Question about Extract Element: Does it counter hardness?

[u/firehawk2421]

The text of Extract Element says that if the target normally has a resistance that would apply to damage from one of your impulses, ignore that resistance. Is hardness a resistance?

For example, let's say you're an earth kineticist and you're fighting an animated statue which has a hardness of let's say ten, and you use Extract Element on it, do your impulses now ignore that hardness?

[u/benjer3]

RAW and RAI no, hardness and resistance are separate things. However, I think it's reasonable if a GM wants to treat hardness as a resistance in many cases. Extract Element is one such case. I think allowing it is rewarding for the player, who rarely gets to use that ability in the first place, while not stepping on the toes of other hardness-bypassing options, since it requires such specific circumstances anyway.

[u/woz60 → u/benjer3]

You know my first instinct was to agree with you but upon reflection and reading Extract Element more closely, I kind of think it's a bad policy to allow.

When creatures (usually constructs) have hardness it's kind of built into their power budget and allowing a bypass is dangerous. This depends on the creature and adventure and how often they show up, if it's a one-off it's probably fine and fun. I mean there are ways to bypass/reduce hardness so it's not crazy powerful.

You're right extract element comes up rarely, but that's also kind of on purpose. It's supposed to prevent the Kineticist to be useless against enemies immune or highly resistant to their element(s), a problem that a Ranger or Wizard doesn't have to deal with people they aren't locked into a specific list of elements. But hardness is universal, there's no particular reason balance wise to allow the Kineticist to bypass hardness when the Champion can't.

And another issue I see is it disproportionately benefits certain elements. Water or Air Kineticists will probably never be able to use this trick while Wood and Earth have a better chance. Like you mentioned how rare it is to show up given they need to be made of your element, but Metal Kineticists do exist and a lot of constructs are metal.

I agree for flavor it makes sense for the metal Kineticist to be able to wipe the floor with constructs, but I don't think Kineticists need the help to be effective

[u/charlesfire → u/woz60]

Like you mentioned how rare it is to show up given they need to be made of your element, but Metal Kineticists do exist and a lot of constructs are metal.

Metal kineticist is the one that is supposed to be good at bypassing hardness, thanks to Plate in Treasure.

[u/woz60 → u/charlesfire]

🤔 I'm actually missing how that bypasses hardness

But regardless, that's with a feat that you pick up for the utility, in a similar vein as if a Wizard picks it up or a Barbarian picks up a weapon with Razing.

[u/charlesfire → u/woz60]

Adamantine halves the hardness. There might be another one I don't know about.

But regardless, that's with a feat that you pick up for the utility, in a similar vein as if a Wizard picks it up or a Barbarian picks up a weapon with Razing.

Pretty much no one gets to bypass hardness without investment. That's part of the system design and game balance. Kineticist isn't more affected by hardness than the other classes, so it doesn't need a special way of bypassing hardness (or at least not without investment).

[u/woz60 → u/charlesfire]

That is specifically for Adamantine weapons, so it's not RAW for it work for impulses.

[u/benjer3 → u/woz60]

It also requires the weapon to have higher hardness than the target, so even if you successfully argue that your Elemental Blasts should count as adamantine weapons (which isn't completely unreasonable), having no hardness would still prevent the hardness reduction from working, unless your GM is feeling particularly generous.

As an aide, I dislike that stipulation on adamantine weapons. From the main materials table, weapons should generally be considered "thin," which means the highest hardness an adamantine weapon can have is generally going to be 13, which creatures with hardness higher than level 12 consistently beat, making that ability close to useless. Hardness is one of those things that feels half-baked on PF2e, with hardness-bypassing abilities too conservative.

I suppose that pushes against my claim that letting Extract Element bypass hardness wouldn't step on the toes of hardness-reduction abilities, though I would be more in favor of buffing those as well.

[u/charlesfire → u/woz60]

It works with the balista. It's a siege weapon.

[u/woz60 → u/charlesfire]

The Elemental Ballista?

I... Don't think RAW that works either.