Disintegrate vs Magic Items


Rules Questions


Core Rulebook states that:

"Magic items, unless otherwise noted, take damage as nonmagical items of the same sort."

Thus a Scarred Witch Doctor's wooden Fetish Mask or a Wizard's Arcane bonded wonderous item take damage as if they were nonmagical correct? With no bonuses to Hardness or hit points?

If wood has Hardness 5 and HP 10/inch, and I shot a Disintegrate at a Scarred Witch Doctor's wooden Fetish Mask, and it made the fort save, how would I go about dealing damage to the mask?

My first instinct would be to roll 5d6 damage, subtract 5 and if it still deals more than 10 damage it is destroyed.

Would this be correct?


Yes, that's correct. Destroying objects, even magical ones, is pretty much what Disintegrate is designed for.


Looks right to me. Disintegrate is a nasty spell. At least they have to hit it with a ranged touch attack.

My only note is that magic weapons (including arcane-bonded ones), armor, and shields get +2 hardness and +10 hp per +1 enhancement bonus of the item. AFAIK other magic items get bumpkus.


Also note, that if they enchanted those items, (say an arcane bonded quarterstaff or something) then that would add additional hitpoints and hardness. 2 hardness and 10hit points per +1 bonus.


Quantum Steve wrote:
Yes, that's correct. Destroying objects, even magical ones, is pretty much what Disintegrate is designed for.

But again, you can't destroy a mask off of a witch's face. The system does not make provision for called shots of that nature.

You can destroy said mask if it is unattended, or removed from said witch first.


You can destroy the mask or arcane bonded item following the rules.

First, you target the character, we'll say the witch in this example.

The witch makes its saving throw, and gets a Natural 1 on the die.

The witch probably doesn't have a shield, or armor, so going down the Items Affected by Magical Attacks table, we have a magic helmet, hat or headband (what I'd consider a mask to qualify as), something in hand, a cloak and stowed weapon. You roll a d4 and manage to get the one that is for headgear. Now the item makes its saving throw (attended) and then determine damage depending.

Same thing for the wizard, but of course having the right combination of items and rolling the correct outcome.

You could potentially build an Magus(Myrmidarch)/Fighter(Archer) and take the ranged sunder trick shot, then use ranged spellstrike to make a ranged sunder attempt on the item while also casting disintegrate into the arrow. That puts you at level 18 though.

Liberty's Edge

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
Quantum Steve wrote:
Yes, that's correct. Destroying objects, even magical ones, is pretty much what Disintegrate is designed for.

But again, you can't destroy a mask off of a witch's face. The system does not make provision for called shots of that nature.

You can destroy said mask if it is unattended, or removed from said witch first.

You can try to sunder it with a melee attack. A high level magus with the Close Range arcana can do it using disintegrate.

But considering the hp of a wooden mask all you need at that level is the physical blow, almost certainly it do enough damage.


Tarantula wrote:

You can destroy the mask or arcane bonded item following the rules.

First, you target the character, we'll say the witch in this example.

The witch makes its saving throw, and gets a Natural 1 on the die.

Natural 1 is an auto-fail on any saving throw, no matter how high the bonus.


Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
Natural 1 is an auto-fail on any saving throw, no matter how high the bonus.

Right, that is for the witch. You said there was no way to destroy the mask off her face. There is. It starts with the witch making a Nat 1 on the saving throw, consulting the items effected by magical attacks table, and then randomly rolling to hit the head. That would destroy the mask off her face.

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