Are there rules for attacking held weapons with spells such as scorching ray?

[Gusmo]

So a few weeks back I suggested somewhere that you could reliably blow up weapons (or other gear in use by an enemy) just by targeting them with direct damage spells, preferably tuned to acid or sonic damage so that the spells do full damage. But I was just browsing the sunder rules (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm#sunder), and now I'm not sure that it works. Am I correct in my reading that you can only destroy worn or carried objects with melee attacks, barring specific wording in an ability or spell that allows otherwise? Shatter (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shatter.htm) works, combined with some sort of dispel effect if necessary, but that's targeting what's frequently a good save.

[Gruftzwerg]

dunno how it works for spells, but for warlocks Eldritch Blast ability it's 50% dmg to objects (which can later be enhanced to 100% via essence). Maybe the same for spells?


edit: on second thought, forget what I said about spells.
At first the spell must be able to target objects. And if it can, the rule text gives info about how to handle it (if special).
AoE Spells often mention in their description how objects and attached/hold items are handled. If not (and there isn't a restriction down to "creatures/enemies only") it would affect items as well (not aware of such a spell atm.).

[Venger]

as mentioned, most spells don't let you target weapons or items individually and ones that do such as shatter will specify how they work.

why do you want to smash your own loot, though?

[Zanos]

Rays don't target creatures, so should work fine with the normal damaging object rules. Typically objects take half-damage from energy, though.

[tyckspoon]

dunno how it works for spells, but for warlocks Eldritch Blast ability it's 50% dmg to objects (which can later be enhanced to 100% via essence). Maybe the same for spells?


edit: on second thought, forget what I said about spells.
At first the spell must be able to target objects. And if it can, the rule text gives info about how to handle it (if special).
AoE Spells often mention in their description how objects and attached/hold items are handled. If not (and there isn't a restriction down to "creatures/enemies only") it would affect items as well (not aware of such a spell atm.).

If not specifically dealt with in spell text, attended items are only affected if the carrier fails their save with a natural 1. Then you go down a list and see which item takes the hit. It's a weird fiddly rule, and there's a developer blog somewhere about how the writer wishes they hadn't put it in there.

[Venger]

If not specifically dealt with in spell text, attended items are only affected if the carrier fails their save with a natural 1. Then you go down a list and see which item takes the hit. It's a weird fiddly rule, and there's a developer blog somewhere about how the writer wishes they hadn't put it in there.

does anyone actually play with this rule? in all my years playing this game, I've never even heard of someone who did. I assumed it was like encumbrance, massive damage, or multiclass xp penalties. is it commonly followed?

[tyckspoon]

does anyone actually play with this rule? in all my years playing this game, I've never even heard of someone who did. I assumed it was like encumbrance, massive damage, or multiclass xp penalties. is it commonly followed?

I doubt it. Not only is it triggered by a relatively rare situation to start with, most of the time when it happens it doesn't actually do anything - the effect you fail against has to be something capable of affecting objects to start with, then the object gets its own save, and then you apply the effect to the object. So.. say you have a Fighter who fails his save against a Fireball. Shield, Armor, and Weapon are among the very top of the list to be affected. He's maybe a two-hander, so his armor takes the hit. His armor might actually have a better bonus on this save than he did, so now somebody goes to look up how object saves work, because that's another not commonly called for rule. Say it passes. Half damage. Now halve it again for trying to hurt an object with fire. Now apply hardness. You just spent a minute of your game applying this process to do.. what, a point of damage to the armor? Do that a couple of times and you'll probably decide it's pointless and ditch it. (Alternately, you hit somebody who doesn't wear durable goods on their outermost slots, and you incinerate the Wizard's Headband of Intellect or somebody's magic cloak. That's also not good, because that's actually much more harm to the character than just sucking down the HP damage. It's basically a crit fumble rule ... and if you've been around here a while, you probably know the general opinions about those.)

[Gusmo]

why do you want to smash your own loot, though?

These are all situations where I might have in real games I've played.

-Prevent escape (boots of teleportation or something).
-It's the final battle of a campaign.
-It's the best way to neutralize a foe and what you'd get from selling a +1 weapon or some other minor magic item isn't much in the scheme of things.
-It's not even a valuable item, just a dangerous one in the current situation (spell component pouch or even mundane full plate on a brute).
-Last resort.


Rays don't target creatures, so should work fine with the normal damaging object rules. Typically objects take half-damage from energy, though.

The rules for smashing objects (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/exploration.htm#smashinganObject) seem to point back to the sunder rules (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm#sunder) for attended objects. In the sunder rules, it's not clear to me whether anything other than melee attacks are allowed to destroy worn objects besides weapons and shields, because it doesn't mention any type of attack to destroy, say, a spell component pouch or boots of teleportation. I would personally err on the side of interpreting this to mean it inherits from melee attack clause of destroying weapons and shields, versus allowing anything. I don't see any way at all to destroy armor.

[Thurbane]

does anyone actually play with this rule? in all my years playing this game, I've never even heard of someone who did. I assumed it was like encumbrance, massive damage, or multiclass xp penalties. is it commonly followed?

I don't know about common, but we use all of those rules in our game...

[Venger]

I don't know about common, but we use all of those rules in our game...

Wow, that's interesting. Encumbrance and multiclass xp are easy enough to dodge in these games, but would you mind telling me what massive damage looks like in actual play? Does it make the game devolve to rocket tag even earlier, or not?

[Zanos]

Wow, that's interesting. Encumbrance and multiclass xp are easy enough to dodge in these games, but would you mind telling me what massive damage looks like in actual play? Does it make the game devolve to rocket tag even earlier, or not?
I suspect it doesn't come up that often. Characters that won't straight up die from 50 points of damage probably have quite good fortitude saves, and the DC is a static 15. Maybe at high levels if you're taking multiple 50 damage attacks per round it could become a problem.


Of the things you've listed, the most to least common for me is probably:

1. Encumbrance
2. Damaging Objects
3. Multiclass XP penalties
4. Massive damage

Of those, damaging objects doesn't usually happen because it's forgotten about rather than specifically excluded.

I mean, most people don't bother tracking the weight of every copper, but weight is tracked in most games I've played and it does matter. It just becomes irrelevant once you get your hands on some cheap extra-dimensional storage. Or a mule.

[Venger]

I suspect it doesn't come up that often. Characters that won't straight up die from 50 points of damage probably have quite good fortitude saves, and the DC is a static 15. Maybe at high levels if you're taking multiple 50 damage attacks per round it could become a problem.

After level 10 or so, are your pcs not all dealing 50 damage with each attack? even a halfway decent beatstick should be doing something like that by that time.

By high levels in my experience, multiple 50+ damage attacks are the norm.

My objection to massive damage, aside from making the game even rocket taggier even sooner is the same as the objection to a fumble rule: it disproportionately affects pcs. 5% of the time, no matter how good your fort save is, you are going to die. If that's once in every 20 attacks, your pc will not be long for this earth if he's not immune to fort saves somehow.



Of the things you've listed, the most to least common for me is probably:

1. Encumbrance
2. Damaging Objects
3. Multiclass XP penalties
4. Massive damage

Of those, damaging objects doesn't usually happen because it's forgotten about rather than specifically excluded.

I mean, most people don't bother tracking the weight of every copper, but weight is tracked in most games I've played and it does matter. It just becomes irrelevant once you get your hands on some cheap extra-dimensional storage. Or a mule.
Yeah, once that point comes, people in my experience just kind of forget about encumbrance because it can probably fit in the bag/mule. The reason being tracking the weight of the marbles and fishing line and soap my guy is carrying doesn't make the game more fun, so I prefer to just jog that ahead and as long as no one tries to get ridiculous, just let people begin play that way.

[Zanos]

After level 10 or so, are your pcs not all dealing 50 damage with each attack? even a halfway decent beatstick should be doing something like that by that time.

By high levels in my experience, multiple 50+ damage attacks are the norm.

My objection to massive damage, aside from making the game even rocket taggier even sooner is the same as the objection to a fumble rule: it disproportionately affects pcs. 5% of the time, no matter how good your fort save is, you are going to die. If that's once in every 20 attacks, your pc will not be long for this earth if he's not immune to fort saves somehow.

Sure, But double digits are pretty rocket taggy at that point anyway. I don't think massive damage is a good rule at all(the solution to garbage is never more garbage), but I think it's real impact is overstated. If you're doing 50 damage per hit, a full attack is probably going to kill whatever you're hitting anyway. Doesn't mean I want to play with it in the game, though.


Yeah, once that point comes, people in my experience just kind of forget about encumbrance because it can probably fit in the bag/mule. The reason being tracking the weight of the marbles and fishing line and soap my guy is carrying doesn't make the game more fun, so I prefer to just jog that ahead and as long as no one tries to get ridiculous, just let people begin play that way.
That's probably fine. I think it's mattered more for me over the course of the games I've played because my characters strength modifiers don't tend to be positive. Encumbrance can get pretty hilarious if your DM uses rolled treasure, though. Say hello to hundreds of thousands of copper coins. Silly loot tables.

[Thurbane]

Wow, that's interesting. Encumbrance and multiclass xp are easy enough to dodge in these games, but would you mind telling me what massive damage looks like in actual play? Does it make the game devolve to rocket tag even earlier, or not?

Most of our games don't go much higher than 10th level, and I've only seen one death: in RHoD, a Red Dragon flubbed a save after getting hit with a Sudden Empowered Orb of Cold.

[Zancloufer]

There are rules for Sundering Weapons in game. You and the person you are attack pretty much make opposed attack rolls and if you win you deal damage to their weapon. It also provoke an AoO if you don't have the improved sunder feat.

Biggest problem is that larger size = better chance at winning. Don't think that would work against a weapon like spell though. Better option would be to just use the rules for attended objects (have to hit an AC of 10+item size mod+carrier's dex mod).

Do remember that most elemental attacks get their damage seriously reduced BEFORE hardness. Scorching Ray that does less than 20 damage probably won't scratch 99% of weapons and armours.

[Telok]

Most of our games don't go much higher than 10th level, and I've only seen one death: in RHoD, a Red Dragon flubbed a save after getting hit with a Sudden Empowered Orb of Cold.

Funny, I start seeing 50 damage hits starting at around 5th level. By level 10 it's a strong hit, but not an uncommon one. In fact at around 10th level I start expecting wizards to be able to take a 50 point hit and keep going.

A warblade with a 18 - 20 threat range weapon and Insightful strike is good at this.
Lance and axe crits, sometimes from level 1 and almost always by level 10.
Sudden Maximize (or rod of) and any one of various sources of Empower start hitting for 50 at level 7.
Any monster capable of doing 25+ damage on a normal hit can get a crit, all standard giants other than hill giants for example.

[Thurbane]

Funny, I start seeing 50 damage hits starting at around 5th level. By level 10 it's a strong hit, but not an uncommon one. In fact at around 10th level I start expecting wizards to be able to take a 50 point hit and keep going.

A warblade with a 18 - 20 threat range weapon and Insightful strike is good at this.
Lance and axe crits, sometimes from level 1 and almost always by level 10.
Sudden Maximize (or rod of) and any one of various sources of Empower start hitting for 50 at level 7.
Any monster capable of doing 25+ damage on a normal hit can get a crit, all standard giants other than hill giants for example.

My group plays a fairly mid-low op game, generally speaking. Clerics as healers, Wizards as blasters, that sort of thing. I'm probably the optimizer of the group, and I'm usually the DM (which sometimes leads me to throw "over-optimized" enemies at the PCs). The next highest optimizer to me had to drop out of the game due to distance, and the third most chooses to build his characters around fluff rather than crunch.