Adamantine - Just how good is it at cutting?

[Cheesy74]

So several of my players have adamantine weapons. Because of adamantine's purported "cut through anything" property, their immediate reaction to a barrier is to cut it apart. This strikes me as ridiculous. I mean, diamonds are harder than stone, that doesn't mean they glide through stone without slowing. How do I dissuade my players from using adamantine as a universal knife?

[blackjack217]

DM fiat? House rule? Make them actually look it up because it can cut through hardness or Dr less than 20 it is not an auto cut

[Heliomance]

Sadly, adamantine weapons ignore hardness, meaning they go through everything really easily. Yes, adamantine is just that good at cutting.

[Emperor Ing]

Unfortunately, Adamantine weapons ignore hardness 20 and under, so I recommend just trapping it.

"Oh, what's that? You think you can disable the gynormous pit that'll open beneath you if you attack door? Bad news, that's impossible on this side of the door. "

[Ilmryn]

When cutting through something, you are doing damage to it. Even though adamantium will ignore the hardness of rock, rock tends to have quite a bit of hit points. So yes, adamantium can cut through rock, but it takes a while.

[Drogorn]

Remember that material hit points is generally per inch. While they might be able to cut through a barrier, it will take a while, and it will be noisy unless they want it to take even longer.

[Zaydos]

Adamantine ignores hardness of 20 or less. Items still get hp, though. Using a character with 18 strength and a longsword they could probably cut through !" of leather easily (5 hp), could cut through 1" of wood in one hit (10 hp, so they could do it but it would be difficult), and couldn't cut through 1" of stone in a single blow (15 hp). They'd be likely to leave a noticeable notch but not destroy it.

Now looking at if they were using a greatsword they could reliably cut through 1" of wood (11 in 12 chance), have a chance of cutting through an inch of stone (need to roll a 9 or higher) but couldn't take out 2 full inches of wood in a single blow.

If they have Power Attack and are using a greatsword... assuming Lv 5... they could cut through 2 inches of wood reliably but still not cut through a single inch of steel.

Edit: Also remember the DMG lists increased hardness for magically treated walls.

[mostlyharmful]

the hardness spell is your friend. Adamantine ignores hardness below 20 but hardness 21+ applys in full according to a strict interpretation of the relivant passages. Taking important locations to a relivant hardness in a world where adamantine exists is only reasonable.

[Ernir]

So several of my players have adamantine weapons. Because of adamantine's purported "cut through anything" property, their immediate reaction to a barrier is to cut it apart. This strikes me as ridiculous. I mean, diamonds are harder than stone, that doesn't mean they glide through stone without slowing. How do I dissuade my players from using adamantine as a universal knife?

Adamantine is ridiculous. You are the DM, so you can change the rules text on adamantine, but as is, it is the ultimate can opener.

Anyway, to say something more useful - I'd imagine that even if they can hack through iron and stone without denting their weapon or it even taking very long, they aren't going to do it without everyone within half a mile knowing it. Crushing metal against stone means white-hot sparks, fragments of superheated debris flying everywhere, and a noise that sounds a bit like a plane crash. The Rogue shouldn't sell his lockpick just yet.

[dgnslyr]

A bit more silliness: A warforged with Adamantine Body's slam attack. Would it be considered adamantine? Could he body-slam his way through a wall? Or does adamantine's hardness-bypassing quality only apply to edged weapons?

[Mr.Moron]

It's not instant, but given a decent amount of time it can get through just about anything with hardness less than 20. Standard barriers are still going to present a real problem outside of combat, but when you aren't tracking things round-by-round even thick walls won't stay up for long.

Assuming modest stats a 20ft-thick stone wall might keep a team of characters on the lower end of mid levels armed with adamantine tools at bay for about 10,15 minutes or so of in-game time. Much less if they've got an optimized Power Attacker on board.

You're not going stop them totally short of a house rule changing what adamatine does or some home brew about items breaking from the stress of overuse.

[Zaydos]

Magically treated iron walls have hardness 20. So those can be used when thematically appropriate (Illithids and drow? Yes. Ogres? Probably not).

[Snake-Aes]

A bit more silliness: A warforged with Adamantine Body's slam attack. Would it be considered adamantine? Could he body-slam his way through a wall? Or does adamantine's hardness-bypassing quality only apply to edged weapons?

The hardness bypassing applies to any item made of adamantine, not only edged weapons. You can adamantine hammer your way through rock.

[Heliomance]

Are there any rules for slicing your way through, applying constant pressure and maybe sawing, instead of hacking at it?

[lord_khaine]

A bit more silliness: A warforged with Adamantine Body's slam attack. Would it be considered adamantine? Could he body-slam his way through a wall? Or does adamantine's hardness-bypassing quality only apply to edged weapons?

But a Warforget with Adamantine body does not count as possesing a Adamantine weapon, so it wont work.

Read the description of the feat, it only gives an armor reinforced with an adamantine alloy.

[Ernir]

Are there any rules for slicing your way through, applying constant pressure and maybe sawing, instead of hacking at it?

Hacksaws are described in Dungeonscape. It's still a matter of damage vs. object HP, though.

[Yuki Akuma]

Magically treated iron walls have hardness 20. So those can be used when thematically appropriate (Illithids and drow? Yes. Ogres? Probably not).

Adamantine cares not about your magically treated iron walls!

(It ignores hardness 20 and under. That includes hardness 20. You want hardness 21+.)

Are there any rules for slicing your way through, applying constant pressure and maybe sawing, instead of hacking at it?

Nope, and if there were it would work out to about the same anyway - slicing and sawing takes time.

[Snake-Aes]

Adamantine cares not about your magically treated iron walls!

(It ignores hardness 20 and under. That includes hardness 20. You want hardness 21+.)

This ultrahard metal adds to the quality of a weapon or suit of armor. Weapons fashioned from adamantine have a natural ability to bypass hardness when sundering weapons or attacking objects, ignoring hardness less than 20.

Hardness 20 isn't ignored.

[Zeful]

So several of my players have adamantine weapons. Because of adamantine's purported "cut through anything" property, their immediate reaction to a barrier is to cut it apart. This strikes me as ridiculous. I mean, diamonds are harder than stone, that doesn't mean they glide through stone without slowing. How do I dissuade my players from using adamantine as a universal knife?

Point out the HP totals of walls. A 1ft thick wall has 180 hp per 5ft section. Unless your players are only uberchargers that should take 3-4 rounds to cut a five foot hole through a wall.

[Zaydos]

Adamantine cares not about your magically treated iron walls!

(It ignores hardness 20 and under. That includes hardness 20. You want hardness 21+.)



Nope, and if there were it would work out to about the same anyway - slicing and sawing takes time.

Adamantine is hardness 20; it only ignores those with hardness less than its.

[Prime32]

Note that you cannot sunder with a piercing weapon, and ranged attacks deal half damage.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/exploratio...ingAndEntering

Ineffective Weapons: Certain weapons just can’t effectively deal damage to certain objects.

[The Dark Fiddler]

Note that you cannot sunder with a piercing weapon...

You meant like picks?

[Heliomance]

Nope, and if there were it would work out to about the same anyway - slicing and sawing takes time.

But it's less noisy.

[Tyndmyr]

Yeah, try not to think about that too hard.

My favorite solution is traps. If your default reaction to a door is "hit it a lot", you pretty much guaranteed setting off most types of traps that may be involved with it.

And, obviously, you announce your presence to monsters on the other side. Unless you LIKE opponents getting readied actions or surprise rounds, a little common sense is in order.

[Jack_Simth]

Adamantine is ridiculous. You are the DM, so you can change the rules text on adamantine, but as is, it is the ultimate can opener.

Anyway, to say something more useful - I'd imagine that even if they can hack through iron and stone without denting their weapon or it even taking very long, they aren't going to do it without everyone within half a mile knowing it. Crushing metal against stone means white-hot sparks, fragments of superheated debris flying everywhere, and a noise that sounds a bit like a plane crash. The Rogue shouldn't sell his lockpick just yet.

There's a 2nd level spell that would like to contradict you.

[Gavinfoxx]

That is, of course, unless the party uses Silence regularly...

[AslanCross]

Repeating what everyone has said:

1. Adamatine weapons DON'T glide through barriers; they're just better at breaking them down than anything that doesn't have epic hardness. It will still take a while to open a door.

2. Breaking down a door can have consequences. Noise is one that is dealt with; of course, there's also trapping it and even having the destruction of the door or wall cause structural failure in the building (you don't have to do rocks fall, everyone dies, of course, but falling debris is likely to deal damage and block passages).

[Shhalahr Windrider]

Are there any rules for slicing your way through, applying constant pressure and maybe sawing, instead of hacking at it?

Remember that a damage roll is abstract. A single damage roll can represent 6 seconds of constant pressure or sawing just as much as it can represent a single hack. Heck, a single damage roll could also represent multiple hacks, depending on the item and technique being used.

[Erom]

Summary: your mistake was not letting the adamantine cut through stone - a diamond saw, after all, will go through nearly any stone - but to let it cut through stone *instantly*. Even a diamond blade takes some time to get through stone - multiple hits to wear down the HP, in game terms.

[balistafreak]

There's a similiar problem with the Mountain Hammer strike out of the Tome of Battle, out of the discipline that ALL of the ToB classes have access too.

But it isn't nearly as ridiculous as it seems. Again, to reiterate, time, noise, effort involved, and structural failure.

The failure of one beam in our school caused the entire gym to collapse shortly afterward. Think about that. Perhaps some Knowledge (architecture and engineering) checks to only cut through non-loadbearing areas, and that would be invalidated with many cases of more primitive engineering (i.e. solid stone wall). You can't just cut a man-sized hole in something like that and expect it to not collapse, after all.

Oh yeah, also: the STUFF. In cramped quarters, you have to have somewhere to put your excavated barrier. Remember that the next time the party suggests "Screw it let's burrow out of our cell".