Sunder build help

[Robert Blackletter]

Hi all

I was wondering if anyone could help me with an idea i had. I thought that I would build a human barbarian type (starting level 5) who specialised in destroying the equipment of his opponents. I have had a quick look around but apart from improved sunder there seem no other feats/ skill etc that would help in this. I'm fairly new at this so may have missed something
I can use any source book apart from psyonic, including reasonable homebrew.

please help
(oh and it 3.5)

[ranagrande]

I would really advise against it. Sundering is a good practical and realistic strategy, but it doesn't work all that well in D&D. If you destroy the enemy's stuff, you can't loot it and use it for yourself later.

[Quietus]

That's because, unfortunately, there aren't many. I believe there's a few feats that give you some small bonus (like a d6) to damage with regard to breaking them, but that's not all that spectacular.

Outside of Improved Sunder, you should look to use a big two-hander, and try to find ways to improve your attack/damage. All the standard tricks will apply, like Power Attack, Leap Attack, and Shock Trooper - also, remember that size increases give you a BONUS to hit when sundering, rather than a penalty. Having a friendly caster with Enlarge Person, or a potion of it, will be very helpful.

[Robert Blackletter]

@ranagrande
That partly the point, it should create a bit of IC tension (the group i'm with have agree to let me do this.) and t fits the character believes (that equipment, especially that used in battle is tainted by it welder, can lead any later owners down the path of it ex-owner)
@Quietus
Thanks for the advice, do you have the name of the extra damage feat and the source book its from?

[Person_Man]

Sunder is generally considered a sub-optimal strategy. Many enemies don't use equipment. And when they do use equipment, you're basically destroying your treasure. The exception is when you're fighting a caster - use Sunder against their holy symbol or material component pouch, and they usually can't cast.

Anywho, assuming you want to optimize it:

Star Metal: Weapons made of this material count as adamantine for all purposes (bypassing DR, hardness, Sundering, etc) and deal 1d6 extra damage to extraplanar creatures (which includes all Summoned creatures). 5,000 gp, Comp Arcane pg 141.

Improved Sunder: Bonus. Avoids Attack of Opportunity.

Combat Brute: If you Sunder an enemy's weapon or shield, you get a free follow up attack. Also helps with Power Attack. Complete Warrior pg 110.

Marshal (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20030906b): Cha bonus to Sunder (and Disarm, Trip, and Bull Rush).

Dire Flail Smash: If you hit an enemy with both ends of your dire flail, they must Save or be Dazed for 1 round. Requires Power Attack, Improved Sunder, Weapon Focus (Dire Flail). Although this is suboptimal for a variety of reasons (TWF, Weapon Focus, useless exotic weapon) it requires Improved Sunder (which you're going to have anyway). Daze is also one of the most overlooked and potent effects out there, as it effects everyone (including undead, constructs, etc). Champions of Ruin pg 16.

Blackguard: A solid Cha based prestige class, that requires Improved Sunder.

Something like Hexblade 4/Marshal 3/Blackguard X wouldn't be horrible. Fallen Paladin 1/Blackguard 10 is excellent for it's ECL (this assumes you take 11 levels of Paladin, then fall from Goodness, then trade in 10 levels of your Paladin for Blackguard levels. A nice DM will then let you retrain your one useless Fallen Paladin level into Fighter or Marshal.

Also note that Sunder is an opposed attack roll. So you benefit from anything that debuffs your enemy, such as Hexblade, Doomspeak, ton's of spells, etc.

[Douglas]

Combat Brute from Complete Warrior gives you a bonus attack on the wielder every time you destroy a weapon or shield with a sunder attack.

[Curmudgeon]

If you want to sunder equipment, you'll need to maximize your Spot ability.
Very easy (0): Notice something large in plain sight (Spot)
Every time you have a chance to spot something in a reactive manner you can make a Spot check without using an action. Trying to spot something you failed to see previously is a move action. If you want to sunder equipment, you obviously need to see it. The first time you have line of sight to an enemy you'll have a chance to Spot them and their equipment. Large creatures or items, in plain sight and within 10', are DC 0 to Spot. But much gear that would be helpful to sunder, like holy symbols and spell component pouches, is going to be fine size. That's 5 sizes smaller than large, and the DC goes up by +4 for each: DC 20 if you first have line of sight to them within 10', and +1 to the DC for every 10' further away.

The Quick Reconnoiter feat (Complete Adventurer) is going to be a must, because you're not going to want to spend move actions just to recheck for small items you didn't Spot initially.
Benefit: You can make one Spot check and one Listen check each round as a free action.

[Signmaker]

I remember asking around the forums once for help with a sunder build, and got directed to Complete Champion. From what I recall, there is a feat of sorts in there that allows you to bypass the hardness of an item for a certain amount of time/day. It's similar to the effect that adamantine has, but without its "Unless its hardness is greater than X" restriction.

[Epinephrine]

Exotic Weapon - Goliath Greathammer; d12 damage, x4 crit, and +2 to sunder attempts.

Dwarven Rogue levels, can grant nice damage bonus when sundering.

The stone bones maneuver Stone Dragon's Fury, adds +4d6 damage when sundering.

Make him a Warblade (5th) and you can already have the maneuver, and deliver some nasty sunder attacks with 1d12+1.5*Str+4d6 damage. Add a sundering enhancement to the weapon and go to town.

[penbed400]

If you really want to specialize in Sunder I can probably say that the coolest I've seen is the Vow of Peace ability. Be warned, this puts major limitations on what your character can do. No lethal damage, can't let humanoids and whatnot die unless they refuse to surrender and even then you can't deliver the blow. Since you want to build a sundering character though that probably wouldn't be a problem, but that's specifically for sundering. Anyways the feat says that every weapon that hits you has to make a fortitude save or shatter instantly. Thus making it unusable.

So if you combined that with your ability to sunder then its great for just walking into a crowd and breaking weapons. Plus you get some nice extra bonuses. Assorted bonuses for AC up to +6, everyone with 20' of you at all times must make a will save or come under the spell Calm Emotions. Be warned, it takes some serious roleplaying and stratregy to play since you can no longer just outright kill or hurt things. You're going to have to use a weapon that only deals non-lethal damage until you get a feat that lets you hit for non-lethal with lethal weapons. I think you can hit for non-lethal with a lethal weapon but its a -4 penalty to hit. Correct me if I'm wrong. Anyways, it's in the BoED if you want to look it up. From what I see though it will suck up all your feats:

1 - Sacred Vow, Vow of Non-violence
2 - ...
3 - Vow of Peace
4 - ...
5 - ...

[herrhauptmann]

+1 combat brute, leap attack, shocktrooper. Combat brute's sundering cleave is great for a sunder fighter. I break your sword while power attacking for 3:1, now I break you with a cleave, power attacking 3:1.

Frenzied berserker gives you a 4:1 on your power attack. Buy a shatterspike weapon, and make it something besides a freakin steel longsword. Starmetal, just like adamantine, but +1d6 vs outsiders.

[Dagren]

If you want to sunder equipment, you'll need to maximize your Spot ability. If you want to sunder equipment, you obviously need to see it. The first time you have line of sight to an enemy you'll have a chance to Spot them and their equipment. Large creatures or items, in plain sight and within 10', are DC 0 to Spot. But much gear that would be helpful to sunder, like holy symbols and spell component pouches, is going to be fine size. That's 5 sizes smaller than large, and the DC goes up by +4 for each: DC 20 if you first have line of sight to them within 10', and +1 to the DC for every 10' further away.Are you sure it's fine? I would have said diminuative myself, since the example for a fine creature given in the PHB is a fly. That's a bit smaller than a spell component pouch, probably smaller than a holy symbol, and definitely smaller than a sword.

[erikun]

Focused Sunder [Psionic]

Expend your Psionic Focus to ignore half the target weapon's hardness, rounded down.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#focusedSunder


The Destruction Mantle for the Ardent (Complete Psionic) grants you the Improved Sunder feat for free (while Psionically Focused) and allows you to expend your focus to ignore 4 hardness on the target.


I seem to recall a cold-based reserve feat from Complete Mage, which reduced the hardness of an object with a touch attack.

[AbyssKnight]

Focused Sunder (spend focus to treat an items hardness as 1/2 normal)

Wild Talent (makes you psionic, letting you take Focused Sunder without losing bab)

1 level of Cleric with Strength and Competition domains
strength domain for the domain ability to boost strength and Enlarge Person as a domain spell
Competition domain's domain ability grants +1 to all opposed rolls (like sunders) which compensates for the bab loss

You can take up to 4 levels of cleric without losing another bab, while getting 2nd level spells

I like the Heavy Flail, as it is two handed, good base damage die, you can trip with it, bonus to disarm with it, and sunder with it since it does bludgeoning damage (Sunder, Trip, and Disarm gets bonuses from similar things like size increases)

[SoD]

*snip* Anyways the feat says that every weapon that hits you has to make a fortitude save or shatter instantly. Thus making it unusable. *snip*

Actually...I beleive it's non-magical weapons only. I could be wrong, as I don't have acess to my books at the mo, but that's what I remember.

[woodenbandman]

off my head, Combat Brute and Destructive Rage are good (the latter grants entry to Frenzied Berserker).

Focused Sunder could work, but it requires a psionic focus, I think. There's also Cobalt Power, which grants an insight bonus on power attacks and sunders.

Good luck, and talk to the DM about it to see how he'll handle it. I myself would increase the treasure received or give out XP for sundering.

[erikun]

Isn't there a prestige class that gets abilities from breaking magical items? While breaking magical stuff isn't ideal, if you accidentally sunder your opponent's magical weapon, it may be nice to get the bonus.

[Curmudgeon]

Are you sure it's fine? I would have said diminuative myself, since the example for a fine creature given in the PHB is a fly. Fine is anything under 6" across; see the table (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/movementPositionAndDistance.htm#tableCreatureSizeA ndScale). Both holy symbols and spell component pouches should be under 6".

[Dagren]

Fine is anything under 6" across; see the table (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/movementPositionAndDistance.htm#tableCreatureSizeA ndScale). Both holy symbols and spell component pouches should be under 6".Ah, I see. That table isn't in my PHB. Still, I think spell pouches will probably be pretty close to the border, even if they aren't actually big enough to be diminuative. And obviously weapons will be a lot bigger. Are there any rules for spotting items then? I should have thought that, if they are used, they would kind of stand out. (Especially weapons. I can't see how you could fail to spot them)

[Epinephrine]

Re: house rules for sundering, you could ask your DM if he's ok with using Pathfinder-type rules for sundering. Make Whole in Pathfinder can fix magic items with caster level less than half your caster level, and items can be in one of three conditions:

1) undamaged
2) broken*; once they take any HP damage
3) destroyed

And when you deal enough damage to destroy an item, you can choose to simply leave it with 1HP instead, so that it's only broken.

*Broken: Items that have taken damage gain the broken condition, meaning they are less effective at their designated task. The broken condition has the following effects, depending upon the item.

If the item is a weapon, any attacks made with the item suffer a –2 penalty on attack and damage rolls. Such weapons only score a critical hit on a natural 20 and only deal ×2 damage.
If the item is a suit of armor or a shield, the bonus it grants to AC is halved, rounding down. Broken armor doubles its armor check penalty on skills.
If the item is a tool needed for a skill, any skill check made with the item takes a –2 penalty.
If the item is a wand or staff, it uses up twice as many charges when used.

[Curmudgeon]

Are there any rules for spotting items then? I should have thought that, if they are used, they would kind of stand out. (Especially weapons. I can't see how you could fail to spot them) Just the Spot rules I quoted. By RAW, you get a free (reactive) check when you first have line of sight to some creature or object. If you miss it the first time, you are required to use a move action Spot check to see it. Only a new circumstance, such as actually making contact with an item (weapon) will give you another reactive Spot check. And even then, having something wound you won't guarantee that you'll Spot it -- only that you'll feel it.

[Robert Blackletter]

Just to say thanks everyone, i think i know how i'm going to do it now you been a great help

[herrhauptmann]

Isn't there a prestige class that gets abilities from breaking magical items? While breaking magical stuff isn't ideal, if you accidentally sunder your opponent's magical weapon, it may be nice to get the bonus.

I know the one you're thinking of but can't remember the name. However, I believe that he gets his powers by regularly sacrificing items in a ritual, monthly or yearly. And the worth of the item needed is dependent on his level in some way, shape or form.
There is the Spellfire Channeler PrC in Magic of Faerun, which drains magic items. Single use things like potions are ruined. Multiuse ones like wands lose a charge per round. Permanent magic items like weapons or Cloak of Resistance have magic suppressed for a day.

[Dagren]

Just the Spot rules I quoted. By RAW, you get a free (reactive) check when you first have line of sight to some creature or object. If you miss it the first time, you are required to use a move action Spot check to see it. Only a new circumstance, such as actually making contact with an item (weapon) will give you another reactive Spot check. And even then, having something wound you won't guarantee that you'll Spot it -- only that you'll feel it.OK. The reason I wondered is that the rules you quoted don't specify whether the object is unattended or not. I wondered if there was anything specific for attended objects. Also, it doesn't say when you first get LoS:
Every time you have a chance to spot something in a reactive manner you can make a Spot check without using an action.As such, I'd let them take a spot check every time the guy cast a spell or attacked, whichever is applicable. It just seems silly to me if they can see someone, but not the sword he's beating them over the head with, or the holy symbol he brandishes every time he casts.