Alternate sunder rules

[Terraism]

I spent last night up *way* too late, talking with my DM about sundering items. We're playing through Maure castle, and when I sundered one of the gnoll's +1 dire flails with an AoO, and then seriously broke him on my turn, he began expressing some concern. I agree, on many points, though my initial argument was that the system really isn't constructed to work terribly well with obscenely strong characters (34 Strength, in my case.)

Problems with the current system:

1. It's terribly easy, period. A greatsword has hardness 10 and 10 hp.
   1. Example: A 4th-level human fighter, with a strength of 16 (and no magic, which is how we're working our base examples,) with Weapon Specializiation and a greatsword, is dealing 1d12+6 damage per hit (average 12.5.) At 4th-level, we consider him to be an "elite soldier," compared to normal folks. Now, the best-made weapon in the kingdom is a masterwork greatsword (ok, this could turn into a critique on masterwork, too.) On average, it'd take this character four solid hits to shatter the thing. This, thinks my DM, is far too few.
2. As an offshoot of the above example, masterwork items are no harder to break than normal items. Magical items not much harder than that (assuming you can hurt them at all, that is.) The best a greatsword can get, currently, is 15 hardness and 15 hp. Yes, it takes a powerful weapon in it's own right to penetrate the magic, but it's still not terribly hard to shatter.
3. Special materials don't do much, either. Take adamantine, for example. An adamantine greatsword has, best we can tell, hardness 20 and 13 HP. It can also ignore up to 20 points of hardness in something else. Our fourth level fighter above, with one of these, has a 75% to destroy that masterwork piece in one shot. Some call this a feature, others a bug. I think that's extraordinarily easy. Furthermore, it's no harder for our fourth level fighter to break another adamantine greatsword, either.

Fixes

First off, we'd like masterwork weapons to be much harder to break. After all, they are worked much better. Thus, we've ruled that masterwork weapons gain 5 points of both hardness and hp. Yes, that's *a lot.* A masterwork greatsword, by this system, has a 15 hardness, and 15 hp. I'd estimate it'd take our fourth-level fighter about forty solid hits to break it, this way. Makes the DM happy, and I don't feel it's too terribly unreasonable.

Magic items, by this system, increase both hardness and HP by 2 per +1 enhancement. Thus, this same, "elite greatsword" would have a hardness of 25 and 25 hp. Seems much more like an "unbreakable weapon of legend," now, doesn't it? We're toying with the idea of a +1 enhancement-valued enchantment, "Sturdy," or some such, that increases hardness even more.

Lastly, special materials. It's a bit confusing exactly how these contribute, as-is, and we still don't like adamantine. So..

Adamantine: A weapon constructed from adamantine is far stronger than any ordinary weapon. It has 1/3 again as many hit points, and the hardness increases by 5. Furthermore, adamantine is known for cutting through other items almost like butter, and thus ignores five points of hardness from everything struck.

This way, masterwork adamantine greatswords, say, have 20 hardness and 20 hp (15 * 4/3). The same hardness as by the core rules, and slightly more hp. In addition, essentially hitting a normal greatsword with it acts as though the normal sword had hardness 5 and 10 hp. Not quite butter - but not nearly as brutal as it currently is. Moreover, adamantine blades don't sunder one another like butter anymore, either.
​

Other special materials could be done similarly, but tastes differ on how to do so. (I, for one, would have cold iron items actually have *less* hardness... but then, cold iron items are already insanely overpriced.)

Regardless, what're thoughts on this system? If you're comfortable with how easy sundering is currently, it probably won't do anything for you, but if it's just a bit too easy...

 

[Staffan]

As an offshoot of the above example, masterwork items are no harder to break than normal items. Magical items not much harder than that (assuming you can hurt them at all, that is.) The best a greatsword can get, currently, is 15 hardness and 15 hp. Yes, it takes a powerful weapon in it's own right to penetrate the magic, but it's still not terribly hard to shatter.

Note that they changed the rules for enhancement bonuses affecting hardness/hp in 3.5e: each point of enhandement bonus gives +2 hardness and +10 hp. So, a +5 greatsword would have hardness 20 (30 if adamantine) and 60 hp (63 if adamantine). On the other hand, they removed the outright immunity to lesser weapons.

 

[randomling]

Hi Terra.

First, from the 3.5 SRD:

Hardness and Hit Points: An attacker cannot damage a magic weapon that has an enhancement bonus unless his own weapon has at least as high an enhancement bonus as the weapon or shield struck. Each +1 of enhancement bonus adds 2 to a weapon’s or shield’s hardness and +10 to its hit points.

(So Staffan, as far as I can tell magic items are still immune to other items with lower enhancement bonuses.)

So your +5 greatsword would have hardness 20 and 60hp (or 25 hardness and 65hp with your masterwork houserule, which I like a lot). Add adamantine, which by the SRD adds 1/3 of the base HP - being generous and allowing the MW but not magic bonuses to count in that - and that's hardness 35 (base hardness 20 as opposed to 20 for a steel blade) and 68hp. Not too hard for a 20th level fighter with a +5 weapon, maybe... but that is one tough blade. (Admantium also ignores up to hardness 20, by RAW.)

I'd say that by the rules, sundering might look easy but I think in most play situations it's not necessarily an optimal choice. Your 4th level fighter has to spend 4 rounds slashing away at that greatsword, and meanwhile the guy holding the greatsword is free to rip him apart with said weapon. Adamantium (with an extra 10 hardness) makes weapons even harder to sunder - your Ftr4 is never going to hurt an adamantium greatsword.

I do agree, though, that masterwork items should be better forged and thus harder to damage than most ordinary weapons - +5hp seems reasonable, but offhand, +5 hardness seems like an awful lot! Maybe +5hp and +1 hardness for MW weapons?

 

[ElectricDragon]

Note this from the Errata for the 3.5 DMG:

Hardness and Hit Points
Dungeon Master’s Guide, page 222
Problem: The first paragraph is not consistent with similar
information for shields on page 217.
Solution: Delete the first sentence after the boldface header.
Change the next sentence to read as follows:
Each +1 of enhancement bonus adds 2 to a weapon’s or
shield’s hardness and +10 to its hit points.

The first sentence is:

An attacker cannot damage a magic weapon that has an enhancement bonus unless his own weapon has at least as high an enhancement bonus as the weapon or shield struck.

How did you get only part of the errata?

Ciao
Dave

 

[Terraism]

How did you get only part of the errata?

Ciao
Dave

I think because she used Sovelior's SRD, which currently says this:

Hardness and Hit Points: An attacker cannot damage a magic weapon that has an enhancement bonus unless his own weapon has at least as high an enhancement bonus as the weapon or shield struck. Each +1 of enhancement bonus adds 2 to a weapon’s or shield’s hardness and +10 to its hit points.

That said, I hadn't realized it was errata'd at all, so this changes things a little bit.

 

[randomling]

Nope - hadn't realized that had been errata'd!

 

[index]

errata is not OGC

Is the errata Open Gaming Content? Is the FAQ? No, so I have to ignore them. (I've had copyright problems before, so I've decided better to be safe than sorry. If there is ever a question about fair use, I have to assume the (hopefully mythical) big bad lawyers will come after me.)

This errata has not yet made it into WotC's d20 3.5 SRD. (Ugh, RTF files. Thankfully Google will translate for me.) Considering how the 3.0 SRD was never updated, I don't think it ever will.

As a DM, if I can't easily and legally share it with players, it's useless.

As a player, most groups I've played with, the DM never bothers checking for errata anyway, and the last DM regularly threw away copies of my character sheet, much less whatever else I might want to print out for him.

Is there any way to convince WotC to put the errata in the SRD? Or at least, to declare the errata OGC?

 

[Thanee]

I suppose the errata is free... I mean, it's available for free download at their very own site...

Ignoring it is just silly.

About sunder... I think the biggest problem is, that it is WAY too easy to sunder worn items (like... rings ).
It's absolutely no problem to sunder a ring without hurting the finger, for example!

We don't use these totally ridiculous Sunder rules in our games.

The only way sunder can happen is, when it makes sense to destroy ones weapon (altho most iron weapons won't be easy to sunder, and thus it is usually better to "sunder" the wielder instead) or shield, or a potion at the belt, or something like that, where common sense says, that it can work. Other than that, sunder simply fails, regardless of the rules.

Bye
Thanee

 

[index]

mostly off-topic

I'm sorry to waste so much room on stuff that's mostly off-topic, but violation of copyright law can land people in jail very quickly, and has many times in the past with companies less enlightened than WotC.

Thanee wrote:

I suppose the errata is free... I mean, it's available for free download at their very own site...

So? Free to read and download (in one single place) does NOT mean free to re-use. Did you read what I wrote? If I can't easily and LEGALLY share it with players, it's USELESS.

Ignoring it is just silly.

Obviously you've never been beaten with the Copyright Law club. First, the law on Fair Use is intentionally vague. Second, corporations generally have big lawyers. Third, publically owned corporations are REQUIRED to put profit first, before considerations such as common decency. If a publically owned corporation can profit from abuse of a customer, it WILL.

Peter Adkison tried to make Wizards of the Coast into a different kind of company, but pressure from profit-oriented corporate members and business partners forced Mr. Adkison and WotC into a more typical corporate mold even before Hasbro bought the company.

And did you read what I wrote about most DMs I've played under ignoring errata?

I don't WANT to ignore the errata. But I can't 'clean-room reverse engineer' OGC house rules to clean up problems with the d20 SRD if I study non-OGC material such as the errata.

The legal problems would be comparable to taking the monsters from the SRD and making an OGC compendium of monsters with lots of changes to fit my game -- and including the illithids. As soon as I put such a compendium of monsters on a website, I'd be violating the law because illithids, while they are in the Monster Manual, are NOT in the SRD and are NOT OGC. (Technically, by a strict reading of the OGL, I'd be violating the OGL as soon as I put illithids in my compendium of monsters, but who would know until I put it on a website?)

I would be very happy if the errata were OGC, or at least if the SRD were updated to match the errata, which would amount to the same thing.

(Does anyone know who to talk to at WotC about this? (Their website is a little confusing for such issues.) I'm not optimistic about getting the errata into the SRD or classified as OGC, considering that the 3.0 SRD was never updated, but I figure an email to the right person wouldn't hurt.)

BTW, the Open Gaming License gives people many rights regarding Open Gaming Content that are not available under default copyright law -- at least, not without some license or another. But it also TAKES AWAY some Fair Use rights. If you can't live with losing those rights, you're not allowed to use the Open Gaming Content in question under the terms of the Open Gaming License. Do a Google search for Ryan Dancy's many discussions on the subject.

NOW BACK ON-TOPIC :

About sunder... I think the biggest problem is, that it is WAY too easy to sunder worn items (like... rings ).
It's absolutely no problem to sunder a ring without hurting the finger, for example!

Very, very true. Considering that hit points are supposed to partially represent avoiding injury, I would never allow sunder against a worn item unless the victim is either helpless or reduced to ten hit points or less. Want to sunder something worn as closely as a ring? Render the victim helpless first and use a coup de grace to chop off their finger.

We don't use these totally ridiculous Sunder rules in our games.

Good. Some people say that "it's only a game, don't try to make it simulate reality." If I'm going to play a game where I am PENALIZED for depending on real world common sense, I'll just switch to a card game like UNO or maybe a computer game. Or better yet, go read a book.

Unless common sense trumps silly rules, immersion in the game is ruined.

[....]

Bye
Thanee

later,
--index

 

[BSF]

I'd say that by the rules, sundering might look easy but I think in most play situations it's not necessarily an optimal choice. Your 4th level fighter has to spend 4 rounds slashing away at that greatsword, and meanwhile the guy holding the greatsword is free to rip him apart with said weapon. Adamantium (with an extra 10 hardness) makes weapons even harder to sunder - your Ftr4 is never going to hurt an adamantium greatsword.

Cheeky response
Just for grins, make a one-trick pony. Sorceror/Fighter (or Barbarian) with True Strike, Power Attack and Improved Sunder. For extra cheese, add Haste to the equation somehow.

Under 3.0, it is easier.

Useful response
In a lot of cases I think the biggest thing stopping PC sundering builds is the fact that you are destroying your loot. The Rules as Written make it pretty easy to come up with ways to destroy stuff. I'm undecided if that is necessarily a bad thing. Weapons did break in combat and I have constructed some very exciting scenes with brutal battles that involved sunder. However, trying to sunder amulets, rings, boots, etc gets a tad silly. I am inclined to believe that the Rules need to be redone in some manner.