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

[Krelios]

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).

Not quite... If it's sundered, then you can't repair it at all.

Magic items, unless otherwise noted, take damage as nonmagical items of the same sort. A damaged magic item continues to function, but if it is destroyed, all its magical power is lost.

Some magic items take damage over the course of an adventure. It costs no more to repair a magic item with the Craft skill than it does to repair its nonmagical counterpart. The make whole spell also repairs a damaged—but not completely broken—magic item.

 

[Wardo]

A lot of good suggestions here. I just thought I'd reinforce one that hasn't been emphasised enough (IMHO): when you do have badguy humanoid weapon-carrying fighters, have them carry more than one weapon. It's a move action to draw that doesn't provoke an attack of opportunity. If you don't want your fighters to loose their iterative attacks when drawing, give them Quick Draw. Fighters get lots of feets. Even if the player has Sundering Cleave, he'll be sacraficing his own iterative attacks by sundering every round (see the above post about it being a standard action) - things should even out.

To switch it up, you could instead give fighters Improved Unarmed or Improved Disarm. I think it would be entertaining to see a badguy just take the PC's axe after the PC smashed his sword. Plus, the PC gets his axe back after the fight, so no hard feelings.

(Post inspired by my PC, who gets his glaive sundered all the time, but has a bunch of other weapons to fall back on)

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Not quite... If it's sundered, then you can't repair it at all.

Actually, you can - as long as it is not a rod, staff, or wand.

If you read the spell Mending in the PHB it gives a hint to look to the item creation feats for repairing items. And, lo and behold, if you have Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Wondrous Item, or Forge Ring you can mend a broken ring:

You can mend a broken item if it is one that you could make. Doing so costs half the XP, half the raw materials, and half the time it takes to make the item in the first place.

If you look at the Craft Rod, Craft Staff, and Craft Wand feats you'll notice this paragraph is intentionally left out.

So, some items can indeed be repaired. Some cannot. But it is costly to constantly be repairing one's treasure ... especially the stuff you want to keep!

 

[Cabral]

Another option is Quickened call weaponry Costs 7 (1+6) power points and requires expending your psionic focus (which takes at least a move action to get back) but then it's an instant replacement weapon for the sundered weapon and still leaves an attack action available ...

 

[RigaMortus2]

it would appear that the rest of the party and my self have noticed that the armed enemies dont remained armed.
Malum

What were you expecting?

 

[Enkhidu]

If your PCs are ~13 level, word has probably gotten around about them, including the half-orc's penchant for breaking weapons. So now is the time for your baddies to be clever and use it against them.

Create a group of baddies that are immune to some sort of energy type, and have them create weapons that release said energy type upon breaking. Example: a band of azer with a grudge sends a team armed with swords and axes that erupt into fireballs upon sundering. The azer would remain unharmed, but the fighter (and his nearby allies) will get roasted. Or, if you're feeling particularly nasty, have a necromancer arm his undead troops with weapons that burst into waves of fatigue or mass inflict moderate wounds.

The best part about this method is that mechanically these weapons are pretty much the same as one use wonderous items, and could be created as such.

 

[billd91]

Just in case you are allowing him to use the Sunder attack for each melee attack.... Sunder requires a Standard Action, which is resolved through a melee attack roll. So only one Sunder attempt per round (and can't be attempted on an AOO).

This is incorrect according to the 3.5 FAQ. Here is the relevant text.

Sunder is a special kind of melee attack. If it were a special
standard action, its description would say so (as the descriptive
text for the Manyshot feat says).
If you make a full attack, and you have multiple attacks
from a high base attack bonus, you can sunder more than once,
or attack and sunder, or some other combination of attacking
and sundering.
Sunder does indeed get its own entry in Table 8-2: Actions
in Combat in the Player’s Handbook. It needs one because
unlike a regular melee attack, sunder provokes an attack of
opportunity (although not if you have the Improved Sunder
feat).

When he was charmed, did he go about sundering his own companions' weapons and shields? If that's his favorite tactic, I'd expect him to use it there. That might provoke a little more tactical flexibility on his part.

 

[Parlan]

When he was charmed, did he go about sundering his own companions' weapons and shields? If that's his favorite tactic, I'd expect him to use it there. That might provoke a little more tactical flexibility on his part.

[hijack] That might be pushing it for a Charm result. The spell only makes you consider the caster a "best friend", it doesn't make you attack your friends.

Now, if the PC though that the best way to keep his fellow party members from hurting his "new best friend" was sundering their weapons, then so be it.
[/hijack]

Back to the OP's issue. The PC's weapon is an or double axe right? Isn't that wooden-hafted? Does making the weapon adamantine change that? As DM, you could rule that only weapons with a metal haft (eg, maces) or made completely out of metal (eg, swords) are treated as adamantine when opposing Sunder checks.

So an opponent with an adamantine dagger could sunder his axe pretty quickly.
Is this interp correct? It seems "logical" but it means that an adamantine longsword is a heck of a lot better than an adamantine battleaxe.

Even if it's a valid ruling, it'll REALLY tick off the player.


Given that, I think the best response would be to:
1. make sure you're using some non-sunderable opponents as other posters have mentioned.

2. Make sure that ALL of the players know that the 1/2 orc is detroying some valuable magic weapons

3. And sunder his axe once or twice just for kicks (make sure you do this TOTALLY by the rules tho! and only once or twice to minimze hard feelings)

 

[Legildur]

This is incorrect according to the 3.5 FAQ. Here is the relevant text.

It's not like the FAQ hasn't been wrong before.

Table 8-2 of the PHB (p141) clearly lists Sunder as a Standard Action, separate to an 'Attack (melee)' Standard Action . It also clearly lists the Disarm, Grapple, and Trip (but NOT Sunder) actions as 'Action Type Varies' with the footnote 7 (may be used as part of attack/full attack/AOO etc).

The Sunder decription fails to identify whether it is a Standard Action or part of an Attack or Full Round Action.

While I admit it isn't perfectly clear, it appears to me that it should be a Standard Action. And if the FAQ were right, then they should issue Errata including Sunder under 'Action Type Varies' and add the footnote.

Besides, this reading of the rules helps Malum

 

[Stalker0]

That debate has been going on for a long time, no need to bring it up again