Two small tidbits I came across recently:
1) From the DMG: "An attacker cannot damage a magic weapon that has an enhancement bonus unless his own weapon has at least as high an enhancement bonus as the weapon or shield struck."
Rather an important detail, really, and should have been included amongst the sunder rules in the PHB. Better still, should have been listed in both places.
2) From the PHB this time: "You don't use an opposed attack roll to damage a carried or worn object. Instead, just make an attack roll against the object's AC. A carried or worn object's AC is equal to 10 + its size modifier + the Dexterity modifier of the carrying or wearing character. Attacking a carried or worn object provokes an attack of opportunity just as attacking a held object does... You can't sunder armour worn by another character."
So, it is entirely possible to sunder an Amulet of Natural Armour, a Ring of Protection, a Dusty Rose Ioun Stone, or even a magical shield. The requisite info is as follows:
Amulet of Nat Armour: AC 14+Dex mod (Diminutive object), Hardness 10?, HP 5?
Ring of Protection: AC 18+Dex mod, Hardness 10, HP 2 (per DMG!). I recommend that you require a character's Gauntlets (if any) be sundered before attacking the ring. I would also suggest that non-magical gloves not provide this same protection, but that magical gloves should.
Edit: The original version of this post said 13. I failed to take into account that the DMG value assumes the item was unattended, and so had an effective Dex of 0 (a -5 penalty).
Dusty Rose Ioun Stone: AC 24, Hardness 10, HP 5. A character's Dex mod does not apply to this item's AC; it is neither carried nor worn.
Shield: Sundering a shield requires an opposed attack roll, and a weapon of at least equal enhancement bonus. Hardness and hit points are given in the PHB.
Although the comments about the gauntlets/rings seemed to be a joke at the time I think it's a good idea and only common sense to require that the gauntlets be sundered first, the reason being that the PC's wouldn't know about said ring's until the gauntlet has been removed.
ReplyDeleteThis leads me to questions about improving a wizards AC. I take it the only option open to them is using Sheild/Mage Armour and then various amulets/rings, taking into account I don't want to add a spell failure chance?
Also, are there any spells for wizards that can add AC to the group rather than personal?
Well, there are Bracers of Armour, which give an armour bonus to Wizards. A +1 bonus costs 1,000, +2 costs 4,000, and so on. They're expensive to get very high, but only half as expensive as the equivalent ring (oh, and they go up to +8 instead of +5).
ReplyDeleteThere's also a Ring of Force Shielding, which gives a +2 shield bonus to AC. Costs 8,500 gold.
There aren't a lot of wizard spells that help the whole group. That's usually the role of the Cleric. In any case, the armour classes of the group are so high that most such spells wouldn't help much, if at all.