Sound Striker Bard - Wordstrike

[Dema_89]

Hi guys,
a question comes to my mind after reading the sound striker bard archetype from Ultimate Magic.

In particular i'm wondering about the Workstrike ability:

Ultimate Magic wrote:

Wordstrike (Su): At 3rd level, the sound striker bard can spend 1 round of bardic performance as a standard action to direct a burst of sonically charged words at a creature or object. This performance deals 1d4 points of damage plus the bard’s level to an object, or half this damage to a living creature.

This performance replaces inspire competence.

The question is if it is possible or not direct the damage towards a weapon (or shield) an enemy is holding?

Thanks in advance

R.D.

[Nefreet]

I don't see any reason why you couldn't.

Though most weapons and armor have a lot of hit points.

Try targeting their small magic items, like holy symbols, spell component pouches, headbands, cloaks, and stuff ;-)

[chaoseffect]

Even though Wordstrike does full damage against objects instead of being halved like energy damage normally is (I guess because technically it isn't actually sonic), there seems to be no indication that it bypasses hardness which is problematic for your purposes. Also note that being magic raises hardness and HP for weapons and shields. Your best bet for this would be to go for the items Nefreet mentioned, barring the holy symbol; even a wooden holy symbol has hardness 5 and 10 hp, so you're possibly looking at two rounds or more rounds to destroy it.

[Nefreet]

Yes, I suppose that's also a possibility.

There are several abilities out there that deal miniscule amounts of damage specifically to objects while at the same time not calling out that they bypass hardness.

Luckily, depending on your GM, there is leeway for certain attacks to bypass hardness completely, as outlined in the CRB (scroll down a bit).

Personally, I'd consider this to be one of those effects (though obviously not everyone would).