One of the PCs in our group has a glaive that he mounts a pennant/battle standard on. Effectively it functions as a Lord's Banner magic item (Advanced Player's Guide p. 307) but size-wise it's more like a Knight's Pennon (same page).
If an enemy wanted to target the pennant for destruction, what rules would apply?
Since it's an attended magic item I'm thinking the Sunder rules apply. That said, the attacking an object rules might actually make it harder since it's a relatively small target (and therefore high AC).
Either way, it's cloth so it's going to be pretty vulnerable (anyone know of any way to improve its toughness?) with no hardness and few HP. I might consider it a +2 weapon (since it gives +2 bonuses) and therefore give it +4 hardness and +20 hp, but it's still not going to survive a dedicated attack (not saying that it should since a standard bearer normally isn't in the front ranks).
Also, could it be targeted with magic? e.g., disintegrate?
Two questions
1)If it's mounted to a glaive, would its effects be active if the glaive is being used for combat?
2)Wouldn't you sunder the pole (glaive) not the banner?
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Piercing it would be easy, but destroying it? Try cutting a piece of cloth freely waving around in the breeze with a blade.
Look the images of some military banners show in museum, a lot of them are pierces and have some badly cut, but they are still recognizable and capable of doing their "mundane" magic, raising the morale of those that see them.
Sundering the glaive would be simpler I think.
Two questions
1)If it's mounted to a glaive, would its effects be active if the glaive is being used for combat?
2)Wouldn't you sunder the pole (glaive) not the banner?
The only requirement to gain the pennant's powers is to be able to see it so wielding the glaive in combat does not negate the pennant's powers. That's the way we've always played it.
They are actually two separate magic items so sundering the glaive wouldn't do any damage to the pennant.
Piercing it would be easy, but destroying it? Try cutting a piece of cloth freely waving around in the breeze with a blade.
True enough but this is D&D and it boils down to game mechanics. It's not an indestructible pennant so I'm looking for rules on how to destroy it.
Battle standards in the real world usually suffer damage from indirect fire and standard bearers usually (but not always) aren't in the immediate front line. So I'm not surprised that battle standards survive because most soldiers want to kill the guy wielding it not the standard itself.
See above about destroying the glaive.