Sunder

[Aotrs Commander]

Okay, so, Sunder is effectively worthless maneouver at our table, because no-one is ever willing to use it on either side of the table (under no circumstances ever are the PCs going to destroy potential loot) - even with the PF change to only optionally making it broken and at 1 hit point and dropped pre-reqs due to folding stuff in, I don't see anyone rushing to do it.

PF:Kingmaker (the CRPG), however, has instead Sunder Armour, which means:


You can attempt to dislodge a piece of armor worn by your opponent. If your combat maneuver is successful, the target loses its bonuses from armor for 1 round.

For every 5 by which your attack exceeds your opponent's CMD, the penalty lasts 1 additional round.



That seems like that might actually be a useful ability to append to Sunder, as that might actually tempt people in our group (DM included) to use it (and if they have the feat, they might consider using it on some other stuff as well.)

Thoughts?

[stack]

Sundering armor is a good option to have, though this statement carries all the usual caveats about combat maneuvers in PF.

Sunder becomes more appealing if you can:

Repair the broken loot efficiently
Leverage your investment in the ability against things that don't use weapons/armor
Deal enough damage to be worth using (If it takes multiple sunders to destroy an item due to hardness/HP, is it worth doing?)

Also, not everyone has the hardness/HP of objects handy at all times.

For a sunder-focus in the 3.PF framework, you may be interested in perusing the blacksmith Spheres of Might class for one approach to making the Sunder mechanic more PC-friendly.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Sundering natural weapons and natural armor would be nice, as well. Maiming a creature's claws, for instance, would make the maneuver useful against a LOT of creatures it's normally useless against.

[Psyren]

You may already know this, but PF didn't just change Sunder so that it doesn't destroy loot unless you want to; there were two other changes that make the tactic much more attractive:

1) Adding the "Broken" condition (usually > half HP), at which an item's benefits are sharply reduced. This makes sunder matter in a fight quickly, even in a single roll if you optimize well, and also means you don't have to "destroy loot" in order to get benefit out of it.

2) Even if you do damage or destroy your loot, in Pathfinder repairing magic items is a lot easier than in 3.5; Compare the text in Mending and Make Whole between editions for example. Note also that Make Whole was added to more spell lists in PF. So even a low level party can go ham with Sunder and still have their loot.

As for the Kingmaker ability - while I don't mind it, I also don't think it really fits the Sunder maneuver, it feels more like a Dirty Trick or Steal or Disarm. Sunder is for breaking things, so having it last only for a round or two feels odd.

[HeraldOfExius]

As for the Kingmaker ability - while I don't mind it, I also don't think it really fits the Sunder maneuver, it feels more like a Dirty Trick or Steal or Disarm. Sunder is for breaking things, so having it last only for a round or two feels odd.

Short debuffs are definitely more in the realm of Dirty Trick, although as a Sunder it only takes the place of a single attack instead of being a standard action. That does make it a more attractive option since you can personally benefit from the debuff in the same round that you apply it.

[Aotrs Commander]

You may already know this, but PF didn't just change Sunder so that it doesn't destroy loot unless you want to; there were two other changes that make the tactic much more attractive:

1) Adding the "Broken" condition (usually > half HP), at which an item's benefits are sharply reduced. This makes sunder matter in a fight quickly, even in a single roll if you optimize well, and also means you don't have to "destroy loot" in order to get benefit out of it.

2) Even if you do damage or destroy your loot, in Pathfinder repairing magic items is a lot easier than in 3.5; Compare the text in Mending and Make Whole between editions for example. Note also that Make Whole was added to more spell lists in PF. So even a low level party can go ham with Sunder and still have their loot.

Yeah, even with that (which I had ported over), I'm not sure it would be that tempting.

(But by-the-by thanks for reminding me of those spells, I could have sworn I moved them over to 3.Aotrs (I know we looked up and used used the PF version of mending that last time someone got a weapon damaged by something or other), but apprently I had not; have now.)


As for the Kingmaker ability - while I don't mind it, I also don't think it really fits the Sunder maneuver, it feels more like a Dirty Trick or Steal or Disarm. Sunder is for breaking things, so having it last only for a round or two feels odd.

And that is why I'm sort of hestiant. I like the idea of it giving some more utility to sunder, because it's still the least appealing maneouvre by far, but the reason I'm here is myself I am... Having a little difficulty about fitting the flavour of it. (I guess if all else fails, it could maybe be a feat, but I'm not sure anyone would take it...! Following you advice, actually, I have been trying to reduce feat taxes generally - and if in doubt, when a PF and a 3.5 feat do differebnt things, I've generally folded them together - so... Yeah. Why I'm considering this.)

[Psyren]

Short debuffs are definitely more in the realm of Dirty Trick, although as a Sunder it only takes the place of a single attack instead of being a standard action. That does make it a more attractive option since you can personally benefit from the debuff in the same round that you apply it.



And that is why I'm sort of hestiant. I like the idea of it giving some more utility to sunder, because it's still the least appealing maneouvre by far, but the reason I'm here is myself I am... Having a little difficulty about fitting the flavour of it. (I guess if all else fails, it could maybe be a feat, but I'm not sure anyone would take it...! Following you advice, actually, I have been trying to reduce feat taxes generally - and if in doubt, when a PF and a 3.5 feat do differebnt things, I've generally folded them together - so... Yeah. Why I'm considering this.)

You could always make it an application of Disarm instead. That both allows you to do it while attacking like Sunder, and fits the temporary nature of the debuff better too. But in general I do think a Dirty Trick simulates this better.;after all, if it can blind someone for one round (negating their attack bonus) then negating their AC for one round feels doable too.