I personally think it is fine if it makes sense for the opposition. (I think most of my group would not like it though.)
A swarm of kobolds and one runs off with anything it can grab. That makes perfect sense.
The ogre that can't hit you gets frustrated and brings his club down on your bow to show you he is upset. Yep I had it coming.
The enemy archer plinking at you with his fairly ineffective short bow sees you drop your darkwood magical brilliant energy strength bow that was killing his allies. Hella yeah he is gonna run over and pick it up to shoot you with.
The worg is probably smart enough to know that running off with your bow will leave you weaker for when he comes back tomorrow night. However, the allosaurus should not be that intelligent.
In my opinion anyone dumb enough to consistently drop their bow on the ground (for any reason other than the most dire emergencies) should be perfectly aware they are taking a chance of 'bad things' happening.
No. No, there is not. Why do people keep saying this? Sunder is in the rule book for a reason. If it makes sense for the enemy to sunder instead of throwing himself against a plate wall or impaling himself on the wizard's wand of ice storm, the NPC should do it.There is a great unspoken law of RPGs: Thou shalt not mess with the character's special stuff.You are playing a Switch hitter: you fire an arrow, drop your bow and quickdraws you greatsword and engages the enemy.
A round later, an enemy picks up the bow, and uses it/sunder it, runs away with it. How would you feel about this, as a player?
That's just the point, though, it almost never makes sense to destroy your enemies weapon. Disarm him of it, yes, but not destroy it. That there is a valuable piece of loot...
I'll reiterate what most posters have said;
It's legitimate so long as it's logical for the circumstances. Otherwise it's clearly targeting the player.
Of course logic varies from person to person.
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You are playing a Switch hitter: you fire an arrow, drop your bow and quickdraws you greatsword and engages the enemy.
A round later, an enemy picks up the bow, and uses it/sunder it, runs away with it. How would you feel about this, as a player?Asmo
I have no problem with actions that make sense. My character does not have a PC tag that says "be nice to me".
The enemy stealing and/or using the bow would annoy my character, but not me as a person. The sunder would annoy me as a person, not because the weapon is broken, but because it would not make sense, even though my character would be happy, assuming he can get it fixed anyway.
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Taking the bow makes sense if:
1) The bow is valuable, and the NPC would be motivated to steal it.
2) The NPC is about to run away, and does not want to spend the next 24 seconds waiting to get an arrow in the back.
3) The NPC is an archer who could use the bow.
Sundering the bow makes sense if:
1) The bow is some type of bane/holy/unholy weapon that the NPC would view as anathema to its kind.
2) The NPC's companion is lying there dead with your arrows sticking out of him, and it doesn't seem likely that he can personally destroy YOU, the archer.
You are playing a Switch hitter: you fire an arrow, drop your bow and quickdraws you greatsword and engages the enemy.
A round later, an enemy picks up the bow, and uses it/sunder it, runs away with it. How would you feel about this, as a player?Asmo
It seems mildly metagamey. Why on earth would someone risk running into the rangers sword and drawing the aoo for this?
SO long as I got an Attack of Opportunity if I was close enough to do so I would be perfectly fine with this tactic. Hell I'd probably high five a player that did this to an enemy, why wouldn't I respect an enemy for doing the same?
It really boils down to this:
1) Was the bow Magical, as in was a massive investment put into the bow? If some random enemy just picks up and breaks it over his knee then if you're going by WBL on money you need to find some sort of way to get that money back to the PC or you are permanently robbing them of gold. Do that and your PCs will develop a healthy relationship with you instead of a toxic one where they are expecting you to do everything in your power to screw them over as often as you can.
2) Most enemies are not smart, they are monsters with intelligence scores below 10. For this reason they are not going to know to take your bow, when you drop it and move away, and break it. The might know enough to take it and use it against you, however.
3) Enemies should be short-sighted unless they are the villains, or people high ranking in the villain's organization--E.G. a foreman, or someone who understands that weakening the enemies of his organization is more important than actually outright killing them.
4) If the character is mostly dependent on using a bow and you suddenly steal said bow to force the character to use his less effective switch hit tactics then you are effectively taking away half of the character's options or at the very least his preferred option. This is akin to finding a Caster that casts his most common spell from a Wand or a Staff and then stealing/sundering said staff because you, as the DM, know that the staff is his strong point. It can leave a decidedly dirty taste in peoples' mouths when you have creatures go out of their way screw over PCs and then not reimburse them in some way.
5) Sundering the item is stupid. Why would the enemy sunder it when he could kill that guy the boss hates with his own weapon! It will even make a fantastic trophy, too!
6) If the enemy steals the item allow the party to track him down after the fight. If they cannot find him then he should show up in the next fight from a high vantage point that is hard to get to, and thereby forcing the players to deal with him while at a major disadvantage.
They are not sure HOW he got into that tree 100-ft up for this single encounter and is shooting the party with that +3 Composite 2 Longbow, but they do now that Frank can probably get his bow back now.
7) Don't have enemies go out of their way to steal, sunder, or use a PC's items against the PCs. Mostly because if the enemies wanted to use that type of weapon they'd have their own version thereof and be using it. If you have all of the NPCs make a B-line for the Ranger's bow because he is switch-hitting with his greatsword then everyone should call you on your bull-crap unless it is a well know fact that the Ranger's bow is godly magical, or powerful, or gives people week-long erections that don't require immediate medical attention, or... you get the point. Magical items, unless otherwise stated, look exactly like high quality normal items. A +5 bow looks exactly like a masterwork bow because without the magic that is all it is.
8) Don't be a dick to your players. If you are someone else might decide they will DM, and the group will readily take their PCs over to that person's game. You may or may not be excluded thereof, but the point is that disarming is fine, using the mechanics to disadvantage the PCs is fine, but purposefully screwing them over is not fine. Remember that it is fine to knock your player's PCs down, kick them while they are down, and even kill them, but if knocking them down, kicking them, and killing them is all you do then your PCs are going to get mighty bored of you quite quickly. Instead you want to reward them after you knock them down, kick them, and kill them.
Sundering a weapon you've claimed already needs a good reason. Many have been listed here. But it needs a good reason.
Using it against the PCs? Fair game. Always a good option.
Running off with it? Makes sense if the enemy is motivated by wealth, and the weapon is valuable.
"Sure, I'll just help myself to that +5 bow worth over 50k, why thanks!" ~ Random NPC
It really boils down to this:
1) ...
Your attitude or at least the 'tone' of your writing seems to rely on the assumption that the player is doing what he is supposed to do and the GM is being a jerk about it.
I think the player that drops an expensive item in the middle of a battle in anything but the most dire circumstances is being an idiot.
Would I do anything like this to a new player at low level? No. But I would probably say something like, "You're lucky one of the bugbears didn't step on your shiny new bow." Then if the player continued to ignore reasonable advice, I would probably have a kobold or goblin try to run off with it in circumstances where they could probably recover it pretty easily. After that...
If the logic of the opponent means the dufus loses his bow, it is all on him for continuing to do dumb things.
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You are playing a Switch hitter: you fire an arrow, drop your bow and quickdraws you greatsword and engages the enemy.
A round later, an enemy picks up the bow, and uses it/sunder it, runs away with it. How would you feel about this, as a player?Asmo
As long as there was legit reason behind the creature acting that way, as opposed to using it against me or whatever, I'd be fine with it. By dropping things on the ground you take that risk and that's fair.
Sundering a weapon you've claimed already needs a good reason."Sunder" was a poor choice of words: the intent was "destroy it".
Asmo
The choice of words has nothing to do with it. If you pick up a stack of money someone you are fighting just dropped, would you set fire to it "just because" or would you want to hang on to it and spend it later?
By destroying the weapon you are destroying something very valuable to you, even if you cannot use it. The only reason for doing so is if you cannot escape and you don't want the other guy to have it more than you want to live (because trust me, he's going to kill you if you break it; or you could use it to trade for your life under threat of breaking it).
The other possibility is if it is some kind of weapon that "must be destroyed" - but in that case, I very much doubt the character would drop it in the first place.
It all depends on how logical/IN-character the action would be for the monster/npc. If I thought it was metagaming on the GMs part, then I would be upset.
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If your bow was all sparkley, shooting flaming arrows, I can understand trying to grab it and run.
Breaking it makes no sense unless the bad guys are told to reduce the effectiveness of the party without killing them...some sort of tactical mission to slow them down and dimission their resources. Still kinda lame though.
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Breaking it is viable if: the creature knows it is a specific bane/exceptionally harmful weapon to them... or if it is a less intelligent, perhaps raging critter that is smashing out of fury or pain, having associated said bow with all the prickly pains in it's side.
Stealing it is always a viable option.
I am not a fan of breaking or taking player's gear unless they are making stupid, careless decisions... I rarely use sunder with NPCs, nor do I have enemies sneak and steal when the party would be unaware except in very special situations... however, leaving a high value item on the ground just to maximize attack action qualifies to me.
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To that the crowed kind of got behind the thief, and to make it more fair the melee PC, threw the rogue his +1 keen, flaming, vicious falchion and pulled his back up longsword.The rogue just kind of looked at him, looked at the sword, looked back at him... and ran.
The PC never did get his sword back, due to the rogue losing him in the crowed and acrobatics/stealth checks.
Lessons were learned.
That is awesome... and sadly brings me back to my own player moment... many, many years ago while fighting a marauding ogre magi, my paladin made a last ditch attempt to stop him and hurled his Sun Blade (give me a break, "Ladyhawke" was a popular film at the time and I was at an impressionable age!) at the vile creature!
It worked, the ogre magi stopped attacking... and teleported away.
With my sword.
Never did that again.
How does the NPC know that the bow you dropped is a magical +5 keen, seeking composite longbow, rather than a +1 composite longbow or even just a masterwork composite longbow? It seems any argument based on the value of the weapon needs to explain this.
Appraise check?
What I think is, if you are switch hitter, you have your benefit, but also will have weakness. You switch hit and drop items, there will be chance losing it. It's not a video game, you don't get to keep all the items you have.
I know it sucks to lose some, I lost my best weapon once, a masterwork guisarme. It wasn't very good but it's part of the story.
How does the NPC know that the bow you dropped is a magical +5 keen, seeking composite longbow, rather than a +1 composite longbow or even just a masterwork composite longbow? It seems any argument based on the value of the weapon needs to explain this.
I'd totally snatch a masterwork composite longbow if I had that chance. Magic is just a bonus.
Of course, I wouldn't go through a bloodthirsty ranger to get it, but when opportunity knocks, you answer.
Appraise check?It's a standard action to make an appraise check. Also,
A DC 20 Appraise check determines the value of a common item. If you succeed by 5 or more, you also determine if the item has magic properties, although this success does not grant knowledge of the magic item's abilities.
Appraise isn't going to be very helpful here. Or in general. It's kinda a useless skill.
I'd totally snatch a masterwork composite longbow if I had that chance. Magic is just a bonus.
Of course, I wouldn't go through a bloodthirsty ranger to get it, but when opportunity knocks, you answer.
But at the levels that PCs have access to magical weapons, a masterwork longbow isn't worth too much to the expected foes. The NPC wealth table says that, for example, a 10th level "basic level" NPC should have about 10 000 gp of wealth. A masterwork longbow is just not worth too much to you, especially if it means giving up your actions to help your team survive the combat.
If switch-hitting ranger with the magical bow is fighting 1st level kobolds, then yeah, it would make sense for them to try to run off with the masterwork bow. If she's instead fighting 10th level kobolds, not so much.
But at the levels that PCs have access to magical weapons, a masterwork longbow isn't worth too much to the expected foes. The NPC wealth table says that, for example, a 10th level "basic level" NPC should have about 10 000 gp of wealth. A masterwork longbow is just not worth too much to you, especially if it means giving up your actions to help your team survive the combat.
I think this assumes too many things:
- The bow is not worth that much. Even if it is just a masterwork composite bow, and I'm a 10th level NPC, that bow is worth 2% of my net worth, minimum. Not bad for a few seconds' work of snatch and grab.
- I'm an NPC of high enough level to meet PCs with magic weapons. That bow, however, is not magic. Really?
- I'm interested in helping my team survive combat. I'm probably a bad guy. Do I really care that much about my teammates?
No, if I get the chance to grab the bow and escape combat, it's still very much worth it.
Re: whether it "makes sense" to sunder the bow - I can see how, in the heat of the moment, somebody would be so angry because you were shooting at them that they would pick up your bow and snap it over their knee. (Or beat you about the head and shoulders with it). Not tactically optimal but hilarious.
Well, they do need toys to give to their 1st-level hatchlings ;-)
Though, the bow being one size too big, they would not really be able to use it that well :-)))
I really like the idea of a tribe of kobolds who lure low-to-mid level adventures into their caves. The tribe has a bunch of high level sorcerers, clerics, and rangers, so they easily kill the invaders, who were expecting 1st level warriors. They then take the loot back to their home and give it to their hatchlings as toys.
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You are playing a Switch hitter: you fire an arrow, drop your bow and quickdraws you greatsword and engages the enemy.
A round later, an enemy picks up the bow, and uses it/sunder it, runs away with it. How would you feel about this, as a player?
Don't drop bow :/
I would feel targeted. Seems like mob is trying to hurt my char not preserve their life.
GM should be role-playing mobs.
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The bow is not worth that much. Even if it is just a masterwork composite bow, and I'm a 10th level NPC, that bow is worth 2% of my net worth, minimum. Not bad for a few seconds' work of snatch and grab.
Point conceded.
I'm an NPC of high enough level to meet PCs with magic weapons. That bow, however, is not magic. Really?
Maybe, maybe not. The situation is a switch-hitter. It could be that the longbow is their primary weapon and they only switch to a falchion when necessary. On the other hand, it could be that the falchion is their primary weapon and they only use the longbow while waiting for their foes to close the distance. This isn't something that can be ascertained in 12 seconds or so.
I'm interested in helping my team survive combat. I'm probably a bad guy. Do I really care that much about my teammates?
Your team includes you ;) Also, evil doesn't mean chronic backstabber. Evil people can care about their friends and comrades. Evil people can feel responsibility to the group.
The bow is not worth that much. Even if it is just a masterwork composite bow, and I'm a 10th level NPC, that bow is worth 2% of my net worth, minimum. Not bad for a few seconds' work of snatch and grab. Point conceded.
I'm an NPC of high enough level to meet PCs with magic weapons. That bow, however, is not magic. Really? Maybe, maybe not. The situation is a switch-hitter. It could be that the longbow is their primary weapon and they only switch to a falchion when necessary. On the other hand, it could be that the falchion is their primary weapon and they only use the longbow while waiting for their foes to close the distance. This isn't something that can be ascertained in 12 seconds or so.
Your team includes you ;) Also, evil doesn't mean chronic backstabber. Evil people can care about their friends and comrades. Evil people can feel responsibility to the group.I'm interested in helping my team survive combat. I'm probably a bad guy. Do I really care that much about my teammates?
All true. I think that this is a case where it can make sense to leave the bow alone, and it can make sense to grab the bow and run.
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If I remember correctly, the protagonist in "Ladyhawke" left his sword behind stuck in the target of his vengeance.
To that the crowed kind of got behind the thief, and to make it more fair the melee PC, threw the rogue his +1 keen, flaming, vicious falchion and pulled his back up longsword.The rogue just kind of looked at him, looked at the sword, looked back at him... and ran.
The PC never did get his sword back, due to the rogue losing him in the crowed and acrobatics/stealth checks.
Lessons were learned.
That is awesome... and sadly brings me back to my own player moment... many, many years ago while fighting a marauding ogre magi, my paladin made a last ditch attempt to stop him and hurled his Sun Blade (give me a break, "Ladyhawke" was a popular film at the time and I was at an impressionable age!) at the vile creature!
It worked, the ogre magi stopped attacking... and teleported away.
With my sword.
Never did that again.
From what we saw, yes, however, he wasn't in the midst of an ongoing campaign where he had just lot his most potent magic weapon, his toss was the climax of the saga. ;)
Also this was long before the 3.x magic-marts.
..and in the end, do you remind the switch hitter to pick up the bow after the combat, or, if he/she forgets it, well, to bad.As GM, I generally assume that people do recover their dropped bows. If someone makes a hidden play for it, perception checks are generally called for.
Yeah, even if a player forgets the character probably wouldn't.
I mean, do you regualrly forget to pickup your wallet if you were to drop it on the ground?
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It seems mildly metagamey. Why on earth would someone risk running into the rangers sword and drawing the aoo for this?You are playing a Switch hitter: you fire an arrow, drop your bow and quickdraws you greatsword and engages the enemy.
A round later, an enemy picks up the bow, and uses it/sunder it, runs away with it. How would you feel about this, as a player?Asmo
This could happen more or less logically, guy drops bow and charges into my friends, I run around the back and pick up his unattended bow which is presumably looks awesome compared to the one I am carrying because WTF do I have arrows. I turn to shoot you and see you've killed all my friends, so I run away. I didn't take your bow to take your bow, I took your bow to shoot you, and by the time I go to shoot you I realize that living is better then shooting and take the bow because it is in my hands.
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You are playing a Switch hitter: you fire an arrow, drop your bow and quickdraws you greatsword and engages the enemy.
A round later, an enemy picks up the bow, and uses it/sunder it, runs away with it. How would you feel about this, as a player?Asmo
I'd feel perfectly fine with it, as I've done it as a GM. Paladin walked down stairs towards the waiting enemies before he dropped his sword to use his searing light ability. Seeing an unarmed paladin, one of the thugs grabbed the nice weapon and threw it behind him. Said paladin was quite miffed.
All true. I think that this is a case where it can make sense to leave the bow alone, and it can make sense to grab the bow and run.The bow is not worth that much. Even if it is just a masterwork composite bow, and I'm a 10th level NPC, that bow is worth 2% of my net worth, minimum. Not bad for a few seconds' work of snatch and grab. Point conceded.
I'm an NPC of high enough level to meet PCs with magic weapons. That bow, however, is not magic. Really? Maybe, maybe not. The situation is a switch-hitter. It could be that the longbow is their primary weapon and they only switch to a falchion when necessary. On the other hand, it could be that the falchion is their primary weapon and they only use the longbow while waiting for their foes to close the distance. This isn't something that can be ascertained in 12 seconds or so.
Your team includes you ;) Also, evil doesn't mean chronic backstabber. Evil people can care about their friends and comrades. Evil people can feel responsibility to the group.I'm interested in helping my team survive combat. I'm probably a bad guy. Do I really care that much about my teammates?
Look at what info the bad guy has. A bugbear might think to himself, Look at that guy punching holes clear through my ogre allies. Even a good shot won't let you punch holes clear through an armored ogre. He must have some sort of great bow to be able to do that. What the flip! He just dropped it on the ground. Wow, now he's even walking away from it to battle the ogre chieftain. Nobody's looking at me, so I think Lady Luck just awarded me some sort of powerful new bow! Dashes forward to grab the bow and flees to find new friends and not get chopped into bugbear bite sized morsels.
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It really boils down to this:
1) ...Your attitude or at least the 'tone' of your writing seems to rely on the assumption that the player is doing what he is supposed to do and the GM is being a jerk about it.
I think the player that drops an expensive item in the middle of a battle in anything but the most dire circumstances is being an idiot.
Would I do anything like this to a new player at low level? No. But I would probably say something like, "You're lucky one of the bugbears didn't step on your shiny new bow." Then if the player continued to ignore reasonable advice, I would probably have a kobold or goblin try to run off with it in circumstances where they could probably recover it pretty easily. After that...
If the logic of the opponent means the dufus loses his bow, it is all on him for continuing to do dumb things.
My tone is always aggressive (it hides my insecurity) but the point is that there are things that I feel are below me as a DM.
Of course, I just want to point something out: I always viewed the Switch Hitter Ranger as someone who, at first level, drops the bow to quick-draw the greatsword, once you hit level 3 and have Rapid-shot switching to the melee weapon seems very stupid unless every enemy has Step-up. It is simply better to pepper people who are not in melee with Arrows, or to prepare an action that when your ally moves out of melee with an enemy to shoot said enemy.
I do not understand why someone would drop their expensive +5 composite 5 Longbow to draw a greatsword unless they just like making bad decisions.
PCs make stupid decisions, yes, and it is our desire--NAY, DUTY!--to capitalize on that. However, I have played with super sunder, steal your gear DMs before back in 3.5. They are not fun to play with, in actuality they are the opposite of fun because you practically have to shove all your gear into a bag of holding, put it in a plastic bag, and shove it up your own ass to make sure nothing gets stolen during the night by a few thieves who managed to sneak past the sentry.
It might just be my play-style, but I dislike disempowering my PCs in any way.
If the logic of the opponent means the dufus loses his bow, it is all on him for continuing to do dumb things.
And if you are using Wealth by level instead of the treasure system, which gives PCs roughly 1.3 times WBL, then you are effectively stealing money from your player's character. If you do this too often then you are incentivising him to make Bob the Archer 2.0 who is renamed but identical to Bob the Archer 1.0 save that he hasn't lost money from his expensive bow being stolen by a nameless NPC.
He might do stupid things, but at least always give him the chance to get his stuff back. I have literally had DMs who sneak characters into the camp that we have 0% chance of detecting who steal everything that isn't in a plastic bag up people's butts, and then, even though all of our identifying stuff was on it, trying to have merchants who bought if off a fence sell it back to us. That just incentivised us all to be chaotic evil, kill the merchants, kill the town guard who tried to stop us, and his campaign about some noble endeavor turned into a group of 6 mass murderers realizing we can just take what we want if the city isn't big enough.
If the logic of the opponent means the dufus loses his bow, it is all on him for continuing to do dumb things.And if you are using Wealth by level instead of the treasure system, which gives PCs roughly 1.3 times WBL, then you are effectively stealing money from your player's character. ...
I disagree. I am not stealing money from the player's character. The player's character is throwing money away.
The question wasn't, "If someone sneaks into the camp and steals the PC's bow do you give him a chance to get it back?" (I probably would.)
The question was about if the PC throws his own weapon on the ground while enemies are about, is it fair to have one of those enemies run off with it? I say often yes it is fair.
Depending upon what else is happening in the campaign and how often the player is that dumb, I may or may not give him a chance to get it back.
Current gunslinger misfired while out of grit recently. As he has Limitless Range, Deadly Aim, Point-Blank Shot, and a pretty high Dex score, I said "screw it" and chucked the gun at the enemy. Did a decent amount of damage (and broke the gun further). Of course, he's a CN goblin, and I'd fully understand if the enemy ran off with it, seeing as how I obviously can't shoot him.