Author Topic: Fixing the Unfixable  (Read 12847 times)

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Bozwevial

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Fixing the Unfixable
« on: January 04, 2011, 08:02:37 PM »
with a slashing or bludgeoning weapon
[/spoiler]

These changes have been made because 1) you can totally sunder something with a lance, 2) HEY GUYS LET'S MAKE IT EVEN MORE ANNOYING TO USE THESE COMBAT MANEUVERS, 3) this reads like something that should have been taken out of the final draft--why can't you sunder some other dude's armor, and why would you want to sunder your own?

So, feel free to tear these ideas to shreds, discuss them some more, put new ones up for debate, whatever.

[spoiler]Edit: Specified when a sundered natural whatever can be used again. It has to be healed back to full because otherwise a Cure Minor Wounds invalidates whatever you just did, though in-combat healing will almost assuredly bring the natural whatever back anyway.

Edit again: Redid the broken item text so it made more sense and lessened the chance that monsters would sunder every piece of loot the PCs owned.

And again: Added the option to sunder Force effects.[/spoiler]

The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: Fixing the Unfixable
« Reply #1 on: January 04, 2011, 08:05:07 PM »
why can't you sunder some other dude's armor, and why would you want to sunder your own?

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Bozwevial

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Re: Fixing the Unfixable
« Reply #2 on: January 04, 2011, 08:07:57 PM »
why can't you sunder some other dude's armor, and why would you want to sunder your own?

Warhulk manifesting expansion, or Druid.
Your equipment would either grow with you or meld into the new shape, would it not?

veekie

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Re: Fixing the Unfixable
« Reply #3 on: January 04, 2011, 09:20:47 PM »
I gotta leave for work now but this should help a bit.
Quote
Sunder

You can attempt to sunder an item held or worn by your opponent as part of an attack action in place of a melee attack. If you do not have the Improved Sunder feat, or a similar ability, attempting to sunder an item provokes an attack of opportunity from the target of your maneuver.

If your attack is successful, you deal damage to the item normally. Damage that exceeds the object's Hardness is subtracted from its hit points. If an object has equal to or less than half its total hit points remaining, it gains the broken condition. If the damage you deal would reduce the object to less than 0 hit points, you can choose to destroy it. If you do not choose to destroy it, the object is left with only 1 hit point and the broken condition.

Quote
Deals with item 1 at least.
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[/spoiler]

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Prime32

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Re: Fixing the Unfixable
« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2011, 09:23:12 PM »
I would just say "if you destroy an item, the DM adds treasure equal to its value".
My work
The tier system in a nutshell:
[spoiler]Tier 6: A cartographer.
Tier 5: An expert cartographer or a decent marksman.
Tier 4: An expert marksman.
Tier 3: An expert marksman, cartographer and chef who can tie strong knots and is trained in hostage negotiation or a marksman so good he can shoot down every bullet fired by a minigun while armed with a rusted single-shot pistol that veers to the left.
Tier 2: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything, or the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.
Tier 1: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything and the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.[/spoiler]

The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: Fixing the Unfixable
« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2011, 09:30:43 PM »
why can't you sunder some other dude's armor, and why would you want to sunder your own?

Warhulk manifesting expansion, or Druid.
Your equipment would either grow with you or meld into the new shape, would it not?

No.
Rules Citation:
[spoiler][/spoiler]
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oslecamo

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Re: Fixing the Unfixable
« Reply #6 on: January 04, 2011, 09:31:51 PM »
I would just say "if you destroy an item, the DM adds treasure equal to its value".

Or allow for easy repairs. Break now, fix it later by the camp fire. Warhammer orcs get pretty much all of their equipment this way. Break stuff, then put it back togheter and use it to break more stuff!

Making the sundering easier kinda hurts the players more, because they're usually the ones with most equipment in battle.

Prime32

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Re: Fixing the Unfixable
« Reply #7 on: January 04, 2011, 09:40:54 PM »
Making the sundering easier kinda hurts the players more, because they're usually the ones with most equipment in battle.
What if you were using rules like these though?

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=9135.msg307944#msg307944
My work
The tier system in a nutshell:
[spoiler]Tier 6: A cartographer.
Tier 5: An expert cartographer or a decent marksman.
Tier 4: An expert marksman.
Tier 3: An expert marksman, cartographer and chef who can tie strong knots and is trained in hostage negotiation or a marksman so good he can shoot down every bullet fired by a minigun while armed with a rusted single-shot pistol that veers to the left.
Tier 2: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything, or the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.
Tier 1: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything and the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.[/spoiler]

veekie

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Re: Fixing the Unfixable
« Reply #8 on: January 04, 2011, 10:39:45 PM »
I would just say "if you destroy an item, the DM adds treasure equal to its value".

Or allow for easy repairs. Break now, fix it later by the camp fire. Warhammer orcs get pretty much all of their equipment this way. Break stuff, then put it back togheter and use it to break more stuff!

Making the sundering easier kinda hurts the players more, because they're usually the ones with most equipment in battle.
Well, IIRC theres even a feat(or was it ACF for some class, will need to check) in Pathfinder for dealing extra damage with broken weapons. IIRC it was related to some sunder stuff too.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."

Bozwevial

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Re: Fixing the Unfixable
« Reply #9 on: January 04, 2011, 10:49:26 PM »
No.
Rules Citation:
[spoiler][/spoiler]
Make a Strength check to burst the enclosure.

Or allow for easy repairs. Break now, fix it later by the camp fire. Warhammer orcs get pretty much all of their equipment this way. Break stuff, then put it back togheter and use it to break more stuff!
Well, that's basically what I have right now. Break it outright or leave it intact for later use.

Quote
Making the sundering easier kinda hurts the players more, because they're usually the ones with most equipment in battle.
Eh, not terribly. Any creature capable of using the items probably won't break them outright since they might make use of them later, and the more time a creature spends sundering is less time murdering your face. Although it does fuck over Tome Monks a little more.

oslecamo

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Re: Fixing the Unfixable
« Reply #10 on: January 04, 2011, 10:58:39 PM »
Making the sundering easier kinda hurts the players more, because they're usually the ones with most equipment in battle.
What if you were using rules like these though?

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=9135.msg307944#msg307944

Then sundering becomes completely useless against players, because they can just cover every single of their items inside multiple sheets of protective adamantine, wich are completely free by those rules.

Bozwevial: Eerr, that's like saying that monster won't try to murder the players because they believe they can keep them alive for slavery/interrogation/other stuff.

There's reasons why the rust monster is feared despite tecnically not really being able to kill anyone.

EDIT:Also, "disabled untill the end of the ecounter" just doesn't make any sense to me. What did you do, hit it in the right wave frequency in order to stop it's magic from working untill you send a mental command that it's ok to work again?


Bozwevial

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Re: Fixing the Unfixable
« Reply #11 on: January 04, 2011, 11:15:10 PM »
Bozwevial: Eerr, that's like saying that monster won't try to murder the players because they believe they can keep them alive for slavery/interrogation/other stuff.
It's one thing to take special measures not to kill an enemy, but this is literally no more difficult to do than breaking the item would be. The effect is the same, but if the monster wins it gets extra loot, and if the players win they don't have to go buy more gear.

Quote
There's reasons why the rust monster is feared despite tecnically not really being able to kill anyone.
Yeah, but the rust monster actually eats metal stuff. An NPC or item-using monster wants to keep it around because, hey, free gear. Same reason any reasonably intelligent PC won't sunder magic stuff; it'd be throwing away money.

Quote
EDIT:Also, "disabled untill the end of the ecounter" just doesn't make any sense to me. What did you do, hit it in the right wave frequency in order to stop it's magic from working untill you send a mental command that it's ok to work again?
If you like. Or you know just where to hit it to stop it working temporarily, or you hit it just hard enough to knock something crucial loose that you can fix later. It's mechanically the same as breaking it and then fixing it later with a handwave.

veekie

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Re: Fixing the Unfixable
« Reply #12 on: January 05, 2011, 12:21:00 AM »
Mending isn't particularly high level and can probably be counted as the repair mechanism.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."

Bozwevial

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Re: Fixing the Unfixable
« Reply #13 on: January 05, 2011, 12:25:53 AM »
Mending isn't particularly high level and can probably be counted as the repair mechanism.
Yeah, that or a Craft check or something.

oslecamo

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Re: Fixing the Unfixable
« Reply #14 on: January 05, 2011, 07:39:22 AM »
Bozwevial: Eerr, that's like saying that monster won't try to murder the players because they believe they can keep them alive for slavery/interrogation/other stuff.
It's one thing to take special measures not to kill an enemy, but this is literally no more difficult to do than breaking the item would be. The effect is the same, but if the monster wins it gets extra loot, and if the players win they don't have to go buy more gear.

Quote
There's reasons why the rust monster is feared despite tecnically not really being able to kill anyone.
Yeah, but the rust monster actually eats metal stuff. An NPC or item-using monster wants to keep it around because, hey, free gear. Same reason any reasonably intelligent PC won't sunder magic stuff; it'd be throwing away money.
That assumes that:
1-The monster believes it can win the battle.
2-The monster cares about items, instead of being an half-intelengent brute that hates shiny things.

If the monster is cornered, bringing down some of the party's equipment with him means his other buddies will have an easier time avenging his death. It's also a viable hit and run tactic for faster monsters, wearing down the party by destroying their equipment and then pulling back, then finishing them. Better to win with little loot than die at the hands of a wealthy oponent.

If the monster is just some "SMASH" creature, well, they don't really care about money, and you just made SMASH easier.

Or you know just where to hit it to stop it working temporarily, or you hit it just hard enough to knock something crucial loose that you can fix later. It's mechanically the same as breaking it and then fixing it later with a handwave.

It's still an uneended handwave. Can't you just put the mending/craft check clause? Because it allows stuff like finding broken gear that the commoners can't repair and use but the PCs can.

Hida Reju

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Re: Fixing the Unfixable
« Reply #15 on: January 05, 2011, 08:52:24 AM »
Sundering is a very tricky issue I have played a few characters that had it as a character trick but I had a little chat with the DM about not counting the things I sundered against the party.

Lets just say that any time I successfully sundered a weapon or misc item amazingly enough there was a chest with some gold near by or some other contrived thing.

Also its usefulness is very campaign specific if you are fighting a bunch of humanoids that use weapons and items then its more than a bit useful. But then again I just burned a single feat for improved sunder and I was already a Adamantine wielding two handed power attack kinda fighter. So really it was low investment for a trick.

The big issue is to have the chat with your DM ahead of time otherwise you cut your own throat.

AtomicKitKat

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Re: Fixing the Unfixable
« Reply #16 on: January 05, 2011, 11:24:07 AM »
IIRC, there was a Tactical Feat in Complete Warrior that rewarded sundering the opponent's shield(Momentum Swing? Combat Brute?) with a follow-up free attack.

Bozwevial

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Re: Fixing the Unfixable
« Reply #17 on: January 05, 2011, 11:55:30 AM »
That assumes that:
1-The monster believes it can win the battle.
2-The monster cares about items, instead of being an half-intelengent brute that hates shiny things.
If the monster doesn't believe it can win the battle, it's probably going to be more concerned with escaping than smashing items. So the only situation where that holds true is if the monster is completely unable to escape, and if that's true, the monster probably isn't in a position to sunder either.

Quote
If the monster is cornered, bringing down some of the party's equipment with him means his other buddies will have an easier time avenging his death. It's also a viable hit and run tactic for faster monsters, wearing down the party by destroying their equipment and then pulling back, then finishing them. Better to win with little loot than die at the hands of a wealthy oponent.
Those tactics assume some level of intelligence on the part of a monster, which is good if the monster is intelligent (cunning opponents should be played as such).

Quote
It's still an uneended handwave. Can't you just put the mending/craft check clause? Because it allows stuff like finding broken gear that the commoners can't repair and use but the PCs can.
Yeah, you're right. It's probably better to make that the case in all cases so that gear can be salvaged.

So, any thoughts on the feat as it stands now?

RobbyPants

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Re: Fixing the Unfixable
« Reply #18 on: January 05, 2011, 12:03:30 PM »
IIRC, there was a Tactical Feat in Complete Warrior that rewarded sundering the opponent's shield(Momentum Swing? Combat Brute?) with a follow-up free attack.
There is a maneuver from Combat Brute that you're thinking of, but it has a different name.  It works nicely as you described, so long as the loot isn't magical.  The downside is the investment of two feats (Improved Sunder and Combat Brute), and the right circumstances don't come up very often.  Those two feats could be better spent on Improved Bullrush and Shock Trooper, and you could instead insta-gib the guy on a charge and take his loot later.

Momentum Swing is a maneuver from Combat Brute that lets you increase your Power Attack damage on attacks the round after you charge.  So, it works okay with Shock Trooper in case someone survives your pounce charge, but it isn't nearly as potent, and it costs two feats.
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[/spoiler]

RobbyPants

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Re: Fixing the Unfixable
« Reply #19 on: January 05, 2011, 12:06:04 PM »
So, any thoughts on the feat as it stands now?
It's cool all in all.  I have to think more about sundering body parts and NA a bit more.

One thing that would be cool as hell is the ability so sunder Force Effects at level 11 if you deal X damage (possibly based on the CL of the effect).
My balancing 3.5 compendium
Elemental mage test game

Quotes
[spoiler]
Quote from: Cafiend
It is a shame stupidity isn't painful.
Quote from: StormKnight
Totally true.  Historians believe that most past civilizations would have endured for centuries longer if they had successfully determined Batman's alignment.
Quote from: Grand Theft Otto
Why are so many posts on the board the equivalent of " Dear Dr. Crotch, I keep punching myself in the crotch, and my groin hurts... what should I do? How can I make my groin stop hurting?"
Quote from: CryoSilver
I suggest carving "Don't be a dick" into him with a knife.  A dull, rusty knife.  A dull, rusty, bent, flaming knife.
Quote from: Seerow
Fluffy: It's over Steve! I've got the high ground!
Steve: You underestimate my power!
Fluffy: Don't try it, Steve!
Steve: *charges*
Fluffy: *three critical strikes*
Steve: ****
Quote from: claypigeons
I don't even stat out commoners. Commoner = corpse that just isn't a zombie. Yet.
Quote from: CryoSilver
When I think "Old Testament Boots of Peace" I think of a paladin curb-stomping an orc and screaming "Your death brings peace to this land!"
Quote from: Orville_Oaksong
Buy a small country. Or Pelor. Both are good investments.
[/spoiler]