The most intelligent thing to do is slit your throat(CdG) you while your sleep really. Why give you a chance? Besides, they can steal your stuff after that no fight at all!How do they do that before they know you exist?
Scouts. Aren't people here always yelling how whatever happens is the players' own fault if they don't have people constantly scouting ahead?
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I think it is something that has to be part of the game from the get go. It's not something I would add in the middle.
You want to start a fight try to take away a player's toys. Hell even run a prison game where players are suddenly without their equipment and you'll have a hard time.
The reason i say do it at the beginning, level 1 on is that players have a chance to prepare for it. it really sucks to make a focused build only to have important pieces get broken.
If it happens all the time then they'll know to carry extras and generally prepare for the situation.
I would use the equivalent of a rust monster but let the players hear about it before going against the BBEG. it would allow them to adjust their tactics and mix things up.
Does a player using sunder on a BBEG NPC into which the GM poured a lot of creativity constitute ruining his or her time?
The NPC was expendable.
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Does a player using sunder on a BBEG NPC into which the GM poured a lot of creativity constitute ruining his or her time?
Sure. Of course, anything the PCs use, can be used against them. So I would hope they wouldn't use something they don't want used against them, and I would hope if the GM had said "look, I don't enjoy sunder builds, can we leave them out of the game?" the players would respect that wish.
Of course, if you've got a pet NPC that you intend to oppose the PCs, you should make peace with the fact that the first answer they are going to come to is 'he needs killing'.
I still think a sundered weapon should be an opportunity for the DM to set up the acquisition of something even cooler—something that was earned or found, as opposed to purchased at the Magic Mart.
Maybe I'm just weird but usually the weapon I'm rolling with is the same one I picked up at 1st level, just upgraded out the wazoo (perhaps reforged in Adamantine once, but hey). Somebody snapping something in half just to give them a better version seems almost as wrong as just breaking it.
"This is my pa's sword, it's all I have to remember him by."
"Yeah, well the Orc breaks it. Don't worry, somewhere down the line I'll give you Excalibur, if you earn it."
*Teary eyes* "But...my pa's sword."
"Yeah, but, Excalibur!"
*Sobs*
So is the PC,Does a player using sunder on a BBEG NPC into which the GM poured a lot of creativity constitute ruining his or her time?The NPC was expendable.
Not the same thing.
No, it's not ... but it's a valid point whether you happen to like it or not.Not the same thing.So is the PC,Does a player using sunder on a BBEG NPC into which the GM poured a lot of creativity constitute ruining his or her time?The NPC was expendable.
No, no its not. The PC and NPC are not of the same value and equally expendable. Its a fallacious argument. Most BBEG and especially mooks are built to die after a good show and they come in herds, while PCs happen to be the sole character owned by the players and are not (usually) expected to die repeatedly and replaced.
It's not a fallacious argument. It's an argument you dislike, and haven't remotely dis-proven.
Projection much?
In any event, speaking briefly on Aranna's behalf, I have a suspicion her own (seemingly) draconian adherence to WBL, fear of consumable-min-maxers, and so on comes from her stated very weird GM who makes some of their treasure mysteriously "go away" if any of them go so much as a coin over WBL just to "stay within the rules".
It's just a guess, though.
In our parties, we've always done it thusly:
1) The caster is a crafter? Great! What does everyone need so the crafter survives? Craft accordingly.
2) The loot is here? Great! What does everyone need so that everyone survives? Craft accordingly.
3) Excess time/treasure once steps 1 and 2 are completed? Great! Distribute according to work performed and/or evenly (respectively).
We also usually have a group fund that everyone just sort of creates without mentioning it. If stuff gets broken or needs to be upgraded or replaced, it often comes from the group fund.
Of course, wealth by level is rarely a concern for us. It's mostly wealth by doing stuff that we actually care about, whether that "doing stuff" is adventuring, crafting and selling, or whatever it is. But ultimately, above all, most of our people, like most real people, want to live. Thus the crafters make sure the fighters can make the pointy end go into the other men and survive so they can do it again, and usually do so first (at the supposed "expense" of the caster, due to not charging the fighter). The fighter, on the other hand, loves his crafter-buddy's giving spirit (and stuff that keeps him alive) and generally works really hard to keep the crafter-buddy alive. Works out pretty well.
A weird thing happens as a result in our games: no one's ever short on cash, and we have an emotionally close-knit group who seek the best interests of everyone (even if it's because they seek the best interest of themselves). Let's us play all sorts of alignments, motivations, or character interactions and still explain why they're all together and doing stuff together.
Yknow, its a tricky thing. Personally I don't mind nearly all other CM being used against my chars, because I do it back to them (or first, as the case may be), but Sunder just sits with me wrong somehow. Perhaps its old school 1st edition Barbarian flashbacks, yknow, where they got xp from breaking magic items and stuff?
And possibly since I look at enemy NPCs and see little bags of walking XP, in association I see their gear as floaty pieces of lewt, and destroying floaty pieces of lewt just seems....so wrong.
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"This is my pa's sword, it's all I have to remember him by."
Myself and another player were playing two brothers in a 3.5 campaign years back. We had a great scene where after our first adventure (stopping gnolls who were attacking our home town), our very young PCs had to go home to mum and apologize for getting dad's spear broken. We spent hours dreading her famous hot-temper and were near tears when she told us she didn't care about the spear since we were back safely.
It was one of many fine moments from that game.
In any event, speaking briefly on Aranna's behalf, I have a suspicion her own (seemingly) draconian adherence to WBL, fear of consumable-min-maxers, and so on comes from her stated very weird GM who makes some of their treasure mysteriously "go away" if any of them go so much as a coin over WBL just to "stay within the rules".
It's just a guess, though.
In our parties, we've always done it thusly:
1) The caster is a crafter? Great! What does everyone need so the crafter survives? Craft accordingly.
2) The loot is here? Great! What does everyone need so that everyone survives? Craft accordingly.
3) Excess time/treasure once steps 1 and 2 are completed? Great! Distribute according to work performed and/or evenly (respectively).
We also usually have a group fund that everyone just sort of creates without mentioning it. If stuff gets broken or needs to be upgraded or replaced, it often comes from the group fund.
Of course, wealth by level is rarely a concern for us. It's mostly wealth by doing stuff that we actually care about, whether that "doing stuff" is adventuring, crafting and selling, or whatever it is. But ultimately, above all, most of our people, like most real people, want to live. Thus the crafters make sure the fighters can make the pointy end go into the other men and survive so they can do it again, and usually do so first (at the supposed "expense" of the caster, due to not charging the fighter). The fighter, on the other hand, loves his crafter-buddy's giving spirit (and stuff that keeps him alive) and generally works really hard to keep the crafter-buddy alive. Works out pretty well.
A weird thing happens as a result in our games: no one's ever short on cash, and we have an emotionally close-knit group who seek the best interests of everyone (even if it's because they seek the best interest of themselves). Let's us play all sorts of alignments, motivations, or character interactions and still explain why they're all together and doing stuff together.
Well I can't say that GM didn't color my opinion a little or maybe even a lot. BUT I also prefer playing in groups that split the loot evenly rather than these altruistic communist style groups that distribute to the needy (which in the groups I played in tends to mean the party leaders best buddies not really the needy). It still pains me to remember one such group where I was playing a monk but hadn't had a magic item in three levels; a magic protection bracer dropped and I thought "at last! an item only I can use."(the mage already had a set) But the group consensus was to give it to the mage so he could sell it and get better mage stuff... Angry I demanded to know why it wasn't going to me since I was a melee combatant with the second worst armor class in the group. They said tough luck. I stopped showing up to that group. And ever since I prefer fair and honest treasure division to this tyranny of the majority style. So I suppose this touched two sore spots with me. I have no problem with altruism either I just feel it should only be done with an unanimous vote. If just one person objects then divide fairly instead. If the only big treasure drop happens to be an expensive upgrade to the fighters sundered weapon then expect dissent at the fighter claiming that sword free and clear, he should pay everyone else back the value of the shares he is using.
Also SKR said crafters should only craft for themselves to avoid unbalancing the game. If they do craft for others it counts against the crafter's WBL. Not that I agree with this bit but since he said it I bet many GMs will follow it.
I will rebut what you say about my group: we are not communist, but communalist. A very, very important distinction.
EDIT: having lived in a former communist country (ten years in Lithuania) I am very much against such a label, as I've actually seen the direct results of said governing and want no part of it - after a decade out of it, they were far better than a decade in it; but communal groups (notably similar groups I've been to in Israel) succeed at such things quite well
(For one, we have private property, as well as a communal pool. For two, my characters like living, and they get far, far more opportunity to do that, and make lots of - personal - money, by making sure the other guy lives. And, you know, they're not sociopathic enough to not care if "meat shield three" dies.)
As for your experience... well, that sucks. Again, very alien to my own.
(Also the whole, "Tyranny of the majority!" or similar cry, much like your own experiences with inequitable distribution, touches some real deep-seated annoyances in me due to past experiences. Not at you, just at the phrase. Jerks attempting to abuse it too often, you know how it goes.)
Reference SKR, he also firmly believes that raise dead (and similar spells) shouldn't have a gold-piece cost. I even kind of see that/dig it/agree with him!
... that doesn't mean that's the way the game sees actual play or the best way to handle it for most groups. SKR is very opinionated about many things in PF and 3.X in general (and even has a really nifty blog titled something very similar to "Deeply Opinionated Gaming" or somesuch), and much of what he says I agree with, and much... I simply don't. If he's got rules to back him up, good on him. If not, yes, some will follow it (especially those like magnuskun who feel that crafting is overpowered as it is), but many may just as well not.
There is nothing within printed rules, guidelines, FAQs, or the like that suggests what SKR does, to the best of my knowledge (though I'll gladly accept proof that I'm wrong... and likely continue to play the way we have anyway).