D&D 3E/3.5 Hardness. Dumbest rule in 3E?

[JacktheRabbit]

Ok, I pull out my +4 dagger and stab a stone door with hardness 10. Since I have a 10 strength I cannot possibly do damage to the door unless I roll a critical.

On the other hand when I attack a Stone Golem my weapon does full damage with every hit.

Uhhh, excuse me?

Has anyone ever thrown out hardness as being poorly written? Hardness in my opinion isnt needed when a simple DR can do the job just as well.

Opinions?

 

[Crothian]

So, you want stone to have DR 10/- now?

 

[JacktheRabbit]

That would make more sense to me. I see no reason why an iron door with a hardness of 10 should be more resistant to damage than a iron golem with dr 30/+3 from my little +4 dagger wielded by a halfing.

 

[Ciaran]

Well, the stone golem has a DR of 30/+2, so I think he's saying that if the +2 weapon can inflict full damage on a golem, it should inflict full damage on the wall. Right?

- Eric

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Exactly.

Well, the stone golem has a DR of 30/+2, so I think he's saying that if the +2 weapon can inflict full damage on a golem, it should inflict full damage on the wall. Right?

- Eric

 

[Kweezil]

The simple solution would then be to give golems hardness/DR appropriate to their material instead of DR x/+n. Personally, I'm guessing that's what 3.5 will do.

 

[Gez]

Ok, I pull out my +4 dagger and stab a stone door with hardness 10. Since I have a 10 strength I cannot possibly do damage to the door unless I roll a critical.

And since doors don't have a metabolism, you can't get critical hits against them (otherwise, you would coup-de-grâce them each round, they are helpless; and they would probably fail the saving throw against destruction since, with no Con score nor HD, their Fort save is 0).

 

[rounser]

they are helpless

Until they fall on you, yes.

 

[Tonguez]

Yeah I always thought Hardness was stoopid and hurt my brain so I hoauseruled thatHardness = DR x/-

 

[Celebrim]

Errr... with a few exceptions, Hardness X and DR X/-, are the same things. The most significant difference is that DR does not protect from energy damage, where hardness does.

So a door with hardness 10 and DR 10/- both are resistant to your meager dagger +2. which in my opinion is perfectly desirable.

In my opinion, that you can do full damage to a Stone Golem with a dagger +3 but not the Stone Wall, is not the fault of the hardness rules but a fault of the creator of the Stone Golem, who should have given the Stone Golem DR 10/- and or instead of DR 35/+2. But that a stone wall should be perfectly resistant to your little knife doesn't bother me in the slightest.

As a side note, I might allow a critical against a stone wall, but only if the player had successfully made a Craft(Stonework) or Knowledge(Architecture) check of reasonable difficulty - simply because I as a DM love calling for obscure and seldom taken skills.