| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Wenin |
Posted - 05 Dec 2010 : 20:02:38
Last night while running my game, I had a series of strong oak doors. The party used various solid pieces of furniture as improvised battering rams. Then the final door was an Iron bound door hardness 10 hp 60. They got through all the doors, but I just made up checks as we went along.
I was wondering how the rules hand this, and I couldn't find anything in the 3.5 DMG.
Thoughts? |
| 4 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 05 Dec 2010 : 20:47:18
Well, yeah. Think about it in real terms, not game mechanics. If you keep smashing two things together, they're both going to continue being damaged until one is destroyed. Blades get dulled and nicked, armor and shields get dented and punctured and torn, all these things need minor repairs and maintenance after serious use.
Different things have different structural integrities, geometries, and physical/material properties ("hardness" and "hit points" in D&D terms). An object like a sledgehammer is basically a big heavy lump of solid metal (traditionally a case-hardened or annealed steel-alloyed outer shell around a "softer" and more elastic dense iron core). The kinds of things you'd normally use a sledgehammer against (like wooden doors and structures) are considerably weaker than the hammer and will readily smash into fragments while hardly marking the hammer head with a few insignificant dents and scratches. Sometimes a hammer's wooden handle will break, but really not all that often since it's not where the mass and impact force are concentrated. I'm not a medieval weapons expert, but it seems reasonable to assume that a footman's mace, morning star, or dwarven warhammer is at least as sturdy as a modern sledgehammer, and it seems reasonable to assume that heavy metal-banded medieval doors aren't much tougher than a similar thickness of modern plywood sheets or wooden logs.
Modern day firemen, police, and rescue workers make regular use of large hammers, axes, and rams when they need to force barriers open, and it generally doesn't take them very long to succeed.
You're asking if wooden furniture, or at least big chunks of wood taken from the furniture would work against a reinforced wooden door. I'd say yes, though it would take more time and effort than using better tools. |
| Wenin |
Posted - 05 Dec 2010 : 20:24:34
I was wondering about how objects would interact.... in that would the furniture be taking damage as they are rammed against each other? When you use a weapon against an object, can it take damage as well? |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 05 Dec 2010 : 20:18:21
No rules that I know of, beyond the usual hardness and damage (hit points) per inch of thickness for each material. I'd personally rule that things like doors need not be completely destroyed before they can be forced open enough to allow passage. Big metal weapons could be hammered (like bludgeons) or wedged (like crowbars) to force a door, probably more effectively than wimpy wooden furniture. The hinges and bolts, or the doorframe itself, might break and fail long before the entire door panel was smashed into pulpy toothpicks.
Given sufficient time, any reasonably hard object could be used to batter open any reinforced door. Or cut through hard metals and stone with soft files, or shatter gems with soft stones, or even grind a diamond into dust with pieces of wood. This amount of time can be quite lengthy and a huge volume of soft material might be destroyed in the process. Plus it can also make a lot of noise and attract attention.
Adventurers would do well to pack along a crowbar, sledgehammer, axe, or a metalclad barbarian, plus perhaps pitons, saws, and metal files - even if they lack any skill in opening locks. |
| Erik Scott de Bie |
Posted - 05 Dec 2010 : 20:16:33
My players once did something similar to this, as they lacked a thief/rogue in the party to pick locks and disarm traps. So they just picked up enemy bodies and hurled them at doors until 1) the traps were all done firing, 2) the door was battered open.
That was the bloodiest dungeon EVER.
Basically, I ruled it was like the Strength check to open the door, with a +2 circumstance bonus for ingenuity and use of a ram. You might do something similar.
Cheers |
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