A Discussion on Sundering

[Psychic Robot]

Let's talk sundering, since the Critical Hits thread was going off the rails and devolving into Roy ranting about sundertards.

The Important Information
--Sundering is an attack action that provokes AoOs (unless you have the Improved Sunder feat).
--A weapon functions until it is reduced to 0 HP.
--You can't sunder worn armor, but you can sunder shields and items.
--Once a magical item is sundered, it essentially poofs: the magic is gone, and it's just a piece of junk.

Problems With Sundering
A monster's equipment is included in PC loot, because we're talking 3e and not 4e, where monster corpses randomly explode into magic items. That means that when the fighter decides to break an enemy's magical sword, he's breaking his own loot, which is bad for him as well as the entire party.

This, of course, is directly related to the issues created by the wealth-by-level system.

Dealing with Sundering
In the event that the fighter has just destroyed a particularly valuable magical item, don't panic. You, as the DM, are entrusted with keeping your players at a certain level of wealth because they require this wealth to be powerful enough to defeat the challenges you throw at them. There are several ways to handle the sundering situation.

1. Give the party more treasure to compensate. This is the simplest and easiest method, and I would recommend it.

2. House rule that destroying a magic item doesn't destroy its magical properties. Allow it to be restored to functionality at a fraction of the cost (or perhaps for free).

3. Plan your challenges around the players having a reduced wealth level. Since wealth is power in D&D, you'll need to make the challenges weaker.

These are, of course, all methods that aren't included in the rules-as-written.

The Potential Problems
As Roy pointed out in the other thread, by giving out compensatory treasure to characters who sunder equipment, you're opening up the floodgates to potential abuse. After all, if the fighter spies a wizard with a circlet of intellect and says to himself, "Ugh, that sucks. I'll sunder it so we can get new loot," and you give the players extra treasure, the fighter has essentially pulled one over on you. There are two main ways to handle this.

1. Don't tell the players that you're giving them extra loot. Just have them roll for treasure as normal, and tack on more gold as they progress through encounters.

2. Don't play with colossal assholes.

I'd recommend both.

Sundering as Part of Roleplay
The situation in which a paladin destroys an evil magical sword was raised in the Critical Hits thread. This brings in a conflict between roleplay, player knowledge, and character knowledge. In the paladin's eyes, the sword is evil, so it must be destroyed. This is roleplaying, and there are sometimes negative repercussions to roleplaying. Destroying a weapon that is worth quite a bit of money is a negative repercussion, but it's somewhat worse than normal--by destroying the weapon, the paladin is hindering his own power and that of his groupmates, which could cause resentment.

The paladin also knows that wealth is directly tied to power, since this is D&D-land. It costs money to buy a +3 sword, and a +3 sword is better than a +2 sword. The paladin is faced with a decision: destroy the sword and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands, or selling it so that the group can better accomplish their (presumably good) goals? In most cases, the paladin would choose to destroy the sword because his basic moral tenants override the fact that he can technically do more good by selling the sword.

So the paladin destroys the sword. What do you, as DM, do?

I would probably reward the roleplaying by having the paladin's church or some other benevolent organization give the players monetary reward or perhaps donate a magic item for the paladin's aid in purging the world of evil. If circumstances would not allow that, I would provide compensatory treasure as detailed above.

More On the DM's Role
Should the DM fix the wealth-by-level problems that sundering causes? Most people say "yes," because you're playing to have fun, not to fight the players. Some, like Roy, say "no," because you are indirectly encouraging stupid behavior (in this case, destroying power).

Personally, I think that both approaches are acceptable in certain circumstances. For the most part, I believe that wealth should be compensated because sundering a weapon is not as blatantly stupid as, say, walking off a cliff. In the mindset of the character during combat, sundering may seem the only viable option. And, again, players play D&D to have fun, not to fight the DM.

However--and I already know Roy's response--there is the issue of the DM as story facilitator. There are extremes to which this is taken, as evidenced by the thread in which he linked to the post which advocated monsters beating on the defenders in lieu of intelligent decisions because the DM is supposed to make the story go, and players might be sad if their characters die. There must be a middle ground to take.

So, if the player makes a particularly stupid choice in sundering something, I would not replace the wealth and let the party deal with the consequences, much in the same way that I would not let a party member not take damage from walking off a cliff. But, I suspect these are edge cases, and most of us need not concern ourselves with them.

TL;DR Summary
Give the wealth back because players vs. DM went out a long time ago. Also, don't play with douchebags.

[Kaelik]

That's all fine and dandy, except you forgot an entire issue in the sunder game, called enemies can use it too.

As a DM, you now have to decide if blowing up PC equipment is ever worth it. And worse, the answer should often be yes. Minions who are willing to give their lives do exist, and now instead of giving their lives to do 30HP damage and then die, they waste their lives doing 30Hp damage to someones cloak of resistance +5. Or +6 Headband of intellect, fucking people right off the RNG.

And that's just suicidal minions, to say nothing of the tactical uses, like an Archon hit squad of archers with ranged sunder who show up and destroy all your equipment in 2 rounds at 500ft before teleporting out, leaving your ECL 15 characters completely fucked against CR 15 challenges, much less actual important ones.

TL;DR:

Don't ever use Sunder as the DM, because you will completely destroy WBL if using it, and force everyone to enter bullshit wish loops after every encounter to get back up to WBL. And if you are already doing that, why not just get a little extra?

[Psychic Robot]

Forgot about that. But

And that's just suicidal minions, to say nothing of the tactical uses, like an Archon hit squad of archers with ranged sunder who show up and destroy all your equipment in 2 rounds at 500ft before teleporting out, leaving your ECL 15 characters completely fucked against CR 15 challenges, much less actual important ones.

would be part of "not playing with douchebags."

[Avoraciopoctules]

The previous posts... sum it up pretty well, I think.

All I can really conceive of adding is that the discussion in the critical hits made me think about the uses of sundering equipment in a story. I found that I could think of far fewer ways it added to the quality of the story than I intuitively expected.

[Kaelik]

Forgot about that. But

And that's just suicidal minions, to say nothing of the tactical uses, like an Archon hit squad of archers with ranged sunder who show up and destroy all your equipment in 2 rounds at 500ft before teleporting out, leaving your ECL 15 characters completely fucked against CR 15 challenges, much less actual important ones.

would be part of "not playing with douchebags."

Some people like Versimilitude. The idea that PCs can sunder all fucking day and the DM should reward them for it, but that if the DM ever uses sundering tactically with any of his high Int monsters who can't use your shit and don't need it he's a douchebag is fucking retarded.

If the DM can never use Disjunction, because it destroys the game, then you as a PC sure as hell can't expect your first round of combat to consist of a Twinned Disjunction and then to find a pile of wealth exactly equal to the amount being used by your enemies just sitting on the ground on the other side of the hill.

Anyone at all who uses Sunder is a douchebag, including and especially PCs. So if you don't play with douchebags, then this entire thread is inapplicable.

[Psychic Robot]

That's retarded. If the DM sends a bunch of archons specifically to sunder your equipment, he's a douchebag. There's a huge difference between, "I'll sunder this sword!" and "HURDURDUR I WILL PUNISH MY PLAYERS WITH MY ANGELIC WANK-SQUAD."

[Grek]

Idea: Sundered magic equipment, though rendered useless, can be transformed into one half its market value in gold or planar currency, ie. exactly as much as is needed to make a new one.

[Kaelik]

That's retarded. If the DM sends a bunch of archons specifically to sunder your equipment, he's a douchebag. There's a huge difference between, "I'll sunder this sword!" and "HURDURDUR I WILL PUNISH MY PLAYERS WITH MY ANGELIC WANK-SQUAD."

No, what's retarded is you claiming that angels are too stupid to ever use a sunder squad. Or that DMs should just pretend that they are.

News flash, if a BBEG has some minions, the best use for them is to sunder equipment. A mere level 11 NPC archer will without fail destroy the vest and cloak of two enemies, or the cloaks of multiple armor wearers. This is a really fucking useful function for a level 18 Caster BBEG who can use that -5 to saves really fucking well, for practically no loss.

Hell, even back at level 11 a BBEG with a level 6 minion can drop the a similar amount of cloaks/vests with pretty damn good odds, and not even really add to EL.

You saying that enemies should never use sunder because it's a dick for the DM to use a tactic while PCs should be given more treasure for an easier encounter is terrible.

The fact that a specific valid encounter of EL less then party level could easily cripple the fuck out of a high level party is a symptom of a problem.

That problem is that sundering in general is fucking bullshit if amount of gear equals power.

Whining about how DMs shouldn't allow monsters to think of using sunder, but should give out more treasure for sundering parties is exactly equivalent as claiming that monsters should spread damage around and attack defenders, but PCs should be allowed to gang bang the weak enemies in 4e.

You are saying that it's not fair for monsters to use a tactic that works and is the best tactic, and has no downsides, but you have to make sure there are no downsides for PCs for using the same tactic that is banned for monsters.

[virgil]

I remember hearing one house-rule that targetting worn/held objects required hitting the wearer's Touch AC (using object's size) + shield bonus + 4 (wearer using own body for cover); which at least makes a vague sense, and it keeps the sundering from being quite so easy.

Wouldn't most opponents have the same long-term sense as PCs, and not want to sunder their loot? This still doesn't fully cover situations for when the opposition is that much easier to take down because you lowered their saving throws by 5...

[Kaelik]

Wouldn't most opponents have the same long-term sense as PCs, and not want to sunder their loot?

But this is PR we are talking about. So PCs with long term sense do want to sunder their loot, cause then they get more loot. So long term sense NPCs will sunder loot because it has no effect on their loot gain.

Either that or you are just shifting the bullshit PC favoritism back a step, and instead of only PCs being able to think of the idea, it's only PCs that get spontaneous magic item appearances when they destroy shit.

If the enemy Wizard is purposefully not using Chained Dispel Magic and Quickened Chained Shatter on you because he wants your shit, why the fuck when a PC uses that exact same tactic do you immediately tell him, "Hey don't worry, you'll find a +6 Int item and a Vest of the Archmage just sitting on the ground 30ft away unused."

[Psychic Robot]

The fact that you are claiming that sundering a weapon in combat is the same as an angelic wank-squad is so incredibly stupid that I think my brain just vomited. Just like chain-binding efreeti to gain infinite wishes doesn't show up in actual games, the angelic wank-squad doesn't show up either. Do you know why? Because in a real game, people do their best to follow the aforementioned "don't play with colossal assholes" rule.

If you can't recognize the difference between the fighter sundering an enemy's sword or a paladin destroying an evil magical item and the angelic wank-squad, then I can only imagine that you don't play with real people, that you play with colossal assholes, or that you play with complete fucking sociopaths who aren't above raping children.

And yes, I'm invoking "not by the RAW bullshit" when I'm talking about dealing with sundering, but that's because "not fucking the game" takes precedence over the RAW.

Should sundering even exist in a game where equipment = power? Probably not. Some people are okay with shit like Mordenkainen's game disjunction, and others aren't. For the most part, sundering should not exist because it is a bad move all around, and it makes the game less good for everyone involved. However, because sundering exists in 3e, you can handle it in two ways.

1. Like you suggest.

2. Like someone who doesn't enjoy punishing his players and torturing kittens.

If we want to get down to the number-crunching, most sunder attempts outside of the angelic wank-squad are going to fail because the mooks are going to provoke AoOs, they're wasting their actions, and they're setting themselves up to get smacked around by the PCs.

And let's say you send the angelic wank-squad against the PCs because you like eating children on the days when you're not DMing. The PCs are like, "Lolwut?" and have no equipment left. (This, of course, ignores the fact that the angelic wank-squad could just kill all the PCs, but you like eating children, so you'll leave the PCs alive but crippled.) So now the players are faced with the task of accomplishing their goals with no equipment. They have two options.

1. Forge ahead, hoping that they'll somehow survive.

2. Work to get their gear back.

You, as the DM, can either work with them to help them get their gear back, or you can be like, "HAHAHA! My BBEG is so great that he broke all your equipment. And when you get more equipment back, he's going to do it again, just to fuck with you guys! Look at how massive my engorged penis is!"

At which point, the players leave the game.

And, if sundering (outside of the angelic wank-squad) is a frequent event in the Kaelikverse, the PCs are going to start taking precautions. The casters will be ready to spam make whole at a given opportunity. Everyone will invest in adamantine equipment. The players will conserve their cash and use their spells to buff instead of blowing it on magic items.

"But that's being inefficient!" you cry. "They're unoptimized, and they'll die."

Maybe they will. And if you kill them, they'll probably find a new DM. Congratulations on being a colossal asshole and losing your group.

You saying that enemies should never use sunder because it's a dick for the DM to use a tactic while PCs should be given more treasure for an easier encounter is terrible.

Strawfail. I never said that DMs should never use it. I said they shouldn't use the angelic wank-squad because that's absolute dickery. And if the DM pulled that kind of dickery, I would support chain-binding to recover the lost wealth.

Whining about how DMs shouldn't allow monsters to think of using sunder, but should give out more treasure for sundering parties is exactly equivalent as claiming that monsters should spread damage around and attack defenders, but PCs should be allowed to gang bang the weak enemies in 4e.

You are saying that it's not fair for monsters to use a tactic that works and is the best tactic, and has no downsides, but you have to make sure there are no downsides for PCs for using the same tactic that is banned for monsters.

Epic fucking fail. Please pile on more strawmen.

[virgil]

What if you're selective in your compensation? Punish the PC for using sunder when it's tactically stupid, since the effort to sunder most of the time is much better spent in just plain killing, but increase the loot piles when it's actually a good idea either tactically or narratively.

Avor makes a good point that narratively (or even tactically) appropriate times to sunder equipment is actually fairly rare. Personally, I can think of a couple...
* the BBEG is in an inhospitable environment, but is protected thanks to a brooch
* someone is casting a deadly spell with a material component, and the damage you can deal to them is very unlikely to break their concentration
* opponent is reliant on a potent item of evil (such as unholy sword)

The last one is contentious amongst some, but frankly Team Good makes it a habit to not harm each other (which the unholy sword is only capable of doing) while Team Evil is known for its backstabbing and Chessmaster tendencies and thus can find a use for a Holy sword. Also, the redeeming rules in the BoED are crap because you still have to spend the resources that matter.

[Kaelik]

PR, stop being retarded.

Angelic sunder squad is only a single possible instance. And no, it can't kill the party, that's the point. A group of people who would most certainly die to you in actual combat can destroy all your gear in a single round and then teleport out and call in the big boys who are an appropriate CR encounter.

That's a tactically sound idea that is way better then fucking dieing for no reason.

And this is the point, you are being a fucking bitch and claiming that if ever in 10 levels fight a single enemy specialized in sunder (because that's all it takes to fucking own up on all the PCs equipment) the DM is evil.

You are claiming that the BBEG having a level 6 Fighter in the fucking balcony taking out 4 items a round and not increasing the EL of the encounter at all is evil.

You missed the point, you think the enemy using sunder is somehow fundamentally different from PCs.

You think the Wizard should be able to open combat by destroying eleven items in the first round of every single combat every day, nerfing enemies way more then any debuff, all no save. But then you complain that if once in every 13 fights an enemy uses that same tactic it's evil.

And just as a joke to show how little you actually understand the rules:

"The casters will be ready to spam make whole at a given opportunity. Everyone will invest in adamantine equipment. The players will conserve their cash and use their spells to buff instead of blowing it on magic items. "

Make Whole? "The spell does not restore the magical abilities of a broken magic item made whole, and it cannot mend broken magic rods, staffs, or wands." Fucking useless.

Adamantine cloaks? Adamantine Headbands? Don't be fucking retarded.

You mean spells the last for short times, take up lots of spell slots, provide lesser buffs, use up actions, and don't even grant spells? No, they won't waste spells casting Fox's Cunning. That would be dumb.

You are fucking dumb. This isn't about being a dick to PCs. It's about the fact that using Sunder ever screws them, and not ever using it when it's the best strategy around because magic loots pops up for everything you destroy is fucking retarded.

[Psychic Robot]

For someone who is logically sound, you sure as hell can't debate worth a shit. Drop the strawmen.

the DM is evil.

He's a colossal asshole if he's using the angelic wank-squad. You, of course, can't pull your head out of your ass long enough to differentiate between shitting all over the PCs and using sunder.

You think the Wizard should be able to open combat by destroying eleven items in the first round of every single combat every day, nerfing enemies way more then any debuff, all no save.

Strawman.

Make Whole? "The spell does not restore the magical abilities of a broken magic item made whole, and it cannot mend broken magic rods, staffs, or wands." Fucking useless.

Use it to repair damaged, but not destroyed, items.

Adamantine cloaks? Adamantine Headbands? Don't be fucking retarded.

Hurdurdur.

You mean spells the last for short times, take up lots of spell slots, provide lesser buffs, use up actions, and don't even grant spells? No, they won't waste spells casting Fox's Cunning. That would be dumb.

Hurdurdur.

You are fucking dumb.

Hurdurdur. Sure, I'm dumb. And you're a sociopath who can't understand the difference between shitting on the players and the paladin destroying an evil weapon.

See, the funny thing is that you can't actually address anything that I've said because all your arguments are strawmen. Did I ever say that the DM shouldn't use NPCs that can sunder? Did I ever say game disjunction was a fine and dandy spell? Did I ever say that DMs who use NPCs that sunder are evil? No, no, and no, and you're a doodie-head, to boot.

Quite frankly, I find your behavior to be pathetic. You are worse than people who blatantly evade counterarguments and rebuttals. No, you couldn't just do that--you had to go and lie about them. Think about that. You are lying in a feeble attempt to win a debate. About D&D. On the Internet.

Consider what kind of dog that makes you. Consider how much of a sniveling toad you are. Consider how weak you are, that you need to shield your fragile ego with a web of lies. And to top it off, you're doing this on the Internet, with people you will never see. That's sad.

Either put up an actual argument or shut the fuck up.

[Akula]

Sundering, just by the math sucks some serious balls. Adamantine, the go to sunder weapon, only pierces hardnesses less than twenty. So anyone with a +1 Adamantine X or a weapon with that hardness increasing spell cast on it will have incredible HP bloat. At the point you can destroy a weapon with 40 HP/inch that reduces your damage by 22 per hit, you would be better off just killing the guy holding it.

[Ravengm]

I dunno, I kinda like this prospect:

Our intrepid adventurers are cutting a swathe of carnage through the army of mooks, having little to no trouble doing so. The enemy general, a seasoned veteran, desperately seeking an advantage, spies the glowing sword of Dr. McFightypants, smiles, and screams "AIM FOR THEIR WEAPONS!"

That just got a lot more interesting, no? It's like springing subdual damage on the PCs: it's something interesting that's not routine anymore. It forces a different tactic (protecting weapons) other than the norm (ripping out the goblin's throat).

Again, don't play with colossal douchebags that do this all the time. It should be a surprise because it's hardly used.

[Orion]

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 do agree that I don't really have a problem when it comes to actual play of having sundering be something that only PCs do, but do agree it would be better to have functional sunder rules.

Is that so hard to grasp?

(I think the logical thing would be to base an items defenses and possibly even HP on its owner somehow)

[PhoneLobster]

You missed the point, you think the enemy using sunder is somehow fundamentally different from PCs...

...You are fucking dumb. This isn't about being a dick to PCs. It's about the fact that using Sunder ever screws them, and not ever using it when it's the best strategy around because magic loots pops up for everything you destroy is fucking retarded.

I think this is the core problem with Sunder as it stands in 3.x

It is an effective anti-head band of intellect/cloak of resistance strategy.

But if anyone ever uses it on anyone (let alone if everyone always uses it on everyone) it's a real bitch.

And it doesn't matter who uses it, the PCs or the NPCs it is STILL a real bitch.

And it is a real bitch because it is complex to adjudicate the action itself, complex to adjudicate the effects of losing sweeping stat boosting and other magical items in combat, and complex to adjudicate the impacts on character wealth and power.

It's just badly written, as it is Sunder is alternately too crap (especially on what it is intended for, hitting weapons and shields) or too good (especially for slashing up cloaks and wands) and too messy and difficult in both cases.

Ideally sunder would see a severe rewrite, but it would probably require some serious reform with a lot of the rules regarding wealth and the way item it might effect work.

Ideally sundering stuff should probably be about as permanent and reversible as hit point damage to characters, just as easy to adjudicate and should probably have some motivation thrown in for characters to actually let some of their shit get sundered in a fight to escape actual damage to themselves or something.

That way sundering could actually happen, which is good because it's cool to have characters smashing each others swords in half melodramatically, and it would be OK.

But that's a pretty big ask within the 3.x framework.

So to fix it you are going to want to address, sunder attacks, wealth by level, magic item rules, the Christmas tree thing, bonus accumulation and the RNG, repair spells, the craft skill, magic item crafting rules, and more.

It's probably not going to happen short of using a sufficiently different system from scratch.

[Surgo]

Did I ever say that the DM shouldn't use NPCs that can sunder?

You said that the tactically sound logical consequence of having sunder around at all was, somehow, a strawman. Despite the fact that it's the obvious choice of tactics for pretty much anyone, and *not* having it despite having sunder around breaks verisimilitude something fierce. And then your response consists of "strawman!", "wank squad!" and "Hurdurdur". You're the one being the complete bitch here. And for someone who is begging for "actual arguments", I'm pretty sure "Hurdurdur" isn't an actual argument either.

[virgil]

The times I've seen magic items sundered in media, it very heavily tends to be objects with a critical focal point, almost always gemstones in staves/amulets/rods/headbands.

Once in awhile, clothing is sundered, but the only times I've actually seen them destroyed and not just 'disarmed' is when it's Zorro carving someone's shirt.

[Fuchs]

Well, I'd simply allow key magical gear to regenerate (slowly) after getting sundered, allowing the tactical use of sundering as a way to remove a piece of gear for a fight without destroying it permanently. That would work for Disjunction too.

To destroy magical items permanently could require a ritual of various length and difficulty, ranging from muttering a prayer while burning an evil scroll in a fire made from blessed wood to throwing a ring into the bowels of Mount Doom.

[Surgo]

While that's certainly a nice alternative to losing everything, it still runs into the same problem that Kaelik pointed out of the angelic sunder squad softening people up for the tougher guys. It's just...ugh. Gear is tied too closely to power to have sunder work at all.

A different problem: sundering is necessary because of some game mechanics. I mean, what are grapplers supposed to do against the guy with a ring of freedom of movement besides either sunder it or go cry in a corner?

[Fuchs]

I beg to differ. Such hit and run tactics would work regardless of sundering - they can soften up a party by making them spend spells on healing and defense, for example. Or focus fire and kill one PC, then retreat. Or simply show up, make the PCs buff up, then retreat and wait the spells out.

[Surgo]

Yeah, I understand that, but the sundering hit and run tactics would work substantially better -- because sundering items is so fucking strong.

[PhoneLobster]

It's just...ugh. Gear is tied too closely to power to have sunder work at all.

It's not just that.

Like Fuchs said you can just soften people up by hitting them first.

The problem is that softening them up by hitting them first is relatively easy to adjudicate.

Dealing with gaining and losing 3.x items is troublesome. Especially when many of the (potentially regular) changes will be somewhat permanent.

It's like "permanent" level drain. A lot like it.