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## A Discussion on Sundering

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Fuchs
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Post by Fuchs » Fri May 15, 2009 7:08 am

With sundering not being permanent it would not be strong. If given the choice of spending an attack on Sundering a weapon, or half-killing and stunning the wielder with Swooping Dragon Strike, what will most do?
Sundering is a tactical option, not the best move ever.
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RandomCasualty2
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Post by RandomCasualty2 » Fri May 15, 2009 7:08 am

> Surgo wrote: A different problem: sundering is necessary because of some game mechanics. I mean, what are grapplers supposed to do against the guy with a ring of freedom of movement besides either sunder it or go cry in a corner?

The problem is that the ring is actually necessary because monster grapple scores are so damn high, so without the ring, you're boned. It's one reason that a tag team of a beholder + a few improved grab monsters are absolutely deadly at high level. There's just really no way you're going to compete grapple wise.
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virgil
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Post by virgil » Fri May 15, 2009 7:10 am

I'm all for having sunder attacks be required to also hit the wearer's Touch AC (using object's size) + shield bonus (if not hitting the shield) + 4.
What are the rules on magic item hardness and hit points when it's not a weapon, armor, or shield? If they don't get any tougher, that alone should be something that should get fixed. Minimum +1 hardness & +10 hit points per 3 caster levels, rounded up?
Those two alone, combined with NPCs that think long term, should at least minimize the problem by a fair margin.
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Surgo
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Post by Surgo » Fri May 15, 2009 7:15 am

How fast do you want to have magic items regenerate then, PL / Fuchs? Regardless of the speed as long as it's more than "a round", I'd imagine disjunction is still better left out of the game.
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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik » Fri May 15, 2009 7:34 am

To demonstrate my point.
A likely sunder target has an AC of at most 20, assuming diminutive and +6 dex, high to average for most level say, 15 characters.
Just for argument let's say the AC of the objects is 25.
So for a party of four PCs, we want four enemies, for maximum sunder weakenage.
Hound Archon 10HD, 2 Fighter levels. CR 8.
BAB +12 +1 Bow +4 Dex +2 Haste +1 Weapon Focus +1 Aid -2 Rapid Shot = +19/+19/+19/+14/+9
Damage 1d8 +3 Str +1 Bow +5 Collision (Adamantine) arrows= 6-7 damage (after halving) to hardness 20 items. That's enough to break any cloak/belt/amulet/headband/boot/bracer/ect.
Four of those is a EL 12.
Yet this group can drop in and take out easily 72k gp with the most conservative estimates. far more likely they take out over 100k off each party member in round freakin one.
And that's being nice.
Fuck, you want to see the same concept but with a pack of Arrow Demons doing the shooting? Up the EL to actual party levels and you can start having Arrow Demons with Splitting Longbows that actually wipe the party clean on round one, down to the very clothes they are wearing, and their bags of holding and haversacks.
Then they actually do fight the party, because the party is fucked.
Sundering is too fucking good because of how important crap is, and how impossibly easy it is to sunder.
Last edited by Kaelik on Fri May 15, 2009 7:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Fuchs
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Post by Fuchs » Fri May 15, 2009 7:37 am

Well, since any dispel magic can suppress a magic item for 1d4 rounds, I'd say Disjunction should last longer - at least the entire fight. I would treat it differently than actually sundering items though.
Alternatively one could require a small ritual to restore magic items, which could take a minute or two, or longer.
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Crissa
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Post by Crissa » Fri May 15, 2009 7:52 am

Why can't a sundered item remain broke until the end of combat? Or until you can make a repair roll. It's probably just a leather strap or maybe a weld or maybe the magic was zonked and it needs to be rubbed the right way with a loadstone.
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Fuchs
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Post by Fuchs » Fri May 15, 2009 8:28 am

> Crissa wrote:Why can't a sundered item remain broke until the end of combat? Or until you can make a repair roll. It's probably just a leather strap or maybe a weld or maybe the magic was zonked and it needs to be rubbed the right way with a loadstone.
> -Crissa

I don't see why it can't remain broke until the end of combat - I basically said that (and if it takes 1 minute then that's often more than the combat lasts in high-level fight).
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Post by PhoneLobster » Fri May 15, 2009 8:37 am

> Surgo wrote:How fast do you want to have magic items regenerate then, PL / Fuchs? Regardless of the speed as long as it's more than "a round", I'd imagine disjunction is still better left out of the game.

A) What Crissa said.
B) I think you missed most of my post.
There is no short snappy answer of a game time unit for item regeneration that is going to solve sunder's problems as those problems are largely emergent problems caused by vast swathes of basic rules integral to the 3.x system.
So the shortest answer you get is that when damaging and restoring item HP is as easy and rewarding as damaging and restoring regular character HP then life is good... and that isn't happening for 3.x any time soon.
One of the large problems is that items are just generally a badly handled resource in 3.x. They are badly handled as a resource for balance, for book keeping, and in this case for resource depletion. We can try and attack one end of the resource depletion issue by fixing the refresh rate or giving out compensatory resources but there are still lots of large issues to do with the way items work which sundering no matter how appropriately handled from a resource depletion stand point will continue to blatantly flaunt in our faces every time some says "I sunder it!".
And thats before we get to other shit like how annoying the actual sunder rules themselves are.
So no, you don't get a "this many rounds makes it work" answer.
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Fuchs
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Post by Fuchs » Fri May 15, 2009 8:39 am

It makes it work for me.
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Post by PhoneLobster » Fri May 15, 2009 8:44 am

> Fuchs wrote:It makes it work for me.

It's a bandaid for a large gaping wound.
Sure you're glad you have the bandaid. But you'd really rather have surgery.
Or not have hacked yourself open with a sharp object.
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Draco_Argentum
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Post by Draco_Argentum » Fri May 15, 2009 8:44 am

I'm with PL, 3.x sunder rules are terrible largely because of the item rules. Fixing the item rules is a big job that I couldn't be bothered doing, I'd just ban sunder and call it a day.
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virgil
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Post by virgil » Fri May 15, 2009 8:49 am

Considering the resources involved with having a pile of hound archons in that example, I'd say it's largely easier to have them blast the party with targeted dispel magic items. A 1d4 round depower is enough for the real villain leading said mooks to actually smack the party down and get a pile of awesome loot off their bodies at the same time.
As for disjunction, I'd rather it just depower magic items for 2d4 rounds or something rather than destroy them, and allow it to truly disjoin a single magic item (at the expense of hitting anything else).
Last edited by virgil on Fri May 15, 2009 8:53 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Fuchs
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Post by Fuchs » Fri May 15, 2009 8:58 am

If I am not bleeding to death, but only have a scratch (if at all), then a bandaid is all I need.
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Amra
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Post by Amra » Fri May 15, 2009 11:40 am

Sundering is, mostly, a bad idea. Sometimes it is not a bad idea. If you're facing an Exotic Weapon Master doing his trip-monkey thing with a spiked chain, then cutting it in half may well not be a stupid thing to do, depending on your party makeup. If you're facing a bad guy with a Staff of Arbitrarium or a Hat of Making Your Life Miserable, the rules need to support the party being able to do something about that.
On the other hand, once the rules support doing it for some things, they support doing it for everything, and therein lies the problem. Once sundering becomes an intelligent tactic it's hard to justify not using it all the time, and then the game falls apart at the seams. Note that I'm not suggesting the current sundering rules are good, just that I, for one, want *some* rules for breaking items to exist.
Maybe an approach, as others have alluded to, is to both modify and extend the crafting rules. Roy stated in the other thread that there was no way to identify what a broken unholy sword used to do, which is clearly nonsense because:

> SRD 'Craft Magic Arms and Armor' wrote:You can also mend a broken magic weapon, suit of armor, or shield 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.

> SRD 'Craft Wondrous Items' wrote: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.

> SRD 'Forge Ring' wrote:You can also mend a broken ring 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 forge that ring in the first place.

So... Weapons, armour, wondrous items and rings can all be mended for half the resources it would take to create a new one. Rods, staffs and wands have no such caveats, of course, but it's clear that the broken pieces of other magical items under the current rules are far from "junk". There has to be some special property they possess or you couldn't repair them for half the cost of making a new one. You can maybe handwave the gold element by pointing out that you've got all the bits you need, right there, but that wouldn't explain why only half the XP is required.
Without wishing right now to address the question of "How do we make sunder rules that work", I'll think aloud on the basis of "Let's say for the sake of argument that we have rules for sundering that don't suck; what do we do when we allow it to happen?" I'm taking for granted the assumption that some people want sundering rules in their campaigns: if you don't, you can just say "Magic items need special quests to destroy, there are no sundering rules" and have done with it. With all that in mind, maybe some possible approaches could include:
1) All items can be repaired
2) Repair takes a fixed amount of time per item (an hour, for instance) for anyone with the relevant crafting feat and/or spells
3) The gold-piece cost of repair is greatly reduced or eliminated entirely
4) The XP cost of repair is greatly reduced or eliminated entirely (no XP cost to repair an item you originally made yourself, 10% of usual creation cost otherwise)
Of course, this doesn't fix the problem of every fight potentially starting with the opposing forces trying to bork each other's equipment, which would be both boring and irritating. What it would do is make breaking enemy (or PC) gear less of a total game-disrupter... although I haven't as yet come up with an answer for what to do when you've effectively encouraged the tactic by making the results less painful!
And on another note... I'm sorry, but the argument that NPC's would always go all-out for destroying PC's kit "because they can't use it" is very 4E thinking. You're making the assumption that NPC's are somehow fundamentally different from the PC's in their motivations. To be sure, some of them will be, but when they can trade the PC's items for gold, souls or whatever-the-hell then anyone with sufficient brains to use sundering as a tactic ought to have the same reasons for not doing it as the player characters.
Sure, we know that their WBL is half that of the PC's, and we know that they only exist for the purpose of having the PC's defeat them, but they don't. If you're treating your NPC's as "mobs" who have no goals beyond killing the PC's in this fight - however true that might be for you as the DM - you've succumbed to the pencil-and-paper videogame approach. Most of the time, NPC's go into fights assuming they are going to win. Naturally, animals, dumb brutes and ravening monsters don't have any motivations to speak of, but they're also not smart enough to even consider the notion of breaking the PC's gear.
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Post by Roy » Fri May 15, 2009 11:41 am

> Kaelik wrote:

> > Psychic Robot wrote:Forgot about that. But

> > > And that's just suicidal minions, to say nothing of the tactical uses, like an Archon hit squad of archers with ranged sunder who show up and destroy all your equipment in 2 rounds at 500ft before teleporting out, leaving your ECL 15 characters completely fucked against CR 15 challenges, much less actual important ones.

> > would be part of "not playing with douchebags."

> Some people like Versimilitude. The idea that PCs can sunder all fucking day and the DM should reward them for it, but that if the DM ever uses sundering tactically with any of his high Int monsters who can't use your shit and don't need it he's a douchebag is fucking retarded.
> If the DM can never use Disjunction, because it destroys the game, then you as a PC sure as hell can't expect your first round of combat to consist of a Twinned Disjunction and then to find a pile of wealth exactly equal to the amount being used by your enemies just sitting on the ground on the other side of the hill.
> Anyone at all who uses Sunder is a douchebag, including and especially PCs. So if you don't play with douchebags, then this entire thread is inapplicable.

Thank you Kaelik, for single handedly convincing me not ALL of the Den is in need of railing Darwin's Chainsaw.
Edit: More smiting of Fail.

> Kaelik wrote:If the enemy Wizard is purposefully not using Chained Dispel Magic and Quickened Chained Shatter on you because he wants your shit, why the fuck when a PC uses that exact same tactic do you immediately tell him, "Hey don't worry, you'll find a +6 Int item and a Vest of the Archmage just sitting on the ground 30ft away unused."

Funny thing is? Even completely ignoring wealth, that Shatter isn't even necessary. A chained Dispel, even at low CLs will shut down pretty much every item on them as you would be surprised how many common items have a caster level of 10 or less.
Some examples:
Amulet of natural armor (any) - CL 5.
+resistance to save item (any) - CL 5.
Ring of Protection (any) - CL 5.
Bracers of armor (any) - CL 7.
+enhancement to stat item (any) - CL 8.
Belt of Battle - CL 9.
So you reliably hit DC 16-20 on dispels, and nearly every item on them, or at least the important ones shut right off. Sure they only stay off for 1-4 rounds, but combats only last that long... and as your stats have just dropped by 5-20 points or more across the board, guess what the chances of you not dying now are? So you can just use that quickened spell to remove them from the fucking fight, and that's it.

> virgileso wrote:What if you're selective in your compensation? Punish the PC for using sunder when it's tactically stupid, since the effort to sunder most of the time is much better spent in just plain killing, but increase the loot piles when it's actually a good idea either tactically or narratively.
> Avor makes a good point that narratively (or even tactically) appropriate times to sunder equipment is actually fairly rare. Personally, I can think of a couple...
> * the BBEG is in an inhospitable environment, but is protected thanks to a brooch
> * someone is casting a deadly spell with a material component, and the damage you can deal to them is very unlikely to break their concentration
> * opponent is reliant on a potent item of evil (such as unholy sword)
> The last one is contentious amongst some, but frankly Team Good makes it a habit to not harm each other (which the unholy sword is only capable of doing) while Team Evil is known for its backstabbing and Chessmaster tendencies and thus can find a use for a Holy sword. Also, the redeeming rules in the BoED are crap because you still have to spend the resources that matter.

DC to break Concentration = 10 + spell level + damage dealt.
Skill ranks = 3 + level + stat mod + potential BS bonuses.
If you can't do enough damage to break concentration when you are in a position to, you have far worse problems. Like being far below a level appropriate level. If you aren't in a position to, then you can't be a Sundertard either.

> Kaelik wrote:PR, stop being retarded.

Plus Fucking One. And stop trolling me too.

> Psychic Robot wrote:He's a colossal asshole if he's using the angelic wank-squad. You, of course, can't pull your head out of your ass long enough to differentiate between shitting all over the PCs and using sunder

Again.

> Kaelik wrote:PR, stop being retarded.

Also, the two are freely interchangeable. They are the same damn thing. You can literally kill the same character a dozen times in a SINGLE combat and still screw them over less than if you threw in a single Sundertard mook who takes out a single resistance cloak +5. Death takes 1k to recover from. The cloak has a sell value of 12.5k and a market value of double that.
The difference is that dying a dozen times requires a truly obscene encounter (hint: You can throw level 27 encounters at a level 18 party and STILL not get anywhere that many deaths... in fact, you'd get two, to different characters), whereas a Sundertard mook breaking one thing requires a single, otherwise inconsequential creature to get a single action.
In order for it to be even a consideration value wise, all of the following must be true:
The item must be powerful enough to actually warrant special and specific attention. As power correlates to value, this means a very valuable item. And by very valuable I mean the equivalent of using the Artifact Sword fix on the BBEG as the item would have to be so amazingly good so as to be worth more than their entire NPC WBL by itself, such that they shouldn't even have it.
The item must not have a value greater than 1,000 gold. If it does, you are literally better off dead than breaking it. See how this is inherently contradictory?
The item must not be cheap enough so that the user can easily have backups to account for its important state.
So, the item must be expensive, but not more than 1k, and they must not be able to afford 1 or more additional sub 1k items to render breaking it pointless. Funny how that rules out every fucking thing and then some.
And even if something did manage to actually adhere to that entire heap of contradictory style BS you'd expect from the fucking Bible or something, but not D&D you have to actually know this is the case for it to matter. Since you don't have any way of knowing in battle, but you do know that the odds are heavily against such a convoluted thing being true you know never to try, and never to bother investing resources into things that allow you to try.
Even if you completely ignore the wealth aspect, it's still made of Fail as you'd either break their face with about the same effort (weapons, shields), or would be stuck burning actions trying to get through the 10+ cloaks, amulets, etc everyone is wearing because only more stupidity can counter that stupidity. And if you don't, well the mooks on the other side strip you naked and bend you over every combat while the real threats move in for the mount.
The only way to break the cycle of Fail is with Logic. Sundertardation is made of Fail. Make your Will save to disbelieve. And stop fucking trolling PR.
Last edited by Roy on Fri May 15, 2009 12:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Fuchs
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Post by Fuchs » Fri May 15, 2009 12:17 pm

Well, let's say sundering doesn't destroy items, just breaks them until you fix them or they regenerate. Why exactly would sundering be that good an idea?
In RL tag high-level combat, I'd rather try to take out an enemy than sunder his weapon - especially if he has back-up weapons or spellcasting powers. And sundering specific items would require knowing what items were the best to sunder.
Anecdotally, one of the PCs in my game has a sword that's optimized for sundering (grants the feat, does more damage to items, and can critical hit weapons), yet it does not really happen - I don't recall when it was used the last time, but it wasn't this year in a weekly campaign.
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Post by virgil » Fri May 15, 2009 12:19 pm

Hmm, here's an idea, for home games at least...since the rules for sundering worn gear is terrible, get rid of it. I can't think of a situation where keeping that part around is ever worth the subsequent hassle.
As for carried items, it should be just as hard to sunder them as it is a weapon, which means the requisite opposed attack roll. Just in case, magic items should have their hardness and hit points in a manner not unlike weapons (+1 hardness, +10 HP for every 3 CL).
Throw in the additional incentive of not giving compensatory wealth to PCs who are stupid about it...which is virtually all the time (except for potentially three fairly specific situations, as I mentioned earlier in this thread).
Now, outside of fixing your campaign and fixing the rules as a baseline...overhauling the wealth system along with the extreme gear dependency is required, on top of the overly lenient sundering system.
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Post by PhoneLobster » Fri May 15, 2009 12:54 pm

> Fuchs wrote:Well, let's say sundering doesn't destroy items, just breaks them until you fix them or they regenerate. Why exactly would sundering be that good an idea?

Assuming you weren't saddled with the raft of issues that it would still have in 3.x...
1) Sundering is a different flavor disarm
There aren't that many nice straight out martial things like that to RC and the "fighters must be non magic" gang, so it should probably do something cool and be on the list.
It's fractionally better than disarm because it gets around just picking the item back up again or using some trick to get it back.
It may be slightly more sensible to sunder rather than disarm some items, and could be tied in with some monster tentacle or hydra head hacking mechanics.
2) Sundering is a debuff
With an appropriate rules set the debuff could be a moderately legitimate action.
It could be especially legitimate, even if weak in comparison to real damage, if sundering your item was a defensive action rather than an offensive one so the defender could let their shield get smashed so as to avoid damage to themselves. That's cool.
3) Sundering is cool
You can forget about "RL tag high level combat". Smashing the villians sword, cutting his gun barrel in half, whacking the gem out of his magic wand, or otherwise discombobulating his penis extension and putting him on the back foot is very much a cool thing that can happen in cool fiction.
So it would be nice to support that cool action. That's why 3.x tried and failed. And don't give me "legacy" as an excuse, that just means it's been recognized as a cool addition for longer.
But all that requires you to basically not be using 3.x so, yeah. Not happening. Certainly not for pathfinder, the tomes, or ... 3.x.
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Post by Kaelik » Fri May 15, 2009 1:21 pm

> virgileso wrote:Considering the resources involved with having a pile of hound archons in that example, I'd say it's largely easier to have them blast the party with targeted dispel magic items. A 1d4 round depower is enough for the real villain leading said mooks to actually smack the party down and get a pile of awesome loot off their bodies at the same time.

I think you missed the point.
The archon hit squad can be a low EL encounter for a party and cripple them for weeks.
If you replace them with a bunch of dispel Magics they instead cripple the party for rounds. For those rounds, their boss is not in combat with them.
The whole point is that this group can do serious damage that carries over to all future encounters. So that you face EL 15 encounters without any items.
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Post by Username17 » Fri May 15, 2009 2:43 pm

> PL wrote:But all that requires you to basically not be using 3.x so, yeah. Not happening. Certainly not for pathfinder, the tomes, or ... 3.x.

You know honestly, when you throw an 8 item limit and a Wish Economy Cap, sundering becomes fine (if still usually a sub optimal strategy).
Players can get new swords of flaming fairly easily, and probably have backups that they can switch to after the combat. So sundering player weapons is not an insurmountable problem.
Meanwhile, enemies can have poison swords of villainy or whatever that won't appreciably add to the player's equipment reservoir should they be looted at the end of the battle. Players can therefore sunder most enemy equipment without that being a big problem for them in the short or long term.

Honestly and seriously, while Sunder s very frequently a tactic that I would not bother employing; there are wide swathes of territory in a Tome game where you can sunder every battle without that creating any long term problems. The Eight Item Limit makes in-battle sundering a meaningful debuff even when people have access to backup weaponry. The Tiered Economy ensures that people very likely have backup weaponry. And finally, the Scaling Enhancement rule makes it so that the backup weaponry is actually decent and level appropriate when it actually hits the floor.
So yeah, I am seriously going to stamp [Solved] on the Sunder Dilemma for Tome Games. It's still a frankly minor tactic that won't see much use, but it's not particularly problematic for the game in the short or long run when it is used. Also for the record, there are good solid reasons to have weapons made of Iron, Adamantine, Silver, Wood, and Stone in Tome Rules. I consider that problem solved as well.

And finally, Roy: shut up. Seriously, you aren't helping your cause. Every time you rant and rave about "sundertard fail" and how it "is unsupported by any logic" and shit, you make rational readers roll their eyes. Your argument makes no fucking sense. It's based completely upon your personal set of house rules and those house rules are not universal or even particularly good.
I've taken to seriously just groaning and scrolling past when you post, because your argument (singular) isn't good and it isn't changing. It's just the same set of three talking points, repeated, over and over again. And you are not convincing people with those talking points because they are not good talking points.
The real RAW are bad when it comes to equipment. They are bad in many ways. But the fact is that under the RAW it is entirely reasonable to sunder any weapon you don't want to use because you will get compensatory wealth. Breaking a +2 light mace will get you 8.3k in equipment down the line that will almost certainly be better. This is an absolute fucking fact about the actual DMG guidelines. I don't like it, but I don't like a lot of things about the DMG item system and that's why I fucking wrote the Book of Gears excerpt! And in my personal "fixed" version of item accumulation, chopping some dude's magic sword in half doesn't have any major long term impact on you one way or the other.
If you make your argument entirely based on your house rules, you have to be arguing how your house rules make things better. Not just that your house rules exist. Your equipment house rules don't sound good at all, and your own description of them is that they force everyone to wander the lands as murderous hobos stealing, accumulating, hording, and keeping track of every copper penny they become aware of through their whole life. Fuck that. I think I speak for everyone here when I say that the case you make for your personal house rules is embarrassingly poor.
You are wrong. Pathetically, hilariously, and obviously wrong. Sunder is a marginal tactic, because we can't get away from the fact that a lot of enemies die in three rounds and a lot of enemies are giant fucking crabs. This is undeniably true. But that's not your argument Roy. If it was your argument, we'd all nod sagely in agreement and move the fuck on with our lives. So here it is: this is your last fucking chance to end your temper tantrum and make an argument that makes some god damned sense. Or at least make an argument that's different from the laughably pathetic and circular one you've been making until we can just have a computer generate it instead.
-Username17
Last edited by Username17 on Fri May 15, 2009 2:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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virgil
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Post by virgil » Fri May 15, 2009 3:18 pm

> Kaelik wrote:If you replace them with a bunch of dispel Magics they instead cripple the party for rounds. For those rounds, their boss is not in combat with them.
> The whole point is that this group can do serious damage that carries over to all future encounters. So that you face EL 15 encounters without any items.

Ah, my bad. I was looking at it from the PoV of BBEG defense grid.
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Hicks
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Post by Hicks » Fri May 15, 2009 3:54 pm

> Psychic Robot wrote: He's a colossal asshole if he's using the angelic wank-squad.

And from that I get this:
ASSHOLE
An Asshole an incarnation of the universe’s desire to shit on you.

Code: Select all

    Asshole, Colossal
    Colossal Outsider &#40;Evil, Extraplanar&#41;
    Hit Dice&#58;               10d8+80 &#40;128 hp&#41;
    Initiative&#58;             +1
    Speed&#58;Fly               100 ft. &#40;perfect&#41; &#40;20 squares&#41;
    Armor Class&#58;            17 &#40;–8 size, +1 Dex, +14 natural&#41;,
                            touch 3, flat-footed 16
    Base Attack/Grapple&#58;    +10/+46
    Attack&#58;                 Slam +20 melee &#40;8d6+24&#41;
    Space/Reach&#58;            30 ft./30ft.
    Special Attacks&#58;        Stinking Cloud, Improved Grab, Constriction,
                            One Eyed Stare &#40;DC 23&#41;
    Special Qualities&#58;      Damage reduction 25/–, Diseased Asshole &#40;DC 23&#41;
    Saves&#58;                  Fort +15, Ref +8, Will +7
    Abilities&#58;              Str 42, Dex 13, Con 26, Int 11, Wis 10, Cha 11
    Skills&#58;                 Bluff +13, Craft &#40;Disturbing Image&#41; +13,
                            Knowledge &#40;History&#41; +13, Hide +13, Listen +13,
                            Move Silently +13, Sense Motive +13, Spot +13
    Feats&#58;                  Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple,
                            Improved Natural Attack , Dodge, b Snatch
    Environment&#58;            Across the Table
    Organization&#58;           Solitary
    Challenge Rating&#58;       10
    Treasure&#58;               None
    Alignment&#58;              Always Evil
    Advancement&#58;            None

- Assholes speak common, usually just to piss you off.
  COMBAT
  Assholes would have varied combat abilities and tactics, but they don’t, because they’re Assholes.
  Stinking Cloud(Sp): Contrary to his belief, an Asshole’s shit does stink, badly. An Asshole may cast stinking cloud as a spell like ability at will with a DC of 13 + the Asshole’s Cha bonus.
  Improved Grab (Ex): Anytime an Asshole hits with his slam attack, he may resolve a grapple check against whoever he hit; doing so does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
  Constriction (Ex): An Asshole inflicts his Slam damage anytime he succeeds a grapple check.
  Damage Reduction (Ex): An asshole has DR X / -, where X is listed in the Asshole’s entry.
  Diseased Asshole (Su): Anyone who takes damage from an Asshole’s slam must succeed a DC of 10 + ½ HD + the Asshole’s Con bonus fortitude save or be inflicted by the Asshole. Initially this does 1d6 CHA damage, and every day thereafter the inflicted person must make that save again or take another 1d6 Charisma damage. Should the inflicted ever have his charisma score reduced to 0 or less, their own asshole eats them, and they become an Asshole of the same size they once were. An Asshole remembers everything from its previous life, but he just doesn’t care; he is just that big of an asshole.
  Although this ability would imply that it is a disease, it is rather a supernatural “disease” curse, which must be removed with remove curse, break enchantment, limited wish, wish, or miracle.
  One Eyed Stare (Ex): As a Standard action, an Asshole my focus his baleful brown gaze on an opponent, who must then succeed a DC of 10 + ½ HD + the Asshole’s Con bonus willpower save or be nauseated for 1d4 rounds.
  Snatch: An Asshole receives the Snatch feat as a bonus feat, and may activate it by using his Slam attack instead of a Bite or Claw attack

Edit: and yes, there is a medium, large, huge and gargantuan Asshole stat block too; however, my forum-fu is weak and I could not figure out how to properly create tables on the fly, so this is all you get.
Edit from 12/03/2017: so Stinking Cloud went without a save DC this whole time and nobody told me, assholes.
Last edited by Hicks on Sun Dec 03, 2017 10:33 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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> shadzar wrote:those training harder get more, and training less, don't get the more.

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CatharzGodfoot
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Post by CatharzGodfoot » Fri May 15, 2009 4:17 pm

Shouldn't the colossal asshole have disjunction at the very least?
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Post by Hicks » Fri May 15, 2009 4:37 pm

This monster was based on the Air Elemental, and I did not think that any 9th level spell effect was fair on a CR 10 opponent (Despite what the DMG says about reseting traps. Seriously! Summon Elemental Monolith every 1d4 rounds! CR 9!?).
"Besides, my strong, cult like faith in the colon of the cards allows me to pull whatever I need out of my posterior!"
-Kid Radd

> shadzar wrote:those training harder get more, and training less, don't get the more.

> Lokathor wrote:Anything worth sniffing can't be sniffed

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Mage
Dread Necromancer
Spell Breaker
Scaling Magic Weapons
True Dragon
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