1/2 Ork 13th fighter with sunder feat chain driving me nuts

[Malum]

In a campaign one of our players has decided to play a huge ½ Orc Fighter. His history dominated by pit fighting followed by military. We started campaign at 5th are currently 13th. Difficulty is he wields a +3 adamanite Double Orc axe this combined with the sunder chain of feats makes fighting him a rather large pain in the arse! He destroys enemy’s weapons typically in 1st round. I would be less than honest to simple remove it from the campaign but I have thought about it. Is the sunder feat chain broken? What to do? Admittedly this ½ Orc has many weaknesses such as will save as you would expect with any fighter class. The party 's Duelist brings this to my attention every game play because he is now become a distant second in combat and is now considering making another character for this campaign (a little green with combat envy)



Malum

 

[Mouseferatu]

The Sunder feat chain is pretty potent, but it only works against weapon-wielding foes. Does your campaign not involve a large number of monsters?

 

[damitjimmii]

Sounds like he and his party have a bit of a reputation. I'd say there is a bad ass monk with a whole set of unarmed combat and disarm feats and his name on them. (You see and old man, he is wearing peasant clothing and walks with a staff, after he refuses to yeld the road/door/corrador he's guarding and resists most of your spell, he takes the axe as payment for you sundering his staff).
or....
If that's too personal, give your baddies weapons that can't be sundered. (ranged, magic, spiked chains, etc).
or....
Give your baddie fighters the same feats and see who's weapon breaks first after all, anything that a player can do, a NPC can do.

Don't forget, it's your job as DM to make the encounters challenging. Don't fall into the trap of getting your encounters straight from the module, if they need beefing up, give it to them.

Good luck

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

The sunder feat chain also:
A. Doesn't work too well against magic adamantine weapons (hardness 20+2xenhancement and good hit points)--unless you're dealing 30+ damage/per hit, it'll take 3 or four rounds to get through a decent (+2 or +3) weapon. And that's 3 or 4 rounds where you could have killed two or three similar enemies (if they're not your equal) or where he's done 150+ damage to you (if he is your equal).

B. Doesn't work well on large weapons at all. Trying to sunder a hill giant's club is an exercise in futility even if you have an adamantine weapon. And, if you do succeed, he's still got slam attacks which really aren't that much weaker than his normal attacks.

C. Destroys loot like nobody's business. That was a +3 wounding... oh well. Now it's just trash. (theoretically, it could be repaired at half the construction cost by a caster who could make it in the first place, but that market is a LOT smaller than the number of people who'd want a +3 wounding gizmo).

D. Doesn't work on non-human-shaped monsters, spellcasters, or monks. You do have some of those in your campaign, right?

 

[frankthedm]

You need more monsters.

You are under no obligation to "replace" treasure value for what gets sundered. Peer presure usually is what fixes sunder monkeys.

And don't forget Adamantite Axes still have wooden handles.

 

[RigaMortus2]

It is generally a BAD idea to sunder a giants weapon. Once a giant's great club is sundered, what do they have left to do but grapple? Ever been grappled by a fire giant? It's not pretty. I'd rather have him attack me with his weapon than grapple me personally.

 

[Sejs]

It is generally a BAD idea to sunder a giants weapon. Once a giant's great club is sundered, what do they have left to do but grapple? Ever been grappled by a fire giant? It's not pretty. I'd rather have him attack me with his weapon than grapple me personally.

Particularly if they're in their native environment.

Getting DDT'd into a river of lava is just plain rude.

 

[shilsen]

In a campaign one of our players has decided to play a huge ½ Orc Fighter.

Huge as in 'adjective', and not as in 'D&D size category', right?

 

[Nonlethal Force]

I'd second the following two suggestions:

1. Use monsters with natural attack (or monks/spellcasters).

2. Do unto him as he does unto you. Hit the party hard with another half-orc that weilds an adamantine sudnering weapon. The only problem with this is that if the player wins ... he's now got two. But ... it certainly seems as though this weapon can be obtained through a smith/magic shop so if he wanted 2 he could get a new one anyway.

Good luck. Oh - one more comment. Use tall opponents like giants. Or have fighters and mages who use enlarge person before they come after the party. Do something to get the weapons above the player's strike zone. Hard to hit a weapon that is being hed over the character's head.

 

[Tatsukun]

Or if you really don't like him, ethereal filchers LOVE adamantine double axes !

-Tatsu