Sunder.

[Thefurmonger]

hey again all.

As those of you keeping up already know my wife will be playing a Fighter/Barbarian in a upcoming campaign.

She plans to focus on Sundering and the feats that go along with it. (Combat Brute, Deadly Concussion)

So I figured I would read up on the rules as to tell the truth I have not used them that much.

So here are a few questions.

1. When sundering a magic weapon, does hers have to be magic also? (I could swear it does, but cant find the rule)

2. Is there any way to fix a magic weapon/shield/wand/etc. after she has broken it?

3. How exactly does it work if she wants to sunder armor? (The feat Deadly Concussion talks about what you do AFTER you break their armor)

4. Does it matter if the armor is Magic?

5. From reading the Sunder rules in the PHB it would seem that if a opponent has their Famillier sitting on their sholder, it is actually a SUNDER attempt to kill it. Is this true?

Once again, thank you all for the help.

[SoD]

hey again all.

As those of you keeping up already know my wife will be playing a Fighter/Barbarian in a upcoming campaign.

She plans to focus on Sundering and the feats that go along with it. (Combat Brute, Deadly Concussion)

So I figured I would read up on the rules as to tell the truth I have not used them that much.

So here are a few questions.

1. When sundering a magic weapon, does hers have to be magic also? (I could swear it does, but cant find the rule)

2. Is there any way to fix a magic weapon/shield/wand/etc. after she has broken it?

3. How exactly does it work if she wants to sunder armor? (The feat Deadly Concussion talks about what you do AFTER you break their armor)

4. Does it matter if the armor is Magic?

5. From reading the Sunder rules in the PHB it would seem that if a opponent has their Famillier sitting on their sholder, it is actually a SUNDER attempt to kill it. Is this true?

Once again, thank you all for the help.

1-No. But magic weapons are harder to sunder (more HP and hardness)

2-I would assume a craft check would be able to, or a profession (blacksmith) or something. Wands? No.

3-Exactlty the same as if you were sundering weapons, by the rules.

4-No, but see 1.

5-For a familiar, you would make an attack roll against the familiar, not a sunder attempt.

[Claudius Maximus]

1. When sundering a magic weapon, does hers have to be magic also? (I could swear it does, but cant find the rule)

It used to be in 3.0 that you needed to match a weapon's enhancement bonus to damage it, IIRC. That is no longer the case. Now they just have more HP and hardness if they're magical.

3. How exactly does it work if she wants to sunder armor? (The feat Deadly Concussion talks about what you do AFTER you break their armor)

You cannot sunder armor worn by another creature. Shields are fair game, though.

[Glimbur]

You can’t sunder armor worn by another character.

So unless there's a special ability that changes this, Deadly Concussion is not good.

The general problem with Sunder is that you're breaking loot for a temporary benefit. There isn't a way (short of Truenaming) to remake the destroyed magic items. So you just reduced the monetary value of the encounter. But it's still worth full XP, which means you will be underwealthed which is a problem. The DM could fix this simply by adding more treasure, but that can strain credulity.

You can't sunder a familiar, you can only sunder objects. You could attack the familiar, they don't tend to wear armor or anything so they might be vulnerable.

[Thefurmonger]

See, this is the problem.

In the PHB Pg.158 under Sunder on the chart of how hard things are to sunder, it lists Armor. and gives the HP as the Armor bonus x5.

Sadly while it lists armors hardness and HP under the SUNDER rules, it never actually says how the %$#%$ you go about sundering it.

It would seem that you do it just like any other item, AC 10+Size+Dex of the wearer. But that seems REALLY stupid and I cant immagine thats how it actually does work.

[Claudius Maximus]

You can sunder armor. Just not when it is being worn.

[Thefurmonger]

Right, the issue comes in when a feat from Wotc says

"Whenever you use a bludgeoning weapon to make a sunder attack against an opponent's armor or shield and you destroy the item in a single hit, you deal an ammount of damage to your opponent equal to the amount of damage you delt to destroy his armor or shield"

So it would see that they think you can do it. clearly the PHB says you can't.

Looks like a DM call to me.

[Thefurmonger]

Also, as for sundering a Famillier.

From the Rules compendium.

CARRIED CREATURES
A Small or larger creature can carry a Tiny or smaller creature,
which then shares the carrier’s space. If the carried creature
is visible to an attacker, it can be attacked as if it were a carried
object, including the benefi t of the Improved Sunder feat.
The carried creature uses the higher of its carrier’s or its own
Dexterity modifier to determine its AC.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

The only problem with Sunder is that you destroy your loot... not cool

[Grynning]

The only problem with Sunder is that you destroy your loot... not cool

This is often regarded as a problem with sunder, but it's not as big a deal if the DM plans to hand out loot in a manner other than "you take the stuff from the bodies." Sure, a big bad may have a good magic weapon, but if it gets sundered, the DM can have another item be found as a reward. Also, I've never once played in a 3.5 game where we stuck hard and fast to the horrendous economy rules; in other words, selling the crap we found was generally glossed over and we just ended up with enough gold to buy what we needed to suit the DM's taste.

At low levels it's a really effective tactic, too. Most humanoids can't really do much to you without their gear. Cast enlarge person on the sunderer and let them go to town.

We used this in a game once, and it was a lot of fun. My Sorcerer, Enzite the Enhancer, would cast enlarge on the Paladin who was opposed to killing, and he would just break weapons and then ask people to surrender.

[Seffbasilisk]

What version of play is this? In v3.5 I know you can repair a magic item by paying half the crafting cost...which generally makes sundering worse than disarming. It can have it's uses though.

Yes, the rules conflict on whether or not you can sunder armor. My ruling on it has been that you can sunder armor, but you have to destroy all of it's HP before the armored person loses the bonus to AC.

[Myrmex]

If you smash weapons, the DM can add more wealth in gold, tapestries, and whatnot. I like to make magic weapons in my games a little more "magical", usually giving them a malevolent sentience and corrupting influence on the user. So that sword the BBEG is using? You probably don't want to use it, unless you want to become a twisted, unholy abomination, like he was. Powerful weapons of good are found with quests- pulling them out of stones, recovering them from fallen celestials, etc.

The bad guy is wielding a hellforged blade that was bequeathed to him by his master; he didn't swing by the magic mart and pick it up because it was within his WBL.

Also, magic weapons are expensive to give to NPCs. I usually don't equip them with anything more than a +2 equivalent weapon, and put the rest of their resources into cheap things like rings of deflection, potions, and scrolls that offer far more survivability than +1 to hit & damage or +1d6 elemental damage.

Note that adamantium ignores the hardness of objects except other adamantium weapons.