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So I had an issue come up in my last pfs game with sundering. Character with improved sunder broke a magic headband, but we had no idea how many hit points it had to know how much damage bled into the enemy with it. Is there a list anywhere of how many hit points magic items like headbands and such have?
According to the Item Hardness and HP rules, cloth has 0 hardness and 2 HP per inch thickness, so a headband would have 2 HP (which seems generous, but that is the rule). Then, magical armor and weapons gain Hardness and HP for each +1 enhancement, but this is not armor or a weapon, so no bonus.
End result, Hardness 0, HP 2.
I am unaware of rules to apply damage to a person wearing a sundered item. To be sure, if you do 20 HP damage with an axe to a worn headband, I fully expect that person's head to ta a whole bunch of that damage; the idea that a 20 HP attack destroys a 2 HP headband and doesn't even scratch the wearer's head is silly.
But, silly or not, that looks to be the rule. You want to target the guy wearing the headband, go ahead, make an attack roll and do HP damage to the guy. You want to damage the headband, make a CMB roll to sunder the headband. You want to do both, make two attacks.
Enter the Greater Sunder (not Improved Sunder) feat. This does what you want. In the example given, 2 HP would be applied to the Headband, at which time the attacker decides to destroy it or just give it the broken condition with 1 HP left. If he chooses the former, the headband is destroyed and the wearer takes the remaining damage (whatever he rolled less the 2 HP to destroy the headband), but if he chooses the latter, the headband is broken with 1 HP and no damage is done to the wearer.
Side note into house rules territory: If ever there were a perfect candidate for converting unnecessary feats into basic combat options, this might be top on my list; nobody should have to invest TWO feats, or even one feat, to do what simple physics says should automatically happen.
Yeah, Greater Sunder is needed for any damage from the sunder to be applied to the person wearing the item.
I'm not sure I agree on the exact estimation of hp as the mighty Tarrasque, but its more that I think magical equipment beyond weapons and armor should still be more difficult to damage than mundane versions of them. A headband might not get much hardness or hp bonus, but I think it should get some.
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Side note into house rules territory: If ever there were a perfect candidate for converting unnecessary feats into basic combat options, this might be top on my list; nobody should have to invest TWO feats, or even one feat, to do what simple physics says should automatically happen.
*shrug* - True - and in theory I agree with you - but against what all should the damage always carry over? Armor? Probably. Weapon? No. Shield? Maybe.
Plus - it gets into breaking AC rules. It may be far easier to beat someone's CMD with Sunder than to hit their AC - so you get to skirt their AC by going after their headband? (Like for virtually every cleric.) Can you try to sunder their nonmagical left glove? Their sock? The plume on their hat? Etc. Too easy to game the system.
So - we're better off going KISS and keeping sunder and attack rolls separate, and at least making someone burn an extra feat to game the system.
(Note - I've never gone greater sunder and started sundering random low HP crap on high AC targets - but it's totally legal.)
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Magic Armor, Magic Weapons, Potions, Rings, Rods, Scrolls, Staves, and Wands, all have listed typical AC, hit points, hardness, and a break DCs.
Wondrous Items do not, except for some specific items.
This means you default to the "Breaking Items" rules, for approximating the AC, hit points, hardness, and a break DCs of items.
You can view them here.
Yeah, Greater Sunder is needed for any damage from the sunder to be applied to the person wearing the item.
I'm not sure I agree on the exact estimation of hp as the mighty Tarrasque, but its more that I think magical equipment beyond weapons and armor should still be more difficult to damage than mundane versions of them. A headband might not get much hardness or hp bonus, but I think it should get some.
I wasn't estimating; I was reading the rules.
Only arms/armor get bonuses for being magical while all other magical items are not mentioned.
I would totally support a houserule of some simple formula that's easy to remember. Maybe something like:
For all non arms/armor items, add +1 to the hardness per 3 caster levels of the item and add +1 HP per caster level.
Or something like that. But for now, it seems no such thing exists.
According to the Item Hardness and HP rules, cloth has 0 hardness and 2 HP per inch thickness, so a headband would have 2 HP (which seems generous, but that is the rule). Then, magical armor and weapons gain Hardness and HP for each +1 enhancement, but this is not armor or a weapon, so no bonus.
End result, Hardness 0, HP 2.
Do we know that headbands are cloth? I've always assumed metal unless the description specifically said something else.
Side note into house rules territory: If ever there were a perfect candidate for converting unnecessary feats into basic combat options, this might be top on my list; nobody should have to invest TWO feats, or even one feat, to do what simple physics says should automatically happen.*shrug* - True - and in theory I agree with you - but against what all should the damage always carry over? Armor? Probably. Weapon? No. Shield? Maybe.
Plus - it gets into breaking AC rules. It may be far easier to beat someone's CMD with Sunder than to hit their AC - so you get to skirt their AC by going after their headband? (Like for virtually every cleric.) Can you try to sunder their nonmagical left glove? Their sock? The plume on their hat? Etc. Too easy to game the system.
So - we're better off going KISS and keeping sunder and attack rolls separate, and at least making someone burn an extra feat to game the system.
(Note - I've never gone greater sunder and started sundering random low HP crap on high AC targets - but it's totally legal.)
Yeah, that's all true. But I probably wouldn't create a house rule to apply the damage 1:1 either. Maybe half the damage gets through, or even less depending on what the original item was. Yeah, that gets complicated.
And while we're at it, I would redress that disparity between hitting a man and hitting his headband (or sock, or wedding ring, etc.) - it strikes me (pun intended) that if a man is very hard to hit, then his headband should be the same, or harder, to hit, it should never be easier to hit just because you use a different kind of roll (CMB v normal attack).
But in a world where it's actually harder to hit that headband (never easier) and you apply damage to it first and a limited amount of damage to the headband's wearer, such rules might make sense.
I agree, that's totally not KISS.
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But in a world where it's actually harder to hit that headband (never easier) and you apply damage to it first and a limited amount of damage to the headband's wearer, such rules might make sense.
It'd work better in a system where armor = DR. That way you'd increase the difficulty to hit based upon the size of the target, and any damage which carries through would still be reduced by the armor's DR.
Of course - I'm not saying that should be done in Pathfinder - the entire system is balanced around armor=harder to hit and it'd need to be re-built from the ground up to make armor=DR work - at which point it wouldn't be Pathfinder at all.
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CMD increases drastically higher, than nearly anyone can increase their CMB.
Targeting CMD, somehow being "easier" is a ridiculous notion.
As level increases, the exact opposite is true.
This is why Combat Maneuver focused PCs struggle.
It depends upon the target. It's often true for the enemies you face - because many of them become far larger and gain tons of STR. But it's certainly not always true - especially with NPCs.
A level 6 NPC cleric in full plate will have an AC of 22+ with ease, but his CMD will likely be right around 17.
In addition - I said "easier to beat someone's CMD with Sunder than to hit their AC", not necessarily that their AC was actually higher than their CMD - and there are ways to jack up your CMB far above your attack roll. Greater Sunder alone gives +4. Lore Warden anyone?
(And of course - much depends upon your game. If the GM doesn't have all of their monsters - including intelligent ones - come at you stark naked, their AC will improve considerably.)
Most of the headbands' descriptions say they are metal -- silver, copper, bronze, gold...
Interesting. I never looked that close.
I have always just assumed that "headband" actually meant "headband".
noun
1. a band of fabric worn around the head as a decoration or to keep the hair or perspiration off the face.
I never assumed that "headband" actually meant "circlet", "crown", "tiara", "coronal", or "diadem".
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Clerics have spells to boost their CMD, such as Shield of Faith, and so on.
On average, CMD of enemies increases much faster, than most builds can increase their CMB to match.
Playing a number of Combat Maneuver focused PCs, I can tell you, it can be quite the struggle, even with decent system mastery.
Perhaps I misunderstand your view, but I get the feeling of a "OMG, Combat Maneuvers iz teh broken!" vibe, which couldn't be farther than the truth.
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Most of the headbands' descriptions say they are metal -- silver, copper, bronze, gold...Interesting. I never looked that close.
I have always just assumed that "headband" actually meant "headband".
noun
1. a band of fabric worn around the head as a decoration or to keep the hair or perspiration off the face.I never assumed that "headband" actually meant "circlet", "crown", "tiara", "coronal", or "diadem".
Headband Slot Item.
Overtly literal reading of rules terms, and descriptions, leads to much silliness.
"headband slot item" has a totally different meaning than "headband".
If someone says "I have a tiara of vast intellect" I assume it's a fancy metal band that they wear in their headband slot to magically enhances their intellect. If someone says "I have a headband of vast intellect" I assume it's a cloth band that they wear in their headband slot to magically enhances their intellect. Both would be "headband slot items".
And the term "fancy gold headband" says to me that it's made of fancy golden cloth, not actually made of gold. That could go either way, but if it were actually made of gold, I would expect it to say "fancy gold circlet" or some such.
True, it looks like the game actually does define just about anything you wear on your head as a headband unless it's clearly a hat or helmet, but that seems to be just bad wording. Like I said, I never looked that close - it wasn't "overtly literal reading of rules terms", it was "overt lack of reading and making assumptions based on the language and word choice used by the devs".
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Perhaps I misunderstand your view, but I get the feeling of a "OMG, Combat Maneuvers iz teh broken!" vibe, which couldn't be farther than the truth.
No - I agree with you for many targets - though reasonably often for the medium sized ones. But - as I said initially - it would only be a tactic used when it's effective. But sometimes it's very effective.
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Side note into house rules territory: If ever there were a perfect candidate for converting unnecessary feats into basic combat options, this might be top on my list; nobody should have to invest TWO feats, or even one feat, to do what simple physics says should automatically happen.
One of the major problems with Pathfinder (and 3.5 / 3.0 before it) is that the developers seem to think that every minor variation of something that a character could possibly attempt needs to be a new feat. Often with "improved" or "greater" feat chains in order to make it actually worthwhile to attempt.
Unless that option is magic. In which case it's either an automatically given class feature, or is a single feat to use it. Because apparently the developers feel that martial characters are so far ahead of spellcasters that the spellcasters need every little edge they can get.
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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Only weapon, shield and armor can have damage dealt to the controller.If you want to get technical - can't nearly anything be an improvised weapon?
Only if they wielded it as such on their last turn.
I can only assume you joking, because I'd give you a sturn look in game if you tried to say that... ;-)
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Only weapon, shield and armor can have damage dealt to the controller.If you want to get technical - can't nearly anything be an improvised weapon?Only if they wielded it as such on their last turn.
I can only assume you joking, because I'd give you a stern look in game if you tried to say that... ;-)
I was mostly pointing out how awkward/silly that rule was.
I'm guessing that it was added to prevent the sort of high AC avoidance which I mentioned above. Though - if they're anything like adventurers, nearly every NPC should have at least a half dozen daggers on their person, and since every sunder builds always use adamantine weapons by 6, their hardness is moot.
You can hurt the guy hitting you with a Club, but not the guy hitting you with a chair leg.Funny, I'd say if the guy just attacked with a chair leg that you could indeed smash the leg and hurt him. But if he was merely holding the leg, you couldn't.
Sometimes RAW just makes no sense...
Conan: I attack that guy who just clobbered me with a chair leg by sundering that stupid stick and carrying my blow through to his stupid face!
GM: No problem. He dies.
Conan: Now for my second attack, I do the same thing to his friend who just picked up a chair leg.
GM: You can't.
Conan: Why not? It's a leg from the same stupid chair, being held in a stupid commoner's stupid hand. Why can't I sunder the stupid leg and his stupid face like I did to the other guy?
GM: It's a chair leg, not a weapon, so you can sunder it but you cannot damage the guy at the same time.
Conan: It's IDENTICAL!
GM: Nope, the first guy's chair leg was a weapon, the second guy's is not. That's how the universe works.
Conan: This is STUPID!!!
*The barbarian flies into a rage, picks up the commoner with one mighty arm, and shoves that table leg up... uh, well, yeah, let's just say the commoner dies horribly and leave it at that.
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Owner - D20 Hobbies
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Conan: This is STUPID!!!
One man's stupid is another man's "common sense".
I honestly don't see the problem here.
There is a rule you can't sunder anything except weapons, armor, and shield.
If the GM calls the leg a weapon, you can sunder and deal damage to him.
If the GM doesn't current call it a weapon, you can't.
The GM is also free to say the leg he just picked up he intended to use as a weapon and he intended to use it for AoO, then it is a weapon. He doesn't necessarily need to actually attack you with it. He just needs to tell the GM (PC or NPC) that it is being used as an improvised weapon.
