[DM] - To Sunder, or not to Sunder? (Break, Destroy, Steal the PC's gear?)

[kenjib]

The thing with this line of thinking is if the PC's decide to use the sunder option they're already shooting themselves in the foot since they're destroying their potential loot, and turning around and sundering back just doubles the cost paid. Sundering cost the DM nothing, it is a sacrifice to PC's use though.

I think this is an interesting artifact to the lack of lethality in D&D. It's so hard to die (edit: permanently) in D&D that you worry more about protecting your opponent's maximum loot-to-kill ratio than you do about saving your own hide.

 

[ForceUser]

(apparently his soul was in it, which was news to me, the DM).

Heh, that is your bust as a DM for 1) Not familiarizing yourself with the player's background, and 2) allowing the player to have such a critical story hook without your knowledge. It is also the player's bust for not telling you that he HAD such a critical story hook.

Sundering a weapon is a fine tactic situationally. I see it most often used when one character needs to deny his foe a distinct combat advantage.

I see sunder being most appropriate when

- your foe wields a weapon that increases his power by great orders of magnitude.

- your foe wields a weapon that greatly compliments his feat path, such as a fighter focused and specialized in the greatsword.

- your foe is wielding a weapon with greater reach than yours.

- your foe is possessed by a magical intelligent weapon that is controlling his actions.

- you must capture your foe unharmed.

Of course, sundering weapons is a military advantage as well - medieval German soldiers sometimes used greatswords to hack the heads off enemy polearms.

Sundering a weapon is a fine tactic as long as there is a rationale for it. Having your bad guys always go after your player group's nice weapons will quickly become tedious and could lead to a loss of enjoyment of your campaign. Don't fear to sunder, just use it sparingly.

And make sure your players consult you regarding their PCs' backgrounds

 

[Ferret]

The only chance I've had to DM was with newbies(myself included) So I A) Hardly had any sundering creatures, and B)Didn't want anyone to leave. I did however get the paladins signet(torm) ring stolen, I crossed it out on his list and didn't tell him, when they killed the thief the rogue found it and kept it. For a while.

 

[takyris]

I don't usually steal or sunder. I've stolen a few times, and it worked well, but I wouldn't want to do it all the time. There's no justifiable in-game reason for it to come up more than once or twice, and the PCs take precautions.

As for Sundering, it's less a matter of ethics and more a matter of strategy. The party's got powerful enough weaponry to make sundering their stuff difficult (from enhancement bonuses). Giving the bad guy a MORE powerful weapon, to make that Sunder possible, only works a few times -- 'cause each time, the party ends up using said bad guy's weapon later.

-Tacky

 

[Benben]

I firmly believe that character gear in 3E is disposable. Magic items are much easier to acquire in a standard wealth level game.

I also firmly believe that a character should never be defined by their equipment. Arthur uth Pendragon was a king first and the weilder of Excalibur second. If I see a character becoming defined by a single piece of equipment then I'll change that character's story so he/she/it become prominent again. Doing so might include a sunder attempt.

Mages and Clerics have to deal with SR and Antimagic zones. Seems fair to me that fighter should occasionaly have to deal with a problem with something other than their favorite weapon.

All this being said I just had a character choose to draw from a Deck of Many things, and among other things he lost all of his magical possessions. I'm stuggling frantically to fix this as the player was getting bored with his character before this.

 

[RedSwan78]

Mages and Clerics have to deal with SR and Antimagic zones.

Yes, but to me, SR is the equivelent of Fighters having to deal with DR.

EDIT- hmm.. After posting it, I guess it's kinda not. Because even if a Fighter doesn't have the correct weapon to bypass DR, he could still do *some* dmg to the creature if is dmg is high enough. For a Mage and Cleric, if they dont' beat the SR, they just don't beat it, and the spell is wasted. Fighters can swing their swords all day.

hmmm...

 

[Oni]

I think this is an interesting artifact to the lack of lethality in D&D. It's so hard to die (edit: permanently) in D&D that you worry more about protecting your opponent's maximum loot-to-kill ratio than you do about saving your own hide.

Yeah, it's kind of wierd. Personally I'd like to see less reliance of magical items, and a greater emphasis on the abilities of the character. Unfortunately the rules don't really support me in this view. As a default, I think dnd causes players to identify too much with their character's equipment and not the character itself.

 

[kenjib]

Yeah, it's kind of wierd. Personally I'd like to see less reliance of magical items, and a greater emphasis on the abilities of the character. Unfortunately the rules don't really support me in this view. As a default, I think dnd causes players to identify too much with their character's equipment and not the character itself.

Yeah, lots of people have made various houserule packages (often low magic) to address that too. It would be nice to see a publisher put out a well playtested supplement specifically supporting rule variants for re-balancing low magic-item games.

 

[Benben]

Yeah, it's kind of wierd. Personally I'd like to see less reliance of magical items, and a greater emphasis on the abilities of the character. Unfortunately the rules don't really support me in this view. As a default, I think dnd causes players to identify too much with their character's equipment and not the character itself.

I don't know. The introduction of prestige classes and feats in 3E certainly made characters more systematically definable than they were in previous editions. And the smackdown thread takes very general magic items and applies them to prestige class abilities to devastating effect.

 

[SamuraiY]

I think sunder/theft should only be used if the PCs are getting to rich/full of themselves. If you spent a long time collecting money to get a +4 vorpal keen sword, and then somebody smashed it, wouldn't you be upset. Of course there may be something wrong if the player actually manages to get said sword, but still.
For another thing, it puts a great burden on the party's wizard if you do it to often. He is going to be deluged with requests to repair or replace equipment unitl he is back to level 1. He could say no, but then the other players are in trouble because they just lost a big item and they can only get a mundane replacement. Its the equivallent of losing an H-bomb and getting a revolover.