D&D 3E/3.5 Sundering in 3.5

[Murrdox]

In general, the changes to DR have me both excited and worried about 3.5.

I don't want all my players to have to carry around 4 or 5 different weapons. I'm also apprehensive of how monsters with DR will hurt each other. A monster with DR 5/Magic now counts as all attacks being "Magic"?

So then I started thinking about Sundering.

Let's say you have a random creature with natural weapons and DR 5/Magic. He's facing off against a fighter with an enchanted sword.

Let's assume that in 3.0, this monster has DR 5/+2.

Now, in 3.0, this monster can sunder the weapon of the fighter as long as the sword has an enhancement bonus of +2 or below. He'd have no hope of sundering a +3 or better weapon.

However, in 3.5, suddenly the enhancement bonuses don't matter anymore. A creature with DR 5/Magic should thus be capable of sundering a +5 Dancing Vorpal longsword.

I see major problems here, and a major negative factor for EVER making a weapon more than +1, when you could make it Holy, Adamantine, or something else.

I'm hoping WotC isn't this stupid, and fighters with +1 daggers won't be able to sunder a +5 greatsword. How they're going to do this, I have no idea. Is a +1 Adamantine Holy blade going to be less difficult, the same, or more difficult to sunder than a +2 Silver blade?

 

[gfunk]

Personally, I don't see a problem with any weapon being capable of sundering another weapon.

I didn't like the old 3.0 system of saying, "a +1 Greatsword can't sunder a +2 short sword no matter what." It was a bit too reminiscent of the archaic "can only be hit by +1 weapons or better" scheme of 2nd edition AD&D.

A better system, IMO, would be to give weapons a 'bonus' hardness, perhaps 2-5 hp per 'plus' of the weapon. In the case of adamantine weapons, they have such a high hardness that they are virtually impossible to sunder.

Monsters sundering with their own natural attacks however, is a different matter entirely. A large dragon with power attack, wouldn't have a very hard time sundering a fighter's greatsword. In 3.0, I don't recall ever seeing official regarding this so I am eager to see what they have come up with.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

well a +1 to hit and damage is still nice, but yes I can see how problems could ensue with sunders.

I'd especially see thins when facing creatures with more bizaree DR req's. If your only hurt by lawful, when you get nailed by a lawful sword I'd suspect getting rid of that weapon would be a priority.

I always hated the sunder mechainc because it was too easy, so I really don't want more motivaiton to use it. I hope they have made sunder a more difficult task to accomplish even with the feat.

 

[James McMurray]

Of course, that +5 sword is going to have a hardness of 15 and 35 hitpoints. Add adamantium to it and you've got 25 hardness and 45 hitpoints. That means that a Mature Adult force dragon (CR 35) would have to roll max damage on a bite and still hit with a claw to break, something I'd expect a CR 35 critter to be able to do. Any standard foe (such as you'll find in the MM) will be hardpressed to break anything with hardness 25 and 45 hitpoints.

I think the lesson here it to spend the extra couple grand for adamantium if you plan on making a powerful weapon. And put that weapon away if a big critter takes a swipe at it and manages to nick it.

 

[Stalker0]

The new system seems to hurt and help sundering at the same time.

While it seems like a dragon could sunder a +1 or +5 sword, many others creatures with different DR's won't have any chance of sundering them.

 

[CrimsonTemplar]

A better system, IMO, would be to give weapons a 'bonus' hardness, perhaps 2-5 hp per 'plus' of the weapon. In the case of adamantine weapons, they have such a high hardness that they are virtually impossible to sunder.

They do already. Each +1 of enhancement bonus provides another point of Hardness & HP to an item. A +5 sword has +5 Hardness and +5 HP.

 

[James McMurray]

If the 3.5 spoiler thread is to be believed, the new version will up the hardness and HP bonus to 2 per plus, making it even harder to sunder a +5 adamantium sword.

 

[CrimsonTemplar]

If the 3.5 spoiler thread is to be believed, the new version will up the hardness and HP bonus to 2 per plus, making it even harder to sunder a +5 adamantium sword.

That sounds good to me. Admantine is pricey, so you should get a fair bit of value out of it. Now if only there was a meta-org in LG that gave access to it.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Andy Collins has confirmed that rumor: weapons gain a lot more hit points and hardness than before.

I think a titan would need two swings to destroy a typical +5 bastard sword.

 

[Ravellion]

Weapons do not ahve Damage reduction, so it seems highly unlikely that even though DR5/magic wil help overcoming similar DR, that it will count as a +x weapon. There simply isn't an enhancement bonus to speak of which is needed to sunder a weapon.

For more information, there is a WotC forum thread dedicated to Andy giving spoilers. I think it might be paraphrased in Olgar Silverstone's thread in GD.

Rav