The Gaming Den

Roy, first of all, you can't conflate the short-term importance of gear to one fight with the longterm importance of wealth collection.

Sundering someone's weapon is at least as good as disarming them. Also it seems unlikely that they can or will want to replace a sundered amulet, shield, or cloak in the middle of a fight. the fact that they have a batcave full of resistance cloaks doesn't mean there's no advantage to sundering one in a given battle.

Also, setting aside the fact that if we're talking about a houseruled game, death and resurrection are some of the most commonly houseruled things *ever* you seem to be forgetting that dying makes you LOSE A LEVEL if you aren't extremely high level or given high-level NPC allies.

EDIT: I also love how you think the definitions of words you made up constitute an argument.

Revivify has the following drawbacks:

Requires 1,000 gold worth of diamond dust.
Must be cast within 1 round of death.
Revives at -1 HP.

Both of those last two problems are fixed by using Revenance if combat is still going on. Revenance has no cost, revives with half HP, and has a window of a round a level. Though you will die again a minute a level later, in the meantime you're alive and even get minor bonuses vs whoever killed you. When you do die again, the death counter is reset, allowing someone to use Revivify then followed by Heal or something. So that just leaves 1k gold cost vs whatever the item cost... most likely more than 1k.

Note the complete lack of any mention of losing a level there.

Note also as Revivify is a 5th level spell and Revenance is a 4th level spell, at every single level you could Raise Dead or Reincarnate you can use those. And you should because they're much cheaper and better. Even if you have to buy scrolls of it, 700 gold or even 2,125 + 700 gold is still less than 5,000 + lose 1 level.

If you want to bring disarm into it, disarm allows you to actually steal the item. So now they still don't have it, but now you do. So it's preemptive looting of your kills. Disarm in and of itself sucks, but at least it's not screwing you over for having the audacity to actually use it.

Similarly, a Chained Dispel will cut the effective level of most things by at least a quarter without screwing you.

So, still invalid.

As Frank noted, sundering a magic item doesn't actually cost you any currency except for time and some piddly 1/5th of the base cost. That's 3 gold for your magic sword.

Roy wrote: If you want to bring disarm into it, disarm allows you to actually steal the item. So now they still don't have it, but now you do. So it's preemptive looting of your kills. Disarm in and of itself sucks, but at least it's not screwing you over for having the audacity to actually use it.

That only works if you're doing it with an open hand, which means you have improved unarmed strike and improved disarm. Honestly just don't see many people taking that feat combo. Kind of awesome for monks, but monks suck anyway, so nobody really cares.

I'm not trolling. When dealing with people on others forums, I usually just agree with Roy to aggravate them. So, while I might "smite sundertards" on the WotC forums, I am perfectly open to having a reasonable discussion on it here. Yes, I believe that the DM should replace the wealth except when the players are breaking their own equipment to get better loot--but I wouldn't play with people like that anyhow.

I'm not sure how many DMs would be willing to let Frank's ruling slide, though.

As Frank noted, sundering a magic item doesn't actually cost you any currency except for time and some piddly 1/5th of the base cost. That's 3 gold for your magic sword.

1/4, actually. Half of a half. So that's still 50k for a well-enchanted sword. Of course, that's not a huge deal at high levels, but still.

PR:

1) I'm pretty sure he means the cost of a Longsword, not a magic longsword, because all the crap in your hands is still magically worth the same as the magic cost of the unsundered sword.

2) We all agree (except Roy) that if the PC breaks something for a good reason, they should not lose wealth. What I want to hear from you is this: How the fuck can you a) have monsters use sunder, b) preserve verisimilitude, and c) not gimp the PCs.

I have seen no explanation of how to do that in a WBL world.

PR:

1) I'm pretty sure he means the cost of a Longsword, not a magic longsword, because all the crap in your hands is still magically worth the same as the magic cost of the unsundered sword.

Ah, okay. I'm not sure how many DMs would let that ruling go, either--they'd probably rule the way that costs more gold because that's probably how the developers intended.

2) We all agree (except Roy) that if the PC breaks something for a good reason, they should not lose wealth. What I want to hear from you is this: How the fuck can you a) have monsters use sunder, b) preserve verisimilitude, and c) not gimp the PCs.

I have seen no explanation of how to do that in a WBL world.

Sunder and verisimilitude... (God, that's a pain to type. I hope that everyone on the Den isn't some 4rry who spazzes out at the word "realism.")

Here's how I'd do it:

1. Only intelligent monsters sunder. A bear isn't going to sunder your gear--and you don't even need the knowledge check to know that.

2. Monsters only sunder when it would be significantly advantageous to do so. As someone noted earlier, you're looking at a lot of HP bloat if a monster starts beating on your sword in combat. Doing so wastes actions and opens yourself to attack. There is, of course, the possibility of an ambush, but...

3a. Monsters act realistically. If you've got two people in a knife fight, they aren't going to waste time trying to break knives--they're going to try and stab each other. In the case where one person is unarmed and the other is wielding a weapon, the unarmed individual will probably try to disarm the knife-wielder, and he may try to sunder the knife. Most of the time, though, people are thinking about how to kill the other guy, not how to break his gear.

3b. Returning to #2, on advantages: you're going to have situations where monsters will want to sunder weapons. Let's use the White Witch for an example: that's a badass wand she has. It's a save-or-die, without the save. You need to destroy it if you want a shot at killing her (unless the Deus ex machina DMPC lion is going to kill her). Similarly, the balor fighting a paladin that is wielding a sword specially built to kill demons? There's a good chance that it's sunder time.

4. No dickery allowed. You simply can't use the angelic wank-squad because that breaks the game. Just like the BBEG could gate in a bunch of solars and laugh at the party, he's not going to because that would make for a really lame, really dumb fight. The angelic wank-squad just ruins it for everyone involved--same with disjunction. Once you start using tactics like that, the game is going to rapidly devolve into players vs. DM, and people aren't going to have fun with that. So, yes, I'm advocating ignoring RAW for the sake of the game.

Not gimping the PCs is a much harder thing to do, unfortunately. The easiest solution is to adopt house rules for item repair that don't destroy their purses. However, if we're playing by the actual rules, I'd say:

1. Use sunder sparingly.

2. If you break someone's sword, gradually distribute extra treasure to make up for the repair costs.

3. Assume that the party are working together and willing to sacrifice for their teammates. This one is a big assumption, but look at that 200k sword again. It breaks, so you're going to be down 50k for the repair costs (assuming standard DM interpretation of those rules). However, if the rest of the party pitches in, that cost is going to be about 13k each. That's a pittance at high levels, and I don't think that most groups are going to have a problem with it. (I realize that this will probably be met with derision.)

You still just burnt verisimilitude at a stake.

Declaring that enemies should 'use sunder sparingly' IE not more often then once ever 5 levels, still fucks it in the ass. You still are ignoring how a single round spent sundering your enemies equipment is better that what you could do if they failed a save at most levels.

As someone noted earlier, you're looking at a lot of HP bloat if a monster starts beating on your sword in combat.

So anyone with a +1 Adamantine X or a weapon with that hardness increasing spell cast on it will have incredible HP bloat. At the point you can destroy a weapon with 40 HP/inch that reduces your damage by 22 per hit, you would be better off just killing the guy holding it.

You also have to look at the game from the perspective of the enemy. How will he gain from destroying your equipment when he could disarm you of it instead? This is D&Dland, so everyone knows that wealth means magic items means power. The enemy is going to want to sell your weapons as much as you want to sell his.

Psychic Robot wrote:The enemy is going to want to sell your weapons as much as you want to sell his.

Which is zero, because everyone knows that sundering doesn't deprive you of wealth. So there is no reason to disarm if sundering is easier.

Which what is zero?

He means the NPC's desire to sell your equipment is zero. Of course, Kaelik's argument assumes that everybody is gaming the system instead of roleplaying. While players may know their DM is going to give them extra wealth to make up for sundered treasure, their characters don't know that the DM exists, much less that he's going to do them this favor.

But even if the players play the PCs that way, NPCs actually could gain from the extra wealth. After all, the DM can handle problems with NPC wealth-by-level by increasing the NPC's CR. (Of course, nobody seems to have mentioned that another solution to PC wealth-by-level problems created by sundering could be to give the PCs lower-EL encounters).

Absentminded_Wizard wrote:He means the NPC's desire to sell your equipment is zero. Of course, Kaelik's argument assumes that everybody is gaming the system instead of roleplaying. While players may know their DM is going to give them extra wealth to make up for sundered treasure.

No, I'm saying that if the broken shards of a sundered object are worth it's previous value, that everyone will know this, and NPCs will be perfectly happy to sell your broken cloaks, or to use them as components in crafting.

IE, break all your shit in the first round of combat.

Okay, the argument makes sense to me now. Even though you're losing a little bit of an item's value by sundering it, it's all gravy to the NPC, since it's wealth he didn't have before and he doesn't have to pay attention to his expected WBL like the PCs do. Or like the PCs do in a game where the DM makes you pay for sundering treasure.

Kaelik wrote:No, I'm saying that if the broken shards of a sundered object are worth it's previous value, that everyone will know this, and NPCs will be perfectly happy to sell your broken cloaks, or to use them as components in crafting.

IE, break all your shit in the first round of combat.

That's a pretty damn big "if," and if that "if" is true, then it doesn't much matter who does what with sundering.

However, I think we can agree on this: it's very heavy rules-lawyering, and most DMs are going to use the RAI, where you have to pay to repair stuff.

A damaged magic item continues to function, but if it is destroyed, all its magical power is lost.

A magic item's worth comes from its magic. Full stop, or whatever it is the kids are saying nowadays. A +6 cloak of charisma becomes a normal cloak once it is sundered. Since the value of the cloak is determined by the formula X^2 x 1,000 gp, the cloak's value becomes 0^2 x 1,000 gp.

Similarly, a +2 sword has a base value of around 4300 gp. 4,000 gp of this is due to its magical nature. About 300 of it is the longsword itself. Once the longsword is broken, it becomes non-magical, meaning that its magical properties are completely nullified. It becomes a broken masterwork longsword, and nothing more. You can rebuild the longsword, but it's going to cost you.

You can create any magic weapon, armor, or shield whose prerequisites you meet. Enhancing a weapon, suit of armor, or shield takes one day for each 1,000 gp in the price of its magical features. To enhance a weapon, suit of armor, or shield, you must spend 1/25 of its features’ total price in XP and use up raw materials costing one-half of this total price.

The weapon, armor, or shield to be enhanced must be a masterwork item that you provide. Its cost is not included in the above cost.

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.

Raw materials: the sword itself, and the magical junk. You need half the raw materials to remake the sword. All the magical junk in the sword is gone, as established by the "all its magical power is lost" clause. Therefore, you have to buy more magical junk. And probably some iron to reforge the darn thing.

Even if this weren't an open-and-shut case, 99% of DMs would laugh in your face for trying such bullshit rules-lawyering. The rules say you have to pay to repair. We can dance around and play the "RAW is law" game, but we're talking about actual games here, where people don't enter the Wish Economy and don't repair magical items for free. If you're going to try and weasel out of paying for repairing an item, then you might as well just be playing a Tome game anyhow, where that kind of thing is permitted.

Bottom line: The NPCs will want your things, and they'll want them in good condition.

Verisimilitude = intact.

You are completely missing the point. The entire items keep value thing was only made up so that PCs aren't being retards by sundering.

If NPCs want your shit intact, then so must PCs.

If that is the case, then PCs (The actual characters) can't sunder without being dumb.

Therefore, no one sunders and sunder doesn't exist.

Why is everyone treating PCs and NPCs having generally the same motives like crazy talk?

Kaelik wrote:Therefore, no one sunders and sunder doesn't exist.

I believe that this statement would probably hold true 97% of the time. There's only a few situations that I can see where sundering a weapon would be a preferable option to simply disarming the opponent and either using the weapon yourself, giving it to your church, or selling it to someone for cold hard cash. An Angel or a Paladin locked in combat with a Blackguard probably wouldn't have any compunctions about sundering his opponent's Unholy Avenger, but most combatants would be loathe to start chopping up what would otherwise be valuable loot.

But at the end of the day, the real issue here is that melee classes can't have nice things in 3.5. They are so dependent on the magical items that are produced by the Tier 1 and 2 classes for survival at higher levels of play that their offensive power is shut down if they do encounter an enemy that has no compunction about hacking their weapons to pieces. They not only have to spend a significant amount of time and money to repair the weapon, but they can't even do it themselves - they have to get a spellcaster to do the work for them.

Psychic Robot wrote: That's a pretty damn big "if," and if that "if" is true, then it doesn't much matter who does what with sundering.

However, I think we can agree on this: it's very heavy rules-lawyering, and most DMs are going to use the RAI, where you have to pay to repair stuff.

Some magic items take damage over the course of an adventure. It costs no more to repair a magic item with the Craft skill than it does to repair its nonmagical counterpart. The make whole spell also repairs a damaged—but not completely broken—magic item.

How is what you said RAI?

Kaelik wrote:You are completely missing the point. The entire items keep value thing was only made up so that PCs aren't being retards by sundering.

If NPCs want your shit intact, then so must PCs.

If that is the case, then PCs (The actual characters) can't sunder without being dumb.

Therefore, no one sunders and sunder doesn't exist.

Why is everyone treating PCs and NPCs having generally the same motives like crazy talk?

I am not. I think the same motivations should apply to the PCs and NPCs. I actually think you are guilty of applying different motivations to the PCs and NPCs.

The part where I'm not feeling you is where you're acting like NPCs should be regularly playing to lose, but to lose in such a manner that they make the players lose to some other group of NPCs at some later date. And that just doesn't sound reasonable to me for most enemies. Most enemies should be trying to win. And that means taking actions to try to win the fight rather than actions to cause long term penalties to the enemies.

Enemies who use Vile Transformation Fireball instead of Empowered Fireball are more dangerous to PCs in the long term, but they aren't being played rationally in most cases. If I'm fighting for my life, I'm just not going to forgo an attempt to defeat an enemy in order to take an action that will moderately annoy them long after I'm dead. That's just not reasonable behavior.

Sunder is usually not a valid tactic because fights are over in 3 rounds anyway and you have to be seriously specialized before you can sunder a blade without jeopardizing your ability to seriously threaten to defeat the actual opponent in front of you who is trying to kill you. That's a universal truth that applies to players and NPCs both. And I find you supposition that a majority of enemies should be willing to suicide bomb themselves to give a better long term chance of victory to Team Monster to be unconvincing.

-Username17

RandomCasualty2 wrote:

Roy wrote: If you want to bring disarm into it, disarm allows you to actually steal the item. So now they still don't have it, but now you do. So it's preemptive looting of your kills. Disarm in and of itself sucks, but at least it's not screwing you over for having the audacity to actually use it.

That only works if you're doing it with an open hand, which means you have improved unarmed strike and improved disarm. Honestly just don't see many people taking that feat combo. Kind of awesome for monks, but monks suck anyway, so nobody really cares.

Correction: You need an open hand. Which is a bit more common.

Though really, if you're going to Disarm you're going to do it with something like TK. Otherwise, being a maneuver that isn't a Dungeoncrash or a trip it's not worth it. Reason being it's too narrow.

Guess what's more narrow though? Exactly.

Now, PR is still going on about it, but his examples are weak.

Balors are a rather weak monster. Despite supposedly being level 20, it is not unheard of for them to be bitchslapped around by decently made level 14s. And that's with them equipped and buffed, if you just ignore the treasure line on the creature and have them wear nothing but Unholy Aura this becomes more prominent. Though at the same time, Paladins aren't very deadly either. So let's see... Holy, Evil Outsider Bane, and that's pretty much all he can do. +2 to hit, +4d6+2 damage. That's his anti demon weapon, and the most he can do with it is some auto attacks.

Well, the Balor has multiple save or loses or save or dies. Also, being a caster it's not likely to succeed at being a Sundertard even if it were built for that. To hit is too low (and it's an opposed attack roll) and damage is too low. So even if it honestly were scared of the weapon and couldn't just fly 5 feet outside auto attack range, it would still be better off sticking to its generic strategy of 'spam win spells' because that is pretty much all it can do, and this also stops it from being hit by the weapon. The problem is best solved same as any other. It doesn't have to care one iota about the weapon, just the fact it can't directly do anything about it but can stop it by breaking the Paladin's face is enough.

He's also still going on about his imaginary 'angelic wank squad' which again, is just creatures actually using the ability. Arguing using the ability at all is wank is fine, except he claims he's arguing against that.

And then he finishes with something that basically amounts to 'gimp yourself for the beatstick'.

What's more, it isn't something the PCs can use 'sparingly' because it requires permanent character resources just to try it and if you're only rarely using it you've wasted them, but if you use it commonly you're screwing yourself more. Obviously, using character resources at all to screw yourself is Fail.

No, the monsters where it is supposedly useful against don't help. Those just trick you into wasting character resources because Ivory Tower Giant Frog. And to elaborate, you're still better off sticking to generic strategies because hydras do not have very much fast healing so you can brute force kill them easily and quickly, whereas playing with the heads takes a long while and a lot more actions. Ropers actually fuck you over more if you break their strands because the only thing they have going for them is their weakening effect on the strands, which due to poor writing only takes effect when the strands grab you. So you either get grabbed and slowly move towards it but as long as your Strength is still > 0 you're fine and probably want to be closer to it in any case, or you break a strand, it regrows it as a free action next round, then touch attack reapplies it which allows it to attempt the weakening effect again, thus increasing the chance it Str 0s you. In other words, you can either burn actions making it worse for yourself, or just auto attack. And so forth.

FrankTrollman wrote:The part where I'm not feeling you is where you're acting like NPCs should be regularly playing to lose, but to lose in such a manner that they make the players lose to some other group of NPCs at some later date. And that just doesn't sound reasonable to me for most enemies. Most enemies should be trying to win. And that means taking actions to try to win the fight rather than actions to cause long term penalties to the enemies.

I think you are missing the point. First, it is significantly likely that more then once per level PCs will run into someone willing to sacrifice themselves to cripple them. And even once per level is enough to completely cripple PCs with magic items lose value when broken.

But that is not my point. My point is that if it is ever a smart move for PCs to sunder, it will be so because they are not losing out on anything. If that is true for PCs, it will be true for NPCs.

If the NPCs aren't losing out on loot from sundering, then it would make a lot of sense for them to regularly sunder, because doing so is more effective then most forms of attack.

My contention is that sundering is so easy and effective for certain types of characters that it is a good debuff to apply in order to win the fight.

A level 11 Wizard can destroy 11 items, no save, no attack roll. This can apply a -3 to 4 to saves to 4 enemies, lower enemy DCs by 2, remove their highest level spell for casters, and remove the weapon from any melees. And still have a few more items to destroy.

This is far better then any AoO spell he could pull out, and has the benefit of being more general and flexible then anything else he could prepare.

There must be some reason he doesn't do it. And if that reason is that the items are worth more to him unbroken, then that should apply to PCs too, on which case we are back to the PCs who know they are going to win should never sunder.

As such, the solutions come down to these things:

1) No WBL. My favorite, your favorite, works great. But PR wants to use Sunder in a WBL game.

2) No one ever Sunders.

3) Some so far unmentioned system that allows PCs to not be crippled by sunder crazy mobs, who will show up if PCs can sunderate.

4) PRs bullshit crap terrible system that doesn't solve anything. PCs sunder, enemies don't. No explanation of why NPCs don't. Or why PCs would.

Kaelik wrote:A level 11 Wizard can destroy 11 items, no save, no attack roll.

With what? Shatter and such allow saves when they target magic items and attended items. And any item you care about is probably both.

But even so, so fucking what? He's an 11th level character, he can cast black tentacles or solid fog. Turning a man into a naked man is great and all, but it's not as immediately protective as transforming the same man into a stone statue of a man.

The fact is that in a 3 round combat, debuffs have to compete against fucking winning the fight. And a "permanent" debuff isn't really any different to a debuff that lasts 4 rounds. Any time a wizard is being questioned about breaking peoples' shit, you really have to answer why they aren't dropping a stinking cloud.

Yes, with sufficient investment you can make the technique work. But it's a marginal tactic even so. And honestly if the players have to go home and repair their shit once every couple of levels I regard that as fine. In fact, that's absolutely the game as intended considering how many sword damaging oozes there are. It seems pretty similar to having to tie an occasional player statue to a mule team to get the gorgon breath off of them back in town.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:In fact, that's absolutely the game as intended considering how many sword damaging oozes there are. It seems pretty similar to having to tie an occasional player statue to a mule team to get the gorgon breath off of them back in town.

Sorry, have to do this:

"Anytown D&Dland, the place where they can turn statues into people, remake broken swords, remove complex lich curses, and turn your +2 Flaming Longsword into a +3 Flaming Burst Bastard Sword. Stop buy today and ask about our 4 for 3 Break Enchantment Special."

Grek wrote:

Psychic Robot wrote: That's a pretty damn big "if," and if that "if" is true, then it doesn't much matter who does what with sundering.

However, I think we can agree on this: it's very heavy rules-lawyering, and most DMs are going to use the RAI, where you have to pay to repair stuff.

Some magic items take damage over the course of an adventure. It costs no more to repair a magic item with the Craft skill than it does to repair its nonmagical counterpart. The make whole spell also repairs a damaged—but not completely broken—magic item.

How is what you said RAI?

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.

Big difference between mending a damaged item and restoring a broken one.

Kaelik wrote: 4) PRs bullshit crap terrible system that doesn't solve anything. PCs sunder, enemies don't. No explanation of why NPCs don't. Or why PCs would.

Again with the idiocy. We were doing so well there, too.

Roy wrote:He's also still going on about his imaginary 'angelic wank squad' which again, is just creatures actually using the ability. Arguing using the ability at all is wank is fine, except he claims he's arguing against that.

Yes, because sunder = angelic wank-squad that rapes your equipment.

And then he finishes with something that basically amounts to 'gimp yourself for the beatstick'.

As I said, it would be met with derision. And yes, in a team game, players are probably willing to make sacrifices to help their party members. It's not clean solution--it's not even a good solution--but it's a solution nonetheless.

What's more, it isn't something the PCs can use 'sparingly' because it requires permanent character resources just to try it and if you're only rarely using it you've wasted them, but if you use it commonly you're screwing yourself more. Obviously, using character resources at all to screw yourself is Fail.

I agree completely. Allow me to reiterate that sunder in 3e sucks.

FrankTrollman wrote:

Kaelik wrote:A level 11 Wizard can destroy 11 items, no save, no attack roll.

With what? Shatter and such allow saves when they target magic items and attended items. And any item you care about is probably both.

But even so, so fucking what? He's an 11th level character, he can cast black tentacles or solid fog. Turning a man into a naked man is great and all, but it's not as immediately protective as transforming the same man into a stone statue of a man.

The fact is that in a 3 round combat, debuffs have to compete against fucking winning the fight. And a "permanent" debuff isn't really any different to a debuff that lasts 4 rounds. Any time a wizard is being questioned about breaking peoples' shit, you really have to answer why they aren't dropping a stinking cloud.

Yes, with sufficient investment you can make the technique work. But it's a marginal tactic even so. And honestly if the players have to go home and repair their shit once every couple of levels I regard that as fine. In fact, that's absolutely the game as intended considering how many sword damaging oozes there are. It seems pretty similar to having to tie an occasional player statue to a mule team to get the gorgon breath off of them back in town.

-Username17

I'm guessing Chain Dispel + Chain Quicken Shatter or something. Likely involving Metamagic Rods, so it fits. Rather pointless really since you can just use the Chain Dispel and Quicken a Win spell while their stats are through the floor for 1d4 rounds. I'm not fucking kidding about that. Just the fact you can lower their saves and such by a massive amount with no save, and without screwing yourself is made of Epic Fucking Win. THEN you use Stinking Cloud or something, but not before as they'll either immune it or 95% resist it instead of having it work reliably. We are assuming competent creatures after all. If not the chain nuke makes any win spell auto succeed, or you don't even need the nuke to auto succeed.