Spatzimaus said:
There are two problems with accepting this as is.
1> That rule was in the 3E PHB in the "stike a weapon"/Sunder section. It's been removed from that section in 3.5E.
Well, I just see it as making the rule more general. Presumably, you don't only damage weapons with sundering attempts, but can also attack unclaimed weapons as well. It may well have been removed from the PHB because it was considered redundant, and to make room for some other topic. Also, I don't see any contradictory statements to indicate that the rule has been changed in some way from the previous addition.
2> Also on that same line it says 1 point of Enhancement bonus gives +1 HP and +1 Hardness, just like in 3E. The problem being, the new 3.5E DMG gives THREE contradictory clauses for this. For shields, it's listed as +10 HP and +2 Hardness. For armors, it's not listed at all. And for shields, that "must have a higher Enhancement bonus" clause has been removed, even though armor/shields are covered under the same Sunder rules as weapons in both 3E and 3.5E.
So, it looks to me like that line on weapons was accidentally left over from 3E, and the way it's written for shields (+2 Hardness, +10 HP, no Sunder limit) is the way it's SUPPOSED to be now and someone just forgot to update it when they did the rest.
You can't sunder worn armour, only weapons and shields, which is why it isn't listed. I don't know why you can't sunder armour.
It looks to me like the +1 hp and +1 hardness per enhancement bonus has been changed to +10 hp and +2 hardness overall, and as you say, that these changed weren't properly edited into the material. But the very reason that section wasn't simply dropped may have been because the enhancement bonus requirement to sunder magical weapons and shields hasn't changed and nobody thought to check what came after.
For reference and comparison:
3.5 PHB p.165: +1 enhancement gives +2 hardness and +10 hp to armour, shields and weapons.
3.5 DMG p.217: +1 enhancement gives +2 hardness and +10 hp to shields
3.5 DMG p.222: +1 enhancement gives and +1 hardness and +1 hp to weapons and shields
3.0 PHB p.136: +1 enhancement gives and +1 hardness and +1 hp to weapons and shields
3.0 DMG p.179: +1 enhancement gives and +1 hardness and +1 hp to shields
3.0 DMG p.184: +1 enhancement gives and +1 hardness and +1 hp to weapons and shields
However, none of this directly deals with whether your magic weapon can sunder another or not, only the after effects for when you do manage to successfully damage said item.
While I can see your point, the rule we were originally discussing is still there, even if it is buried under the magic weapons section. The fact that some of the rules following contradicts other rules in the same edition and are therefore suspect, may or may not have any bearing on the specific rule in question. I dunno, it could go either way, but until it does *cough* eratta *cough*, well, the rule is still there.
I guess we'll have to wait until they release errata to fix all of these contradictory sections. Yeah, right.
Yeah. I'm holding out for a second printing myself. (Borrowed the new books from one of my players.) *sigh*
-- Vurt