I have a few questions about Sunder

[Ephemeral_Being]

1. Am I allowed to Sunder using magic or Psionics? If this is possible, what types of spells am I allowed to target equipment with? Can I, for example, target a fighter's Longsword with Energy Stun (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Energy_Stun)? If I did, would the fighter holding the sword also be hit?

2. Say I successfully Sunder a weapon, shattering it. How can I restore an object's HP? I've found Mend/Make Whole. But are there better ways?

3. Say I successfully Sunder a MAGIC weapon and shatter it. According to Mend/Make Whole, even if I restored their physical form, their magical effects would not be restored. Is there a way to restore these cheaply?

4. Is it considered "bad form" to use Sunder as the GM on your party's equipment? Because it actually makes good tactical sense, in many cases. Destroy the Ranger's bow, for instance, and he's pretty much useless.

5. Say I'm sundering a Longbow. The wielder (barring specific feats) is not entitled to an Attack of Opportunity. And when we make opposed attack rolls, is there any sort of penalty to their roll? The Longbow isn't a "melee" weapon. You could use it as an improvised weapon, I figure, at a -4 penalty. But is that correct, RAW? And, does a Longbow count as a two-handed weapon in this case? Or just one?

6. What's the rule on "disarming" someone of their quiver of arrows? That would fall under "grabbing items," right? And considered "Loosely secured?"

Curious if anyone has an answer. I've avoided using things like Sunder/Disarm in the past because I didn't fully understand the rules. Which is something I should fix.

[Flickerdart]

1. Am I allowed to Sunder using magic or Psionics? If this is possible, what types of spells am I allowed to target equipment with? Can I, for example, target a fighter's Longsword with Energy Stun (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Energy_Stun)? If I did, would the fighter holding the sword also be hit?
Only slashing or bludgeoning melee weapons may sunder. While a weaponlike spell can be a melee attack, it is never a weapon, and energy stun isn't weaponlike at any rate.


2. Say I successfully Sunder a weapon, shattering it. How can I restore an object's HP? I've found Mend/Make Whole. But are there better ways?
Much like how you can't heal a dead character, you can't mend a sundered weapon.


3. Say I successfully Sunder a MAGIC weapon and shatter it. According to Mend/Make Whole, even if I restored their physical form, their magical effects would not be restored. Is there a way to restore these cheaply?
It is impossible. There is one Truenaming utterance that can reverse the effects of sundering a round after it happens, but that's it.


4. Is it considered "bad form" to use Sunder as the GM on your party's equipment? Because it actually makes good tactical sense, in many cases. Destroy the Ranger's bow, for instance, and he's pretty much useless.
Every attack against the bow is an attack not made against the ranger. Generally, sundering only makes tactical sense when it's the only way you can hurt the enemy (thanks to high AC or something). It also wastes a feat that is better spent elsewhere. In general, it's highly unlikely for anyone to sunder.


5. Say I'm sundering a Longbow. The wielder (barring specific feats) is not entitled to an Attack of Opportunity. And when we make opposed attack rolls, is there any sort of penalty to their roll? The Longbow isn't a "melee" weapon. You could use it as an improvised weapon, I figure, at a -4 penalty. But is that correct, RAW? And, does a Longbow count as a two-handed weapon in this case? Or just one?
A longbow is not a two-handed weapon because ranged weapons don't have handedness, and there is no requirement for the opposing roll to be a melee attack roll. The opponent would receive no bonus nor penalty.




6. What's the rule on "disarming" someone of their quiver of arrows? That would fall under "grabbing items," right? And considered "Loosely secured?"
A quiver is not loosely secured, but rather strapped to the wearer by means of belts. I would even say that makes it well-secured, so you'd need to pin the enemy to disarm it (though sundering it would work just like attacking an object).


Curious if anyone has an answer. I've avoided using things like Sunder/Disarm in the past because I didn't fully understand the rules. Which is something I should fix.
Nah, it's pretty much a useless maneuver that annoys people rather than accomplishing anything. It's fine once in a blue moon as a novelty encounter, but the space it takes up in the book is pretty much wasted.

[Hobosub]

Sunder is in fact pretty powerful.

When someone is specialized in a certain toy, you can take it away (counts for both offense and defense).
When done as a DM, this tends to make people sad.
Players usually don't do it on the count of less loot.

Actually today, our DM offered us someone who sundered our clerics holy symbol, which was quite refreshing.

The way I see it, sunder is something that depends on how easily you can recover from it.
If you can recover (something similar to) the thing you lost within a week, it's totally fair.
If it will take you weeks to get even the slightest chance, it's pretty much being a jerk.

As far as denying people equipment with magic goes, Shatter and Disjunction are your friend.
They can be great tools for directing the story, they can be great tools for destroying a group.

Recovering from either is usually very tough. (depending on the inventory of Ye Olde Magick Shoppe)

[Crake]

It's worth noting that while you cant technically sunder a weapon with a spell/power, you can target them with certain spells/powers. Energy missile, for example, can target objects, and if you use the sonic energy damage, you can ignore it's hardness too, which is useful. On the other hand, energy stun, since it does not target an object directly and is an area effect spell will only damage objects if a target rolls a 1 on their save, and even then, will damage a random object.

As for rays, I'm not sure how to adjudicate them. You can clearly target a weapon with them, but what an attended weapon's AC is, I'm not sure.

[Ephemeral_Being]

It's worth noting that while you cant technically sunder a weapon with a spell/power, you can target them with certain spells/powers. Energy missile, for example, can target objects, and if you use the sonic energy damage, you can ignore it's hardness too, which is useful. On the other hand, energy stun, since it does not target an object directly and is an area effect spell will only damage objects if a target rolls a 1 on their save, and even then, will damage a random object.

As for rays, I'm not sure how to adjudicate them. You can clearly target a weapon with them, but what an attended weapon's AC is, I'm not sure.

That, I actually can provide an answer for.


You don’t use an opposed attack roll to damage a carried or worn object. Instead, just make an attack roll against the object’s AC. A carried or worn object’s AC is equal to 10 + its size modifier + the Dexterity modifier of the carrying or wearing character. Attacking a carried or worn object provokes an attack of opportunity just as attacking a held object does. To attempt to snatch away an item worn by a defender rather than damage it, see Disarm. You can’t sunder armor worn by another character.

Are you saying I could target a Longbow with, say, Energy Ray (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Energy_Ray)? Because if so, I'm running a Psionic whose entire schtick is blowing up the enemy's weapons, or collapsing the floor/ceiling on them. At level nine, he can spend 9 PP to do 9d6-9 damage to an object, ignoring hardness. On average, that would be enough to destroy most weapons.

EDIT: Wow. Energy Missile is basically tailor made to make this a great plan. You could disarm an entire enemy party in one round.

EDIT 2: Wait, can you target armour spikes? The rules for Sunder say that you can't target armour. But what about the pointy bits on them? They're technically weapons. What kind of HP/Hardness would they have?

[Crake]

That, I actually can provide an answer for.



Are you saying I could target a Longbow with, say, Energy Ray (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Energy_Ray)? Because if so, I'm running a Psionic whose entire schtick is blowing up the enemy's weapons, or collapsing the floor/ceiling on them. At level nine, he can spend 9 PP to do 9d6-9 damage to an object, ignoring hardness. On average, that would be enough to destroy most weapons.

EDIT: Wow. Energy Missile is basically tailor made to make this a great plan. You could disarm an entire enemy party in one round.

EDIT 2: Wait, can you target armour spikes? The rules for Sunder say that you can't target armour. But what about the pointy bits on them? They're technically weapons. What kind of HP/Hardness would they have?

Yeah, I've had a lot of fun using energy missile to disarm multiple people at once. Don't do what I did and miss the bit where it says the targets can't be more than 30ft apart haha. As for armor, it says you can't sunder it, but technically what you're doing isn't sundering, you're targeting it with a spell, so I think you're ok to do that.

[Bronk]

4. Is it considered "bad form" to use Sunder as the GM on your party's equipment? Because it actually makes good tactical sense, in many cases. Destroy the Ranger's bow, for instance, and he's pretty much useless.


Yes, in my experience it's usually considered bad form to break your all of your players' expensive equipment. Since few like to have their PCs nerfed, it usually gets lumped in with other things players don't want to have happen, like disjunction.

There are good in game reasons to avoid these things. With both sundering and disjoining, when PCs use it on NPCs they ruin their own potential loot. When NPCs use it on PCs, they ruin their own potential loot too.

Also, out of character, this has the potential of frustrating your players big time.

Since there are other ways to separate a PC from their stuff, I suggest testing the waters with those first. Instead of sundering, you could have your NPC disarm someone instead. You could also do this with stunning effects, like a 2nd level sound burst spell, stunning fist, etc., since a stunned character drops everything they are holding. Once the weapon is on the ground, just have one of your NPCs grab it and run off with it, and see how your characters react to that. They'll probably freak out and focus exclusively on getting their items back. Or, you could try having someone steal their things, or knock them out, capture them and have them wake up without their equipment.

I suppose if they seemed okay with that (for some reason) you could further test the waters by sending them against rust monsters or weapon dissolving puddings and slimes. That way you could make the consequences of weapon and item destruction either be completely obvious, or dependent on knowledge checks, and see how they react then.

Oh! Or you can name your NPC (Blank), the Sunderer of Weapons, to let them know what they're in for. He'd probably pick up the moniker fairly quickly anyway.

Long story short, I'd think twice before using sunder all the time, unless you're planning on replacing their weapons with something better almost immediately. Otherwise, your players will start getting angry with you, because they'll feel like you're targeting them, out of character, on purpose.

[Crake]

it usually gets lumped in with other things players don't want to have happen, like disjunction.

I sent a living disjunction against my players once. They weren't too happy when they got engulfed and had to roll a will save for every magic item they had on them every round.

That said, I think, as long as the players have sufficient means to restore their gear (usually by overcompensating the loot for the encounter) then it shouldn't be much of an issue. In fact, some might see it, meta wise, as an opportunity to re-gear themselves from scratch to get a set of items with more synergy, rather than tacking together random pieces of equipment over time due to not wanting to sell it for half price.

In my example, the living disjunction left behind disjoining fluid, which could be put into a vial and used as a throw weapon similar to a rod of cancellation. 20 of them! At 11k per piece, that got them 220k, almost double what was lost in that fight (and i let them sell it at full price because it was rather unique, and very powerful). So not only could the player afford to replace all his gear exactly as he lost it, he could have custom tailored it according to his wishes.
This obviously doesn't work unless the players have access to a magic-mart kind of thing, or can craft their stuff themselves (which my players had access to both).

Of course, that's not what happened, the player got really mad and took a break from dnd for 2 weeks, then proceeded to metagame a faustian pact and make the game fall apart by doing a bunch of evil and getting himself ostracised from every NPC he knew.... But hey, not all players see the silver lining i guess....