Sundered Weapons are BROKEN!

[Kai Lord]

One of the silliest things about Sunder is that the recipient of a Sunder attack has very little to do with it. In actuality, without the defender's "help" its damn near impossible to Sunder, because it requires at most a good swing from him to absorb the force of your destructive attack, or at the very least a grip that doesn't yield to your blow.

Obviously the ENWorld Dancing Leprechaun Contingent will vehemently cry "No dood, one Sunder attack is representative of many wild swings and strikes against an opponent's weapon in a single round. This is DND man!"

But we know that isn't how it works. And when a warrior approaches you, holding his shield in front of him with his sword behind him and you win initiative, how the heck are you going to Sunder his blade? Or what if you get the drop on Arnold the Barbarian who wields his Bastard Sword two-fisted and raised just behind his head like he did in the movies? You might take his head off, but you ain't reaching that weapon. Then there's the guy who just lets his sword give a little bit and absorb the Sunder's blow. No way you're slicing a sword in two if it moves with your attack.

So here's what I propose:

Sunder can only be used as the result of a Readied Action against an opponent's attack. If you have Sunder and you Ready, you get to make an AoO the next time your opponent attacks you with his weapon. This way your opponent provides the necessary downforce with which to match your blow, possibly destroying the weapon. Much more cinematic, much cooler, much more likely to be used at the most dramatically appropriate times.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Interesting.

 

[Cloudgatherer]

Of course sundered weapons are broken...that's the point of sundering, to break a weapon....

Anyway, this should be in house rules.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Sunder can only be used as the result of a Readied Action against an opponent's attack. If you have Sunder and you Ready, you get to make an AoO the next time your opponent attacks you with his weapon. This way your opponent provides the necessary downforce with which to match your blow, possibly destroying the weapon. Much more cinematic, much cooler, much more likely to be used at the most dramatically appropriate times.

That sounds like an excellent proposal and well reasoned. It probably deserves to be on the House Rules forum, where the thread half-life is somewhat longer, so more people can see it and comment upon it.

Cheers

 

[Tom Cashel]

Funny double entendre in the title, too.

 

[Cheiromancer]

I like it. Consider it *yoinked*

 

[IceBear]

Still, one could sunder a bow with a sword without readying an action, no? I like the rule for sundering melee weapons, but there are still cases where sunder can be used without readying I think.

IceBear

 

[Ravellion]

Doesn't work with bows or crossbows though.

Rav

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Before this moves to the house rules forum, I'll say that there are two very good reasons not to do this.

1. Mechanical. Sunder is a very marginal proposition right now. Even assuming that a character has the feats to enable a sunder attempt without incurring an AoO, it is advantageous only when all of the following conditions are met.

-The enemy is significantly worse off without the weapon than with it. This may seem obvious but as a point of fact it isn't. Many fighters carry more than one weapon and a dagger. If the enemy in question has weapon focus, weapon specialization, improved critical, bladesinger levels and a +1 Flaming Shock Longsword, it will be very advantageous to deprive him of the weapon. On the other hand, if your foe is a fighter 2/wizard 6 with a masterwork glaive, masterwork light flail, heavy pick, and armor spikes, sundering the glaive does not represent much of a decrease in his fighting ability. (Obviously, the greater prevalence of magic weapons and weapons specific feats at high levels gives sunder more utility at high levels).

-The enemy is either worse or comparable in terms of attack bonus. Sunder requires an opposed attack roll. If you don't have a good shot of succeeding at that there's no point in attempting a sunder. Consequently, the fighter 2/Mage 6 would be foolish to attempt to sunder the greatsword of a raging 10th level barbarian unless he had first cast true strike (or the barbarian is power attacking for a lot).

-The enemy is the most significant source of damage to you and/or your allies in the combat and is likely to remain such. There's no point in sundering the glaive of a Barbazu if the rest of your friends are fighting a pit fiend. The Barbazu is hardly what you should be worrying about.

-You would not be able to drop the foe with your attack instead of just breaking his weapon. Dead and dying foes are even less dangerous than unarmed ones.

-If attempting to sunder a melee weapon, you should be able to deal out an average of 15+ points of damage/hit without criticals. (Otherwise, you won't be able to break the weapon in one hit--if it takes your two best attacks over two rounds, it is much less advantageous to sunder).

Clearly, sunder is only viable in a very limited range of situations at the moment. By introducing more restrictions to sunder via ready (No full attack actions, no movement, the risk of losing your action if the foe doesn't perform as expected, the reduction of your initiative count, the potential loss of a hasted action), will make it a combat option that is almost never advantageous. In this case, the rules change designed to make the ruleset richer and more exciting will have eliminated options available to players and taken a step towards reducing combat to. Attack, miss, attack hit, attack, hit, attack hit, attack miss. . . .

2. This idea misconstrues what the rules are supposed to represent. The opposed attack roll already represents being able to time your sunder attempt to intersect and defeat one of your opponent's attacks. That's why there is an opposed attack roll for sundering a melee weapon (as opposed to attacking a held object like a wand, the body of a fallen comrade, or, according to the sage, a bow).

This idea also misses the fact that the division of the combat into initiative orders and rounds is not supposed to mean that everyone takes six seconds of action in a staggered order and then waits for everyone else to move. Instead, it is an abstraction that is designed to represent multiple simultaneous actions. This is why the DMG section on initiative has a section on the illusion of simultaneity (where the DM might not reveal that player 1 falls into a pit trap until the other players have revealed whether or not they are charging forward in concert with player 1). Consequently, it is not necessary to ready an action in order to sunder an opponent's weapon as they attempt to attack you. They are attempting to attack you if you are in their threatened area during your initiative (this is why you can draw AoOs for letting your guard down). This means that there is no logical problem with allowing a sunder attempt withour a readied action.

 

[Cheiromancer]

What I like about Kai Lord's suggestion is that a sunder attempt can be taken as an AoO. I.e. if your opponent attacks you get a free attempt to damage or destroy his weapon, and can then attack him back.

It gives a reason not to strike the first blow.

It can also make sunder attempts more routine, especially by NPCs against the PCs.