Item Hardness and Hit Points

[Silveras]

In the spirit of my previous thread about Spellbooks, I am posting this one to try to collect the various requirements and issues around tracking Item hardness and hit points. Please advise on any details I may have missed, and make suggestions for how to handle some of the challenges.

General
Items have both hardness and hit points, but HeroLab does not track them now. It is easy enough to write the amount of damage in the margins of a printed character sheet, but there is no way right now to track it in HeroLab itself.

Requirements

• Damaging an item down to 1/2 of its hit points should impose the Broken condition on the item.
• Some special attacks impose the Broken condition if any damage is done (Ex. Babau Demon's slime)
• An attacker damaging an item can choose to destroy it, or leave it with 1 hit point, if the Sunder attack would reduce it to 0 or less hit points.

Challenges

• The information is scattered in the rulebooks, and much must be inferred (see Table 7-12, 7-13, and 7-14 page 175 in the Core Rulebook). These tables in the Equipment chapter of the Core Rulebook define the typical hardness and hit points for example weapon types, but these do not align with other weapon groups (such as from Fighter's training groups). Individual magic item types (potions, scrolls, rods, staves, wands) provide specific values to use, but wondrous items can be anything.. so there is no standard for them.
  
• The ability to use special materials also complicates things, requiring that you reverse-engineer the standard weapon hardness and hit points to find the thickness of "metal" so that the proper proportional hit points from the special material can be used.
  
• Using speical materials does not always improve the entire weapon. A wooden-hafted weapon gains no benefit from changing the metal part from "steel" to "adamantine", because the hardness and hit points are based on the wooden haft.
  
• Sizing matters. Armor, weapons, and shields divide their hit points by 2 for each size below Medium, and double for each size above Medium.
  
• Each +1 of a magic weapon's enhancement bonus adds +2 to hardness and +10 to hit points. There is no similar note regarding armor.
  
• Having a counter show up for each item would make the In-Play tab unusable.
  

Proposal

• Ideally, only those Items which have taken damage should have a tracker appear to track how much damage it has taken. Placing a checkbox similar to the "Equipped" checkbox on the Item's entry could toggle the appearance of the tracker. The Maximum value of the tracker would be the hit points of the Item.
  
• Hardness is mostly informational, and could be added to the tooltip window with Cost and Category for every Item.

 

[Silveras]

As I continue to think about this, another proposal for a possible implementation comes to mind:

Because trying to automate the calculation of hit points is problematic for some items, it may be best to only worry about ones actually being damaged.

An adjustment that allows the user to select a piece of equipment (like the adjustment for Broken does) and enter the hit points manually in a field. Ideally, the field could be initialized with a value from the Item in question, but the expectation would be that only armor, weapons, and magic items with pre-defined hit points would be populated in this way. The adjustment could turn red to alert the user to add the Equipment Broken adjustment for the same item when it reached 1/2 hit points.

 

[bodrin]

I started this some time ago.

Here's the thread link.

I'll try to dig out the file too!

Here's a link to my file and NOTES

 

[ShadowChemosh]

I started this some time ago.

Here's the thread link.

I'll try to dig out the file too!

Here's a link to my file and NOTES

I never finished that as the "Time" it was going to take to do it right I finally decided it was not worth it. Plus as Aaron has said room on the Weapons tab is small and it already has LOTS of information.

Really I later settled on a whole new "Tab" with a new tables/portals to display and work with the information. But that is allot of hours of work for something I think does comes up not very often in actual games. Yes when you need it then it would be nice to have but I can't justify the hours needed to get it done correctly...

 

[Silveras]

That's partially how I got to my second proposal.
The variability of hit points due to magic and special materials makes me think that it is just better to add it to the Adjustment manually when you need to track that piece of equipment's hit points.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

That's partially how I got to my second proposal.
The variability of hit points due to magic and special materials makes me think that it is just better to add it to the Adjustment manually when you need to track that piece of equipment's hit points.

Yeah but the adjustment didn't have a good way to do this really without it being really confusing. It needs a special tab or window (ie like polymorph) has to allow all the "adjusting". Which again can be done but its allot of hours to put together new UI pieces. Or at least it is for me as I do it so little UI scripting.

Hence the "its not worth the time investment for such a little return on investment". But it would be cool too do. Of course if I have time to do UI components I really need to fix the Gestalt addon first....

 

[Silveras]

Yeah but the adjustment didn't have a good way to do this really without it being really confusing. It needs a special tab or window (ie like polymorph) has to allow all the "adjusting". Which again can be done but its allot of hours to put together new UI pieces. Or at least it is for me as I do it so little UI scripting.

Hence the "its not worth the time investment for such a little return on investment". But it would be cool too do. Of course if I have time to do UI components I really need to fix the Gestalt addon first....

Understood.. the purpose of this thread is two-fold.. one, to try to get what is needed described in one place, and two, to try to brainstorm possible implementations. Maybe someone will offer a brilliant suggestion?

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Understood.. the purpose of this thread is two-fold.. one, to try to get what is needed described in one place, and two, to try to brainstorm possible implementations. Maybe someone will offer a brilliant suggestion?

Yep sounds good.

The only thought I had for an adjustment that was not too bad was:
1) It would only work for Weapons/Armor for now.
2) The normal "counter" would be how you track Damage Taken.
3) Change the weapon/armor "Livename" to display the Damage/HP values.
4) Use the "Source" text box to allow someone to type in a "over ride" value for the number of total Hit Points that the item should have.
5) Use a new Helper Pick that stored the number of hit points that each "material" provides plus the base numbers. This would allow people with scripting knowledge to over ride the values for home games.

The above would not be "that" bad....

 

[Jamz]

I must have an unusual game as it seems to happen all the time in my campaign, so would love "anything" towards that goal. (Throw in one ooze and before you know it you have half the party with damaged items)

Auto-calculations would be cool but I'm fine with manual input. Our problem is, we constantly have to look up and calculate the max HP for an item and it's hardness. If we could do that once and store it on said item...

#3 would be "ok" but probably not needed? Adding "Broken" or "Damaged" would be enough but that's not really saving space is it? Preferably an Icon would be better but we can't do that I believe.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

#3 would be "ok" but probably not needed?

Really? I "assumed" players would want to know how much the Hardness/HP value was. And setting it on the weapon 'name' is really the only place I could get it visible.

I would think like your characters HP you would really want to see the Max HP and how much "left" in item HP you have left. Is my weapon almost gone or barely hurt.

Adding "Broken" or "Damaged" would be enough but that's not really saving space is it? Preferably an Icon would be better but we can't do that I believe.

Icon like view would require making a "new" tab to display this information or LW doing it. Just FYI...

 

[Silveras]

Long-term, it sounds like it needs to be something like this:

Step 1 would be for LoneWolf to add Hardness and Hit Points as fields on Equipment.

Step 2 would be to expose those fields in the Custom Weapon and Custom Armor forms... strictly manual entry, but they could at least be populated ... and I think it would cover most of the common usage situations.

Step 3 would be the adjustment that ShadowChemosh mentioned above... or at least the first 3 of his 5 items in it. Later enhancements could build out the other values.

Step 4 would be for LoneWolf to add support for the hardness and hit points of special materials (addressing point #5 in ShadowChemosh's list above).

Step 5 would be to expose these new fields in the Editor (probably grouped with Cost and Weight, as they are really common to all item types). Defaulting the values on some types of Magic Items (potions, wands, etc.) would be workable.

Step 6 would be a large, but low-priority and slow, data entry effort to "back-fill" the hardness and hit points of existing items. For anything with a missing hit point value, the field used in #4 of ShadowChemosh's list would provide the Max value for the counter.


I think changing the livename when the item becomes 'Broken' is more important than showing the gradual depletion of hit points. If it could be both without becoming too long, that would be best, of course.

 

[TheIronGolem]

Adding "Broken" to the livename when appropriate sounds like an excellent idea to me. It provides an immediate explanation to the user as to why their to-hit and damage went down. A HP counter does that too, but only if you happen to remember that weapons are considered broken at 1/2 HP or below, and that comes up infrequently enough that most players probably don't know that by heart.

 

[Silveras]

Adding "Broken" to the livename when appropriate sounds like an excellent idea to me. It provides an immediate explanation to the user as to why their to-hit and damage went down. A HP counter does that too, but only if you happen to remember that weapons are considered broken at 1/2 HP or below, and that comes up infrequently enough that most players probably don't know that by heart.

Right.. the existing "Equipment Broken" adjustment does that now.

The wrinkle is that there are some things (the example I mentioned above was the Babau Demon's slime) that give the broken condition if ANY damage is done to the weapon ... at least, that's how it reads to me. So leaving it to the user to manually add the "Equipment Broken" adjustment seems like the most effective short-term answer.

Naturally, if the same effect could be achieved with the counter, that would be better.

 

[Jamz]

Really? I "assumed" players would want to know how much the Hardness/HP value was. And setting it on the weapon 'name' is really the only place I could get it visible.

I would think like your characters HP you would really want to see the Max HP and how much "left" in item HP you have left. Is my weapon almost gone or barely hurt.


Icon like view would require making a "new" tab to display this information or LW doing it. Just FYI...

Well, there's not that much you can do about it, so knowing the up to date HP seems unnecessary? As long as you could view it somewhere else and/or it only showed HP if damaged, either way is ok.

I wouldn't turn it down but if it makes it easier not to do, I would be ok with it also? I'm just kind of concerned with the length of the weapon name, they already don't wrap and can scroll off the side in some panels.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

(the example I mentioned above was the Babau Demon's slime) that give the broken condition if ANY damage is done to the weapon ... at least, that's how it reads to me.

Correct about the any damage wording. The problem is that Babau demon slime damage by the RAW rules can not hurt an average non-magical longsword. Let along a magic longsword.

By RAW acid damage vs objects is half damage and it only does 1d8 damage to start with. Metal starts at hardness 10 which reduces elemental damage like DR. So even if NOT half damage the slime could not hurt the weapon anyways. LOL

I assume most DMs play it that its not half dmg and bypasses hardness. IMHO the most was is full damage and it treats weapons as half hardness leaving Adamatine immune. But its not what it actually says in the statblock.

Sorry couldn't resist as it came up during the RotW AP.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Well, there's not that much you can do about it, so knowing the up to date HP seems unnecessary? As long as you could view it somewhere else and/or it only showed HP if damaged, either way is ok.

Fair point.

I wouldn't turn it down but if it makes it easier not to do, I would be ok with it also? I'm just kind of concerned with the length of the weapon name, they already don't wrap and can scroll off the side in some panels.

I totally agree with the Weapon Name length issue. One of the reasons why I started thinking a new tab or something was really needed.

Thanks for the feedback. Always good to hear other thoughts on the matter. Especially before I go and create anything.

 

[Silveras]

Correct about the any damage wording. The problem is that Babau demon slime damage by the RAW rules can not hurt an average non-magical longsword. Let along a magic longsword.

By RAW acid damage vs objects is half damage and it only does 1d8 damage to start with. Metal starts at hardness 10 which reduces elemental damage like DR. So even if NOT half damage the slime could not hurt the weapon anyways. LOL

I assume most DMs play it that its not half dmg and bypasses hardness. IMHO the most was is full damage and it treats weapons as half hardness leaving Adamatine immune. But its not what it actually says in the statblock.

Sorry couldn't resist as it came up during the RotW AP.

Yep.. I asked about exactly that on the Paizo message boards a couple of years ago. I don't recall there being any official answer, though.

 

[Majuba]

[*]Each +1 of a magic weapon's enhancement bonus adds +2 to hardness and +10 to hit points. There is no similar note regarding armor.

The "similar note" is in the footnotes of the "Common Armor, Weapon, and Shield Hardness and Hit Points" Table - The same +2/+10 applies.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

The "similar note" is in the footnotes of the "Common Armor, Weapon, and Shield Hardness and Hit Points" Table - The same +2/+10 applies.

Cool thanks. I knew it applied to armor but couldn't remember "where" in Pathfinder it said.

 

[Silveras]

The "similar note" is in the footnotes of the "Common Armor, Weapon, and Shield Hardness and Hit Points" Table - The same +2/+10 applies.

Unfortunately, that's not necessarily the case.

The note I am referring to is the explicit paragraph in the description of Magic Weapons (p.468 of the Core Rulebook). "Hardness and Hit Points". The text here re-states that each +1 of enhancement adds +2 to Hardness and +10 hit points. It then refers the reader to the table 7-12. However, there is no such paragraph in the description of armor.

Because the rule is that when the text and table don't agree, the text takes precedence, it is at best unclear... and a strict reading would say it does not apply to armor the same way.