My take is this: Are you sundering for metagame reasons or because it is reasonably the best option available for THAT particular NPC as he perceives it at this time?That's an excellent point.
Indeed it is.
Also, Sundering doesn't necessarily destroy gear. it can be used to give stuff the Broken condition. Causing a -2 penalty to attack roll and reducing critical threat is nice, possibly halving their AC is not bad either.
And then, after the encounter, the PCs just need a cantrip to fix it.
Carrying spare holy symbols/spell component pouches cost very little money and doesn't count against encumbrance while carrying a suitable backup weapon costs a LARGE amount of money and counts against your encumbrance. I guess it pays to be a spell caster in games where the GM deliberately targets melee characters like a sunder happy GM.
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I have no problem with Sunder or stuff like Disjunctions being used against the PCs especially by monsters that are big and beefy and are unlikely to want to get loot designed around medium sized PCs.
That being said the cost to benefit ratio for sundering is pretty limited unless you pull out sunder specialists and they kinda stretch my credulity as a GM if they are used too often.
It's a perfectly valid tactic and if we saw any sort of BBEG that wasn't just a caster, I'm sure that the sunder tactic would crop up more. As a GM, sundering spellbooks/spell component pouches, holy symbols or the hero's armor so that the rest of the mooks can have a chance. What's adventuring without ask risk?
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As with all things in this game, the real question should be:
"Does doing this make the story more interesting/exciting?"
If the GM plans well for it, then I think it can easily do that, and even if he doesn't, a clever player can still make it fun. I remember a paladin player fumbling and dropping his sword whilst fighting skeletons in a crypt. Rather than ducking to grab his blade (and soaking up some AoOs while he was at it), he elected to pick up the heavy stone slab that rested atop a nearby sarcophagus and started wailing on the skeletons with that. It was pretty awesome, and he could have done exactly the same thing if he had been disarmed/sundered.
I'm also not sure that this is really that huge of a problem. At low levels, it's pretty easy to "wing it" with a backup weapon since your gear isn't all tricked out. At higher levels, it's inconvenient, but not a game-changer, since it's pretty easy to stow a spare +1 mithral sword or whatever). Your attack bonus/damage is going to take a hit, but it's not going to put you out of the fight - so it ends up being just like a strong debuff.
If it happened all the time though, then yeah, I suppose it would get kind f annoying.
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Non-standard tactics are just fine including disarm. Sunder is not fine.
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In the old "grognard" days, that's exactly what we did. There were not magic stores, no crafting rules, no way to turn four +2 weapons into a +3 weapon. If you found a +3 weapon, you used it. If you also had a few +2 weapons, you could throw them away, give them to some friends or relatives, or carry them around as "backup" weapons. That's it.
and we LIKED IT that way!!! ;)
Honestly part of the problem also lies in you could be sundering something they really liked from more than a mechanical outlook. I name pretty much all my main weapons. And since theres no guarantee that they'll even get a good replacement soon they have good reason to cry foul. Martials characters live and die by their weapon o choice. Sundering isn't nearly as scary for casters since they're hardly ever in melee.
Sunder is definitely fine assuming it doesn't get used a ridiculous amount. Having a small number of elite NPCs use it is definitely fine. Having every unnamed NPC use it is just going to get tiresome and bog down play immensely not to mention it's rarely successful if the NPC is much lower in level than the PC.
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The way I look at as a GM, if the PC's use non-standard tactic to great effect why cant the NPCs? If a PC uses a reach trip tactic the NPCs option to counter should include disarm or sunder as well as tripping on their side.
Could you disarm a 15' reach whip from the far end of the whip? Doesnt seem viable while readying an action to sunder the whip does.
Even if the GM decides to make the choice to destroy an item, it isn't permanent - there are rules in place for repairing items.
I keep seeing this. True, there are rules, but they require high caster levels unlikely to be available to the party. See all the talk about mending/make whole and required caster levels up thread.
I don't actually see a difference between disarm and sunder - both are a temporary removal of a character's weapon... assuming sunder actually manages more than just applying the Broken condition.Non-standard tactics are just fine including disarm. Sunder is not fine.
Well, if your weapon is disarmed you can just walk over and pick it up. If your weapon is broken you may be gimped(especially if you were crit fishing) until you find a way to fix it, which could take some time. If your gear was outright destroyed then you have to hope that you find a replacement... ASAP. Depending on who your playing with and what your doing, disarmed could be a minor inconvenience and broken could be waiting months to get the repair and destroyed you may never get the money back on and be behind for the rest of the game.
If your PC is so dependent on a single piece of gear and you don't have a reliable way of repairing it on the off chance it gets a broken trait then you really only have yourself to blame.
Pay for the make whole scroll necessary to keep your gear in decent shape. I mean it's not really that easy to have a magical weapon that's designed for crit-fishing to be sundered anyway.
Well, if your weapon is disarmed you can just walk over and pick it up. If your weapon is broken you may be gimped(especially if you were crit fishing) until you find a way to fix it, which could take some time. If your gear was outright destroyed then you have to hope that you find a replacement... ASAP. Depending on who your playing with and what your doing, disarmed could be a minor inconvenience and broken could be waiting months to get the repair and destroyed you may never get the money back on and be behind for the rest of the game.I don't actually see a difference between disarm and sunder - both are a temporary removal of a character's weapon... assuming sunder actually manages more than just applying the Broken condition.Non-standard tactics are just fine including disarm. Sunder is not fine.
Yes exactly. Disarm is temporary. Sunder is either permanent (destroyed) or lasts the entire adventure (broken). And in either case sunder costs a pile of money to fix and disarm is fully recoverable either during combat or just after it ends for free.
Even if the GM decides to make the choice to destroy an item, it isn't permanent - there are rules in place for repairing items.I keep seeing this. True, there are rules, but they require high caster levels unlikely to be available to the party. See all the talk about mending/make whole and required caster levels up thread.Scrolls cost (caster level x spell level x 25) gold - that means a scroll of Make Whole is 50 gp per caster level.
If you have magic items around the +1 level of potency, that's a whole 150 gp to fix them - if they are highly potent weapons, like a vorpal weapon, you are looking at 900 gp to fix it.
That means the scroll needed to repair pretty much any item is something you have a 75% chance of finding for sale in any settlement larger than a village.
..and since you don't actually have to have the caster level in order to craft an item with a particular caster level, anybody with a high enough spellcraft, scribe scroll, and the make whole spell can scribe up all the make whole you end up needing.
You can even work pre-emptively and carry a few scrolls to handle and damaged items immediately following the battle in which they were damaged rather "having to hope" you get it worked out.
Exactly, most parties should have a handful of utility scrolls that are paid for out of general fund to cover contigencies like raise dead and make whole.
Yeah it's a tax of a sort but adventuring groups should be prepared and assuming that NPCs will never target gear especially when many PCs are utterly gear dependent is delusional.
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If your PC is so dependent on a single piece of gear and you don't have a reliable way of repairing it on the off chance it gets a broken trait then you really only have yourself to blame.
I never liked this logic. It supports a "you had it coming!" bias, which normally isn't healthy. Can't be prepared for everything, and really if a GM really wants it to happen he can make it happen. No amount of effort can stop GM fiat.
Sorry sunder is permanent by default (when an item runs out of HP it is destroyed... unless the GM decides to spare you and leave it just broken with one HP). Having lost my favorite shadow assasin's +5 dagger into a waterfall I know this sucks... BUT I could have switched weapons when I was fighting on a wet cable suspended over a waterfall. I could have seen the danger long before a disarm check cost me that weapon and moved to either not fight there or use a less valuable weapon. With sunder there is no warning till your gear is toast.
Besides how often do you fight in places where dropping something is bad? Extremely rarely.
Besides how often do you fight in places where dropping something is bad? Extremely rarely.
Honestly after roughly 5th or 6th level where death by falling is less of an issue I find it to be relatively commonplace.
Fighting on the edge of a cliff, fighting on a bridge over a river, fighting near lava/firepits/etc, fighting while flying, etc all become really common if you are going with highly dynamic battles.
If you are on a flying ship a disarm which has your weapon fly over the side of the ship is effectively a perma-loss.
I dislike actively punishing players but I also don't want them to assume that their goods are completely inviolate either.
Spamming disarm and sunders vs material component bags is kinda lame though even if it's technically a good technique.
I don't use Sunder a ton simply because most NPCs are only going to last 3-5 rounds and Sunder is a mediocre tactic in most situations.
Until you realize that a Vorpal sword requires a CL of 30 to repair and therefore you have a 0% chance of fixing it when destroyed in 95% of games.
Items CL is 3x the enhance so a +5 item has CL 15 you need double the items CL to fix it so you need CL 30 on that scroll since that is impossible under normal circumstances(excluding epic level rules) you will never fix that item. Likewise with a +4 item sitting at a CL 24 for your "easy to find" scroll.
You are right that a destroyed item requires twice the caster level to fix it - but ones which are simply damaged do not.
And again, the default of Sunder is that it leaves an item at 1 hit point (not destroyed) because it is the GM's choice whether to do that or actually destroy the item - so Sunder is as easily overcome as I said it is in every situation that isn't exactly the same as a GM saying "and the opponent disarms you, his buddy grabs up your weapon and vanishes in a flash."
No the default is destroyed. Yes a GM has the option to spare you but the default wording IS destroyed.
Odds are you will be unable to repair high level magical items, you know the kind that are the first target of the sunder happy GM.
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I asked in a thread if anyone who was using a whip build ever had thier GM sunder the whip, and this is one of the responses I got.
"I've never had a GM who screwed his players over by abusing sunder.
It's just bad form to destroy player's magical weapons."
So is it wrong to uses combat maneuvers against a PC if said maneuver would destroy a players equipment?
Depends on who you ask. Some people think it's bad form. However, some people also think allowing the PCs to die is bad form. Or allowing anything embarrassing to happen to the players (such as getting turned to stone, or into a rabbit) to be bad form. Some people also think having traps without a dedicated trapfinder is bad form.
However, if you're like me you might see all of the above in the same encounter. Sometimes I seriously don't know why my players always come back begging for more. (>.>)"
Besides how often do you fight in places where dropping something is bad? Extremely rarely.Honestly after roughly 5th or 6th level where death by falling is less of an issue I find it to be relatively commonplace.
Fighting on the edge of a cliff, fighting on a bridge over a river, fighting near lava/firepits/etc, fighting while flying, etc all become really common if you are going with highly dynamic battles.
If you are on a flying ship a disarm which has your weapon fly over the side of the ship is effectively a perma-loss.
In most of those cases you can just go retrieve your weapon after the fight. By the time you are high enough level to be constantly fighting in weird places detecting where your weapon fell is no big deal. You might even be able to retrieve it in combat if you can fly fast enough.
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While it is true that you can't be prepared for everything, and cannot stop GM fiat by any means short of refusing to play with that GM... the opposite end of the spectrum is equally as true: If you intentionally put all your eggs into one basket, you have created the situation in which the loss of that one "basket" is so devastating to you.
People have gotten into the mindset that if you come across half a dozen magic weapons you are able to use that you should sell off all of them to get a single, more powerful weapon (or keep 1 and sell the rest) - and then when the GM takes away that one weapon, insist that the GM has crippled your character... rather than acknowledging that you are the one that did most of the work needed to leave you in your current, weaponless state.
...much like character not wearing armor is more likely to be hit by attacks, a character choosing not to have back up weapons on hand is more likely to find them self without a weapon on hand.
Let's assume you keep an item of +2 lower enhancement bonus than your current one on hand at all times. If the DM destroys your primary weapon he has immediately given you a long lasting 10% reduction to your damage coupled with an inability to get through at least one type of DR. This is huge and that's with a back up weapon of exactly the same type as the one you normally use.
If you are a weapon type specialist(say a whip master) and you never picked up a spare whip because your DM doesn't drop them and you had to special order the one you have in the city you left a week of travel ago. You may have dropped up to 4 to hit which is a 20% reduction to your damage to use a MW version of the item or switch items and go down by +2 for a 10% reduction and the loss of several of your feats like weapon focus weapon spec assorted weapon specific feats or pretty much lost your ability to use the combat maneuvers you relied on that is the worst case scenario.
This is why it's considered bad form to use on...
You have the nicest bad guys if they do their best to not inconvenience the party...
Sundering a spellbook doesn't seem too useful. It isn't a magic item. Yeah it's easy to sunder... but just as easy to fix. Same with spell component pouches.
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Sundering a spellbook doesn't seem too useful. It isn't a magic item. Yeah it's easy to sunder... but just as easy to fix. Same with spell component pouches.
The tactic doesn't seem that viable, as a rule...but a mage without his spellbook and without a way to bring it back easily...is likely to be in tears by the next day...
Just take the mending cantrip if you play a wizard.
Just take the mending cantrip if you play a wizard.
Yeah, mending is really hard to pass up. Good for lots of things, especially mundane utility.
