HELP!!! Polearms and Sunder

officeronin · Dec 23, 2002

I have a PC who is good with a polearm (glaive) -- how do I protect against Sunder?

For starters, I thought steel strips running the length of the pole to give it the strength of an metal-hafted weapon. At least this is historical (Macedonian Pike, Swiss Pike and Swiss Halberds sometimes had this), but there is no game mechanic for it. I was thinking +50 gp to the cost, sunders like a mace, adds 5 (or so) pounds to weight, and halves the throwing range (if it's a lighter spear). That would be a house rule, but for this thread, is there any feat i can take to help? Eventually, I could enchant it, and, if there is any enchantment mod that would help, I'd take it.

Anyone know of anything?

OfficeRonin

smetzger · Dec 23, 2002

How about a magic metal-hafted glaive.
If you can't afford the magic, get a masterwork metal hafted one.

Zad · Dec 23, 2002

Easy. Magic weapons. He'll stop sundering when he realizes he's destroying the party's loot

officeronin · Dec 23, 2002

smetzger said:
How about a magic metal-hafted glaive.
If you can't afford the magic, get a masterwork metal hafted one.

First, thank you for the response.

Magic Metal-Hafted? How do you work this?

This is what I think you are saying -- please correct me if I'm wrong:

Enchanting a weapon only covers "the business end". Therefore, to protect the shaft from sundering, I'd need to pay to have the shaft enchanted if I wanted it to gain the enchantment protection from sunder.

Did I get your post right?

I thought that the enchantment of a weapon covered the whole thing. If this is not the case, could I just attach a new shaft to the enchanted "pointy end"?

Are you talking about making it out of mithril/adamantine/other uber-metals? That might work for a few levels at least...

OfficeRonin

officeronin · Dec 23, 2002

Zad said:
Easy. Magic weapons. He'll stop sundering when he realizes he's destroying the party's loot

Errr, No.

In this case, I am the player, and the PC is my character. Although I could sunder an enemy's weapon, I don't, because I have better tricks that don't eat my treasure. (Well, I might if the party were losing the fight, because I'm too slow to run away due to armor...) I'm worried about my PC's weapon getting sundered. Of course, I also regularly DM, so it would be of use there...

OfficeRonin

Elder-Basilisk · Dec 23, 2002

1. Get as high an enhancement bonus to it as you can. Don't go for special abilities. That should give you immunity to most sunder attempts.

2. Talk to your DM about the following house rule: It's the weapon's head/blade and not the haft that's magic. Your glaive is still easy to sunder but it doesn't matter as much when you can just take out another shaft of wood and rehaft it for a couple gp.

3. House rule: Do what you're suggesting and add long metal strips to the pole. It wouldn't be as strong as a solid steel haft (like a mace) but it would be a lot tougher than ordinary wood. (I'd say Hardness 8, +5 hp for medium weapons, +10 hp for large weapons (like your glaive). The rest of your modifications sound fine. (You could also see about getting a darkwood haft to offset the increased weight).

4. Talk to your DM about adopting the Arcanis rules for Greater Masterwork weapons (+600 gp, +10 hardness, +10 hp, +1 to hit and damage (nonmagical, doesn't stack with enhancement bonusses). (See Presence of the Master Smiths spell in Codex Arcanis for more details).

5. (Minor Houserule--as I understand it, mithral and adamantine ordinarily replace the metal parts of a weapon leaving the wood parts wood) Purchase a mithral haft--since mithral is light, it would probably work but it'd be very expensive. Put an adamantine blade on the glaive and you'd have an excellent weapon.

6. Talk to your DM about the ritual druids use to make permanent Ironwood (as in MotW's Ironwood Breastplate) and get them to make you an Ironwood haft for your glaive. That should give you enough hardness and hp that attempting to sunder the glaive would be futile.

officeronin said:
I have a PC who is good with a polearm (glaive) -- how do I protect against Sunder?

For starters, I thought steel strips running the length of the pole to give it the strength of an metal-hafted weapon. At least this is historical (Macedonian Pike, Swiss Pike and Swiss Halberds sometimes had this), but there is no game mechanic for it. I was thinking +50 gp to the cost, sunders like a mace, adds 5 (or so) pounds to weight, and halves the throwing range (if it's a lighter spear). That would be a house rule, but for this thread, is there any feat i can take to help? Eventually, I could enchant it, and, if there is any enchantment mod that would help, I'd take it.

Anyone know of anything?

OfficeRonin

Chun-tzu · Dec 23, 2002

I like the Ironwood idea.

I vaguely recall an Invulnerability weapon quality, equal to a +1, that basically just protects the weapon from being sundered.

kreynolds · Dec 23, 2002

Chun-tzu said:
I vaguely recall an Invulnerability weapon quality, equal to a +1, that basically just protects the weapon from being sundered.

I remember seeing many variants of such a thing here as house rules, but I don't recall seeing anything official.

Chun-tzu · Dec 23, 2002

Yeah, I was probably thinking of a house rule (the one talking about variants of Sure Striking). But flipping through some books, I found that Beyond Monks has an Indestructible weapon quality. These weapons cannot be destroyed by anything short of a Wish, Miracle, or direct damage from an artifact or deity. The market price is adjusted by +30000 gp (instead of added pluses). An expensive option, but good for high-level characters.

officeronin · Dec 26, 2002

Thanks all for your help!

I was looking for something official -- like the moddy of the Sure Striking quality or a feat that means you drop it instead of it breaking -- but the "Beyond Monks" rule might work.

Thanks again!

OfficeRonin