Given enough time, it’s safe to assume that a PC can (and will) destroy most breakable objects. In these cases, the DM decides what a PC can reasonably accomplish. For example, it is reasonable to say a fighter can never cut through a stone wall with a sword but can chop a candle in
half in the time it takes to talk about it.
However, when time is a factor—like cutting through the ropes of a bridge before a horde of angry goblins charges across—giving objects some statistics helps everyone understand what’s achievable. In these situations, use the following rules to determine an object’s armor class and hit points. Objects might also have their own particular set of immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities to damage, but these are generally adjudicated on a case-by-case basis, using common sense.
When a creature is trying to do something besides destroy the object, the DM determines what ability checks are appropriate.
An object’s AC is a measure of how difficult it is to deal damage to the object by striking it. The object can’t dodge, but its AC represents its material resilience. The Object Armor Class table provides suggested AC values for various substances.
| Object Armor Class | |||
| Substance | AC | Substance | AC |
| Cloth, paper, rope | 11 | Iron, steel | 19 |
| Crystal, glass, ice | 13 | Mithral | 21 |
| Wood, bone | 15 | Adamantine | 23 |
| Stone | 17 | ||
An object’s hit points measure how much damage it can take before losing structural integrity. Resilient objects have more hit points than fragile ones. Whether an object is fragile or resilient is up to the DM. Large objects tend to have more hit points than small ones, unless breaking any small part of it breaks the whole thing. The Object Hit Points table provides suggested hit point amounts for fragile and resilient objects that are Large or smaller.
| Object Hit Points | ||
| Size | Fragile | Resilient |
| Tiny (bottle, lock) | 2 (1d4) | 5 (2d4) |
| Small (chest, lute) | 3 (1d6) | 10 (3d6) |
| Medium (barrel, chandelier) | 4 (1d8) | 18 (4d8) |
| Large (cart, 10-ft.-by-10-ft. window) | 5 (1d10) | 27 (5d10) |
Normal weapons are of little use against many Huge and Gargantuan objects, such as a colossal statue, towering column of stone, or massive boulder. That said, one torch can burn a Huge tapestry, and an earthquake spell can reduce a colossus to rubble. You can track a Huge or Gargantuan object’s hit points if you like, though it might be simpler to decide how long the object can withstand whatever force is acting against it and track that. If you do track hit points for the object, divide it into Large or smaller sections, and track each section separately.
Destroying a smaller section could ruin the entire object. For example, a Gargantuan statue of a human might topple over when one of its Large legs is reduced to 0 HP.
Objects are immune to poison and psychic damage. You might decide some damage types are more or less effective against a particular object or substance. For example, bludgeoning damage works well for smashing things but not for cutting through rope or leather. Paper or cloth objects might be vulnerable to fire. As always, use good judgment and let the DM make the call.
Big objects such as castle walls often have extra resilience represented by a damage threshold. An object with a damage threshold ignores any single attack that deals damage less than its damage threshold. For example, if a wall has a damage threshold of 10, attacks that deal 9 or less damage to it deal no damage at all.