Sunder Question...

[Water Bob]

Oh yeah? Well, take this and spit it into your eye, Thulsa Doom!

Fire and wind come from the sky, from the gods of the sky. But Crom is your god, Crom and he lives in the earth. Once, giants lived in the Earth, Conan. And in the darkness of chaos, they fooled Crom, and they took from him the enigma of steel. Crom was angered. And the Earth shook. Fire and wind struck down these giants, and they threw their bodies into the waters, but in their rage, the gods forgot the secret of steel and left it on the battlefield.

We who found it are just men. Not gods. Not giants. Just men. The secret of steel has always carried with it a mystery. You must learn its riddle, Conan. You must learn its discipline. For no one - no one in this world can you trust. Not men, not women, not beasts.

(Pointing to sword)

This, you can trust.

 

[airwalkrr]

Think not of the blade, but of the muscle behind it.

^^This

 

[Trouvere]

Phew, glad that's been sorted out. Logic is restored!

Now, the other day my pixie rogue shot an arrow into an elder black pudding, and you'll never guess what happened

 

[cjosephs1s]

Ok..well this goes along with this discussion fairly well so no need to post a new thread.

You say its the force behind the blade that helps sunder an object, not the blade itself. So how do characters with exceptionally high strength not sunder their own weapons when they attack others, or attempt to sunder others items? And yes its very easy to have a STR score in the high 20s or low 30s for a human.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

Ok..well this goes along with this discussion fairly well so no need to post a new thread.

You say its the force behind the blade that helps sunder an object, not the blade itself. So how do characters with exceptionally high strength not sunder their own weapons when they attack others, or attempt to sunder others items? And yes its very easy to have a STR score in the high 20s or low 30s for a human.

One of the reasons they don't sunder their own weapons is for rules purposes. If you're not at risk of breaking your equipment while breaking others', breaking theirs becomes a much more viable tactic.

For some reason I was thinking there's a rule that you can't sunder something that's harder than what you're trying to sunder it with, but that's not mentioned at all in the SRD or PHB, probably for simplicity purposes.

That all said, if someone is sunder-happy then an adamantine weapon is a must.

And daggers can be used to sunder. They are piercing or slashing weapons.

 

[Dandu]

Ok..well this goes along with this discussion fairly well so no need to post a new thread.

You say its the force behind the blade that helps sunder an object, not the blade itself. So how do characters with exceptionally high strength not sunder their own weapons when they attack others, or attempt to sunder others items? And yes its very easy to have a STR score in the high 20s or low 30s for a human.

How do monks with STR 18 avoid breaking their own knuckles when punching someone?

 

[kitcik]

That's why you rarely see female monks in Peasants and Plagues - too many broken fingernails.

 

[Dandu]

Broken finger nails? No one has finger nails in Peasants and Plagues because they've all rotted off due to fungal infections.

 

[Jimlock]

And yes its very easy to have a STR score in the high 20s or low 30s for a human.

yeah.... it's very easy for the less than 1% (or 0,1%....) of the population.

 

[Empirate]

Sundering something doesn't necessarily mean hacking it till it breaks. That shield, for example, could easily be made 'useless' by severing the straps that hold it to the forearms. Or by punching your dirk into one of the seams that hold the boards together, then leveraging laterally. Rolling that 6 on the damage roll (max damage) could easily be interpreted as "you get a good grip on his left forearm with your free hand, then quickly slice his shield straps. The targe is now practically useless...", or "you tackle him and PUNCH your dirk right through his shield. Two or three sideways heaves later, part of the shield's wood splinters off. Your opponent shakes the ruined targe off his arm in disgust and attacks you...".

Similarly, you CAN lock a longsword with a dagger, at least if you have any kind of prongs on it. Being good at sundering means you find and catch the one spot along the length of the enemy's blade where it is weakest, and don't run a risk of ruining your dagger in attempting to break the longsword. Or maybe you just break the longsword's hilt when you catch his counterstroke really in close. Or something.


This seems to be a point I come up with a lot in WB's threads: if you imagine a scene based upon real world experience, or a movie you've seen, or whatever, and then apply the rules to that individual image in your head, you'll easily get a disconnect. However, if you take the rules as your baseline and imagine from there, things get much easier much of the time. Daggers CAN sunder longswords, although it ain't easy. Given that piece of axiomatic knowledge, let your imagination run wild on HOW it works.