Do enchanted items have higher hardness/hp? (3.5)

[Harperfan7]

Let's say I have an +1 adamantine light shield.

It has a hardness of 20 and (I figure) 13 hp.

This is really easy to sunder.

I think it ought to be harder.

[Scoot]

Shield Hardness and Hit Points
Each +1 of enhancement bonus adds 2 to a shield’s hardness and +10 to its hit points.

This is from SRD.

I thought something like this applied to weapons and other armor but I'm having trouble finding it.

Same applies to Weapons.

[Eldariel]

There's a Hardness-bonus for enhancement. More precisely, +2 Hardness, +10 HP for every +1. Same goes for weapons. Also, I recall a weapon needs enhancement bonus equal or larger to the enhancement bonus of the to-be-sundered weapon to damage it.

EDIT: Here is the generic rule for +2 Hardness, +10 HP. Took some time to find it.

EDIT#2: Peculiarly, I can't find the "weapon needs enhancement bonus..." rule right now. Maybe I just fail at searching. I'm pretty confident one exists.

[Harperfan7]

Thanks, folks.

[Iceforge]

There's a Hardness-bonus for enhancement. More precisely, +2 Hardness, +10 HP for every +1. Same goes for weapons. Also, I recall a weapon needs enhancement bonus equal or larger to the enhancement bonus of the to-be-sundered weapon to damage it.

EDIT: Here is the generic rule for +2 Hardness, +10 HP. Took some time to find it.

EDIT#2: Peculiarly, I can't find the "weapon needs enhancement bonus..." rule right now. Maybe I just fail at searching. I'm pretty confident one exists.

I think the #2 you are talking about is a house-rule.

I remember a house-rule my old group had to deal with the problem of weak items sundering hard items was that both items in a sunder takes damage, but based on the "to-hit" roll, the damage of each blow was reduced to the attacking items, iirc it was on a 2:1 convertion ratio, so if you needed a 10 to hit, rolled a 18, your weapon took 4 less damage than it dealt and thus had a higher chance of it all being soaked by it's hardness than the item it was hitting, that would mean that, with all else being equal, a +1 item hitting a +2 item would need to hit with 3 higher than the enemy to deal more damage to that item than it took itself, giving a 10% chance of it being sundered just as much itself and with 10 fewer hit-points, that could prove to make it a bad idea to sunder the better item.

[Claudius Maximus]

EDIT#2: Peculiarly, I can't find the "weapon needs enhancement bonus..." rule right now. Maybe I just fail at searching. I'm pretty confident one exists.

I'm pretty sure that was a 3.0 rule that was not kept.

[Gorbash]

First of all, it's not an enchanted item, it's an enhanced item. You enchant a person, you enhance an object.

Second of all, DMG errata contains a correction you're looking for:

Hardness and Hit Points
Dungeon Master’s Guide, page 222
Problem: The first paragraph is not consistent with similar
information for shields on page 217.
Solution: Delete the first sentence after the boldface header.
Change the next sentence to read as follows:
Each +1 of enhancement bonus adds 2 to a weapon’s or
shield’s hardness and +10 to its hit points.

[Eldariel]

I'm pretty sure that was a 3.0 rule that was not kept.

Yeah, so it seems. God, why can't they keep sensible rules around :/ It just confuses me. Though I recall reading it in some 3.X rule, but I don't trust my memory anymore. Check at 3.0 PHB reveals that's the first sentence in Sunder there tho.

[Foryn Gilnith]

What is this mysterious rule?

[Worira]

First of all, it's not an enchanted item, it's an enhanced item. You enchant a person, you enhance an object.

Second of all, DMG errata contains a correction you're looking for:

It's also, by virtue of the English language, an enchanted weapon.

[Gorbash]

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfile...rminology.html

[Foryn Gilnith]

I'm inclined to ignore his whining out of principle.

[Shalist]

Yeah, so it seems. God, why can't they keep sensible rules around :/ It just confuses me. Though I recall reading it in some 3.X rule, but I don't trust my memory anymore. Check at 3.0 PHB reveals that's the first sentence in Sunder there tho.

You're remembering it right, kinda :P

.....The DMG says that only a magic weapon with the same or higher enhancement bonus can sunder another magic weapon or a magic shield, but the text for the sunder attack in the PH doesn’t mention this.
.....Also, the DMG says a magic item gets one extra point of hardness and one extra hit point per +1 of enhancement bonus. The PH, however, says it gets +2 hardness and +10 hit points per +1 of enhancement bonus. Which is correct?
.....Finally, what happens when a weapon or shield has a special quality that increases the item’s price as an additional enhancement bonus? Does the item gain hardness and hit points for that extra enhancement bonus? What about magic items that don’t have enhancement bonuses? Do they get any extra hardness or hit points? When a special material gives a nonmagical enhancement bonus, such as adamantine, does the item gain any extra hardness or hit points from that bonus?


.....You can sunder a magic item with any kind of weapon; you don’t need something with an equal or higher enhancement bonus. Text to the contrary (found on page 222 of the DMG) is erroneous. A magic item gains +2 hardness and +10 hit points per point of enhancement bonus, as noted in the PH (page 165).
.....Both of these corrections are noted in the DMG errata file. A magic item gains extra hardness and hit points only for the enhancement bonus that it actually has, not for the effective enhancement bonus used to calculate its price. For example, a +1 flaming burst longsword costs as much as a +3 longsword.
.....A +1 flaming burst longsword has hardness 12 and 15 hit points whereas a +3 longsword has hardness 16 and 35 hit points.
Magic items that have no enhancement bonuses—which is almost everything except weapons, shields, and armor—have no extra hardness or hit points. For example, a paper scroll has a hardness of 0 and 1 hit point, no matter how many spells it contains.
.....Adamantine itself doesn’t provide a nonmagical enhancement bonus; an adamantine item is always a masterwork item, so an adamantine weapon gives you a +1 enhancement bonus on attack rolls. Masterwork items don’t have any extra hardness or hit points.

(.....'s just for formatting the big wall of text)

[Dimers]

I'm pretty sure that was a 3.0 rule that was not kept.

Nope, here it is: "A weapon with a special ability must have at least a +1 enhancement bonus." Likewise armor and shields.

[Eldariel]

Nope, here it is: "A weapon with a special ability must have at least a +1 enhancement bonus." Likewise armor and shields.

That's not what we were looking for. See Shalist's reply for more detail.

[Otodetu]

The rule stating that you cannot sunder a magical weapon with a lower "+x" enhancement modifier weapon is found in the dmg (real paper book ), I guess that detail is copyrighted or something...

[Eldariel]

The rule stating that you cannot sunder a magical weapon with a lower "+x" enhancement modifier weapon is found in the dmg (real paper book ), I guess that detail is copyrighted or something...

Apparently it's a remainder from 3.0 and got errata'd out. See Shalist's reply.

[Otodetu]

Apparently it's a remainder from 3.0 and got errata'd out. See Shalist's reply.

So it has been errataed out then, to bad as it made a lot of sense.
(found the entry in the dmg btw)

[Milskidasith]

So it has been errataed out then, to bad as it made a lot of sense.
(found the entry in the dmg btw)

It made a lot of sense? No it didn't. To give a real world analogue, just because my TV is made out of high quality materials doesn't mean I can't bash it with a cheap hammer and break the screen, it just takes longer than if I was beating a low quality TV. That's why magic items ave higher hardness and HP, after all.

The entire concept of a +1 weapon (which in itself is an abstract concept like HP) being entirely unable to scratch a +2 weapon, but a +2 weapon being able to snap it in half, breaks suspension of disbelief and is making the fluff run on abstractions (much like if doctors in the D&D world started saying "You're fine, that stab only took one hit point, get the cleric to CM(inor)W if it bothers you that much" and not "You only got scratched, but Jeff over there can patch it up if it bothers you that much."

[satorian]

The opposite is true, I'd say. Fantasy and mythic literature is full of tales of mystical weapons that cut lesser blades like so much bamboo. It has nothing to do with materials, or well, not necessarily (Hephaestus forged items in some stories used special metals, but it was not those metals, but the fact that a god made them that made them special). Anduril and Excalibur are imbued with the mystical powers of awesome, not merely an alloy with a certain amount of cobalt in them, as your real world example would indicate.

Magic items simply are not special because of their material. Magic is not a material. You take a well made sword composed of normal high quality steel (masterwork, in the rules) and you enchant it. Now it is harder and stronger and sharper and lighter because it is bound with the power of the cosmos, the gods, the aura of Chuck Norris, whatever, but in no way a material.