Sunder -- The most useful useless feat

[tburdett]

Another possible solution could be:

Unbreakable

This +1 weapon special ability prevents a weapon from being destroyed by any means, magical or mundane, short of a wish or a miracle.

Whether or not this is too powerful for a +1 special ability is open to discussion.

Should we take this to the House Rules forum?

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

One thing that should be done if you sunder as a DM is semi-frequently fail at sundering because the magic + is too small. The Pcs opponents shouldn't amgically know that thier sword is more magical so sundering is now a good tactic.

I concur. Going up against NPCs that sunder, run by a fairminded DM, is not a problem. You will see a lot of outright failures (and easy victories) because of enchantment mismatches. Besides, I can just rely on GMW.

From a game balance perspective, I am not so much against sundering in the abstract, but have a lot of problems with 3e in the details. In particular, I think sundering is much, much too easy. Furthermore, it just increases the value of GMW. GMW already makes it trivial for mid to high level characters to always have effective +4 and +5 enchantments, and that detracts from the uniqueness of magical weapons -- making them just another "mundane" commodity.

I am rather a fan of character defining items. Unfortunately, vanilla 3e does not really support that style of play, sundering being just one of the reasons.

Getting back to the original post, even as a sunder critic, I tend to back up the DM on sundering the bow. If you are not going to protect your archer, bad things will happen. Seems fair to me ... unless the archer personally carved that bow out of the rib of a dragon or somesuch.

 

[Marshall]

Getting back to the original post, even as a sunder critic, I tend to back up the DM on sundering the bow. If you are not going to protect your archer, bad things will happen. Seems fair to me ... unless the archer personally carved that bow out of the rib of a dragon or somesuch.

I dont get it.

Just where do you people get the idea that you can "protect the archer" or for that matter "protect the wizard" or "the cleric" or the "the princess".

Check out my first post in this thread, all it takes is one rank in tumble and all those big-bad FTR types and other bodyguards may as well be in another room. For that matter, the only way to prevent melee attacks on someone is to surround them with 6-8 other players. And even that fails if the attacker has reach.

If you cant prevent someone from getting to the Archer
and you cant prevent the Sunder attempt form taking place
and there is no consequence from the sunder attempt(No AoO)
and the Sunder attempt always breaks the weapon,
Then Sunder is unbalanced.

 

[Storm Raven]

I dont get it.

Since you simplified the problem away, it isn't hard to see why.

Just where do you people get the idea that you can "protect the archer" or for that matter "protect the wizard" or "the cleric" or the "the princess".

From actual game play.

Check out my first post in this thread, all it takes is one rank in tumble and all those big-bad FTR types and other bodyguards may as well be in another room.

Well, now that's a huge assumption. You assume that you will always make the check, that you can tumble through the entire threatened area (despite being limited in the distance you can tubmble), and so on. This is where you trip yourself up.

If you cant prevent someone from getting to the Archer
and you cant prevent the Sunder attempt form taking place
and there is no consequence from the sunder attempt(No AoO)
and the Sunder attempt always breaks the weapon,
Then Sunder is unbalanced.

No, sunder is balanced. Being in melee combat with someone while you are using a bow is difficult.

besides, once again, you assume: the sunder attempt with connect, and that the damage necessarily will break the weapon, both major assumptions.

 

[Rel]

Another possible solution could be:

Unbreakable

This +1 weapon special ability prevents a weapon from being destroyed by any means, magical or mundane, short of a wish or a miracle.

Whether or not this is too powerful for a +1 special ability is open to discussion.

Should we take this to the House Rules forum?

Personally, that sounds like an excellent quality to be available for a weapon. And from a cursory glance, the cost (at +1) sounds right too.

 

[Marshall]

From actual game play.

Really?!? Short of the devoted defender there is no way to prevent Villain A from attacking Weakling B.

Well, now that's a huge assumption. You assume that you will always make the check, that you can tumble through the entire threatened area (despite being limited in the distance you can tubmble), and so on. This is where you trip yourself up.

Ah! You dont have to make the check, all the better if you do. But if youre willing to take the AoO, Tumble allows you to thumb your nose at all those intervening "bodyguards" on a failed check!

No, sunder is balanced. Being in melee combat with someone while you are using a bow is difficult.

besides, once again, you assume: the sunder attempt with connect, and that the damage necessarily will break the weapon, both major assumptions.

There is no way to avoid the melee, and since that is the only defense against Sunder....

And not doing the damage? Against a Bow? HOW?!?!?!

 

[IceBear]

It does have to hit before it can cause damage, and if it's a magic bow then the attacker needs an equally magical weapon.

Also, unless he has improved sunder the attack will generate an AoO. Use the AoO to trip the sunderer or grapple.

IceBear

 

[tburdett]

How about allowing the PC to make a reflex save to take the damage for his weapon?

The PC throws up an arm, or other body part, at the last moment to absorb the force of the attack to save his favorite weapon.

Another option could be a feat that allowed this.

 

[Xarlen]

Really?!? Short of the devoted defender there is no way to prevent Villain A from attacking Weakling B. [/B]

There's two things called Cover and Aid Another.

I can Aid Another to give him a +2 to AC by defending him. Or, for that matter, stand in front of him and be his cover.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

As far as the question of protecting the archer/cleric/etc from bad guys goes, it's usually possible.

I'll grant that it's quite difficult when you're facing a party of rogues. It's quite difficult to keep a group of rogues from doing anything. However, when facing groups of fighters or groups of monster, or spellcasters using touch spells, it's quite possible to protect your fellow party members.

Most of the time, you can interpose your character between the villain and the characters to be protected. That's usually enough. Most bad guys don't want to risk AoOs, don't have tumble, and would rather make full attack actions anyway. Sometimes they do risk the AoO though. That's when you trip, disarm (a favorite of mine--even a middling BAB works wonders with a glaive against one handed weapons ), or grapple. You can also let them take their one swing at a spellcaster and move to flank them on the next round. That works really well if you're a rogue.

In other cases, you have to set it up so that you block the only available straight lines between the villain and the person you're protecting and the distance is too great to move and attack. Alternatively, you can arrange your characters so that right next to the archer or spellcaster would be a really really bad tactical position for any villain (it would just be a five foot step for the major damage dealers and the rogue to all be flanking or something like that).

Even so, there are no foolproof methods for protecting another character. Just like there are no foolproof strategies for taking out bad guys or anything in D&D. Part of the fun is not being able to control everything. . . .