Attacking Objects

[RSP]

This came up in our game and I was actually a little surprised on the rules for objects (which we found aren’t very well fleshed out in general, though that’s not horribly surprising coming from the DMG).

From a RAW standpoint, I’d imagine any attack against an object that isn’t held or on a character’s person, should be at Advantage due to the object being incapable of seeing the attacker, however, that’s not spelled out in the rules for objects.

From a narrative view, it makes sense as well (in my opinion, anyway), as without that applying, it basically means it’s easier to hit a blinded character that knows where the attacker is and can still take defensive tactics like interposing a shield or whatnot, than it is to hit a stationary, immobile object.

However, one would think the RAW would have flat out stated all attacks against objects would get Advantage if that’s what the RAI had wanted.

Thoughts?

[DevilMcam]

Objects have fairly low ac compares to creatures i think this is how they made it work.
It also let you use advantage granting features against object

[MinotaurWarrior]

Have you ever done demo?

If you hit something the wrong way, your hit won't damage it. Especially if you're rushed and distracted (eg in combat, worried about being attacked yourself), you are liable to hit it the wrong way.

I wouldn't give most objects a high AC, but I think it's fair that they get an AC to represent their baseline resistance to misaimed blows, and that advantage can be acquired by, for example, an ally helping steady the object or point out the weak spot or whatever is appropriate.

Imo the main issue is that 3e style DR actually feels more appropriate on objects than resistance / Immunity. A standard door IMO should have DR 10/- Slashing. A normal guy with a knife will never slash through it, but a Goliath with a two handed slashing weapon will cut through it eventually.

[ScoutTrooper]

My party got Shatterspike from Sunless Citadel, and has also been further influence to twin spell or quicken casts of Shatter to break down obstacles. If a player is bent on breaking through an object, even one with a listed AC. I just roll a d4 and tell them how many minutes it takes them and describe the scene.

If it was during combat or a timing initiative for trap or lair action sequence, I use a weird blend of object size vs retaliative HP (There's a table in the DMG, I believe a few pages ahead of the object AC list).

[Mith]

Have you ever done demo?

If you hit something the wrong way, your hit won't damage it. Especially if you're rushed and distracted (eg in combat, worried about being attacked yourself), you are liable to hit it the wrong way.

I wouldn't give most objects a high AC, but I think it's fair that they get an AC to represent their baseline resistance to misaimed blows, and that advantage can be acquired by, for example, an ally helping steady the object or point out the weak spot or whatever is appropriate.

Imo the main issue is that 3e style DR actually feels more appropriate on objects than resistance / Immunity. A standard door IMO should have DR 10/- Slashing. A normal guy with a knife will never slash through it, but a Goliath with a two handed slashing weapon will cut through it eventually.

What I think would work as a balance is a DR/round akin to THP/round so that one attack/ round likely will not wear it down quickly, but keep the numbers down to reduce gatekeeping of possibilities that 3e style design does and 5e wants to avoid.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

What I think would work as a balance is a DR/round akin to THP/round so that one attack/ round likely will not wear it down quickly, but keep the numbers down to reduce gatekeeping of possibilities that 3e style design does and 5e wants to avoid.

I think gate keeping in regards to destroying objects should be present.
You don't want a group of babies to break the stone wall in their room in the orphanage.
It makes no sense.

[Mith]

I think gate keeping in regards to destroying objects should be present.
You don't want a group of babies to break the stone wall in their room in the orphanage.
It makes no sense.

I guess my thought process is the fact that I figure that halflings should be able to actually do damage to a door over time, and most tools they use do not do enough damage, even though I expect them to be able to use their own tools to take down a door. A halfling weapons that do not deliver disadvantage cannot get over a DR 10 threshold without the halfling to have a STR bonus to damage. Even with disadvantage, the only tool that works is a great axe for 1/6 (roll 11-12).

Babies won't be able to do more than 5 damage to a door, but a kid can do some damage to a door over time.

[MinotaurWarrior]

I guess my thought process is the fact that I figure that halflings should be able to actually do damage to a door over time, and most tools they use do not do enough damage, even though I expect them to be able to use their own tools to take down a door. A halfling weapons that do not deliver disadvantage cannot get over a DR 10 threshold without the halfling to have a STR bonus to damage. Even with disadvantage, the only tool that works is a great axe for 1/6 (roll 11-12).

Babies won't be able to do more than 5 damage to a door, but a kid can do some damage to a door over time.

Well I specifically said DR 10/- Slashing. The halflings slashing with knives should eventually stop and either:

Use tools to deconstruct it with a skill check (pull out nails, unscrew screws, take it off the hinges)

Use a piercing or bludgeoning weapon.

[Mith]

Well I specifically said DR 10/- Slashing. The halflings slashing with knives should eventually stop and either:

Use tools to deconstruct it with a skill check (pull out nails, unscrew screws, take it off the hinges)

Use a piercing or bludgeoning weapon.

Fair enough. My hesitance at DR 10 as well is that I would expect a Fireman's Axe to do good damage to a door, and I believe common d&d ruling would be 1d8.

[Joe the Rat]

How toughness is handled:

AC (See stone vs wood): you have to hit it right enough to do damage.

Resistance and Vulnerability: paper is vulnerable to fire, glass may or may not have acid resistance or immunity, but does have thunder vulnerability. Objects in general IIRC had nonmagic attack resistance, with adamantine weapons bypassing.

Threshold Damage (Ships, Ghosts of Saltmarsh) - a minimum amount of damage is needed to cause harm. However, once that threshold is met, damage applies normally. This gives you the "must be this dangerous to hurt the door" cutoff, with anything less being superficial damage. it also avoids overly inflating object durability by reducing every hit. With a Threshold 5, two 10-point hits are as good as one 20-point hit.

Revising what is present in the DMG, I'd probably downgrade the high AC of some tough items and replace it with a threshold, 1 per x many hp (by material and object size). If a door has threshold 2, it's effectively babyproof. A commoner with an axe will make progress 2/3 of the swings. A glass bottle will hold up for a decent amount of force, but hitting that extra bit goes from whole to shattered.

Combine threshold with resistance / vulnerability, and you can get some specific material qualities - usually around slashing, bludgeoning, piercing, and fire.

[RSP]

I wouldn't give most objects a high AC, but I think it's fair that they get an AC to represent their baseline resistance to misaimed blows, and that advantage can be acquired by, for example, an ally helping steady the object or point out the weak spot or whatever is appropriate.

Imo the main issue is that 3e style DR actually feels more appropriate on objects than resistance / Immunity. A standard door IMO should have DR 10/- Slashing. A normal guy with a knife will never slash through it, but a Goliath with a two handed slashing weapon will cut through it eventually.

In 5e, items have AC based on the hardness of the object, for instance steel is AC 19.

Per the DMG, objects also have DR, but no examples are given as to what the DR of objects should be, just that they have DR. We chose to just have DR match the AC.

Though in this edition, if the DR is overcome, then all damage is taken. So if you do 18 damage to steel, nothing happens. If you do 19 damage, the object takes 19 damage.

So a giant steel crane has AC 19 and is harder to hit than a fighter in Adamantine Plate who is blinded. That seems off to me.

[Karsalem]

I think the real confusion comes from the semantics of the game rules. "Hit Rating" and "Armor Class" are really bad descriptors of what's actually taking place. Better terms might be "Offensive Capability" or "Attack Rating" instead of Hit Rating, and "Defense Rating" or "Damage Mitigation" for Armor Class. Because, too often, when you roll to see if you hit and fail it's considered a "Miss." As if you swing your sword and it sails through the air ineffectually and the goblin standing before you laughs at your clear ineptitude. But what is actually happening in combat is that each one of your attacks is hitting the target but for whatever reason it is not doing damage. It could be that your opponent parried your sword strike with their own sword, or your arrow was blocked by your opponents shield, or the ogres hide was too thick for the Warhammer strike to have any effect. And sometimes, in the case of rolling a 1, your sword does sail through the air impotently and the aforementioned mocking is deserved.

This same thought process applies to objects as well. As one of the other posters pointed out, while you may have no problem hitting an object you may not do any actual damage to that object. The rules in the DMG on page 246 are actually very good for handling objects. More specifically on destroying said objects, which is very different than manipulating objects which we'll talk about later. For example, you come to a wooden door in a dungeon and decide it must be destroyed for some reason. According to the DMG the door would have an AC of 15 and roughly 20HP. With your 1d8dmg Battle Axe it would take you several swings to destroy the door. This is somewhat consistent with reality in that if you had a sturdy door and a fire axe in hand it would take you several swings before you could breach the door. Please see The Shining for examples of this ("Here's Johnny!")

In some cases this scenario is entirely moot as given the right tools and enough time most objects can be destroyed. A DM can simply forgo all of the rolling and say "After several swings the door to the dungeon gives way!" But where this really comes into play is when you are trying to breach the door to the exit of the dungeon while your party desperately tries to fend off a large group of goblins and how many rounds it's going to take to get through that door is important.

Damage Thresholds (DT) should really be reserved for large objects that are designed to withstand normal damage. Castle walls are a good example where a Halfling with a frying pan (1d4dmg) is just not going to be able to breach that castle wall. Only a siege engine or some other high damage capable object can breach the wall. In this case a Trebuchet does on average 44dmg (8d10) so the damage threshold for a generic stone wall could be 40 with an AC of 17 and 300 HP.

Damage Resistance (DR) is fairly straight forward. Certain objects made of certain material take more or less damage depending on the method used to deal said damage.

Difficulty Class (DC) are for when you want to manipulate an object as opposed to destroying it with brute force. Continuing to use the door example above, perhaps the rogue would like to pick the lock, or the tinker gnome wants to disassemble the hinges, of the fighter pulls out his portable ram (PHB pg. 153). This is where the difficulty rating vs applicable skill comes into play. Depending on how easy or hard the task is at hand is dependent on the DM and should be decided on a case by case basis. Even in the case of the portable ram where you would be using the ram to bash the door open, thereby damaging it, it is still considered by RAW a skill check. See DMG pg. 238 for more info on skill checks.

Hope this helps.