adamantine sledgehammer.

[icefractal]

Re: Blades breaking / attacks are ineffective ... well, it doesn't work so nicely when you consider that some enemies are, in fact, made of stone or metal. And applying the same rule to those is going to lead to some very sad martial types. And in this particular case, it really wouldn't change things - Soulblade.

Also, I again have to ask - is it a big deal that people can break down walls? Wizards have been skipping doors (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/create-pit) since 3rd level, after all. It's not like it makes lockpicking obsolete, since lockpicking doesn't give your enemies several rounds of forewarning or leave a blatant sign you've been there.

As for key-fetching quests, I'd be happy to leave those to video games for the most part. But if you do want to do them, there are plenty of other options besides a standard door.

[Sian]

And if you really want to, you can still have Key-fetching quests, but have it not searching for a key to a specific door but rather a key that lets you use a mechanism to lower a drawbridge on the far side of a chasm or something (of cause, fly would still break this, but magic can break most non-magical encounters without breaking a sweat anyways)

[gtwucla]

It's also worthwhile noting this section in the CRB under Smashing an object (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/additionalRules.html#smashing-an-object): "Ineffective Weapons: Certain weapons just can't effectively deal damage to certain objects. For example, a bludgeoning weapon cannot be used to damage a rope. Likewise, most melee weapons have little effect on stone walls and doors, unless they are designed for breaking up stone, such as a pick or hammer."

So you are perfectly justified in describing how his swings are making small gashes in the wall.

This. With that said, you could make an argument that that doesn't apply to magic weapons (at least powerful ones).

[CasualViking]

Locks, doors, even walls - none of this keep a determined intruder out. Practical breaching happens by 1) not being disturbed, because there's no-one close enough your breaching process to see or hear or smell anything suspicious in the time it takes to breach, 2) Breaching very quickly, leaving responders insufficient time to organize and arrive, 3) a combination of 1 and 2, or 4) just spending a noisy hour drilling and sawing and smashing, because nobody considers it their problem to respond.

[Mehangel]

It's also worthwhile noting this section in the CRB under Smashing an object (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/additionalRules.html#smashing-an-object): "Ineffective Weapons: Certain weapons just can't effectively deal damage to certain objects. For example, a bludgeoning weapon cannot be used to damage a rope. Likewise, most melee weapons have little effect on stone walls and doors, unless they are designed for breaking up stone, such as a pick or hammer."

So you are perfectly justified in describing how his swings are making small gashes in the wall.

Something else I wanted to point out is that 90% (maybe more) of souknives can change the damage type and appearance of their mindblade as a full-round action (using the shape mindblade class feature). So changing their mindblade to become shaped like a pick or hammer isn't exactly out of the question.

I am also, like may others of the opinion, WHY is it so bad if a martial can bypass walls or doors, when a wizard of equal level could do it with a single spell? Also, if it is really necessary to discourage them, use load-bearing walls.

[gtwucla]

Something else I wanted to point out is that 90% (maybe more) of souknives can change the damage type and appearance of their mindblade as a full-round action (using the shape mindblade class feature). So changing their mindblade to become shaped like a pick or hammer isn't exactly out of the question.

I am also, like may others of the opinion, WHY is it so bad if a martial can bypass walls or doors, when a wizard of equal level could do it with a single spell? Also, if it is really necessary to discourage them, use load-bearing walls.

Actually now that you've said that... If we're talking breaking through medieval type stone walls, like as in a castle or manor or basically anything with multiple stories, they're ALL load bearing walls. So in a lot of cases it's not even a matter of should you punish the player by making it a load bearing wall, it just is, and bummer if it collapses.

[icefractal]

Actually now that you've said that... If we're talking breaking through medieval type stone walls, like as in a castle or manor or basically anything with multiple stories, they're ALL load bearing walls. So in a lot of cases it's not even a matter of should you punish the player by making it a load bearing wall, it just is, and bummer if it collapses.Although then you have the counter issue - if a major part of a castle can be collapsed by someone smashing through a few 5' sections of wall, what kind of fool would live inside a castle? Also, while smashing a hole in an arbitrary wall looks cooler, it's probably more practical just to smash the area around the door's hinges, which I have a harder time seeing as load bearing.

[gtwucla]

Although then you have the counter issue - if a major part of a castle can be collapsed by someone smashing through a few 5' sections of wall, what kind of fool would live inside a castle? Also, while smashing a hole in an arbitrary wall looks cooler, it's probably more practical just to smash the area around the door's hinges, which I have a harder time seeing as load bearing.

That would be because there's generally support around a door, like an arch. That likewise, if smashed, would collapse. I mean we could just say all castles and such are reinforced with magic, so its not so much a problem, otherwise the traditional castle resident wasn't too worried about someone smashing through a castle wall. So in a world like this, is wall smashing so common that living in a castle would be impractical? Maybe. But then why live a stone structure at all.

[Zanos]

I don't really have an issue with martial characters destroying walls.

Druids/Clerics get stone shape at level 5, wizards get it at 7, and I think there's a few teleportation effects that let wizards bypass walls at low levels, although it might not help the party much.

As far as time, you're looking at 3 attacks for standard masonry, 6 for reinforced, 17 for hewn stone, 29 for unworked stone, and 3 for iron, based on Pathfinders walls table.

So yeah, by the time he's through, everything on the other side will have readied actions to attack him(or be long gone), probably be fully buffed, and they'll have had to fight every monster on their side of the wall. Considering the party, presumably, has to get through the door somehow, I don't really take issue with them choosing the least effective loudest possible method.

[CharonsHelper]

So yeah, by the time he's through, everything on the other side will have readied actions to attack him

That's why he should take


When you smash your way into a room, you gain more than just the element of surprise.

Prerequisite(s): Str 15, Power Attack, base attack bonus +5.

Benefit(s): Before starting combat, you can attempt to break through a door, window, or wall to enter a room.

If you succeed, the violence of your arrival is so great that all characters within 20 feet of your entry point must succeed at a Fortitude saving throw (DC = 10 + your base attack bonus) or be stunned instead of acting in the surprise round (if there is one) plus 1 round thereafter. Characters who succeed at this save are instead shaken for 1d4 rounds.

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