Even more Mike Mearls

[ptolemy18]

Incidentally, as a PC in 3.x campaigns, I've never had any equipment sundered. But I *have* had equipment stolen, I've had equipment melted by the breath of a Rust Dragon, and I've had equipment (potions and glass stuff) shattered by a shatter spell.

I of course immediately quit roleplaying and vowed never to play D&D again because I'd lost all my stuff.... uh, no. Of course not. I kept playing and vowed to try to restore my characters' lost equipment. It was a hard blow, but I think the DM should be allowed to play hardball if they want to.

Then again, I prefer the old method of Saving Throws and the inclusion of Save-or-Die effects too, so that's where I'm coming from.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Actually, in Iron Heroes, the problem was far worse.

I, using a rapier, couldn't reliably hurt a person in chainmail. My damage? 1d6+1.

Meanwhile my friendly High-Strength guy was raging and dealing 2d6+8 damage and was basically ignoring the (1d4?) DR.

The dominance that system gave to high strengths was astonishing. It was far worse than in 3e, for at least in 3e the dex-based characters had other ways of dealing damage (sneak attack, etc.)

Cheers!

I am not sure if things got worse, as long as people can sneak attack (which finesse fighters can easily learn). But it still points out the problem. as it is, DR favors those that have a lot of strength and weapon damage.

If you want to keep things fair, you need an "Improved Weapon Finesse" feat that adds your Dex bonus to damage (not just attack) "simulating your ability to strike in the weak spot of the armor". Or just lots of sneak attack.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Some counter points to grimslade

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.

Given the item assumptions of 3.5, magical weapons are not really that hard to obtain between the loot found in WoTC adventures, and item creation feats. I will concede that it is tactically a much worse situation than a Disarm for a player if they are unable to return to the town. However, I disagree about the scope of the problem. On top of that, Sundering magical items is very difficult for powerful items, as the Hardness increases with the bonus. Sundering a +1 item is easy. Sundering a +2 item with 20 extra Hardness is not so easy. Finally, as long as you assume that repairing a magical weapon is easier than replacing one, the problem is a short term one.

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

This point I would concede if opponents sundered their own gear. But given that it is generally up to the players to use Sunder against an opponent, and that players tend to focus on a given weapon, I have to disagree. If the Barbarian sunders an opponents +2 Waraxe, the Barbarian should not complain about it. And the Fighter wont complain at all if he is using a Greatsword that he has specialized in. I do not equip opponents with an eye to providing loot for my players.

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

Monsters that use Teeth and Claws generally do not have Improved Sunder. Opponents that do use Sunder generally use weapons themselves. Also, Poison, Pit Traps, Regeneration, and Damage Reduction are more often used against the players than they are used by the players. That does not make them 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?

I thought Sunder worked against item HP, and did not provoke an Item Save.

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

I fully agree here. There are trade offs between Sunder and Disarm. Disarm also has the following advantages:
- There are weapons that grant a bonus to Disarm
- Disarm removes a weapon on the first success. Sunder has to eat through item HP
- Disarm can be blocked with a Locked Gauntlet
- Disarm is an attack. Sunder is a Standard Action (ie: once per round)

Sunder on the other hand, has these benefits:
- A disarmed weapon can be picked up at the cost of an AoO. Sundered weapons generally cannot be repaired during combat

I do not really see the problem with Sunder being in the game. I do think the Disjunction spell is a real problem, however.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Cadfan]

Item enhancement only adds +2 hardness and +10 hp per point of enhancement.

The hardness really won't come into things, because any character who's into sundering is going to get himself an adamantine greatsword as soon as he can pay for it. Most weapons will have less than 20 hardness. A longsword +5 has only 20 hardness for comparison.

I like sunder a lot when PCs use it, and not very much at all when NPCs use it. The biggest problem I see with sunder as used by NPCs is that if you have the ability to sunder a PCs primary weapon, you're basically sure to be able to sunder his spare, his dagger, and any ranged weapon he tries to draw.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Actually, in Iron Heroes, the problem was far worse.

I, using a rapier, couldn't reliably hurt a person in chainmail. My damage? 1d6+1.

Meanwhile my friendly High-Strength guy was raging and dealing 2d6+8 damage and was basically ignoring the (1d4?) DR.

The dominance that system gave to high strengths was astonishing. It was far worse than in 3e, for at least in 3e the dex-based characters had other ways of dealing damage (sneak attack, etc.)

Cheers!

In my homebrewed rules, I use armour as DR, and fixed this problem using Weapon Skills that can be used to increase attack roll, damage, or both (but not to the same extent). I've posted them here, and when EW2 appears (and I can see my subscribed threads again), I'd be happy to link.

RC

 

[tomBitonti]

Currently, I think Sunder is to easy to do in D&D, and overall, doesn't need to be so prominant in the combat rules. Because of this it is easier to just remove, but I think they should find a way to leave it in but lessen its impact on the game. Sunder has its place, just as disarming, grappling, etc. Likewise, sunder works for as well for as against the heroes when heroes sunder an enemy's weapon. Those scenes can be intense too.

That is my response, too. Sunder seems to be very badly tuned in 3.5E. I'm picturing the scene from "The 13th Warrior", where a wooden shield is broken after a couple of hits, then replaced. In 3.5E, if you are built to sunder, you can waste a magical metal shield in one blow with no problem.

 

[tomBitonti]

1. DR makes it hard to balance the heavily armored guy against the lightly armored guy. In the AC system, you simply compare expected attacks vs. expected AC, and expected hit points vs. expected damage. You can then cross reference those two to figure out how long a PC can survive.Merric

(Quotes show merric, but wouldn't a correct attribution be to Mike?)

Anyways, wouldn't the problem with "soak" be a good opportunity for "armor avoidance" mechanics? My understanding that the technique to deal with a heavily armored knight was to pull him off his horse, pin him, then insert a short-sword type weapon through a gap in the armor. Also, there seem to be good opportunities add in other mechanics, such as adding a bigger trade-off for wearing heavy armor, (say, 15' move, DC to stand up from prone types of problems), and to add in a little more richness to sunder mechanics.

 

[Nebulous]

I agree that it is sort of a cruel mechanic (especially for D&D) but i also think it is far, far too easy to break a weapon per the rules. Regardless, it needs to be redesigned or scrapped. I wouldn't mourn its passing at all.