Sundering magical weapons

[orlondok]

One of my DMs favorite tactics is to bring out the Big Dumb Giants that like to destroy the entire party's arsenal of weaponry (Improved Sunder) (and when the weapons are gone he actually starts targeting other items of gear worn also)

One thing I seem to remember (not sure which ver. of D&D it was in) is that the sundering weapon has to be at least as enhanced (+1 or better vs. +1, ect.) as the target weapon, to be able to affect it.

Is this a rule in 3.5? or was it only earlier versions like my DM says?

[Clementx]

Each point of enhancement bonus increases hardness by 2 and gives 10 more hit points. This is hidden in item creation in the DMG. No more gating by +X.

[Biggus]

Try to get adamantine weapons, as other adamantine weapons ignore hardness of less than 20, making weapons of softer materials vulnerable. With hardness 20 that can't be bypassed, it's hard to do enough damage to destroy your weapon in a hurry.

[Hunter Noventa]

Try to get adamantine weapons, as other adamantine weapons ignore hardness of less than 20, making weapons of softer materials vulnerable. With hardness 20 that can't be bypassed, it's hard to do enough damage to destroy your weapon in a hurry.

If the GM is that sunder-happy, said Giants will likely start using Adamantine weapons too.

Honestly if I was in such a game, flight and ranged combat sounds like the way to go if you can manage it. I don't think there's a way to do a Ranged Sunder in 3.5, but I could be wrong.

[Biggus]

If the GM is that sunder-happy, said Giants will likely start using Adamantine weapons too.

Yes, but they'll still have to overcome hardness of 20 (or more if the weapon is magical) before they can do any damage.

There's also the Crystal of Adamant Weaponry (MiC p.64) which can increase a weapon's hardness by up to a further 10 points.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Try staying out of reach, or crowd controlling/debuffing the opponents before they can start doing their thing. Spells that use Dex checks or reflex saves like Sleet Storm, Grease, Ice Slick, etc. are typically good against bigger opponents. Giants typically have a poor will save, so Glitterdust, Slow, Hold Monster, and fear effects should be useful against them.

Try to get rid of the opponent's weapon first. The best ways are Time Hop or Energy Missile (be careful with that second one, your DM will likely use it against your party if he knows about it).

Another way would be to make characters who don't rely on physical weapons. A Cleric with DMM: Persistent Ice Axe, a Druid in wild shape with natural weapons, a gish with Thunderlance, etc. are all immune to having their weapons sundered. It's not possible to sunder armor, and any magical gear worn under your armor wouldn't be in line of effect to the opponent. A VoP Druid may be the best choice for a melee character in this game, especially if you get exalted companion and give your animal companion VoP as well.

[orlondok]

Thanx for the quick and helpful responses ...
I have actually found an answer to my question ...

DMG pg. 222 quote:

"Hardness and Hit Points: An attacker cannot damage a magic weapon that has an enhancement bonus unless his own weapon has at least as high an enhancement bonus as the weapon or shield struck."

So ... I guess if you really like your weapon ... make it +2 and hope your opponent has less ...

And he is not really all that "sunder-happy" ... but it really pissed me off when he reduced most of my expensive equipment in one encounter ... lol

[Biggus]

DMG pg. 222 quote:

"Hardness and Hit Points: An attacker cannot damage a magic weapon that has an enhancement bonus unless his own weapon has at least as high an enhancement bonus as the weapon or shield struck."

On that subject: note that the following sentence "Each +1 of enhancement bonus also adds 1 to the weapon's or shield's hardness and hit points" was errata'd to read "Each +1 of enhancement bonus adds 2 to a weapon’s or shield’s hardness and +10 to its hit points".

[Evil DM Mark3]

Urgh, I hate sundering as a mechanic, it's always a feelbad. Enemy uses it, you loose gear you fought hard for. You use it, you destroy treasure you can claim.

My advice is if the DM is this sunder-happy then stay out of melee range. Also I seem to recall giants tend to be very hindered in the Will Save...

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

So ... I guess if you really like your weapon ... make it +2 and hope your opponent has less ...

Greater Magic Weapon, especially with a Lesser Rod of Extend and a Bead of Karma buffing CL, maybe even using Divine Spell Power to bump it up to the next higher bonus, should solve that all day every day.

If you find yourself without a weapon, if there's any pieces of any hard material nearby, you can craft a club without spending any actions whatsoever except maybe a move action to pick it up. The price of a club is 0 gp, so both the materials required and the time to craft one is multiplied by zero. A free action is a nonzero amount of time, so you don't even need to spend a free action to do it, crafting a club or quarterstaff takes literally no action or effort (or materials) whatsoever. RAW you can just say you do it and you're suddenly holding it, even if you were adrift on the Astral Plane with absolutely zero materials within a thousand miles, but realistically a DM would at least say there needs to be something handy to craft it from and you would need to pick it up, but anything you find could be a club or quarterstaff instantly.

Maybe get a wooden weapon (club, quarterstaff, greatclub, etc.), put Unguent of Timelessness on it, and hire NPC spellcasters to buff it, which the Unguent should multiply the durations of the spells by 365. So Extended Greater Magic Weapon at a caster level of 20th gives it a +5 and lasts 608 days for 800 gp. Extended Greater Mighty Wallop increases the base damage to colossal size and also lasts 608 days for 800 gp, this can be from the same Wizard you got Greater Magic Weapon from. Ironwood at a caster level of 20th lasts 20 years for 1,200 gp, if you want to make it a weapon that's normally metal, but if it's not bludgeoning that excludes Greater Mighty Wallop. Those can be dispelled, but at a DC of 31, or 35 if your NPC spellcaster has a Ring of Enduring Arcana. It's so cheap you could make a few extras and keep them in a bag of holding so they don't all get dispelled at once, one purchase of the unguent can be used on up to eight items after all.

[Biggus]

Greater Magic Weapon, especially with a Lesser Rod of Extend and a Bead of Karma buffing CL, maybe even using Divine Spell Power to bump it up to the next higher bonus, should solve that all day every day.

If you can't afford a Bead of Karma, an Ankh of Ascension (MiC) is a cheaper alternative. Costs spell slots to use but only 9,000GP.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

If you can't afford a Bead of Karma, an Ankh of Ascension (MiC) is a cheaper alternative. Costs spell slots to use but only 9,000GP.

Despite what the SRD says, a standard Strand of Prayer Beads is only 25,800 gp according to the DMG, which is the primary source for D&D games. If that has the Bead of Smiting removed, it's only 9,000 gp and it still has the Bead of Healing and the Bead of Karma.

[Biggus]

Despite what the SRD says, a standard Strand of Prayer Beads is only 25,800 gp according to the DMG, which is the primary source for D&D games. If that has the Bead of Smiting removed, it's only 9,000 gp and it still has the Bead of Healing and the Bead of Karma.

Yeah, that's very clearly an error though, I can't see many DMs letting it pass.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Thanx for the quick and helpful responses ...
I have actually found an answer to my question ...

DMG pg. 222 quote:

"Hardness and Hit Points: An attacker cannot damage a magic weapon that has an enhancement bonus unless his own weapon has at least as high an enhancement bonus as the weapon or shield struck."

So ... I guess if you really like your weapon ... make it +2 and hope your opponent has less ...

And he is not really all that "sunder-happy" ... but it really pissed me off when he reduced most of my expensive equipment in one encounter ... lol

Unfortunately, that's been errata'd out.

Hardness and Hit Points
Dungeon Master’s Guide, page 222 Problem: The first paragraph is not consistent with similar information for shields on page 217. Solution: Delete the first sentence after the boldface header. Change the next sentence to read as follows: Each +1 of enhancement bonus adds 2 to a weapon’s or shield’s hardness and +10 to its hit points

[PhantasyPen]

If the GM is that sunder-happy, said Giants will likely start using Adamantine weapons too.

Honestly if I was in such a game, flight and ranged combat sounds like the way to go if you can manage it. I don't think there's a way to do a Ranged Sunder in 3.5, but I could be wrong.

Ranged Sunder is a feat in the book Complete Warrior. Also as a fellow Sunder-happy DM I would really like to know if yours is doing anything to compensate for destroying your gear like this. I love the sunder maneuver, but I don't like using it against PC's because swag of any kind is honestly pretty rare in my games. Also I like giving out personalized magic items, which are more painful to have destroyed like that.

[Thurbane]

DMG pg. 222 quote:

"Hardness and Hit Points: An attacker cannot damage a magic weapon that has an enhancement bonus unless his own weapon has at least as high an enhancement bonus as the weapon or shield struck."

That lead to a weird situation one time at our table: a module the DM was running had a monster (hydra, from memory) trying to sunder our weapons with its bite (as per the tactics listed in the adventure) - I quoted that rule in the DMG, and said technically it couldn't sunder our weapons at all. The DM was happy to run the rule as written, because he didn't actually feel like destroying our gear.

[RedMage125]

I've only ever sundered gear when I've run a pre-published adventure that called for it. Party ended up using backup gear for awhile while their weapons were repaired, because that is also a thing.

[Fizban]

Is this a rule in 3.5? or was it only earlier versions like my DM says?

It was in 3.0, but as Kelb has mentioned, it was partially changed in the printed 3.5 DMG and errata'd completely away after that. It seems likely this was because some designer didn't like monsters being unable to sunder gear with nonmagical weapons. Because why else would you change the only actual sundering defense in the game, already perfectly rooted in fantasy tropes?

Your DM is being a butt, by the way. There is basically no defense against giant monsters with impossible attack bonuses and single-hit damage sundering your equipment, aside from the fact that they have essentially no reason to do so in the first place and the DM shouldn't be doing it. Seriously. In what world does it make sense for something twice your height to attack your weapon when physically it should be able to smash you in one hit, and should also be physically incapable of breaking your weapon because you're so puny it would just get knocked away instead? And unless they're supplying you with huge mounds of treasure to make up for what they're destroying, they're also directly ignoring what the DMG tells them to do (which is make sure the party has enough treasure to handle encounters).

Note that if you get adamantine weapons and the DM starts using adamantine weapons to sunder them, aside from the fact that you should stop playing with such an obviously adversarial DM, you still get the full hardness. Adamantine only ignores hardness of less than 20, which means other adamantine items or mithril items with a +3 or higher bonus don't get their hardness ignored. You could also get Aurorum items (from Book of Exalted Deeds) which can just be put back together instead.

But the main problem here is pretty obviously the DM. If anything the correct response to giants sundering your equipment should be to point out that it's physically impossible and make a house-rule to address the problem, but your DM has decided that optimizing their monsters to destroy your treasure is a good idea. There's no mechanical fix for that. If you get adamantine weapons, they'll probably just attack your non-adamantine items. And if you personally craft all your gear out of aurorum, they'll Disintigrate it.

Wait a second- yeah, eff it. Go look up Riverine in Stormwrack. It's the stupidest printed material in a long line of stupid materials: it's "water under high pressure inside fields of magical force"- which is to say, it's just made of magical force. Pick the lightest weapons on the table and get them made of stupid. Then when the DM starts ignoring and/or complaining about your indestructible weapons, call them out on their bull.

[St Fan]

Beyond what everybody else have said, here's a few other way to make weapons harder to sunder:

Material:
Adamantine or Starmetal - base hardness 20

Construction:

• Dwarvencrafted (Races of Stone): +2 hardness, +10 hit points
• Blood Grove (Dragon #358): +2 hardness
• Folded Metal (Dragon #358): +4 hardness
• Resilient (Dragon #358): +5 hit points

Spells/Powers:

• Matter Manipulation (Expanded Psionic Handbook): +5 hardness
• Hardening (Spell Compendium): +1 hardness/2 caster level – no level cap!

The last one, if you can find a high-level enough wizard, or one that can boost caster level temporarily, can add a really high number to hardness (although it would go away in an anti-magic shield, unlike the other methods). And note that everything stacks.

[rel]

Make your equipment from riverine. Riverine is sea water contained within a force construct. Indestructible by mundane means if a little silly looking.

[Thurbane]

I always imagine Riverine armor to look like a jacuzzi suit from the Simpsons

[haplot]

I honestly can't remember whether this was a house rule or a different system, but was there a rule somewhere that means sundering a magic item blew it up?

[St Fan]

Make your equipment from riverine. Riverine is sea water contained within a force construct. Indestructible by mundane means if a little silly looking.

It's also insanely expensive. Good for a ring or such small items, don't think you'll ever be rich enough to make anything bigger with it.

And it isn't sea water, it's elemental water.