Why would you want to sunder an item?

[eyebreaker7]

Maybe I'm looking at this wrong but why would I want to sunder an item I'm hoping to loot from somethings corpse? And there's even an IMPROVED sunder feat? Why?

[flappeercraft]

There is the Forsaker PrC which are unable to use magic items which they must destroy instead. Outside of that I'm convinced that its for NPCs which will never see the light of day after use so they don't care about loot. I guess you could make a case for when you can't take or use the item, but honestly if you can't use it you should be selling it, and if you can't take it then you're not trying hard enough.

[InvisibleBison]

Maybe I'm looking at this wrong but why would I want to sunder an item I'm hoping to loot from somethings corpse?

Leaving aside the possibility that you might not be interested in looting all of your opponents' possessions, you'd sunder an item when the benefit of doing so outweighs the loss. If, for example, the enemy has a desecrated ceremonial chalice that can be used to unseal a prison containing an ancient evil, sundering it is a viable way of preventing them from completing the ritual.


And there's even an IMPROVED sunder feat? Why?

Perhaps because the people writing the game didn't fully appreciate how important looting your opponents' gear would be. Perhaps because it was intended to be used by enemies against the PCs. Perhaps simply because there were Improved X feats for all the other combat maneuvers.

[Gruftzwerg]

1. Things like a spell pouch are good targets to sunder. You deny the enemy caster a bunch of his spells without destroying valuable loot.

2. Vow of Poverty, you don't care for loot to begin with.

3. Destroying loot won't change your WBL. So, if you DM ain't a *!@?%!, there shouldn't be a problem at all. The "destroyed loot" is mostly standard gear, nothing fancy to write books about.

4. Shields are also a good target to sunder if your team has oproblems to hit the target otherwise.

...

Sure it is not the ultimate combat tool. But it has his niche. And if it wasn't in the game, people would complaining that there are no rules to sunder items...

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I'd rather take Ancestral Relic than Improved Sunder, since I can sacrifice loot to my relic instead of sacrificing it for nothing.

[Elkad]

If you follow WBL guidelines, the DM is going to replace it anyway, so why not deny the badguy the use of the item?

Or if it's yet another store weapon (possibly with GMW cast on it), you lose a handful of gold for sundering it. So no real loss at all.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If you follow WBL guidelines, the DM is going to replace it anyway, so why not deny the badguy the use of the item?I've never ever had a DM that made up for destroyed loot. Ever.

Of course, I've had some really crap DMs.

[tiercel]

Leaving aside the possibility that you might not be interested in looting all of your opponents' possessions, you'd sunder an item when the benefit of doing so outweighs the loss. If, for example, the enemy has a desecrated ceremonial chalice that can be used to unseal a prison containing an ancient evil, sundering it is a viable way of preventing them from completing the ritual.

This I’d say; just to elaborate somewhat:

1) The item is something you cannot sell (for whatever reason) but is a threat to you

2) The item is something you could sell, but it’s problematic (e.g. you’re a Good character selling off a +1 unholy longsword... which will presumably be used to kill other Good creatures, or, you’re trying to sell an item that is so obviously Disgustingly Evil most merchants won’t buy it and the ones who are interested in the item may be more interested in pilfering it or looting it off your corpse instead)

3) The item itself is the problem or the enemy (e.g. a cursed weapon or a possessed object or Evil intelligent magic item)

4) Destroying the object achieves your actual goal much faster/with less risk than defeating the individual using/being used by that object (cf. InvisibleBison’s example of an evil MacGuffin, or if a magic item is more of a threat than its individual is)

5) Gruftzwerg’s point above about targeting enemy spellcaster spell component pouches or (un)holy symbols is possibly the most classic move (but if it is a commonly known tactic, can be reasonably countered by simply carrying/wearing spares)

These are probably not the only specific cases, but together they are still mostly edge cases unless a particular DM heavily favors such situations (which in my personal experience doesn’t seem to happen).

...as for WBL, it tends to play out like the Pirates’ Code (“more like guidelines than actual rules”), so that’s a YMMV experience depending on DM preference or even something as simple as “is this adventure/campaign being mostly run out of a module with fixed, pre-determined loot that the DM is disinclined to manually jigger?”

[Jay R]

Frodo went on a quest to cast the One Ring into the Cracks of Doom.
Harry Potter and his friends destroyed seven horcruxes.
Inigo cut the rope the Man in Black was climbing up.
Luke blew up the Death Star.
Eddie Valiant got rid of all the Dip.
A besieging army starts by trying to destroy the wall around the city they want to take.
If you reach the enemy cannons in a Napoleonic battle, and don't know that you will hold them, then you should immediately spike them.
Tanks try to destroy enemy tanks. Fighter pilots try to destroy enemy planes.
Two weeks ago, our party destroyed an orb that was controlling two party members.
Sixteenth century fighters had "blade-breaker" daggers to destroy the enemy's sword.
http://www.knifecollector.net/images/SwordBreaker2.jpg


There are any number of reasons you might want to destroy something, rather than own or sell it.

[King of Nowhere]

My old campaign made large use of destroying items (mostly by disjunction) because bypassing defences was too hard otherwise, and loot was plentiful anyway.
The thing is, trying to kill the opponent while he had all his defences up was just too difficult to be worth the risk

[Vaern]

I'm pretty sure you can use sunder to make called shots against an opponent. I know that hydras specifically require sunder to chop their heads off.

[Kish]

Harry Potter and his friends destroyed seven horcruxes.
They most certainly did not.

[Melcar]

Maybe I'm looking at this wrong but why would I want to sunder an item I'm hoping to loot from somethings corpse? And there's even an IMPROVED sunder feat? Why?

Well obviously you wouldn't want to sunder an item you want to loot... that seems selfevident, but you might want to sunder an item you dont want to loot. The reason why the feat excists is so one can become better at this tactic!

[wilphe]

Apart from the other excellent answers:

You may wish to disarm an enemy in order to take them alive; especially if you are pacifically inclined or have some specific reason to "avoid bloodshed"

[Biggus]

Maybe I'm looking at this wrong but why would I want to sunder an item I'm hoping to loot from somethings corpse? And there's even an IMPROVED sunder feat? Why?

As already mentioned, it can be used by NPCs. Some feats and classes are clearly aimed at NPCs: Dwarven Defender works just fine as an NPC class but is pretty rubbishy for PCs for example.

Also, if an item is evil and the PCs are all good, not only can you not use it, it would be immoral to sell it. In a campaign with a lot of enemies using evil items (maybe you're fighting a demonic cult or something) sundering might be a good tactic quite regularly.

Finally, magic items can be repaired for half the cost to make them, so if an enemy is very hard to beat because of a dangerous item they have, it may be worth your while to sunder it and get it repaired later.


I've never ever had a DM that made up for destroyed loot. Ever.


I do when I DM. I make sure the PCs never fall too far behind WBL for long, so lost loot (or something of equivalent value) will get added on to a future hoard. It might be a level or so later when this happens though (I don't want to make it too obvious I'm doing it, or what motivation is there to put ranks in Search, or to treat magic items with the care you would treat something worth millions of dollars in real life?).

[gijoemike]

Disarming a fighter saves you 1 round at most and is easily countered by locked gauntlets or weapon cords.

Sundering that weapon makes the fighter nearly harmless.
That ranger in the far back line is picking off your arcane support. Breaking a longbow (hardness 5, HP 5 is much easier than killing the ranger. ) Even a magical +1 flaming longbow is only (hardness 7, hp 15). But the lvl 6 ranger (con +1) hp would be around 8 + 5*(6) = 38.
Sundering a weapon and then making an intimidate is very very effective.


Lets move over to pathfinder for a minute though.

The wizards there can have item familiars. Without that item every spell is a full round action.
There is the broken condition that can be applied to items that has lost 50% of its HP. That condition is HORRIBLE.
weapons only crit on a nat 20 for x2 only. ANd -2 attack and damage.
no more sneak attacking with that weapon.
Armor loses AC if it is broken.
wands/staves use up 2 charges instead of 1.
Skill items convey a -2 to the check.

Also pathfiner, the sunderer may choose to leave an item at 1 hp instead of destroying it. Thus guaranteeing the broken condition.

[Thirdtwin]

Isn't sunder how you break other objects, like walls and stuff? Sure you might not want to break a weapon you can sell off, but punching through a wall to get out of prison, or breaking through a door you don't have a key for, seems legit enough that you'd want to pursue it with feats and so on.

[KillianHawkeye]

If you've ever fought a tripper wielding a reach polearm or a spiked chain, you'll see the value of sundering.

[Crake]

Isn't sunder how you break other objects, like walls and stuff? Sure you might not want to break a weapon you can sell off, but punching through a wall to get out of prison, or breaking through a door you don't have a key for, seems legit enough that you'd want to pursue it with feats and so on.

Sunder is for breaking attended items. If you're breaking something unattended, like a wall, or standing object, it's just a regular attack.


If you follow WBL guidelines, the DM is going to replace it anyway, so why not deny the badguy the use of the item?

If you play with a status-quo DM, or are playing in a module, what's there is there, whether you toss it, or break it, or miss it, it doesn't matter. The world is as it is.

[Firest Kathon]

Harry Potter and his friends destroyed seven horcruxes.

They most certainly did not.

One of the Horcruxes, that Voldemort created by accident in Harry Potter, was (unknowingly) destroyed by Voldemort himself when (trying to) kill Harry (again). Although Harry was actively provoking him to do it, meaning one could argue that Voldemort was the tool Harry used to destroy the Horcrux.

[sleepyphoenixx]

If you've ever fought a tripper wielding a reach polearm or a spiked chain, you'll see the value of sundering.

Near zero?
Sundering requires an opposed attack roll which the defender gets bonuses for size and using a two-handed weapon on.
Those are also things trippers favor so you're trying to hit your enemy where he's strongest.

And that's before you consider that you still have to enter his reach to sunder his weapon or that you'll provoke an AoO (or two AoO's if he has Thicket of Blades) for trying if you didn't waste a feat on Improved Sunder, most likely ending up on your ass with nothing to show for it.

Parting a str-based melee fighter from his weapon is pretty much the worst situation to use sunder for. You're much better off casting Grease on his weapon or targeting his will save.
Its most optimal use is trying to destroy something like a wand or a caster's holy symbol or component pouch.

Though contrary to popular belief there are many spells that require no components at all so this isn't nearly as crippling as it's often made out to be even if he isn't carrying backups.
Meaning you most likely just wasted your action on slightly inconveniencing your enemy instead of meaningfully harming him.
Which is why sunder is generally considered to be **** even before you factor in the loot destruction.

[noce]

I see how most of the repliers just ignored the roleplaying aspect of the game in their answers.

You could want to sunder an item because you're fighting for your life.
You're roleplaying a person that risks his own life so often that being still alive is just pure luck.
You wouldn't want to push your luck even further saying "this item could sell well", if that same item heavily increases your chances to die horribly in the next minute or so.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I see how most of the repliers just ignored the roleplaying aspect of the game in their answers.

You could want to sunder an item because you're fighting for your life.
You're roleplaying a person that risks his own life so often that being still alive is just pure luck.
You wouldn't want to push your luck even further saying "this item could sell well", if that same item heavily increases your chances to die horribly in the next minute or so.
Even in that case i'd still use disarm over sunder. Same effect only without the effort of breaking the enemies weapon.
Especially if you consider that any weapon worth sundering is probably tough enough to make it difficult.
I'd rather put that effort into putting my enemy down instead of hoping he doesn't carry a backup.

Sundering an enemies weapon is at best a tool for intimidation or showing off, and if you can afford that they probably weren't a credible threat in the first place.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

At least it's not Improved Tsundere.

[Random Sanity]

That comes for free as part of the protagonist package.

[Gruftzwerg]

Even in that case i'd still use disarm over sunder. Same effect only without the effort of breaking the enemies weapon.
Especially if you consider that any weapon worth sundering is probably tough enough to make it difficult.
I'd rather put that effort into putting my enemy down instead of hoping he doesn't carry a backup.

Sundering an enemies weapon is at best a tool for intimidation or showing off, and if you can afford that they probably weren't a credible threat in the first place.

I agree that it is in most chases a suboptimal choice. I mean, most enemies can die within a single full-attack turn if said character has optimized dmg. So it's more a niche thing, for niche builds.

E.g. Combat Brute (tactical feat) gives you a free attack on successful sundered weapons and shields on a charge (similar to cleave).
If you have an ubercharger with iterative attacks from high BAB, it could be worth to destroy a potential shield of an enemy to reduce his AC (so that your iterative attacks are more likely to hit). A small niche but so are most special combat options.

[daremetoidareyo]

You can sunder off a backpack or bag of holding and scamper off with opponents gear. Plus, breaking stuff is fun.

[Jason]

Inigo cut the rope the Man in Black was climbing up.
Vizzini cut the rope the Man in Black was climbing up. Inigo handed the Man in Black more rope so he could finish climbing up.

What's more, the Man in Black defeated Inigo with a disarm rather than a sunder.

[ShurikVch]

I remember some DM asked on this forum about how to give WBL to their PC: they're refused to pick any loot at all!
Their reasons: "What if it's cursed?!"

With such reasoning, there is nothing wrong with a Sunder: if they wouldn't take it anyway - why not to break it in-combat?

[Feldar]

Maybe I'm looking at this wrong but why would I want to sunder an item I'm hoping to loot from somethings corpse? And there's even an IMPROVED sunder feat? Why?

A few months back I was running our home group through an adventure and they came upon a old watch station manned by orcs. The party composition includes two halflings, a warrior and a melee bard-type, that collectively represent the bulk of the party's melee power.

One of the orcs had a halfling bane bow and just kept hitting. Every time the orc hit, a magic mouth effect on the bow would yell something encouraging like "You got him boss!" and on the crit it was "You got him good that time boss!" One halfling went negative and the other was in single digits before the fight was won. They would have traded multiple items to be able to sunder that bow during the fight.

Once they took the orcs down, the two halflings actually DID destroy the bow (much to the chagrin of the cleric of the god of magic!).

To my chagrin, I didn't get to add a magical item character to the party....it was fun playing the bow.

[rel]

To make sunder more appealing consider ruling that breaking an item can trigger cleave and the like.

This allows a fighter with great cleave to break pretty much every piece of gear the enemy has and still hit them for damage with a single attack.


Also, hand out lots of extra loot, ban artificers and play NPC's as a cowardly and suspicious lot who, like the PC's in the example above, refuse to buy, sell or even touch gear looted from the dungeon for fear of curses.

[Arkhios]

Well, you (if not yourself, an ally of yours; "brothers in arms" should know each others' tactics, including their sundering skills) could always use Detect Magic to determine if the items on your opponent's person are magical (who cares about mundane crap anyway?)

Or you could cast Mending or Make Whole afterwards, if you absolutely want to loot that mundane crap item.



...THAT SAID, I believe Improved Sunder is more useful as a feat for DM's making their own monsters/NPC's to eat up on PC's resources.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Last year my party and I had a very fun fight against a bunch of alchemists. A lot of that fun was because I hit on the idea of targeting the munitions they had attached to their belts with ranged attacks. The alchemists were then faced with the choice of spending a turn dumping most of their gear and running away from it like a live grenade, or continuing to fight and risk us detonating said live grenades on them. Sure, it cost us a few vials of alchemical stuff, but a) they probably would have used them on us anyway, b) sundering a few of them gave us quite the tactical advantage, and c) it was fun.

Is that a niche case? Absolutely. Would I spend a feat to be better at it? No, not without some other trick. But I'm sure glad rules for it existed, because trying to ad-hoc them would have been a lot more painful than "Okay, it's a sunder attack against a worn item. Someone google the hardness of glass".

[Vaern]

Well, you (if not yourself, an ally of yours; "brothers in arms" should know each others' tactics, including their sundering skills) could always use Detect Magic to determine if the items on your opponent's person are magical (who cares about mundane crap anyway?)

Or you could cast Mending or Make Whole afterwards, if you absolutely want to loot that mundane crap item.



...THAT SAID, I believe Improved Sunder is more useful as a feat for DM's making their own monsters/NPC's to eat up on PC's resources.

Doesn't magic gear naturally gain increased hardness and hp? Barring the 30% of magic weapons that shine light as a torch or other obvious visual cues that many properties bestow hinting that an item is magical, you'd be able to tell just by hitting it that it's magical just by the fact that it's harder than natural steel or wood. Assuming you don't break it in one hit, of course.

[PhantasyPen]

As I keep mentioning, the vast majority of my D&D experience comes from a group where looting fallen enemies was both impossible (they nearly always exploded upon death) and actively discouraged by the rest of the group. In such a situation, you might as well destroy the enemy's gear, because it exists for literally no reason other than to make your life miserable. The OP themselves asked why you would ever destroy somethign that you intended to loot from the enemy. The answer is very simple, many times you are not intending to loot the item from the enemy, you just want the enemy defeated, so you might as well destroy their weapon and disable anything the had that involved using it.

[CharonsHelper]

Isn't there a low-ish level spell which can fix any gear that you break anyway?

[H_H_F_F]

One of the Horcruxes, that Voldemort created by accident in Harry Potter, was (unknowingly) destroyed by Voldemort himself when (trying to) kill Harry (again). Although Harry was actively provoking him to do it, meaning one could argue that Voldemort was the tool Harry used to destroy the Horcrux.



Well, even if we were to give you that, I see no interpretation in which "Harry and his friends" destroyed the ring or the diadem. I could even dispute the snake, though that would be somewhat mean and unfair. You could argue for 5, at most.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Isn't there a low-ish level spell which can fix any gear that you break anyway?Don't magic items become nonmagical when destroyed? Make whole would do it, although I'm pretty sure the results are also nonmagical.

Other than wish, miracle, and reality revision, I think truenamers are the only ones capable of fully repairing destroyed magic items, although some obscure sourcebook or other may have the answer for it.

Honestly, hydras and cursed/irredeemably evil items aside, I'd rather play a psion with time hop to deprive enemies of gear while the party slaughters them.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Well, you (if not yourself, an ally of yours; "brothers in arms" should know each others' tactics, including their sundering skills) could always use Detect Magic to determine if the items on your opponent's person are magical (who cares about mundane crap anyway?)

Or you could cast Mending or Make Whole afterwards, if you absolutely want to loot that mundane crap item.
Those heavy masterwork armors and masterwork weapons add up well into the mid-levels.
Sure, if you're level 20 you don't need to bother, but otherwise a few thousand extra gp is a few thousand extra gp.

If you have the carrying capacity and aren't in a real hurry there's no reason to leave money lying around.
Unless your DM plays by strict WBL and compensates you right in the next fight of course.


The answer is very simple, many times you are not intending to loot the item from the enemy, you just want the enemy defeated, so you might as well destroy their weapon and disable anything the had that involved using it.
Blasphemy. I'm sure we could use those cursed items somehow.
I knew there was a reason i bought those tongs at character creation! :smalltongue:


Don't magic items become nonmagical when destroyed? Make whole would do it, although I'm pretty sure the results are also nonmagical.

Other than wish, miracle, and reality revision, I think truenamers are the only ones capable of fully repairing destroyed magic items, although some obscure sourcebook or other may have the answer for it.

Honestly, hydras and cursed/irredeemably evil items aside, I'd rather play a psion with time hop to deprive enemies of gear while the party slaughters them.
You can repair them at half cost if you have the relevant item creation feat. So it's basically useless for moneymaking purposes.

[Arkhios]

Don't magic items become nonmagical when destroyed? Make whole would do it, although I'm pretty sure the results are also nonmagical.

Other than wish, miracle, and reality revision, I think truenamers are the only ones capable of fully repairing destroyed magic items, although some obscure sourcebook or other may have the answer for it.

Honestly, hydras and cursed/irredeemably evil items aside, I'd rather play a psion with time hop to deprive enemies of gear while the party slaughters them.

Aye, both Mending and Make Whole repair damage an item may have sustained, but does not restore magical properties of a destroyed magic item, even though they do restore said items otherwise.

IIRC, an item can be broken but not destroyed, and if memory serves me right, a magic item loses it's properties only if it's destroyed.

Plus, indeed, magical armor and weapons do add to the items' base hardness and hit points, so breaking or destroying those can prove quite difficult.

[Elkad]

Plus, indeed, magical armor and weapons do add to the items' base hardness and hit points, so breaking or destroying those can prove quite difficult.

If for some reason you are running a Sunder build, getting an Adamantine weapon would be moved up even farther on the list of "nice things". Doesn't solve the HP problem, but it does solve hardness (except against other hardness:20 items of course).

Then the arms race starts. Bad guy has an adamantine weapon, +5, with a CL20 Hardness spell cast on it, for a total of 40.


(My houserules are slightly different for hardness. Beyond 20, you just compare. If the weapon is higher, it bypasses. If not, full hardness applies.
Oh, and Mountain Hammer only reduces effective hardness by IL/2. Elder Hammer by IL. Ancient Hammer is 2*IL - which is usually - but not always - a full bypass. It also means beating through massive stone walls at 4th level is still a difficult task, you only reduce Hardness by 2 Easier than the next guy, but not automatic.)

[Crake]

You can repair them at half cost if you have the relevant item creation feat. So it's basically useless for moneymaking purposes.

Citation please? I mean, you could just make the item at half price anyway, but I've not heard about repairing items this way.


Don't magic items become nonmagical when destroyed? Make whole would do it, although I'm pretty sure the results are also nonmagical.

Other than wish, miracle, and reality revision, I think truenamers are the only ones capable of fully repairing destroyed magic items, although some obscure sourcebook or other may have the answer for it.

Honestly, hydras and cursed/irredeemably evil items aside, I'd rather play a psion with time hop to deprive enemies of gear while the party slaughters them.

Make whole repairs destroyed magic items in pathfinder.

[rediridesence]

One example from my experience was: if your a martial-focused character facing a tower shield (being used for defense or to guard someone else), then you'll need sunder it to deal with the defender since it negates physical attacks when used for defense. Especially if its in a narrow area.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Citation please? I mean, you could just make the item at half price anyway, but I've not heard about repairing items this way.

It's hidden in the feat description for Craft Wondrous Item and Craft Magic Arms and Armor. Probably a few others as well, you'd have to check.
And it's half price of what you'd pay normally, so a quarter of the base price.

You can also mend a broken wondrous item if it is one that you could make. Doing so costs half the XP, half the raw materials, and half the time it would take to craft that item in the first place.

[CharonsHelper]

Make whole repairs destroyed magic items in pathfinder.

Yeah - that must have been what I was thinking. One of the many minor tweaks that Pathfinder made which don't matter most of the time so they get mixed up in my head.

I also remember considering playing a character who did a lot of sundering in Pathfinder Society since your wealth goes up the same amount depending upon the mission rather than the loot you snag. I tend to prefer more all-rounders in society play though, so that I can fill the gaps in random groups.

[Kish]

One of the Horcruxes, that Voldemort created by accident in Harry Potter, was (unknowingly) destroyed by Voldemort himself when (trying to) kill Harry (again). Although Harry was actively provoking him to do it, meaning one could argue that Voldemort was the tool Harry used to destroy the Horcrux.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione set out to destroy four horcruxes (as Dumbledore pointed out to Harry, a seven-part-soul always meant six horcruxes, not seven, and Dumbledore had already destroyed the ring), and Vincent Crabbe destroyed Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem. If you count Harry as having destroyed himself (which is a huge stretch), and count Dumbledore as one of Harry's friends (...okay), then "Harry and his friends" destroyed six horcruxes, with multiple implausible stretches to get them to that number (and I'm pretty sure Neville didn't use Sunder on Nagini). There was never a question of destroying seven horcruxes, because there never were seven horcruxes.

[denthor]

Don't magic items become nonmagical when destroyed? Make whole would do it, although I'm pretty sure the results are also nonmagical.

Other than wish, miracle, and reality revision, I think truenamers are the only ones capable of fully repairing destroyed magic items, although some obscure sourcebook or other may have the answer for it.

Honestly, hydras and cursed/irredeemably evil items aside, I'd rather play a psion with time hop to deprive enemies of gear while the party slaughters them.

You can repair broken magic rings and other devices. If you have the means to create them in the first place through feat selection. So a sword with craft weapons and armor feat can be made whole. Plus the cost is reduced.

[ayvango]

Sunder is essential to break economy of plunder and carnage. So-named adventurers give little chances to natives raiding incessantly and forcing "fair" confrontation 4x1. Avarice drive this cruel beasts. So if you lack power to drive them out, you could resort to the last chance: make murders lose more than they could gain. So they would stop bother your population. Nevertheless that act of courage could not change your own fate.

I use sunder build to portray selfless NPC that care more about their peers than themselves. My favorite is warlock with the Baleful Utterance and the Relentless Dispelling invocations.

[Efrate]

FWIW on evil weapons etc. good temples buy them to destroy. Cannot remember source but assuming you are in a place where you can afford to sell a +1 unholy longsword or whatever there is highly likely to be a temple of pelor or whatever that will buy it from you guys at 1/2 cost so they can destroy it. You get loot and remove the item from existence. A busted item and 9k gp > busted item.

[RexDart]

I've thought about it myself a couple times when fighting an opponent with a ridiculously high AC compared to our party. Hitting the bad guy himself seemed extraordinarily difficult, so maybe go for his shield instead?


Note the words "thought about it," though - I ultimately concluded that hitting the guy's shield still wouldn't be a sure thing, and would probably take multiple hits, so slugging it out with the bad guy and hoping to roll high seemed like a better option.