Scared of Sundering

[CoDzilla]

Shadow_of_death wrote:

CoDzilla wrote:

ciretose wrote:

CoDzilla wrote:

"Make whole can fix destroyed magic items (at 0 hit points or less), and restores the magic properties of the item if your caster level is at least twice that of the item. Items with charges (such as wands) and single-use items (such as potions and scrolls) cannot be repaired in this way. When make whole is used on a construct creature, the spell bypasses any immunity to magic as if the spell did not allow spell resistance."

So no, it really can't.

CoDzilla is right. This was an intentional change to make sundering useful for someone with a high CMB and heavily enchanted weapon, but not something that would destroy a PC's 100k weapon arbitrarily.

They did a pretty good job with it actually, IMHO.

Your logic doesn't follow at all. Make Whole has nothing to do with whether it is or is not effective when used offensively as it is a defensive tool. If the 100k weapon gets broke, too bad. You can't fix any decent items with it, so it's a pointless and token gesture. It also, once again ensures the path to victory is spells. They do that a lot around here.

The fact of the matter is that there are several types of mechanical problems. There's the kind where things are just too weak. Raising numbers fixes that. There's the kind where they don't apply. Adding more adaptability fixes that. And then there's the kind where something is fundamentally and conceptually flawed. Those are completely unfixable.

Guess what category breaking your own treasure is in?

I feel like you just disagreed with someone who agreed with you O.o

They really do need a mechanic for something like craft to fix destroyed items though

He says he agreed with me, but his followup is a complete non sequitor.

Troubleshooter wrote:

You know, it would actually be an interesting way to address power creep.

Between Disarm and Sunder, it would encourage players to invest in multiple weapons (or not immediately liquidate duplicates). It doesn't hurt that Pathfinder characters would begin looking like Merisiel or Valeros, decked to the nines in blades!

I can't vouch for anybody else, but the upcoming Ultimate Magic book makes me think of a Pathfinder-version of Complete Arcane -- and the Complete era forward was when I noticed the power creep really gain momentum in the 3.5 system. I feel that it stands to reason that as Pathfinder continues the 3.5 tradition of adding in modular subsystems and releasing more and more feats, prestige classes, archetypes, traits, and spells that can be combined in unexpected ways -- that you'll see a general increase of power similar to that of 3.5.

So releasing monsters that make use of Sunder rules, which would encourage players to split their equipment between multiple weapons, has potential as an organic way of combating power creep. Though it's the spellcasters I'd keep my eye on ...

Except that you can still barely afford one weapon, which already leaves you hopelessly screwed if you want to dual wield, or have both melee and ranged weapons. So all it really does is ensure non casters cannot have nice things... which means they'll probably do it, because that's par for the course around here. Doesn't change the fact it's a horrible idea for every reason imaginable, starting with the ones you mention though. Hint: Combating power creep doesn't mean sucker punching the weak classes.

Not to mention that if there was no power creep, they would not sell any books, so good luck getting them to do that and screw themselves.

Oh and that rule about higher enhancement bonus was removed. In any case it only refers to the base enhancement bonus. +2 sword > +1 Holy Vicious sword. Since every pro melee has a weapon more like than the latter than the former...

[Bob_Loblaw]

I don't think you're going to have as many issues with sundering as you think. If you use a variety of combatants, you will find that much of the gear they sunder is gear they don't want anyway. The more enemies you toss at the party in a single fight, the weaker their individual gear will be.

The fighter can only sunder so many weapons each round. If there are more opponents than he has attacks, he won't be sundering everything.

In addition, if they are wise, one of the casters will take the time to use detect magic or arcane sight and determine the strength of the aura. This can give them information on whether or not sundering is a good idea. If the item has a weaker aura than what he is already wielding, then sundering shouldn't be an issue. This would be a good idea if the party is facing multiple opponents and one of them has a more powerful item than the rest.

As has been mentioned, you can't sunder weapons with a greater plus so if he can't sunder an item, he will know that he needs to use another tactic and that there is something nice waiting for him.

If you throw some creatures at them that don't have gear that can be sundered, you can make sure that your opponents maintain their combat prowess.

I also don't think you will need to worry about them shooting themselves in the foot. At most they will sunder one or two items in an average combat. They will be slightly behind the curve with WBL but they can still function just fine. They will just have to adjust their tactics.

I think you should just run things the way you planned. You've talked to them about the potential problems. They have decided to face those problems. Your players may surprise you.

[Damon Griffin]

This is more a breaking objects question than a sunder question, but some of this might apply to both.

In our game this weekend the PCs were trying to break an object with 16 hardness, 120 hp and a break DC of 34. With available resources the break DC was beyond them, so they had to just chip away at its hit points. The task was to "break" it, not destroy it, so they only needed 60hp to get through.

Looking through the CRB, we were unable to find anything that suggested the weapon/tool/object being wielded against the target should suffer damage and possibly break before the target object, but this would have made sense as most of the objects on hand had a lower hardness and fewer hp.

Also, they had one adamantine weapon on hand but as far as we could determine it made no difference; it was no more effective than an ordinary iron mace in dealing damage. Presumably the adamantine weapon would have been more durable than the iron mace had we found any rules on the implement being damaged by hitting the target rather than vice versa.

Did we overlook something?

[Abraham spalding]

Adamantine ignore any hardness under 20. As such the person using the Adamantine weapon should have been dealing full damage every swing.

[Damon Griffin]

Abraham spalding wrote:

Adamantine ignore any hardness under 20. As such the person using the Adamantine weapon should have been dealing full damage every swing.

Yep, we missed that.

What about the possibility of breaking an ordinary (hardness 10) mace by using it to repeatedly hit a hardness 16 object?

[Kalyth]

Troubleshooter wrote:

The thing is, for that to be a copy - paste error, they'd have to be copying from D&D 3.0. They removed that rule in 3.5, and apparently it's back.

If you mean the rule about only being able to sunder a weapon of equal or lower +?

I am pretty sure that rule was still in 3.5. I remember it from when I was building a unique magical sundering sword for use in a game I was running and I only had the 3.5 books to reference.

[Abraham spalding]

Damon Griffin wrote:

Abraham spalding wrote:

Adamantine ignore any hardness under 20. As such the person using the Adamantine weapon should have been dealing full damage every swing.

Yep, we missed that.

What about the possibility of breaking an ordinary (hardness 10) mace by using it to repeatedly hit a hardness 16 object?

As it currently stands the weapon is impervious to the damage it is inflicting.

[Tryn]

Don't be scared of it. He want to be the "meat shield" fine, let him.
He want to sunder weapons, let him.

As it was written at the GMG "If you have a whirlwinding fighter, give him some low level enemys he can whirlwind, but also show him, that whirlwind don't solve every problem"

In your case, let him sunder, but in the same fight gave him something where sunder doesn't help.
I DM and play and I also thought about taking this feat, it's a very specific feat, because it only works against armed enemies, try to sunder a dragons claw... have fun :)

[Shadow_of_death]

Tryn wrote:

Don't be scared of it. He want to be the "meat shield" fine, let him.

He want to sunder weapons, let him.

As it was written at the GMG "If you have a whirlwinding fighter, give him some low level enemys he can whirlwind, but also show him, that whirlwind don't solve every problem"

In your case, let him sunder, but in the same fight gave him something where sunder doesn't help.
I DM and play and I also thought about taking this feat, it's a very specific feat, because it only works against armed enemies, try to sunder a dragons claw... have fun :)

why sunder his claw when you can use dis-arm and get rid of the whole thing xD

Someone in my group once asked if he could dis-arm the goblin.... good times

Sunder isn't a big deal really, most enemies have natural attacks anyway

[cranewings]

I'm not sure why a player would want sunder when disarm is available.

[Shadow_of_death]

cranewings wrote:

I'm not sure why a player would want sunder when disarm is available.

Because disarm has a -4 penalty and does no damage, sunder doesnt have a penalty and with the "greater" version you hurt your opponent.

Not to mention you can't disarm armor

[Oliver McShade]

Creatures that Destroy weapons and armor

Rust monster
Disenchanters
Slimes, Oozes, Puddings

Feats to Disarm player =

Stunned = Drops everything held.
Unconscious = Drops everything held.
Panicked = Drops anything it is holding and Flees (stuff gone when it come back)
Paralyzed = Anyone can disarm, and strip the toon naked, while the effect lasts.

Spells =

=See Feats

= More than i care to count. (holds, sleeps, compulsions, etc)

Others
Catch party sleeping = surrender or die.
Have party arrested = Strip them down, and throw them in a cell.
Drop them in a River or Pond = Chunk your stuff or Drown.

And the list goes on.