How do you sunder armor that is worn by your opponent?

For all those people who just clicked on this thread to tell me that you can't sunder armor that is worn, don't bother. I read the rules too. It says so right there on page 158 of the new Player's Handbook, second column, first sentence.

"You can't sunder armor worn by another character."

Okay, having cleared that up, if you were going to sunder the armor worn by another character anyways, how would you go about doing it from a game mechanic perspective?

How do you separate attacking an opponent from attacking their armor? It would seem (at first glance) that you can't separate the two. By attacking an armored opponent, you automatically attack their armor as well.

Yes and no.

For the sake of keeping the combat game mechanic simple, I can certainly understand this oversimplification. But what if you are such a skilled warrior that your melee attacks can literally strip your opponent of all their armor without so much of drawing a drop of their blood?

Do you represent this skill with a feat?

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PRECISE SUNDER [General]
You are skilled at aiming sunder attacks and exploiting structural weaknesses.
Prerequisites: Str 13, Power Attack, Improved Sunder.
Benefit: When making opposed attack rolls to determine the success of a sunder, add +4 to your roll.
With this feat, you may also directly apply damage against armor that is worn by making a touch attack against that armored opponent (see Sunder, page 158).

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This solution would certainly make sundering armor a highly skilled ability. But a more down to earth part of me thinks that there must be a far less *refined* way of destroying your opponent's without overcomplicating the rules.

Right now, you can fire at any opponent engaged in melee, but with a —4 attack penalty. Taking the Precise Shot feat negates this penalty. This is a great example of how a potentially complicated combat situation can be seamlessly abstracted with a simple game mechanic. It's not hard to apply the same game mechanic to attacking armor that is worn, but with a —4 attack penalty. That way anybody could do it. You would provoke an attack of opportunity, but taking a feat like Precise Sunder would negate this penalty. Moreover, attacking armor in this way would be a regular attack to hit (rather than a touch attack).

Now assuming the attack is successful, how would you apply the resulting damage? Do you divide it evenly between the armor and opponent? Or do you apply an equal amount of damage to both armor and opponent?

I option for the second solution. Equal damage to both. Adding math into the combat equation (even exceedingly simple math) is never a good idea. Besides, if when you apply the same amount of damage to both armor and opponent, you still have to get through armor Hardness. That will greatly minimize the damage armor takes by comparison.

Lastly, once armor hit points drop to 1/2 or lower, the AC bonus for that armor is halved. Once armor hit points reach 0, the armor is destroyed.

*

Please tell me what you think. I'm genuinely interested in getting some feedback on this proposal.
 
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Page 136 of my 3.0 PHB, top second column gives a blurb about breaking items, and on the same page there is a table for weapons & shields; add your own for worn armor. I would add some astericks in there about damage to the wearer if the armor is damaged and the armor doesn't reduce the wearer's AC unless hacked through at least twice (or three times, whatever).
 

Well, this is how I re-tooled the rules so far...

ERRATA
Page 158 of the Player's Handbook, SPECIAL ATTACKS, SUNDER

Sundering a Carried or Worn Object: You don't use an opposed attack roll to damage a carried or worn object. Instead, just make an attack roll against the object's AC. A carried or worn object's AC is equal to 10 + its size modifier + the Dexterity modifier of the carrying or wearing character. Attacking a carried or worn object provokes an attack of opportunity just as attacking a held object does. To attempt to snatch away an item worn by a defender rather than damage it (see Disarm, page 155 of the Player's Handbook).
In the case of attacking armor that is worn, the armor's AC is equal to the wearing opponent's touch attack AC, but with a –4 penalty on your attack roll because you have to aim carefully at weak points. If you have the Precise Sunder* feat, you don't take this penalty. If you succeed in hitting the armor, roll damage and divide by 2 (rounding down), dealing one-half to the armor and one-half to the character, but only if the attack was high enough to hit the character's normal AC. See Table 8—8: Common Armor, Weapon, and Shield Hardness and Hit Points to determine how much damage you must deal to destroy the armor.
Once armor falls to one-half or lower hit points, its armor bonus is halved (rounded down) until repaired with the Craft skill (page 71 of the Player's Handbook).

*PRECISE SUNDER
You are skilled at aiming sunder attacks that exploit structural weaknesses.
Prerequisites: Str 13, Int 13, Power Attack, Improved Sunder, base attack bonus +4.
Benefit: You gain a +4 bonus on your opposed attack rolls when sundering a shield or weapon.
With this feat, you may also attack armor that is worn without taking the standard –4 penalty on your attack roll (see Sundering a Carried or Worn Object, page 158 of the Player's Handbook).
Special: A warrior may select Precise Sunder as one of their warrior bonus feats.
 

That´s a valid mechanism, but slow and difficult to track IMHO(check if the hit beat normal AC, divide damage, track armor damage) Since Rusting Grasp does almost the same for armor; why don´t state that a sucessful hit worsens (sp?) the AC bonus by 1d3, 1d4 or 1d6? (or an amount depending on damage)

Also, making it a touch attack means that you can use Power Attack at it´s most (and it´s a prerrequisite!) I´ve not done the math, but that would probably make sundering armor very easy.
 
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Someone said:
That's a valid mechanism, but slow and difficult to track IMHO(check if the hit beat normal AC, divide damage, track armor damage).
While it may seem that way, I promise it's faster than grappling. The fact is ... this combat tactic will not be used by everyone all of the time. Therefore, anybody who does use it regualrity will probably greatly familiarize themselves with the rules of execution, much like grapplers.

Someone said:
Since Rusting Grasp does almost the same for armor; why don´t state that a sucessful hit worsens (sp?) the AC bonus by 1d3, 1d4 or 1d6? (or an amount depending on damage).
An interesting idea to be sure, and one I will certainly consider.

Someone said:
Also, making it a touch attack means that you can use Power Attack at it´s most (and it's a prerrequisite!).
That's all well and fine until you factor in the attack penalty for Power Attack. Not to say that you do, but I find a lot people fail to account for that little detail.
 

Sonofapreacherman said:


That's all well and fine until you factor in the attack penalty for Power Attack. Not to say that you do, but I find a lot people fail to account for that little detail.

I´ll try to explain myself better. If a fighter is supposed to hit his opponent ofter, it´d be much more easy to mak a touch attack against a heavily armored opponent (since you want to use the feat/combat action against an opponent who benefits a lot of his armor)

For example, in a fight against someone in full plate, the roll needed to hit the armor is, at the very least, 8 points lower than to make a regular hit. And that´s not considering natural armor, shield, and enhancement bonuses. All that together could add, at high levels, up to, hmm, at least 20.

So the one using the feat could take a penalty to hit as high as 20 and still have the same chance to hit that he has normally.
 

Someone said:
I'll try to explain myself better. If a fighter is supposed to hit his opponent often, it'd be much more easy to make a touch attack against a heavily armored opponent (since you want to use the feat/combat action against an opponent who benefits a lot of his armor).
I agree, it is easier. And that is by design.

Here's the thing ... if you decide to spend a round or two sundering armor that is worn, that is a round or two of not damaging your opponent (or damaging them very little). Your opponent, however, will have spent that same time damaging you directly.

So the only time it makes sense to sunder worn armor is when your opponent's AC is so daunting that you can't penetrate it. I have designed this special attack precisely for those situations.

I hope that helps.
 

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