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BardicDuelist
2007-04-20, 09:12 PM
Can you sunder armor? If not, what would be the problem with allowing it? It would certainly make adimentium (sp?) more useful.

Armads
2007-04-20, 09:37 PM
You can't sunder armor. There's no problem in allowing it, since the benefits of severly weakening the foe is offset by the loss of loot. I think this is just a dumb rule by WotC.

BardicDuelist
2007-04-20, 09:41 PM
Well, I wanted to justify the evolution of fighting to lighter armor by allowing characters to sunder heavy armor with firearms.

Matthew
2007-04-20, 09:45 PM
No real need. Just give the Guns a Bonus to Hit or the ability to overcome X Armour Bonus / Damage Resistance (depending on what rules you are using).

BardicDuelist
2007-04-20, 09:49 PM
I had considered that, but didn't like it. My players made a good point: then why would some spells not ignore X armor bonus when they move faster and do more damage.

I also figured that things with really high STR scores would damage the armor.

Matthew
2007-04-20, 09:57 PM
Tracking Damage to Armour is a labour intensive excercise, but I do that myself as well. All the same, many Spells are automatic hits and many others are Ray effects that simply don't compare to a lead ball at high velocity. Do you have any particular Spells in mind? If you are going to take this approach, by the way, consider tracking Damage from ordinary combat as well.

If you are playing a post Medieval type game, you might want to consider Armour as Damage Reduction (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm) and the Defence Bonus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/defenseBonus.htm) Variant Rules.

Gungnir
2007-04-20, 10:00 PM
It's always kinda left a bad taste in my mouth, how my full-plated fighter can be torn and bloodied, and despite that monsters having to got through the armor to hurt him, his armor is in perfect shape.

Matthew
2007-04-20, 10:01 PM
Well, to be fair, unless the Fighter is at 0 Hit Points or less, he's in perfect shape as well.

MeklorIlavator
2007-04-20, 10:03 PM
What spells are affected by armor? The only spells that I can think of are the ones that form a weapon out of magic, and those move at the same speed that the average longsword does, so I think armor would be effective against them.

BardicDuelist
2007-04-20, 10:16 PM
Honestly, I don't remember the spells off the top of my head.

How more unattractive do you think sundering armor would make armor? My new world is set after the dark ages, when heavy armor wasn't considered useful any more, but I don't want to ban any type of armor (in d20 modern, you can still use full plate).

Annarrkkii
2007-04-20, 10:17 PM
Were D+D just, it would use the Class Defense variant, with opposed-roll combat. Have your shield add to your AC, and your Armor grant DR. Anytime your armor absorbs damage, it takes that much damage, and any time your shield stops a blow, it takes that damage. Governed by the normal rules for hardness and half-damage and the like.

BardicDuelist
2007-04-20, 10:21 PM
Were D+D just, it would use the Class Defense variant, with opposed-roll combat. Have your shield add to your AC, and your Armor grant DR. Anytime your armor absorbs damage, it takes that much damage, and any time your shield stops a blow, it takes that damage. Governed by the normal rules for hardness and half-damage and the like.

I considered that too, but my friends who have played since AD&D refused. They said that that variant took away from one of the few mechanical nostalgic elements left. We also had a hard time coming up with a defense progression for rogues and bards since in UA defense bonus is based on armor proficiency.

Matthew
2007-04-20, 10:25 PM
It also doesn't take into account that Body Armour is often bypassed or that Shields need not absorb the full force of a blow, deflection and all that.

BardicDuelist
2007-04-20, 10:31 PM
Annother thing I did is I made the skill trick that allows a character to make a spot check to ignore the armor bonus just a use of the spot skill.

MeklorIlavator
2007-04-20, 10:42 PM
Annother thing I did is I made the skill trick that allows a character to make a spot check to ignore the armor bonus just a use of the spot skill.

There is a feat that grants an ability similar to this in complete warrior and the draconomicon. But it does make more sense as a skill check, but some of the balancing might be helped by looking at the feat.

BardicDuelist
2007-04-20, 10:55 PM
Skill tricks are something new in C Scoundrel. I didn't consider it too unbalanced. I made the DC = Opponents armor bonus +15 (closer to the feat in PHBII instead of the trick, for which the DC=AC). Also, most of the opponents don't wear too much armor (because of the time period).

AtomicKitKat
2007-04-21, 02:45 AM
Bebiliths and Rust Monsters are about the only things I know of that specifically target armours. :/

Closet_Skeleton
2007-04-21, 04:10 AM
I've a third party book with a Sunder Armour feat but it isn't that useful since it only really lets you attack armour. A table something like this would be fun.

Armour effect
damage
25% -1 AC
50% -2 AC, max dex bonus reduces by 1
75% -3 AC, max dex bonus reduces by 2, armour check penalty increases by 2
100% Armour destroyed. Ruined armour still grants a +2 armour bonus and has a Max dex bonus of +2

If you're using armour as damage reduction then you could have an armour HP that's reduced everytime the armour reduces damage. Otherwise say that 25% of damage suffered is also dealt to the armour.

Stevenson
2007-04-21, 07:14 AM
In the same vein, can armor not be affected by Shatter? I was always under the impression that it could-thus, sundering armor should be not a stone's throw away from that.

Quietus
2007-04-21, 07:37 AM
If it's nonmagical, yes.

Annarrkkii
2007-04-21, 12:55 PM
I was sort of joking with my initial post, as that would be a highly ungainly system to manage. It would be exceedingly realistic, in a lot of ways, but too unwieldy.

Olethros
2007-04-21, 03:08 PM
The only reason I see for not allowing the sundering of armour is streamline of rules cobined with suspencin of disbalief. If I smash an opponents shield to wrthless bits, but don't harm him (as with a standard application of sunder) everybody can more or less accept the image in there mind. The now shieldless foe is standing there just having interposed his shield one last time between himself and a fatal blow. With armour, however, how do you justify that I smashed his armour to bits, but didn't pulverise his delicious squihy bits? The natural alternative is of corse to allow damage to be done both to the armour and the man inside, but then whe wouldn't every fighter take improved sunder and attempt to sunder on every swing, especially against foes with non-magical armour (the loss of loot is then rather small)

Roderick_BR
2007-04-21, 03:24 PM
You can't for the same reason AC works. Like, if you have armor, it makes it be harder to hit a foe, instead of reducing damage like some games. Like wise, if you hit, say, the guy's chest, you are not hitting the armor, you are hitting [i]him[/].
The rule is there just to don't make things more complex than they already are :smalltongue:
You can house rule that armors can be sundered. Maybe make it that everytime you miss someone just because of armor class, the armor takes damage, or something. Or everytime you do take a hit, you damage the armor, like in Diablo. It would also make players need to do maintenance.

Tyrael
2007-04-21, 03:46 PM
Sundering a Carried or Worn Object

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.


However...this is contradicted. On the table here: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/exploration.htm#tableObjectHardnessAndHitPoints it lists armor under "special". The footnote explains that the Hardness and HP of armor varies by material. For example, Leather is listed as having Hardness 2, and HP 5/inch of thickness. Given that more than inch-thick armor would be cumbersome, we'll call it 5.

So, according to the table, Leather Armor has AC 10, Hardness 2, and HP 5, in which case it can be sundered with a rapier! That makes no logical sense to me.





So, what's the deal, here? Table says armor can be sundered. Text says armor worn by another character can't be sundered.

Which is it?

Ulzgoroth
2007-04-21, 04:21 PM
Both. Armor can be sundered only when not worn, exactly as follows from your 'contradictory' statement.

That doesn't make much sense, of course, but RAW often don't.

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-04-21, 04:40 PM
Additionally, worn armor can be damaged when a character rolls a natural one on a saving throw against a damaging spell. "Cannot be sundered" =/= "Immune to damage."

Bardbarian
2007-04-21, 04:44 PM
--->Additionally, remember that rapiers can't Sunder anything, as they do Peircing damage. One can only perform a Sunder attempt with something that does Slashing or Bludgeoning.

--->To the OP, I'm a fan of having firearms roll attack rolls against touch AC as opposed to full AC. Clint Eastwood fans can still get the Bullet Bounce effect with any armors granting DR.

Clementx
2007-04-21, 05:02 PM
For example, Leather is listed as having Hardness 2, and HP 5/inch of thickness. Given that more than inch-thick armor would be cumbersome, we'll call it 5.
Or you could actually use the rules, and have the HP be the AC bonus times 5, which means sundering a suit of leather armor lying on the ground is against Hardness 2 and HP10. Also, have fun sundering with a piercing weapon (since you can't).

Why can't people 1) actually read that table and 2) understand that you can't sunder armor while worn, but like any object, has hardness/HP, even though most of the time it doesn't matter, because by time you can start breaking apart the armor, you've already killed the person in it?

BardicDuelist
2007-04-21, 07:10 PM
Clementx, I had allready figured that you couldn't, but I wasn't sure and was seeing if anything changed in errata, etc. Also, I stated the purpose of why I wanted to be able to and my reasoning behind it.