By the rules, how is one supposed to adjudicate the following?
- Throwing throwing axes at an enemy's non-magical shield with the intent of disabling/destroying it
- Shooting an enemy's magical sword with the disintegrate spell
- Shooting a foe's bow string to disable his bow
- Spearing a spell component pouch off an enemy caster's hip
By the rules, how is one supposed to adjudicate the following?
- Throwing throwing axes at an enemy's non-magical shield with the intent of disabling/destroying it
- Shooting an enemy's magical sword with the disintegrate spell
- Shooting a foe's bow string to disable his bow
- Spearing a spell component pouch off an enemy caster's hip
1 Sounds like you are trying to use the axe like the pilum, maybe you could adapt that rule?
2 No rules for it in my knowledge.3 Archer fighters trick shot ability. Are there other similar abilities?
Introduce a homebrew Ranged Sunder feat.
4 Normal steal or sunder maneuver.
Generally sunder. As mentioned, you may need a special ability or GM houserules to make ranged sunder attempts. (In-game, maybe it's just too easy for the opponent to deflect at an angle, catch the blow on their armor, twist, etc.)
In the case of targeting an attended object with a spell that uses an attack roll, that would probably use the PCs stats, but the object's size modifier. (I've seen at least a magical periscope item that used this approach.) This is a lot simpler for touch attacks, where you don't have to worry about whether armor or shield bonuses should apply.
Per the thread title, I meant to imply a "ranged spearing."
Per the thread title, I meant to imply a "ranged spearing."Not sure what you mean by this statement. Did you typo sunder as spear?
As in, you throw a spear, and it skewers the spell component pouch, removing it from the hip entirely, or otherwise making it unusable/inaccessible.
I agree that all of these are sunder maneuvers and would require ranged sunder.
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I agree that all of these are sunder maneuvers and would require ranged sunder.
+1
I don't understand the concept of imagining a non-sunder non-steal non-disarm way to make something unusable / inaccessible.
Raving: can you explain a reason why it makes sense to build a new mechanic avoiding existing mechanics and reinvent the wheel?
Because using the Ranged Sunder rules would make these actions completely impossible for 99.9% of characters, even though they're the sort of thing a high level martial ought to be able to do?
I'm not trying to circumvent anything. I'm asking how a GM would/should adjudicate the situation, by the rules, should a player ever attempt it.
Except for the rare archetype or feat (which most players and GMs aren't even going to be aware of), there doesn't appear to be any rules for ranged sunder whatsoever (even though, thematically, it's something anyone should be able to attempt). I made this thread as something of a challenge to rules lawyers to try and find some general rule somewhere that covers one or more of my proposed scenarios.
As written, it doesn't appear to me that you could even shoot the noose of a friend in the process of being hanged!
Because using the Ranged Sunder rules would make these actions completely impossible for 99.9% of characters, even though they're the sort of thing a high level martial ought to be able to do?
And pretty much this as well. Your friend shouldn't die because you didn't have the right archetype or high-level feat!
What's more, in those odd cases where you DO have an appropriate archetype, feat, or weapon, it is rarely clear whether you use your normal CMB to sunder, or if it is somehow modified by your Dexterity modifier.
There appears to be a lot of ambiguity and few real answers. I challenge you to find them.
Then we differ on what a high level martial ought to be able to do, and I mostly only play martial.
Agreed, this shouldn't be common or easy at all.
As written, it doesn't appear to me that you could even shoot the noose of a friend in the process of being hanged!
Naw, that's shooting an item that the friend happens to be attached to, not an attended item. The point attached to the beam doesn't move much, shoot that and use the usual rules for shooting objects. Rope vs. arrow shouldn't be in the "inappropriate type of weapon has no effect" zone.
Ranged Weapon Damage: Objects take half damage from ranged weapons (unless the weapon is a siege engine or something similar). Divide the damage dealt by 2 before applying the object's hardness.
they're the sort of thing a high level martial ought to be able to do?
Which are the kind of people that take feats to do all that awesome stuff they do.
Part of what the OP describes can be done with Ranged Disarm, others fall into the general rules for Damaging Objects (which require no special feat to do).
As for attended objects, i see no RAW for it, but i would assume we could use the wielder's AC instead of the generic unattended object AC. Which is similar to what happens to attended magic items.
It also sounds a lot like the descriptions found on the rules for Called Shots.
I challenge you to find them.You know the rule pretty well, what 100 PC builds.
What makes you think you missed some rule?
The answer is: you haven't missed it.
So your only reason for not contributing is because I'm the one posting?
If that's the case, then please don't post at all. As is, your comments not only don't contribute, they actively deflect other potential contributions to the discussion.
Stop it.
I thought there was a FAQ that said something along the lines of "if you use a weapon to make a CMB check, and you use your dexterity to use that weapon, then you use your Dex score rather than your Str score for the check," but I am unable to find it now. Sorry.
Ranged Weapon Damage: Objects take half damage from ranged weapons (unless the weapon is a siege engine or something similar). Divide the damage dealt by 2 before applying the object's hardness.
Thanks, HH. That's definitely a start. What about determining AC of the target object and the like to determine whether you hit in the first place?
Pretty sure I've seen rules for shooting unattended objects, and for melee-sundering attended objects, but making a ranged sunder of an attended object pretty much doesn't seem to exist outside of one or two archetypes/feats.
Is it really just "not allowed?" Or is it just a "gray area" of the rules that hasn't been more developed yet?
Nowhere it says it's restricted to melee weapons, nor that it's impossible to do with piercing weapons.Smashing an Object
Smashing a weapon or shield with a slashing or bludgeoning weapon is accomplished with the sunder combat maneuver. Smashing an object is like sundering a weapon or shield, except that your combat maneuver check is opposed by the object's AC. Generally, you can smash an object only with a bludgeoning or slashing weapon.
Pretty sure the quoted rules there are for unattended items, not attended ones. What's the AC of an attended spell component pouch, pray tell?
@Ravingdork, i actually deleted that comment as the rules for sunder restrict the action to melee weapons.
As for your question: AC of attended objects.
I think there's a realism issue that prevents ranged sunder attempts. While you can imagine an arrow hitting and breaking an attended potion flask, you can't imagine it hitting and breaking a sword. Yet the existing HP/hardness values don't preclude it, and writing a system to take all of this into account would be really complicated.
Ranged sunder attempts are also basically called shots, which have larger problems. If I can target his equipment, why can't I target his head for a crit?
Also, the rules for called shots seem to imply that shooting something out of someone's hand shouldn't be as easy as seem on the movies.
Critical Called Shot: A critical hit to the hand deals 1d4 points of Dexterity damage. In addition, the target drops anything it is holding in that hand unless it succeeds at a Reflex saving throw. Items held in two hands aren't dropped, but the target still loses its grip with the injured hand. The target also suffers the effects of a called shot to the hand for 1d4 minutes.
A critical hit with a called shot (full-round action) on your hand will force you to roll a reflex save or drop the item you are holding.
So we have 5 conditions to make someone drop their component pouch off their hands:1) Full-round action;
2) Successful attack roll;
3) Critical hit;
4) Succesful confirmation of a critical hit;
5) Target fails a Reflex save.
It's also complicated to ready a full-round action to fire "when he starts to cast a spell"...
I would probably consider shooting a noose as an unattended object unless someone is actively trying to not let you you shoot it (by moving it).
I would probably consider shooting a noose as an unattended object unless someone is actively trying to not let you you shoot it (by moving it).
A sensible ruling I guess; I can easily see it being argued either way. In any case, I imagine most people who don't die quickly end up struggling a lot while being hanged, which would jostle the rope quite a bit, making it pretty tricky to shoot.
making it pretty tricky to shoot
Well, considering that most people die of broken neck (or pass out) before they have time to struggle on real hangings, those that do struggle can hardly defy gravity enough to swing the rope around struggle a lot when hanged, nevermind it.
EDIT
I had to read about it a bit, but i will just leave a link here(Violent images and text about hanging, be warned).
Couldn't they pendulum about?
It should be much easier to hit the rope near the top, though.
Is it really just "not allowed?" Or is it just a "gray area" of the rules that hasn't been more developed yet?At the absolute minimum, it's gray area.
Considering we have archetype class features allowing mechanics for it, the actual proper answer is "not allowed".
Which seems pretty absurd to me as proper answers generally go.
Saying a character can't at least attempt it (even if it is very, very hard) is like saying they can't jump, or defecate.
We all know very well that our characters can do both, but only the former has rules supporting it. Does that then mean that our characters cannot choose to do the latter? Of course not!
Except for putting a stop to possible shenanigans, I don't know of a single GM that would say no to something like that.
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Except for putting a stop to possible shenanigans, I don't know of a single GM that would say no to something like that.
Which is my point. We both know the rules don't support it. We both agree a GM can figure out what to do.
We don't agree that this shouldn't be in rules and should have been post in the house rule section.
You may like spending hours hashing out new rules for characters with a GM. I don't. I like knowing how the GM is going to rule and configuring my characters inside that rulesbox. Without needing to ask how the rule works, for example if a rule is often misunderstood I'll go with the most conservative way until my GM says otherwise.
Sounds totally fair.