A Discussion on Sundering

[Roy]

Well, let's say sundering doesn't destroy items, just breaks them until you fix them or they regenerate. Why exactly would sundering be that good an idea?

In RL tag high-level combat, I'd rather try to take out an enemy than sunder his weapon - especially if he has back-up weapons or spellcasting powers. And sundering specific items would require knowing what items were the best to sunder.

Anecdotally, one of the PCs in my game has a sword that's optimized for sundering (grants the feat, does more damage to items, and can critical hit weapons), yet it does not really happen - I don't recall when it was used the last time, but it wasn't this year in a weekly campaign.

If you completely ignored the bit about wealth or perma screw, then you would have to start by knowing what to be a Sundertard against. Seeing as the characters best suited for the task (more because they have little better to do than because it's a good idea) are the least suited to the task of identifying which items are the issue* and those that could identify such things are both the ones that would have to fix it (thus, the beatstick is literally wasting their time) and the ones who have much better things to do than to tell him, even if they too were concerned about the item**...

You can either play the guessing game and still annoy your party because 1: It takes their time to clean up after you. 2: You aren't doing your job like a good Camp Follower, or you can still ignore it as a waste of fucking time and resources.

* - If they're a gish, they could do both, but then they have better things to do like actually take out the enemy. Since you can't actually ID items in combat, the best you can do is Perm Arcane Sight + guesswork... and that's problematic because one Dispel later and you have a coin toss chance of having your 2.5k XP ruined.

** - If the caster is concerned about the item, Chained Dispel Magic to hit them, the item, and every other fucking item for good measure. As stated before, most common items have a CL of 10 or lower. This makes this a very easy task. 1-4 rounds is enough to kill them, after which the item turns back on.

Edit: There actually is a CR 10 (or was it 9) monster that has Game Disjunction at will. Suffice it to say, it is one of the many reasons the MM2 is the Book of Random Numbers, beating out even the Joke Book by far.

Also, ignoring Frank's laughable claims that Murdering Hobos are a product of my house rules and not standard RAW. Buying house = less shiny magic items is right there in the book. If you insist on bringing my own campaign rules into it, they move away from that. Obvious problem is the game breaks right in half the moment anyone says 'I sell my house to buy more shinies' but that's standard D&D for you. I'm still not going to house rule in the blatant fucking stupidity of breaking your own stuff like a spoiled little brat actually being beneficial.

Speaking of which, ever read Playing to Win articles? I don't need to do anything other than spam the same few moves as the same few moves cover everything, and defeat Sundertard whine post after Sundertard whine post. If the Sundertards had a valid point and could get past that wall, then I'd have a reason to do something else. But right now, I'm soloing them all with the equivalent of fucking auto attacks. And I will continue to do so until they kindly shut the fuck up, as Sundertards don't have any valid points. It's old hat.

Remember kids, the Den needs new Fail to laugh at. Not the same old bullshit like Sundertards whining. PR is likely amused though.

[Lich-Loved]

Remember kids, the Den needs new Fail to laugh at. Not the same old bullshit like Sundertards whining. PR is likely amused though.

Actually, from a person that is both new here as a poster and a long time lurker, the last thing the Den needs is more people laughing at Fail or at other people in general and more serious design work and critique of ideas as ideas rather than ideas as extensions of the poster's e-peen.

You go back to the smiting or whatever now. Thanks.

[Roy]

Remember kids, the Den needs new Fail to laugh at. Not the same old bullshit like Sundertards whining. PR is likely amused though.

Actually, from a person that is both new here as a poster and a long time lurker, the last thing the Den needs is more people laughing at Fail or at other people in general and more serious design work and critique of ideas as ideas rather than ideas as extensions of the poster's e-peen.

You go back to the smiting or whatever now. Thanks.

I don't expect you to get it Mr. Relapsing Paizil. I just threw his own words back at him where he said exactly that. "We need new and exciting Fail to mock!'

Making people own themselves is fun.

[Username17]

Also, ignoring Frank's laughable claims that...

Oh for goodness sakes. If you mention it, you didn't ignore it. You just don't have a counter argument that isn't your same tired meme spam coupled with with insults and hand waving.

I'm going to ignore you for about a week. And if at the end of a week of me scrolling past your posts you haven't come up with an actual argument I'm just going to use the actual Ignore function to make your posts permanently invisible.

Get it through your head:

• There is a difference between an argument about what "is" and an argument about what "should be."
• If you're discussing the Rules As Written, you have a genuine black and white base line. You can from that stand point make an "is" argument purely descriptively based on the contents of those rules.
• If you are discussing your personal house rules, you can't make an "is" argument, because people on the other side of the argument aren't playing with your house rules and your statements about what "is" are literally false.
• To argue about your house rules you have to argue from the standpoint of what should be. You have to lay down your design goals and from there discuss how your house rules forward those goals and possibly make an emotional argument for why those goals might be good goals to have.
• The rules in D&D genuinely have a statement that characters should get extra bonus treasure if for whatever reason they haven't gotten treasure in the past. It's on page 51 in the lower right hand corner of the DMG. You have sad over and over that you reject this rule out of hand, and that puts you in house rule territory. That means that you aren't fucking allowed to make descriptive arguments anymore because you aren't going out of the book. And since my personal house rules on wealth accumulation are substantially farther reaching than yours, everything you say about wealth accumulation that applies to your campaign means jack shit to me. Just as it is completely meaningless to every person who uses Tome Book of Gears economics rules, everyone who plays unmodified Core, and honestly most everyone else who has a Wealth Patch of some kind. Because the chances of theirs being the same as yours are vanishingly small.

You don't have a case. Your entire complex of spires of argument is all based on the foundation that you personally house ruled away certain rules and not others in a manner you've never adequately explained or begun to justify. So it's garbage. It's all meaningless garbage. It's all discussions of the results of the physics of an alternate universe that exists only in your head and whose specs you haven't even attempted to explain.

So I'm going to circular file all your rantings for about seven days. I'll check up on you probably Thursday or Friday. And if you're still having a temper tantrum where you refuse to recognize that other people are not you and play with different house rule sets or even none at all - then I'm going to put you in the killfile with Kkat.

-Username17

[Psychic Robot]

Psychic Robot --

The point Kaelik is making is that the sunder rules as presented make it way too easy for monsters to break the PCs' shit, to the point where if they are played intelligently they *will* do that most of the time.

I agree, the sunder rules are absolutely terrible. However, if the DM is having a squad of angels show up, sunder everything in sight, and then teleport out...well, that's a douche move. Again, I'm not one of the wankers who advocates hitting the fighter because you're supposed to--but destroying all the party's equipment when the party doesn't even have time to react? That's bullshit, and that's why disjunction has no business being in the game.

Is it an intelligent move? Yes, because the party's power largely depends on their equipment. But there are sacrifices that must be made in D&D so that the game functions on a basic level. One of those is that monsters have works of art and random jewels strewn about their persons. Another is that everyone involved avoids doing things that are going to cause the game to grind to a screeching halt.

Once again, allow me to reiterate that I am not advocating such nonsense as attacking the defenders because the defenders are supposed to get attacked. I wholeheartedly support intelligent monsters attacking casters first and foremost. There is a vast difference between monsters playing intelligently and monsters causing the game to self-destruct. And, once again, I am fine with monsters sundering equipment. What I'm not fine with is taking a dump all over the players for no real reason, other than the DM "playing the BBEG intelligently." It's one thing if the players do something ridiculously stupid and the BBEG takes advantage of it; it's another thing entirely if the angelic wank-squad shows up, nukes everyone's equipment, and poofs out before anyone can react.

I suppose I'm lapsing into "fail" now because I'm advocating not playing by the RAW but by the rules as they are played, so I'll quit talking.

[Orion]

It's not that, it's that unlike pun-pun the sunder problem isn't contained. Yes, the angel sundersquad is a douche move, but where do you draw the line? What's acceptable GM use of Sunder and what isn't? That's why it's problematic, because there's no clear divisons between good play and exploits.

[Mr. Bane]

In a non-magic equipment game sunder is cool and neat.

[Lich-Loved]

I don't expect you to get it Mr. Relapsing Paizil.

You seem to believe that my having admitted past mistakes places me in some sort of inferior category. Typically, one's ability to admit mistakes and make attempts to correct them is seen as a sign of maturity. The fact that you miss this and seize upon it instead as a source of ridicule speaks volumes about your frame of reference.

Making people own themselves is fun.

Sadly you have no idea how true that is.

My work here is done; I am sure there is good discussion to be had on-topic.

[Ramnza]

[The Associate Fence Builder Speaks]

This thread is derailing rapidly. Let's get back on topic folks and if we can't be civil it will be locked.

[/The Associate Fence Builder Speaks]

[Psychic Robot]

So, to get back on track...

Sundering. It's a problem when wealth = power. Should the DM compensate when players sunder equipment, or should he not? Are there exceptions?

[Akula]

If it prevents the players from having the power they have to have, then yes, you should. Even if the player sunders almost every weapon he lays eyes on; the game has a standard, it is a horrible move to let the players fall off of that standard.

The only time I can think that the denial of loot would be warranted, is when the player breaks something for no other reason than that he wants something else. I'm talking about a deliberate and calculated choice to destroy something because it doesn't match the carpet or something. If they have a real in character reason, like a vow to destroy all unholy swords, then they should be able to get compensation.

[Grek]

Yes. Instead of getting a +3 Sword of Evil, they should get it's cash value in "magic sword parts", which can be reassembled into a +3 Sword of Good or a +3 Pants of Magic. They should not, however, receive schrodinger's sunder shines; prefabricated loot which only exists if you sundered the loot you were supposed to have gotten.

[Username17]

So, to get back on track...

Sundering. It's a problem when wealth = power. Should the DM compensate when players sunder equipment, or should he not? Are there exceptions?

As was noted a while back, there's nothing in the rules that says that you actually lose wealth by chopping magic items in half. And no, I'm not kidding.

When you sunder a magic item it becomes unenchanted. It does not become "valueless" and what value it has is undescribed. If its value happened to be 1/2 the original magic item value (something which is even implied by the rules on improving magic items), then re-enchanting the damn thing would cost you zero gold. It might not even cost XP, depending on your reading of the enhancement improving rules.

There's a very vague part of the rules that seems to say that sundering an item in half doesn't cost you anything in the long term except time - which is ironically he same currency you'd have to spend if you ended up with a magic item you didn't want and needed to cash it in.

If anything actually and definitely screws wealth by level, it's the rule that magic items sell for half value. That genuinely and specifically gives the players variable amounts of real wealth depending upon player choices and aesthetics. Honestly, that really is the worst rule in the game for purposes of maintaining WBL. It makes me wonder why they made it literally three times worse in 4e.

-Username17

[Caedrus]

If anything actually and definitely screws wealth by level, it's the rule that magic items sell for half value. That genuinely and specifically gives the players variable amounts of real wealth depending upon player choices and aesthetics. Honestly, that really is the worst rule in the game for purposes of maintaining WBL. It makes me wonder why they made it literally three times worse in 4e.

Because they adopted a rule from MMOs that's there to counter MMO economy inflation from loot drops, except that they forgot that they don't have an MMO economy and so that's just stupid?

[Username17]

Because they adopted a rule from MMOs that's there to counter MMO economy inflation from loot drops, except that they forgot that they don't have an MMO economy and so that's just stupid?

Ain't that the truth! Imagine if they had instead said that the price of magic items was incredibly stable and that like gems, precious metals, and trading goods that they pretty much bartered for value. Instantly it brings the entire concept of the "GP level" into something that could be workable because you got rid of the huge writeoffs for reconfiguring a character. And it even makes sense, because +3 Bloodthread Feyweave seriously is worth five hundred pounds of actual gold and it weighs only five pounds itself.

A backpack full of magic items would be the preferred currency of anyone with significant wealth if they let you do it. Rich people don't want to transport and spend their money in pennies, and in the paragon economy that's what Gold basically is. Having rich people trade around gems and artwork instead of their body weight in metal makes sense. And trading in compact enchanted items worth dozens or even thousands of times its weight in gold makes even more sense. And that's not hyperbole, a +6 Berserker Longsword costs 15625 pounds of gold per pound.

-Username17

[Draco_Argentum]

with Kkat.

Fuck you Frank, fuck you.

[Username17]

with Kkat.

Fuck you Frank, fuck you.

?

I have a very short ignored list, and I remember every single person in it and why they are in it. Kkat is in there for cyberstalking, so it's not like she's ever coming out and it's not like I'm ever going to feel guilty about putting that psycho bitch in to begin with.

So... fuck you? I really don't know. That comment from you was totally out of left field and completely incomprehensible. I honestly don't know what point you were trying to make.

-Username17

[Roy]

In a non-magic equipment game sunder is cool and neat.

In a non magic game everyone can be expected to have lots of identical backups. Everyone can also be expected to easily have their face smashed, because they are PA bait. So you could either kill them, or spend the same time breaking one of several weapons. Hm.

I don't expect you to get it Mr. Relapsing Paizil.

You seem to believe that my having admitted past mistakes places me in some sort of inferior category. Typically, one's ability to admit mistakes and make attempts to correct them is seen as a sign of maturity. The fact that you miss this and seize upon it instead as a source of ridicule speaks volumes about your frame of reference.

Making people own themselves is fun.

Sadly you have no idea how true that is.

My work here is done; I am sure there is good discussion to be had on-topic.

I didn't accuse you of admitting past mistakes. I accused you of repeating them. What did you think 'relapsing' means?

Or have you forgotten my original post on the matter? Something to the effect of 'Well if you really are different, welcome'? Yeah, there's the implied statement there if you aren't then fuck right off. But if you are I'm cool with that.

Which means I clearly don't have a problem with your past mistakes. I do have a problem when the present repeats the past.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

In a non-magic equipment game sunder is cool and neat.

Also, as has pointed out (and is obvious is you play with Book of Gears rules), the same is true of a game where everything is magic. When players carry around a +3 Flame Sword and a +3 Lightning Sword (that cost somewhere around 2-3K each), they seriously don't care when one of them is broken. If you are in the Wish economy, you don't care for exactly one round. If you are not, you don't care because 2-3K in gold is a pittance for your 9th level character, and you get that much back from monster defeat or Wealth by Level.

My old DM had a saying of "Magic comes, magic goes". This was said after an unexpected raft failure wiped a few magic scrolls. I personally like having an epic battle do Clothing Damage and break weapons, provided that the characters are perfectly fine in the next scene, and that it happens to both parties.

Sunder happened to be a good tactic in our Tome Cage Match scene, where my Samurai challenged one of the 2 bodyguards of [person attempting to assassinate] to a duel (taking the most powerful out of combat without a saving throw). The person in question was a Tome Knight (cannot honorably refuse combat), whose main attack power relies on not being hit (this would be AC Fail, I believe, except where it works). A Sunder attack on his shield was a valid strategy here, as it gave for increased frequency of landed attacks on his person (which eliminate his primary source of damage). A Sunder attack on my character was a valid tactic, because my Signature Weapon overcame Hardness (his shield) and DR (himself, adamantine armor, and the feat that gives more DR, I think). We opened up with these tactics, and I found that his shield was adamantine and enchanted with extra hp (valid tactic for him), while he found that my sword had many extra hp.

Sunder is an mediocre attack. Tripping a character gives them -2 to attack in melee and limits their movement. Sundering a weapon/item gives them something along the lines of -(CL/3) to attack, -(1-2) to spell DC, -(CL/3) on saves, or taking away a special ability. Most of the time (levels 1-12, approx.) the trip attack is handing out more pure mechanical debuffs than a sunder. However, there are times when it is valid.

Roy, I like the Gaming Den because it betters my game. I have had a noticeably improved table experience since I started posting/lurking here. You do not have a improved effect on my game with any post that includes the word Fail, Sunder, or Smite. You single-handedly (in my opinion) killed the incredibly long running Threads that Make us Laugh, Cry, or Both. I cannot help but feel that you are contributing a net negative impact. You are about the 3rd person I have made such a post to, and the previous 2 have gotten better since such was made. I don't make any arrogant claim that Internet People actually listen to me, but I would hope that you do. Take note that the flame match involving Angelic Wank Squad has actually had meaningful results (like when it is okay to cross the line, the noticeable stupidity of Ranged Sunder in the hands of an enemy, and how easy it is to Sunder away level 20 characters with CR 9 monsters). Although I didn't particularly enjoy watching PR and whoever the other guy was bashfest each other, there was meaningful results at the end, while I cannot say the same for your comments.

---
edit: "other guy" is Kaelik, as evidenced in earlier posts, and the below post.

[Kaelik]

I am motherfucking insulted.

Fuck you SunTzu.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Lol, sorry, I had typed up that post for high on 30 minutes and wasn't willing to take another 3 to look you up Kaelik. I knew it was someone that I had read before and whose opinion had weight behind it, y for what it is worth.

[Roy]

Funny thing though. The 'angelic wank squad' was just a couple of outsiders with bows shooting at cloaks and amulets and such. The only thing 'outsider with bow' provides that 'humanoid with bow' doesn't is the ability to teleport out afterwards. And there are ways you could get that too, if you cared.

The advantage of teleporting out afterwards is so you do not get annihilated by the counterattack. But since the whole point of such an approach is to break a bunch of stuff by sending in some trivial minions, they've already served their purpose and it seriously doesn't matter if you then kill them and get trivial or nonexistent XP and some junk loot. Not that they necessarily will because bows have range defined in hundreds, if not thousands of feet. The distance penalty alone means you cannot beat their Hide check, even if untrained.

So there is no meaningful difference between 'angelic wank squad' and 'some guy actually using Improved Break Own Stuff'. He'll show up now and try to write that off using such words as sociopathic or whatever that do not mean what he thinks they mean.

Meaning PR's case amounts to Sunder is fine, except when used normally, then it becomes some huge wankfest. And if it's a wankfest to use normally, then that makes it unusable without being a wankfest.

This would be fine, except he's trying to argue against it not having any valid, non douchebag based uses... while claiming it doesn't have valid, non douchebag based uses. So he doesn't have a fucking case, he's trolling you for the lulz, and you're all falling for it. Not only that, but these same people are then turning around and whining at me for attacking such immense stupidity in such a way that it is as if they felt they themselves had been attacked.

Now, what does it mean when people take attacks on stupidity personally?

[Orion]

Roy -- I'm going to break my vow of silence towards you for this post, since you're being reasonable for once.

Yes, I agree that the sunder rules as written are broken, and your analysis of the Angelic Wank-squad is spot on.

Even if, as you say, Psychic Robot "doesn't have a case," that's no reason to assume he's trolling. See, most of us think of this space as a way to exchange views and acquire new information. Psychic Robot had a valid point initially, which is that even though the system is broken aspects of it can be put to good use if the DM is sensible about it. I do feel he missed the point of the angel squad example at first, but I'm pretty sure everyone is on the same page now as far as that goes.

As for this argument as opposed to yours -- the angelic wank squad was about why the current D&D sunder rules don't work. That's a completely different argument from the one you were making, which was that D&D sunder rules were broken from first principles and incapable of ever working. Big difference

[Roy]

Roy -- I'm going to break my vow of silence towards you for this post, since you're being reasonable for once.

Yes, I agree that the sunder rules as written are broken, and your analysis of the Angelic Wank-squad is spot on.

Even if, as you say, Psychic Robot "doesn't have a case," that's no reason to assume he's trolling. See, most of us think of this space as a way to exchange views and acquire new information. Psychic Robot had a valid point initially, which is that even though the system is broken aspects of it can be put to good use if the DM is sensible about it. I do feel he missed the point of the angel squad example at first, but I'm pretty sure everyone is on the same page now as far as that goes.

As for this argument as opposed to yours -- the angelic wank squad was about why the current D&D sunder rules don't work. That's a completely different argument from the one you were making, which was that D&D sunder rules were broken from first principles and incapable of ever working. Big difference

That alone is not a reason to assume he is trolling. However, he very often does troll, Sundertards are prime troll bait, and the only reason this thread exists is because someone mentioned natural 1s on saves = broken stuff - good or bad? The other thread quickly devolved from there with the classic idiocy summarily labeled and dismissed as 'Sundertardation' - just the fact retardation is a part of the word tells you all you need to know about the sensibility of it.

Regardless, he saw that and made another thread, and has pretty much been doing the same moves he does in the Sundertard threads over at WotC or whatever when trolling for the lulz.

As for the statement itself, even if that is right both start with the assumption the current way doesn't work in any form.

But yes, it is an actual impossibility. If gear matters, then breaking your enemies' gear detracts from your own effectiveness and so does having your enemy break your gear. What's more it does so quite dramatically... even a dinky little cloak of resistance +1 has exactly the same value as your life, so if you had instead died instantly you'd be no worse off. Except some random level 2 dumbfuck can break the cloak, whereas a level 2 isn't assured of inflicting instant death on you at any level, even if you yourself are level 1. Therefore probability wise you're going to lose more cloaks than lives, resulting in a greater cash deficit. When you'd honestly prefer a DNS (that's Death, No Save) situation because you truly would be better off with straight up Gygaxian bullshit, it's a good sign the alternative is fucked. And when the alternative is 'losing a single piece of non newbie gear' it is an irrefutable sign Sunder is fucked. Thus, 'Sundertard' is a perfectly accurate term for anyone taking part in it.

By contrast, if gear doesn't matter then why are you wasting time breaking it and not breaking their face instead? Most of their abilities are coming from them, and if this were not so then 'gear doesn't matter' would no longer be a true statement, thus it is a catch 22.

So either there's literally no fucking point, or a series of statements that are so fucking contradictory and pointless they'd make the Bible proud must all be true for it to even begin to be worth considering... and either the NPCs also realize gear = power and have no interest in breaking THEIR own stuff, or they act like chess pieces and attempt Sundertardation at all. Which can be neatly summarized as 'there's literally no fucking point'. So, barring the douchebaggery that is the DM deciding to screw the players, there's literally no difference, nor can there be. And if he does decide to screw the players... angels, skeletons, humans... technically it IS a wank squad regardless of racial identity, just that the implication was that it was only so when some angels do it.

As the two broad statements 'If gear does matter' and 'If gear does not matter' cover every possibility, and amount to the same fucking thing there is no alternative. The entire concept is invalid. Along a similar line, this is why real soldiers shoot the enemy soldier and not their gun. When faced with something bigger, such as a tank they try to capture it if at all possible because it means they can use their enemies' strength against them. If one tank were not about as good as any other they'd take it further than just preferring to capture enemy vehicles. Since they are they'll blow one up if they have to but given the alternative they'd rather remove enemy strength AND improve their own. The best D&D based parallel to this would be a siege engine such as a catapult. One catapult is as good as any other, but this one is already in place and set up.

And really. Someone mentioned Tome games. Last I checked, the main thing about those is major items can't be bought for gold. That's even less incentive to go around breaking stuff, as it is not at all unreasonable to assume your opponent's weapon or whatever is a major item if you are at a level where said items are a factor. And before that, you aren't in Wish Economy so you still care about gold and a similar line follows with minor items. If you cannot just save up for them, they're harder to get, and thus more valuable when you do get them... so breaking them screws you more.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Roy, you are correct about Major Items, and the large incentive not to break them. However, the vast majority of items are not Major Items (seriously, you probably have something like 1 at level 12). The vast majority of your stuff is "adventurer requires this" laundry list of being effective:
1 - Magic Weapon (+1/3)
2 - Magic Armor (+1/3)
3 - Magic Shield (+1/3)
4/5 - Magic <thing> of <important stat> (x2) (+1/4)
6 - Magic Cloak (+1/3)
7 - Magic <thing> of <secondary ability> (spiderclimb/fly/runfast/searing-light)

You don't care about most things on that list above. Unless your sword is ALSO a Blinding Sandstorm Sword, you can flat out replace it off camera and no one will even notice.

I mean, yes, this does fall apart at level 17-20, where you have a large number of Major/Medium Items that can be difficult to replace. At levels 1-12 or so, however, you only have a handful (4-6 in a part of 4) of Medium items in play (the fighter probably has a Stunning Sword, the Ranger a Slowing Bow, the Wizard and Cleric a Rod). They will care about the medium items, but these are the items which it is in theme to break (Rod of Quickening has ALWAYS been a good choice of things to break).