Even more Mike Mearls

[grimslade]

A lot of the uses for sunder are really plot points more than mechanics. It is nice to have those mechanics in for when you need to have the reforged magical weapon but it is annoying when the barbarian keeps sundering all the treasure to fuel his Momentum Swing tactical feat.

I like the concept of sunder, but I will not mourn its passing or redesign. It is a truly cruel mechanic if used on a regular basis, just like targeting familiars and animal companions to get an extra cleave attack.
Sunder is counterintuitive to a rule set that expects magical items to be part of the equation when determining appropriate CR. An evil outsider with DR10:good/cold iron is pretty sure the rogue does not have a backup of that flavor in his golf bag. Sunder away! Rogue is now an assist monkey and out 20k gp.

 

[Irda Ranger]

He was talking about the "game" part, not the full role-playing game. The game part boils down to being out of spells and hit points.

When the game is so simple it actively impedes role-playing, that's a problem.

Chess, for instance, boils down to being about taking the other guy's king. Because it's so simple, and the ways by which you're allowed to take the king are so limited, there are no opportunities for roleplaying. Clearly the rules of the game and the ability to roleplay cannot be separated.

Also, the last three posters have all totally missed my point with those examples (which probably my fault), so let me try this again:

Mearls seems to be under the impression that Sunder somehow takes away my control of the world as a DM. Well, frankly, that's not a control I want to have. I don't dictate stories to my PC's; I try to destroy the world, and they try to stop me, and later we tell stories about how it all went down. Within that epic battle between the forces of light and darkness, tactics are used. Tactics like Sunder; but also tactics like "Shoot the fool who brought a scimitar to a gunfight" or "Sunder the One Ring with my axe."

Battles over the fate of the world (or just the village of Hommlet) are not fought in a gentlemanly manner. There are no rules of engagement. It's "I will do anything to oppose you, and there are no rules." If an NPC (foolishly) vests all of his power in a vessel or object, he gets what he deserves when the PC's throw it into the fires of Mt. Doom. Likewise, the reverse is also true. The Fighter who puts all of his resources into a sword is taking a risk that it gets Sundered. But it's a risk that he chooses to accept.

Mike's argument seems to me to be "Sunder is lame because, as we all know, a PC's weapons are harder to fix and replace than the character is. I mean, between Cure Light Wounds and Raise Dead, even death and dismemberment aren't a problem! But take a Fighter's +4 Longsword away, and he's a chump. After all, everyone knows the joke: what do you call a PC without his gear? Lunch. Ha ha! I love that one ...

So, rather than fix item dependence (which is hard), we're going to take away your ability to hurt items (which is easy)."

Taking away Sunder does not take away the DM's control of the world. It just reduces the tactical options available to the PC's, and reduces the complexity and depth of the tactical combat space. Those are bad things.

 

[bmcdaniel]

You know, another way of dealing with Sunder is to simply make it easy to repair magic items. That way you can gain a tactical advantage by sundering the orc barbarian's magic greataxe, but you don't miss out on selling it for 8000gp later.

I ran a campaign a few years ago where the high cost of D&D magic items was explained by a house rule which forced expensive gems to be integrated into their construction. So, you could both

1) easily repair broken magic items (gems don't generally get destroyed)
and
2) easily reclaim some of the value from unwanted magic items by removing the gems, and using them to create your own.

Ken (not bmcdaniel)

 

[Shieldhaven]

I've never had a PC pursue Sundering as a tactic, but I've had plotlines derailed by NPCs Sundering gear. That is to say, the PC victim could no longer participate in the adventure until his weapon was replaced. PCs who Sunder weapons are destroying some portion of their impending reward - frequently a significant portion of that reward. NPCs who Sunder weapons aren't losing anything, because NPCs are theoretically but not functionally motivated to accumulate gear.

Honestly, though, I would propose a completely different solution to this problem. I think the game would be improved if gear repair were more easily accomplished. Instead of requiring money and xp to get the fighter back into the action, create easy ways to restore his gear to full strength. Maybe the difficulty of repair scales upward with the power of the item, but remains something that the characters can accomplish without leaving the dungeon. That way, the fighter has to endure one battle without his Preciousss, but the party doesn't have to pack it in and return to town for a couple of days of downtime.

Edited to add: Ken beat me to it, and displayed a laudable brevity in doing so.

Haven

 

[grimslade]

When the game is so simple it actively impedes role-playing, that's a problem.

So, rather than fix item dependence (which is hard), we're going to take away your ability to hurt items (which is easy)."

Taking away Sunder does not take away the DM's control of the world. It just reduces the tactical options available to the PC's, and reduces the complexity and depth of the tactical combat space. Those are bad things.

Sunder is a mechanic to destroy a player's previous reward. Sunder destroys a thing the player worked to get. That is a bad thing.

Sunder destroys treasure or future rewards. That is a bad thing.

Sunder will be imposed on PCs more often than PCs will impose it on monsters. That is a bad thing.

Sunder is a Save or Die type effect for items. SoD are being eliminated from 4E. Why leave one in for items?

Disarm accomplishes a similar effect to sunder without the permanency of being destroyed.

 

[lkj]

So, rather than fix item dependence (which is hard), we're going to take away your ability to hurt items (which is easy)."

I think it's worth mentioning that the designers have suggested that they are indeed trying to at least dramatically reduce the amount of item independence.

So, it leads me to ask, is Mearls talking about Sunder only in the context of 3E? Will the same arguments be as relevent in 4E?

Might be. I'm just not sure. I do know that in my last 3E game, we ended up coming to a gentleman's agreement about Sunder-- meaning we didn't use it for mutually assured fun destruction reasons. I didn't use it as a DM because in this particular campaign the characters had spent considerable time trying to find and restore their weapons and items from a previous life. It was a big story arc early in the campaign. And by the time we hit high levels my villains could, by the RAW, have pretty effectively broken all those items. Just like they could do to the villains.

At any rate, I'm not making an argument one way or another on Sunder in general. I think it depends on the campaign. In another campaign we might have sundered till the cows came home.

At any rate, I really do hope they effectively reduce item dependence in 4E. But not for Sunder reasons. I hate it that shopping came down to filling up magic item slots that were essentially pre-reqs for being high level. And I like the fact that some of the most fun moments in my games have occurred when the characters were stripped of their gear and ended up clawing their way out with daggers and knives. That even happened in 3E, but only at lower levels.

Cheers,
AD

 

[Irda Ranger]

So, it leads me to ask, is Mearls talking about Sunder only in the context of 3E? Will the same arguments be as relevent in 4E?

Actually, this is the best point in the thread. All this hot & bother may not even be relevant.

Also, both Ken and Shieldhaven displayed laudable wisdom in suggesting "easy repair" as the best cure for Sunder attempts. In fact, we already have the Heal Warforged spells, so if a magic sword regained its magic upon being fully healed, problem solved.

That may not be the best mechanic for fixing that problem, but it's a mechanic.

we ended up coming to a gentleman's agreement about Sunder-- meaning we didn't use it for mutually assured fun destruction reasons.

Yeah, it's unfortunate the game forced you to do that. I don't like "agreements" between the DM and the PC's. It reduces involvement in the game if the players think "Oh, he wouldn't do that..." Both sides should "play by the RAW (including HRAW)."

At any rate, I really do hope they effectively reduce item dependence in 4E. But not for Sunder reasons. I hate it that shopping came down to filling up magic item slots that were essentially pre-reqs for being high level. And I like the fact that some of the most fun moments in my games have occurred when the characters were stripped of their gear and ended up clawing their way out with daggers and knives. That even happened in 3E, but only at lower levels.

QFT

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Taking away Sunder does not take away the DM's control of the world. It just reduces the tactical options available to the PC's, and reduces the complexity and depth of the tactical combat space. Those are bad things.

It does though. Some of us WANT that control. I would hate it if my players decided to use Sunder against a staff that I had planned to be the key to unraveling the mystery in the next adventure.

I hate it when I'm running an adventure that I purchased and one of the enemies has Sunder and the tactics say that he is a master of sundering and loves to do it, then I succeed in destroying the fighters most powerful weapons and the player of the character gets so frustrated that he rolls up a new character rather than continue.

It takes away my ability to run my game the way I want all due to a random die roll.

 

[The Shadow]

Or, hit rate and DR might change, but everyone gets the same hit points.

Yes. Exactly. (Or nearly the same, anyway - Con should matter.) Why not do it this way?! Why do hit points need to go up with level?

I agree that "realism" needn't be a major goal in game design, but when it's so easy to do, as in this case, why not? D&D is, IMO, way too wedded to an excessively abstract combat system.

Once you successfully puncture a person's skin with a pointy object, they're about as easy to kill as anyone else. This idea works for GURPS, it works for True20. It's quite satisfying, actually.

 

[Kesh]

I think it's worth mentioning that the designers have suggested that they are indeed trying to at least dramatically reduce the amount of item independence.

So, it leads me to ask, is Mearls talking about Sunder only in the context of 3E? Will the same arguments be as relevent in 4E?

It's probably more relevant in 4e. While PC abilities are less item-dependent, there's still going to be magic swords and such. You won't need the sheer variety of weapons 3e did, and they're likely to be rewarded less often.

In that situation, Sunder is a great threat to an object the PC has worked hard to achieve, and will be hard to replace. With fewer magic weapons necessary to give out, they'll show up less often. If a fighter's new sword only lasts a couple sessions before being destroyed, he's effectively being punished for trying to use the reward of his previous labors.