Thanks for clarifying, MrSin.
I find that ... abhorrent.
Aye, many people aren't a fan of it actually. It is however something the game was built around. Of course, in your own games your allowed to do whatever and its not uncommon for APs/Modules in 3.5 or PF to drop consumables you may need based on what is in the adventure, such as anti venom for spiders, or make whole scrolls for sunder, or a potion of that one awesome spell that works just right for that situation you'll run into in a few sessions!
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If you are looking for thread tie in's metagaming isn't the appropriate one... WBL is. Because nothing removes WBL faster than a sunder happy GM. Give it a bit of time and all your 15th level heroes will have left is a rusty orc iron short sword and some stale rations. Not what they are expected to have to face the sort of challenges a 15th level group should face.
Except WBL mandates that as their weapon is sundered, an appropriately large chunk of gold falls out of the sky and into their backpack.
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If the PCs use it, it's fair game for the NPCs. If not, it can still come up, but GMs should consider the use of it ahead of time and how their players will react.
Except WBL mandates that as their weapon is sundered, an appropriately large chunk of gold falls out of the sky and into their backpack.
No it doesn't.
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I don't mandate anything. I just suggest.
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If you are looking for thread tie in's metagaming isn't the appropriate one... WBL is. Because nothing removes WBL faster than a sunder happy GM. Give it a bit of time and all your 15th level heroes will have left is a rusty orc iron short sword and some stale rations. Not what they are expected to have to face the sort of challenges a 15th level group should face.Except WBL mandates that as their weapon is sundered, an appropriately large chunk of gold falls out of the sky and into their backpack.
34000 gold coins fall from the sky. Everyone dies.
Is that a fate worse than rocks?
WBL is a very handy guideline at times, I frequently use it to help me judge appropriate treasures and compare it to the encounters that it comes from. I am very glad that it's in the book and available as a reference.
However the rules of pathfinder don't even vaguely begin to support using WBL as a natural outcome of play. You've got NPC spellcasting, single-use magic items, hirelings, stronghold building, item crafting, material components, food and lodging, spending money on roleplaying concerns, profession and performance skill checks and of course sundering.
In my games I've given up on any pretense that providing appropriate encounter rewards for appropriate CR encounters will result in anything like standard WBL without heavy-handed GM intervention.
Instead I give whatever treasure feels right with the guidelines to give me a rough suggestion and starting point. I usually manage to keep it hovering somewhere approximately near WBL. They're managing to deal with CR appropriate encounters without any trouble, so it seems to be about right.
My biggest problem with WBL hasn't been sundering. It's been PCs deciding to purchase a tavern, pay for an NPC character they like to attend university or deciding to travel the planes and buy the most expensive diamond ring in the multiverse to propose to their girlfriend.
How would most of you feel about sundering if you trusted your DM? Might it not indicate, "Ooh ... maybe I'll get something cooler in a session or two! Hell, maybe even later today!"?
I might be reading you wrong here, but if you mean what I think then actually I'm generally not a fan of that sort of thing myself as a player.
I'm quite happy for a random roll to sunder my weapon, because it's the natural outcome of events. Sometimes bad things happen, if I didn't want my sword sundered maybe I should have been more careful about how I used it.
I don't like feeling like the GM just decided to sunder my sword because there's some plan in place to replace it later in the adventure. Even if it would be to my advantage it would frustrate me. It makes it feel like I have less agency in the world and like I'm just following a script.
When it comes to trusting my GM, for me that comes down to trusting them to be fair and giving me challenging situations to overcome that I genuinely have to beat using my skills, cunning and luck.
That's just my personal tastes though, not everyone feels the same way.
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Ok, when I break your toys, I'll make sure not to replace them.Perhaps I should have said, "the opportunity to acquire something cooler, if I play cleverly and role-play well."Still doesn't interest me.
What a very mature way to handle the situation.
I dunno. If one of my players loses an important piece of gear, he'll be in trouble for a while, but his character will eventually find a replacement. Stuff can get broken, stolen, lost, sold, etc. it happens.
Your gear is not your character, as long as the the latter lives, the former can be acquired.
That doesn't mean you don't have to worry about sunder and stuff like that, since losing your main weapon is a big problem, but if you have a secondary weapon, you can probably survive long enough to replace what you lost. It's not like that piece of WBL is gone forever.
That said, like any other tactic, abusing Sunder is boring and annoying. I like to throw all sorts of different challenges and tactics at my players. Using the same one all the time not only grows old really quick, it also makes the player whose character is most vulnerable to that tactic feel as if he's being unfairly punished.
But save for a few exceptional situations, why would someone try to sunder your gear if when they can simply kill you and take your stuff for themselves? Even if they can't use it, they can still sell your gear and use the cash to buy something shiny.
As a GM, I wouldn't break an important piece of gear just so I could replace it, but if an important piece of gear is lost somehow, I'll give the player the opportunity to replace it. Players should value their characters more than their gear... Besides, that's why spells such as Mending and Make Whole exist.
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So a DM can plan an encounter that may or may not kill characters, but cannot plan a pleasant surprise by placing an item within a character's grasp?Perhaps I should have said, "the opportunity to acquire something cooler, if I play cleverly and role-play well."Still doesn't interest me.
The DM can plan whatever he wants.
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As a gm all options are on the board. As a gm not only do I feel its my duty to tell a story but also to teach players the rules of the game, esecially new players. And most people learn best through example. If gms only use "swing your weapon and roll a d20". Then players may never realize there are other options available or if there effective in combat for a melee pc. I use sunder, disarm, bullrush, trip, grapples etc. And seeing them and now understanding the rules players do to. And now that my players have had a weapon destoyed they don't dump all there cash into one weapon. Same as different DR. My melee pc's almost always have backup weapons of B/S/P for more reasons than sundering and a ranged weapon as well. Also there likely to use cash for stat manuals, stat belts, resistance cloaks, etc than say dumping evrything towards that ONE magic +5 sword than can be lost,broken, stolen or other wise removed from the game.
On sundering, there are quite a few times that actually using it MAKE SENSE. I often have at least one player who maxes ac. Would any intelligent npc keep hammoring at a shell and missing while the party pepers him? Sometimes an enemy can't hit a pc but could if he cracks his shell first. My BBEG wizards OFTEN have guards instructed to sunder pc's, why wouldn't a genious? He cares not if his minions die. But he does care if he can prevent a well armored group of adventures from reaching him well armed.
The problem with not using all the rules available as a gm your effectively pulling punches and creating uninformed or mentally unprepared players. I like the "kids" statement. Your preatty much raising them in a vaccum. This can be a big problem at higher levels were tactics and planning play a bigger role. Or for other gms who take in new players who were babied in other campaigns. I prepare my "kids" for the "real" world. I teach them by letting them play in the mud, fall down, cry, not run out and replace broken toys, planning ahead, responsibilty, and learning from there mistakes. This makes stronger, better educated, and wiser players in the end and in the long run not only is it still fun but helps teach players valuable life skills for the real world.
I dunno. If one of my players loses an important piece of gear, he'll be in trouble for a while, but his character will eventually find a replacement. Stuff can get broken, stolen, lost, sold, etc. it happens.
Your gear is not your character, as long as the the latter lives, the former can be acquired.
That doesn't mean you don't have to worry about sunder and stuff like that, since losing your main weapon is a big problem, but if you have a secondary weapon, you can probably survive long enough to replace what you lost. It's not like that piece of WBL is gone forever.
That said, like any other tactic, abusing Sunder is boring and annoying. I like to throw all sorts of different challenges and tactics at my players. Using the same one all the time not only grows old really quick, it also makes the player whose character is most vulnerable to that tactic feel as if he's being unfairly punished.
But save for a few exceptional situations, why would someone try to sunder your gear if when they can simply kill you and take your stuff for themselves? Even if they can't use it, they can still sell your gear and use the cash to buy something shiny.
As a GM, I wouldn't break an important piece of gear just so I could replace it, but if an important piece of gear is lost somehow, I'll give the player the opportunity to replace it. Players should value their characters more than their gear... Besides, that's why spells such as Mending and Make Whole exist.
Well intentional or not melee characters ARE being unfairly punished by the sunder happy GM. Like I noted earlier mages have little to worry about. They don't usually have massive ACs, don't rely on expensive magic weapons, and their spell casting gear is non-magical and can be repaired in moments for free as long as you keep mending in memory.
BUT WBL does matter. Look at it from the poor (or soon to be poor) fighter's perspective. You have a big expensive suit of armor, big expensive shield (or off hand weapon), and a big expensive main weapon. They are high level items and largely impossible to get Make Whole spells for. Up to this point ms wizard and mr fighter have the same WBL. But their GM discovers Sunder and decides to start using it in his campaign. In the next fight the fighter loses his armor and main weapon while the wizard loses her spell component pouch. One quick spell later and her pouch is fully repaired, while the fighter switches to a backup weapon that is underpowered for his level but still usable. He also has to go armorless till they find a new suit for him. Skip ahead several fights and the only thing the wizard lost that costs any money to fix is a couple wands but since they are lower level they can be made whole without too much cost. While the fighter has lost all of his big expensive items and all of his magical back ups. Even the gear they found to replace his sundered stuff has itself been sundered. They are now hitting the final fight and the fighter's WBL is horribly nerfed while the wizard's isn't. Assuming they survive they now equally divide the remaining treasure. Since treasure items were sundered they both end up with rewards that are lighter than expected so the wizard falls slightly below WBL, but the fighter is FAR below WBL since he already lost almost all his WBL in the sunder fights he is going to have to go back to town and barter what little rewards his share earned into substandard replacements for the big items he needs to function effectively. If the GMs sunder mania continues the fighter will likely retire and make a monk because fighters can't function under such a GM.
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I believe most of those who have been advocating the use of sunder in this thread have said they'll use it very rarely, such as once or twice per campaign. So none would fit the mold of a "sunder-happy GM".
That said, if a GM actually is "sunder-happy", they'd have to use a larger than usual amount of classed NPCs (as most monsters don't have the feats to use sunder effectively), and would thus give out considerably more treasure than WBL assumes. This might prevent the wealth-issues.
You don't need a special build to sunder... but you are partially right Are, if the GM is using sunder as a standard tactic as some (not all) on here advocate, then there likely will be more NPC sunder specialists than normal and you are right that would increase the treasure drops... BUT this only fixes things for the wizard not the fighter. The longer sunder is employed the wider the WBL gap between the wizard and the fighter will get. EVEN if you just use it on rare occasions to remove that one big suit of armor or that viscous weapon you are still knocking the fighter's WBL down by a substantial amount every time you do so. Over time your wizards will come out nicely geared while your meleer's lag behind by a little or a lot depending on how frequently you employ the sunder tactic.
I have myself said sunder is ok to use to remove an item that puts the bad guys at a severe disadvantage but since the tactic is unfair it better be just that one item and ONLY if the bad guys truly suffer with the item around. If it is just a suit of armor with a difficult to hit AC I might just give the NPCs a buff that lets them hit it better rather than cut the rug out from under the poor fighter using that armor.
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As a one time encounter, I gave a bugbear with some levels of fighter an admantine Morningstar and the sunder line of feats. It was not unbalanced and it was sort of an experiment to see what the party would do. I sort of expected the barbarian in the party to pick it up and possibly take sunder himself. With the magical repair spells around today and the broken condition in Pathfinder, sundering magic items is only a temporary showstopper anyway. However, after this one encounter, I will never use this tactic again. Heres the story:
The barbarian, wanting to let some of the party die to increase his share of the XP (I figured this out by the end of the battle), lectured the cleric and wizard on safety and held them out of the battle, warning them it they would die if they tried to go in and save them. Not sure what to do, they listened.
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/agree with Strayshift. Honestly sunder is far less devastating in pathfinder than throwing paralyzing ghouls are at a party with no elves. One is likely to result in a TPK, the other is only to inconvenience a party member until he can get it repaired.
However, I would be annoyed with a GM that constantly threw sundering NPCs, green slimes, grey oozes, rust monsters, and disenchanter beasts at my party. So balance is good as in all things while GMing.
Well intentional or not melee characters ARE being unfairly punished by the sunder happy GM. Like I noted earlier mages have little to worry about. They don't usually have massive ACs, don't rely on expensive magic weapons, and their spell casting gear is non-magical and can be repaired in moments for free as long as you keep mending in memory.
BUT WBL does matter. Look at it from the poor (or soon to be poor) fighter's perspective. You have a big expensive suit of armor, big expensive shield (or off hand weapon), and a big expensive main weapon. They are high level items and largely impossible to get Make Whole spells for. Up to this point ms wizard and mr fighter have the same WBL. But their GM discovers Sunder and decides to start using it in his campaign. In the next fight the fighter loses his armor and main weapon while the wizard loses her spell component pouch. One quick spell later and her pouch is fully repaired, while the fighter switches to a backup weapon that is underpowered for his level but still usable. He also has to go armorless till they find a new suit for him. Skip ahead several fights and the only thing the wizard lost that costs any money to fix is a couple wands but since they are lower level they can be made whole without too much cost. While the fighter has lost all of his big expensive items and all of his magical back ups. Even the gear they found to replace his sundered stuff has itself been sundered. They are now hitting the final fight and the fighter's WBL is horribly nerfed while the wizard's isn't. Assuming they survive they now equally divide the remaining treasure. Since treasure items were sundered they both end up with rewards that are lighter than expected so the wizard falls slightly below WBL, but the fighter is FAR below WBL since he already lost almost all his WBL in the sunder fights he is going to have to go back to town and barter what little rewards his share earned into substandard replacements for the big items he needs to function effectively. If the GMs sunder mania continues the fighter will likely retire and make a monk because fighters can't function under such a GM.
They are not being punished any more unfairly than Wizards are when they lose their spell books. It's only unfair if the GM abuses the tactic, because, just like any other tactic, some character will be particularly vulnerable to it.
Like I said, if I'm the GM losing one weapon won't put you permanently behind the WBL guidelines because I'll give you the opportunity to acquire the equipment your character needs, it doesn't matter if the reason you don't have appropriate gear because it got lost, broken or stolen or if you never had it in the first place.
As long as your character lives, you'll have the chance to get more shiny stuff. If your character is so dependent on a single weapon that losing it will completely neuter your effectiveness, that's on you.
If sunder is such a devastating tactic, prepare for it. Carry a back-up weapon and maybe a couple scrolls of Make Whole. Worst vase scenario, you'll deal a little less damage for a while, but you'll eventually be able to replace your old gear. That piece of WBL is not gone forever.
I'm with you Jaelithe. I call rust monsters and similar creations "meta-monsters" and I tend to deliberately avoid using them unless I am quite literally creating a joke session. It's not just that I think it's bad form to use monsters deliberately designed to take away the PC's toys, but even more so that I just don't like the meta game aspect of them. As if "adventuring parties" were a reliable food source for these beasties.
As far as combat maneuvers are concerned, it's not really "bad form" unless you deliberately target something to negate a PC's strength. And even then it's sometimes story-appropriate. Just keep it to a minimum.
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That being said is it bad form? No not really, but you really need to know what you are doing before going down that route. In most parties I have played, if the fighter's sword gets sundered that is a group expense, cause it got sundered while doing their job, same way that cleric does not buy wands of CLW. So party will remain in balance wealth wise after the next loot sharing.
Yup. Getting the Fighter a new magic sword should be a group investment. Sometimes sharing treasure equally is not the best idea. Did the group find a +3 Flaming sword? Instead of selling it, let the frontliner have it for himself and sell his old +2 sword instead. Sure, that might mean some players don't get loot this time, but the party will be much better for it.
Last campaign I played a Sorcerer, I had no problem getting less loot so that the Barbarian could afford a better Cloak of Resistance. Raising his Will save is more likely win encounters than upgrading my Ring of Protection +2.
The GM should give enough treasure to keep the PCs capable of fighting appropriate challenges. That's why I said you don't have to worry too mcuh about losing gear. The character will get a replacement sooner or later and, at least in my games, "sooner" is more likely than later (maybe even in the same encounter you lost your weapon, depending on what the enemy had). And "later" shouldn't be "next level", but maybe "next trip to town", "next big encounter" or "next quest reward".
Meanwhile, you'll deal a little less damage and need a little more support from your friends. Just like when you face elementals and the Rogue can't use Sneak Attack. Is it in bad form to throw elementals against Rogues and Ninjas? Nope, unless you do it all the time, then the player will be rightfully frustrated. But you know elementals exist, so you should have a few tactics against it and not depend solely on Sneak Attack.
It has been said many times allready but since it seems to be ignored or forgotten by some of the posters. Make whole can at best repair +3 weapon anything above that is beyond the spell. In theory there might be a way to raise CL up to 24 required for +4. And even that +3 weapon needs CL 18, how easy it is to find a scroll like that in most settings? In practice this will mean that sunder is devestating at mid levels and stuff of nightmares at high level play, if you are dependant on make whole to counter it.
Some people work very hard at ignoring inconvenient facts that undermine their arguments.
If i wanted something like a rust monster, i would have a creature that eats metal or gems steal them in the night taking a much easier route to food then it would normally have to- digging them out of the ground.
I've used rust monsters once. A tribe of stone-age goblinoids used them as guard animals near human lands, their scent metal ability used to alert them if metal-armed human warriors were coming. The encounter was fun and worked well. I don't think anyone lost any items at all, if I remember quickly, but it got everyone really excited during the fight since they were worried about losing their stuff.
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If i wanted something like a rust monster, i would have a creature that eats metal or gems steal them in the night taking a much easier route to food then it would normally have to- digging them out of the ground.
Invisible burrowing rustmonster-spacemole hybrids are a problem in some places I hear.
Uh...
Not exactly what i meant.
But hay, I'm not here to argue. I'm here to watch you guys and gals argue.
Ah, the old 'anything that makes the game less fun is bad' comment.
This is a very complex concept. In many ways this is a "short term" vs "long term" issue, and that's still very, very simple.
It is a truism that people tend not to grow unless they are challenged. It is also a truism that challenging people can make life "less fun" at least temporarily.
A blind pursuit of "the players have to have fun" can stunt the growth of an entire gamer group.
Not to mention that most times I hear "the players ..." the unspoken assumption is that the GM is not included.
Not trying to take you to task Atarlost, I think the comment is in general true, but too many times I see this sort of argument invoked as a truism in itself and the simplistic interpretation tends to become "just give the players what they want."
I believe that true enjoyment can be more sublime and meaningful when people overcome true difficulties. This is true in life, and in gaming.
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Ah, the old 'anything that makes the game less fun is bad' comment.
This is a very complex concept. In many ways this is a "short term" vs "long term" issue, and that's still very, very simple.
It is a truism that people tend not to grow unless they are challenged. It is also a truism that challenging people can make life "less fun" at least temporarily.
A blind pursuit of "the players have to have fun" can stunt the growth of an entire gamer group.
Not to mention that most times I hear "the players ..." the unspoken assumption is that the GM is not included.
Not trying to take you to task Atarlost, I think the comment is in general true, but too many times I see this sort of argument invoked as a truism in itself and the simplistic interpretation tends to become "just give the players what they want."
I believe that true enjoyment can be more sublime and meaningful when people overcome true difficulties. This is true in life, and in gaming.
I think you have a valid point to an extent, but that particular philosophy can easily get taken in the wrong direction.
"Oh, you're not having fun trying to face down CR 15 enemies with no magic items? Well you will, trust me. You just don't know what's fun for you yet."
It's easy for that kind of attitude to come across as incredibly patronizing. Not everyone wants to play a no-holds-barred game where the GM is constantly puling out every single dirty trick he can think of in an effort to kill the PCs.
It is also a truism that challenging people can make life "less fun" at least temporarily.
This might just be my own psychological outlook on this, but how could a game that's not challenging be fun at all? Where would the enjoyment come from in a game that you knew you'd win?
And most relevant to the discussion at hand - Like the fact that a GM can use sunder on your high-enhancement bonus magical weapons and leave them with at least 1 hp, making make whole fully capable of repairing every magic item in the book because you don't double the caster level requirement unless an item has been destroyed, and an item is not destroyed by sunder unless the GM chooses for it to be.
Good point, I haven't read the sunder rules in a while. Forgot about that one.
"If the damage you deal would reduce the object to less than 0 hit points, you can choose to destroy it. If you do not choose to destroy it, the object is left with only 1 hit point and the broken condition."
It is also a truism that challenging people can make life "less fun" at least temporarily.This might just be my own psychological outlook on this, but how could a game that's not challenging be fun at all? Where would the enjoyment come from in a game that you knew you'd win?
Quite true. I once played in a game where the first thing that happened to our brand-new 10th-level party was to come across a treasure trove of way-above-WBL loot. Then, it took about half of a round (one character cast a teleportation spell; another made the kill) to kill an 18th-level archmage who was holed up in his tower, followed by yet more loot.
I didn't return to that game; it simply wasn't my idea of fun.
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When I play a fighter type I always try to protect my equipment from unforeseen things if at all possible. In 3.5 all my armors were blueshined and all my weapons hsd ever bright.
In PF it seems that the impervious enhancement covers it, although I dont see why its a +1 armor bonus but only +3000gp to weapons.
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Someone may have covered this but using sunder to break the item instead of destroy it is a lot less debilitating, and for an enemy that wants your gear it makes sense. That way a mending spell can fix it.
It is also a truism that challenging people can make life "less fun" at least temporarily.This might just be my own psychological outlook on this, but how could a game that's not challenging be fun at all? Where would the enjoyment come from in a game that you knew you'd win?
Some people lie to themselves and they don't know they have this attitude about wanting an auto-win, but have them lose a fight, die, or not complete a quest to satisfaction, and you may see them get really upset.
Please note as well - Wealth by Level is a GUIDELINE not a right, I NEVER use it on my games. Good encounter design can make low CR monsters much more challenging and the pcs should have other areas to spend on than just their 'kit'. Good character and campaign world design can make a low level of magic acceptable to most players.
I liked Iron Heroes so low magic is not a problem as long as I have sufficient means to overcome the encounter. I would also like to know in advance that I am in such a game. <-----I think both of those apply to most players.
Ah, the old 'anything that makes the game less fun is bad' comment.
This is a very complex concept. In many ways this is a "short term" vs "long term" issue, and that's still very, very simple.
It is a truism that people tend not to grow unless they are challenged. It is also a truism that challenging people can make life "less fun" at least temporarily.
A blind pursuit of "the players have to have fun" can stunt the growth of an entire gamer group.
Not to mention that most times I hear "the players ..." the unspoken assumption is that the GM is not included.
Not trying to take you to task Atarlost, I think the comment is in general true, but too many times I see this sort of argument invoked as a truism in itself and the simplistic interpretation tends to become "just give the players what they want."
I believe that true enjoyment can be more sublime and meaningful when people overcome true difficulties. This is true in life, and in gaming.
I think you have a valid point to an extent, but that particular philosophy can easily get taken in the wrong direction.
"Oh, you're not having fun trying to face down CR 15 enemies with no magic items? Well you will, trust me. You just don't know what's fun for you yet."
It's easy for that kind of attitude to come across as incredibly patronizing. Not everyone wants to play a no-holds-barred game where the GM is constantly puling out every single dirty trick he can think of in an effort to kill the PCs.
And my point here is that the constant hammering on the "players just gotta have fun" meme IS ABSOLUTELY taking one direction entirely too far.
Which is why I rebutted it, to at least give readers a sense that "players gotta have fun" is a more complex and intricate investigation for the GM than taking a snapshot at the table to see if anyone is frowning.