Sundering a Bow?

[Saeviomagy]

Yeah, but what does that help the opponent? It just gives him a weaker position in combat (one attack wasted).

It does, on the other hand, give him a chance to run away without being shot in the back. Or do you just assume that your NPC's don't think about that? Talk about metagaming...

 

[moritheil]

Re: PaulKemp, The text is very clear that the bonus a shield gets for AC and the like is a different sort of enchantment than the one that a weapon gets to hit harder. If you want to hit harder with a shield, you have to get it enchanted "as a weapon" as well. This is all in the text and is not just a handwaving argument.

"Reasonable minds" can therefore disagree, but not without ignoring the rules.

Re: metagaming, I don't really see how the decision to sunder an enemy weapon is "acting with knowledge that your character doesn't have." Sure, if your character would think it easier to hit the enemy than the bow, it could be metagaming to attack the bow instead because the player knows that's more effective. But nothing prevents a character from giving an acceptable RP reason to attack a bow. I mean, especially if they have Improved Sunder, that implies that the fighting style they trained in incorporates attacks on objects as a matter of course.

But if that were true, you'd think that you also would get a shield's enhancement bonus when you used it to bash. But you don't. After all, the shield is magical so why shouldn't you get its enhancement bonus when using it as a weapon? Obviously, you might counter with something like: well, the shield's magic is designed to protect, not to attack; therefore when you use it to attack, the protective magic has no role; the bow, on the other hand, has magic is designed to attack and not protect. It therefore should apply even if the bow is being used in a way for which it is not designed.

Reasonable minds can disagree about that issue. In the end, it's tangential to the larger question -- namely, is the roll for the bowman treated as a ranged attack roll (such that all his modifiers to a ranged attack roll would apply) or is it treated as a melee attack roll with an improvised weapon?