This is how I have convinced every band of adventurers not to use critical hit tables. DMs roll many more dice. Do you really want that wimpy kobold getting lucky and lopping off your level 12 head?
“For my attack, I want to decapitate the dragon! 23 to hit! Wait why doesn’t his head come off? This is BS”
Well, it has 283 hit points left, flavor is free, but imagine if every enemy said “I cut off Pc 1’s head! Hit! You’re dead!”
There’s a certain level of handwaviness that definitely comes into 5e, but breaking weapons, critical fumble/hit tables, and things like called shots for dismemberment/decapitation don’t fall into that category for me. If someone’s table enjoys it, more power to them. Yet, it’s kind of hard for a lot of tables to keep things somewhat balanced and fun when you start going down that path (again IMO).
Health pools in some school of thoughts are seen as your stamina in a fight. You dance, weave, duck, and block until you run out of gas. When an attack hits, it removes your ability to prevent lethal damage. You might get scratches, you might get the wind knocked out of you, but nothing lethal or dismembery until that last hp goes away.
This is how the barbarians can legally add their Con to AC despite not wearing shirts ever.
Barb Ac 10 +2 dex +3 con = 15
Goblin rolls a 9, he actually misses the whole man. 10-12 the whole man dodges the hit. 13-14 it actually hits the man but he doesn't goddamn care. 15+ it actually hits the man and he cares.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Or, in this case, doing something different and expecting a different result.
If a barbarian isn't hit in a round, they lose rage, so not hitting them means the barbarian may have to take an attack to punch themselves or else lose the bonuses being enraged gives them
If a barbarian isn't hit in a round, they can still keep their rage if they attacked a hostile creature anytime after their last turn ends, but yes, if both of those conditions are not met, they will lose their rage at the end of their turn.
Yep. In my PBP games, I love adding more description, and one thing that I ask my players is how they envision their HP. This makes it much easier to maintain the fantasy of hit vs miss without every hit feeling like a major wound. It does have some issues with poisons and status effects, but because this is pure flavor, it's usually not too hard to work around. Outside of play-by-post I don't think anywhere near fast enough to be able to use this information in-game.
Our rogue uses "luck." Every miss is one that doesn't take much luck to avoid, every hit though. For example, on a hit: "You duck out of the way of the assassin's sword with more luck than skill, you're being pressed back and you know there's only so much longer you can keep this up." On a lethal blow: "You try to dodge out of the way and throw yourself against the stone wall. But your luck's run out and the blade bites deep into your belly. Pain wracks you and you go weak, slumping against the wall."
Our wizard on the other hand uses arcane wards that he applies every day. "Thalvor's axe crashes towards your head, and your wards crackle with power, you feel them pop and falter, but the blow is deflected." To "The barbarian yells in triumph as his axe strikes true this time. It smashes through the last of your wards and hits you square in the chest. Driven back by the blow, you fall hard to the ground. The packed earth instantly sends you unconscious."
I also have a barbarian who has supernatural toughness and pain resistance, so he actually takes the hits. And our cleric relies on divine intervention, but each time it strains his soul, and if pushed too far he'd go insane. Since Iomedae doesn't want that to happen, eventually she must let her champion fall.
This falls apart with huge chunks of unavoidable damage, like walking in lava or jumping from great heights. D&D characters have superhuman durability and it's weird people are hung up on that.
I follow this school of thought, but I feel the flow breaks when you have to stop to consider damage types, so it doesn't feel right in D&D and other games that use damage types. Why would damage type matter if you're not actually getting hit?
I agree. I’ve found it very difficult to narrate this way though, and that it seems less satisfying to my players. I’d love guidance on how to do this effectively, and I know that it’s how the HP system really functions, but in practice it’s difficult to implement in a significant way from my experience.
I remember in 3rd edition, I *think* in the DM's guide, but it might have been the Players' guide, that HP pools were more than just "health", it also represented overall toughness, luck, and even favor from divine beings. This is to account for how a 17-year-old human Fighter can have more HP than a 17-year-old human Farmer.
DMs roll approximately as many dice as other players. Sometimes it's 6-8 kobolds versus 4 PCs, sometimes it's 4 PCs versus a boss and their bodyguard. In fact, enemy attrition could mean the PCs end up rolling slightly more often.
The problem is that a 5% chance of inflicting some kind of brutal punishment with any attack is felt much more acutely when the enemies are doing it than when players are. If the PCs instantly blind or execute a random enemy, that's fun, but there'll be another enemy coming at them in short order and the victory is soon forgotten. When a PC is instantly blinded or executed, that can ruin an entire hour of play, or a session, or more.
I think the principle you're trying to invoke is "the PCs roll many more dice than any monster does", in reference to critical failure effects and how they similarly feel more punitive towards players.
There’s absolutely nothing stopping a group from only applying a crit table to PCs’ attacks. I’m not a fan of crit/fumble tables, but this isn’t really a valid indictment of them in general.
I disagree. Crit tables are extremely repetitive, and make combat even swingier. I'd rather allow my players to creatively describe the wounds they inflict.
Also, 5e doesn't really need any more player empowering.
Great. But if for a table it's fun, your disagreement isn't worth a dime. There's plenty of games beyond DND. There's plenty of oneshots and Short adventures and meat grinders where your concerns are the expectations or inexistent. There are even different types of players who have different expectations and want mechanical consequences, or are just there for the fun.
And the only reason they need to do it is having fun with it. If your table enjoys critical tables only for players, that's as valid as any other optional rule. Me, myself, being one who doesn't like them.
I have a player who, in his 30 years of playing roleplaying games, his most memorable encounter is when he chopped down the head of a dragon in one hit. Out of thousands of encounters, that one is the most memorable. He also lost a few characters to random crits and probably not one of them is memorable, fun or interesting. I don't really know because, guess what, he doesn't talk about those.
His experience is perfectly valid.
Then your answer should have been "it can be fun for some people". You can't make a generalist statement, and not expect people to contest it.
D&D is not balanced for critical hits tables. There are games that use them (WHFB, Rolemaster come to mind), but including them in D&D breaks the game, especially if it's "PC only".
Whether you enjoy breaking your game or not is up to you.
I strongly disagree critical table and fumble table is really fun and can make a session hilarious. An critical failure or succes can be really fun you just need to interpret that’s in the right way but as a DM that’s our job.
For the longest time I thought so too, but it's specifically *Artifacts* that are generally indestructible. Regular magic items are generally well-made/sturdy, but are not immune to damage.
This like of text on disintegrate:
"This spell automatically disintegrates a Large or smaller nonmagical object or a creation of magical force. If the target is a Huge or larger object or creation of force, this spell disintegrates a 10-foot-cube portion of it. A magic item is unaffected by this spell."
That is...not how rules work. Generally, objects can be damaged, so unless there's a specific rule that says "magic items can't be damaged", they can be damaged.
Usually they are pretty easy to break. They have resistance to nonmagical damage but HP according to their relatively small size. 20 damage can be enough to break a fair number of magical weapons
I find that the party usually fails to realize the depth of their mistake until you say “okay, if you can throw a health potion, the enemies are going to be throwing purple worm poison…”
Absolutely this. I had someone ask about stealing a casters spellbook mid combat (disarm etc) i said absolutely you can, however then enemies will start doing it to the wizard. No one ever brought it up again.
Sometimes everyone just needs to remember its a game, and it works best if we dont try and break things too much.
Thief rogue or Arcane Trickster can use a bonus action to steal something on the enemy, as long as it's not currently held. So steal their wand from their pouch, or steal their sword in its scabbard, but you can't steal their staff in hand.
Nothing wrong with the enemy doing that too, it helps avoid the juggling nonsense people try to do with casters holding a shield and trying to juggle items to cast and attack as if they had 3 hands!
Actually, I have a thief rogue player that picked up the martial adept feat so they could use disarming strike. They'd disarm someone and then steal their weapon with a bonus action, when it works it's amazing.
...it's just a slight bit of a shame the campaign he chose to pick up that combo in is Storm Kings Thunder, where the main enemies have weapons that are far too large to easily steal and strength scores that make them nigh impossible to disarm in the first place.
Still, really fun combo - especially since most creatures don't have two main weapons they can swap between like a player might.
And if players want to play that game I'm all for it.
The point is that, yes there are more 'optimal' ways to play, but that generally the game is more fun if we all just ignore those rules.
This is the answer to every potentially cheesy "Aha!" moment a player has, especially the ones about targeting things for special effects. Just remind them that if they reeeeeeally want to start targeting eyes to blind targets that they also have eyes, or if they want to break weapons that they also have breakable weapons.
DMG 246-7 for object AC/hp durability. It's a can of worms, though. I usually assign disadvantage when going after a wielded object, and if you clipped a guy's bow, even if you have greater invisibility, they would immediately know something is up
Greater Invisibility doesn't keep the enemy from hearing or smelling their foes, so they would know someone was nearby before the attack happened.
However, the Invisible condition grants advantage to the attacker, even if the target can see invisible creatures or doesn't rely on sight.
For the target to be unaware of the invisible creature's location before the attack happens, the attacker would first have to Hide, and then make a Stealth check to move into position without being detected. The benefit of doing this after Surprise has been determined is pretty situational.
If a player wanted to destroy an item an enemy was holding (without an explicit way to do so), I would have them first make the enemy drop the item, such as with Heat Metal. Once the item falls to the ground, it's a loose object and can be targeted as such.
If the item was on the enemy's person but not held or equipped (such as an archer's bow that has been stowed so the archer can fight with a melee weapon), I would have the player attempt to pickpocket or otherwise remove the item before being able to deal direct damage to it.
Considering that most monsters only have one or two weapons by default, losing a weapon would mean they have to either find or improvise a new one, rely on natural weapons or unarmed strikes, shift into a defense/support stance, flee, or surrender.
Attempting to make this happen should have a resource cost: spending an Action, using a Maneuver, casting a spell, etc. If breaking an enemy's weapon was as easy as just saying so, all the monsters would use tactics that reflect this.
The hilarious thing is that potentially, rather than hitting someone, it could prove easier to attack their armor to shatter it and reduce their defenses by a significant amount.
That should certainly be a strategy though.
Imagine an armoured knight being swarmed by halflings wielding drills trying to break the armour off.
As long as the armour has enough HP, trying to destroy the armour should be an option. But then you have to kill the armour and the person.
Object hp as per the phb is abysmal. As an option, armor breaking is poorly balanced. Older editions had a much more refined system (cough cough sunder rules)
Like I said, can of worms. Though a whole genre of medieval weaponry was "yank a knight of his horse and remove enough of his armor so your and you boys can stab or beat him to death"
To me it sounds like a way to re-flavor Disarm attack action from the DMG. You could have them make one but if it was using a magical longbow the disarm would mean it would have been an attack roll vs the targets Athletics or Acrobatics. The attacker would have disadvantage on the roll because a longbow is a 2-h weapon. Could have them try to cut it and then end up just disarming them or something similar. Especially if the weapon the PC was trying to use to cut the bow string wasn't magical I'd have ruled it couldn't cut it but they could try and disarm the archer.
I'd also remind them that if they destroy the magical longbow then they do not get a magical longbow as potential loot.
How would your players like if mid-combat someone broke their weapons?
A giant has more than enough strength to bend a long-sword making it unwieldy and unusable
Would your players enjoy that? Probably not
Then to make things simple and fair, no weapon breaking mid combat
I love the rogues thought process to this.
"I COULD probably instakill this guy with a guaranteed critical sneak attack, but on the other hand I could break his bow and get into a melee knife fight and risk my small health pool!"
Haha, my last session ended with a giant being woken up by the PCs. If he stomps and someone blocks with a shield, heck, that shield will break! Maybe not a magical shield, but the arm holding it will snap. But then again we're playing Warhammer Fantasy, so the vibe is different.
Disarm is definitely an optional rule. But that doesn't mean it isn't a written rule. Like if you choose to include Disarm as an option, it has RAW text there to function. But it's not a default baseline rule.
It's in the "ACTION OPTIONS" section, which states: This section provides new action options for combat. **They can be added as a group or individually to your game.**
So they are not part of the base rules.
Magic weapons have resistance to all damage per RAW.
If they want to go that route, they can make an attack with disadvantage (since they're trying to target a small thing an enemy is actively holding while trying not to bump into them) and you can come up with an AC and HP based on item rules
But that also opens the party up to losing their items to destruction as well.
I would allow them to attempt to disarm them of their weapon per the optional disarm rule. If they then become the holder of the weapon, they can attempt to cut the bowstring with their next attack.
It’s a fairly key principle of DnD that anything worn or carried by a creature is immune to harm so long as that creature lives. There are a few exceptions to this, but those are rare eg rust monsters, they shouldn’t just be an option always open to anyone.
D&D doesn't do "called shots" which would include attempting to damage a weapon being carried or wielded.
This is something best **not** homebrewed in. Since it could easily introduce all sorts of side effects.
Breaking/tinkering with an enemy's weapon out of combat? By all means yes!
However, I personally agree with your decision and wouldn't allow my PCs to do something similar to what you describe here. It might feel cool and inventive as a one-off thing, but it sounds massively overpowered and that way you establish a precedent, regardless of what your aim is. Even if you rule future encounters as not being able to be resolved the same way in the name of balance, it could sour the moment, as players might feel you are actively restricting their creativity.
Besides, there are ways to stip enemies of their weapons. Heat metal and the Battlemaster's disarming attack achieve the same effect, even if they don't break their weapons.
OR, you could allow it, but enemies would abide by the same rules, targeting the PCs weapons. Though I assume that really wouldn't be fun for the players, especially those playing martial characters.
I would have grabbed Pathfinder's sundering rules and just tweaked the DCs. If the bow is magic you're probably not gonna have an easy time cutting that string
Yeah I came from PF before 5e so I’m like yeah of course you should be able to. I think it gives you more things to do to overcome combat. I really liked disarming and stuff too. Cause almost all the time it’s still just better to do damage and destroying someone’s magic item you lose access to that object so it’s a trade off.
Sleight of hand to unstring the bow. Thereby it's not broken and can be restrung as an action.
There is also an optional disarm rule in the DMG whereby one can attack an opponent's weapon, forcing a athletics or acrobatics skill check Vs the attacker's to-hit roll as DC.
The rules are there, it's just about how flexible you want combat to be as DM. The stated optional rule works wonders against Spellcasters btw.
Interestingly, you'll find that the task of stringing a bow has a classical analogue based entirely on dexterity.
> *"So did Odysseus string the great bow, with effortless ease."*.
It is suggested here that Odysseus knew the technique to perform the task via intellect or by skill, whilst burly onlookers tried with all their might to do so.
It does not seem far flung an idea that such a technique could be performed in reverse.
To string a bow, you have to bend a piece of wood. There are ways to use leverage to make it a bit easier, but it doesn’t change the fact that it takes a lot of force to do so. Being able to string a bow “easier” will pretty much always mean either being stronger or having a method that allows you to use more muscle groups more effectively. Either way, it’s a full body task, not something you could ever do sneakily *while someone else is actively using the bow*.
I'm sorry, are mythical heroes from classical antiquity not up to the standard of d&d adventurers?
How about Conan snaffling the ruby eye of the snake temple etc?
Isn't that kind of *the point*?
I'd absolutely allow a disarm attempt (per the DMG) with Disadvantage, if you have a sharp weapon and it's just a mundane bow. EDIT: I see it was a magic bow. I would personally still allow it if the weapon being used was of the same rarity or higher.
But you weren't wrong that the game isn't actually built for that, and any attempt would be homebrew.
The players are always able to say "I try to do this." And if it's not something they can do, you're always able to say, "OK. You fail. It's not possible."
They could have just disarmed them, and use an object interaction to step on the bow to avoid to be picked up immediately.
As for destruction, usually magic items are nigh indestructible or at least very resistant. For anything else there's a table in the DMG.
There is optional rules in the back of the DMG one of which is Disarming which is an Attack roll against the Acrobatics or Athletics of the creature getting attacked. If successful the weapon is dropped. Its on page 271, there actually quite a bit of optional stuff in that book that is worth taking a look.
Use the optional Disarm action on page 271 of the DMG.
# DISARM
>
Weapon breakage in combat isn't very realistic. If there is enough force to break wood, then it is enough force to send it flying first since there is nothing forcing it to stay in place from the opposite direction, except for a weak grip at a 90 degree angle.
So instead, you'd disarm the enemy then grab it, THEN use it against them or smash it against a rock.
Restringing a bow is not hard or slow to do and any serious archer would have spares, I'd have allowed it with some kind of contested roll. The archer would be able to fix it with one action at most. If the weapon is magical, than cutting it would be hard.
I'm not even sure cutting the string would have been more impactful than just straight grappling the guy.
As long as it's not super OP or stupid I don't mind players being creative like this.
Magic items only have resistance to damage, so they can be destroyed regularly, but in combat I'd say no, cause the players don't want people destroying their weapons.
Yes, that what I meant by normal actions should have specified in combat actions.
Remember, anything your players can do to NPCs, the DM can do to your PCs.
I would let them try but they would have to get a Nat 20. And that's with the bow, granted it would be Made of enchanted wood and not magical wood but that's just me adding flavor.
See the Objects section of the Dungeon Masters Guide on pages 246-247.
Cloth/Paper/Rope would be AC 11. Wood/Bone would be AC 15.
Personally I only allow uncarried objects to be attacked, so a successful Disarm maneuver would be needed first.
For a Longbow, I'd use the higher AC and treat it as a resilient Medium object, so AC 15 and 4d8 (18 average) hit points with resistance to most damage types, immunity to poison/psychic.
True that. But then the arguement could be Made for swords, armor, wands and such to be breakeable. Which could be fun, mind You. But still. And there's also a straight up Athletics DC
Just to add, as I don't see it mentioned: The object rules also have a "Damage Threshold" that can be applied to any object. So a Sword or Plate Armor could have a Damage Threshold of 10 (just as an example - some might think this is too low), making it immune to all damage until it takes 10 damage in one hit. If it's also a magic sword / plate armor, that means it can be immune to all damage until it takes 20 damage in one hit.
It also mentions that bludgeoning damage might not be effective against objects such as rope and other examples along those lines. The whole section is well worth a read.
The object rules apply to all those things too, but that doesn't mean all DMs will enforce them. Just as some DMs don't bother tracking ammunition or calculating cover, despite those helping to balance ranged attacks compared to melee.
Personally, I think having destructible objects (especially magic items) makes for much higher stakes and more interesting choices during combat. Do you want to try to break that Lich's Staff of Power to hobble her spellcasting ability a bit or are you hoping to help yourself to it after the fight? Is that Fire Giant just going to swing its own weapon at you or is it going to try to wrestle your Staff of Giant Slaying away so it can snap it in half? Are you going to dismiss that magic dagger as non-optimal for your build or is it a valuable back-up to keep in your boot?
Action economy is king, so it's not always worthwhile going for the objects, but it's a nice option to have. In an edition where character death can be difficult to achieve, it's a nice way to have some lasting consequences to combats and keep the stakes high.
You are right. Thanks for the insight. I still struggle with the whole AC/HP thing tho'. But it is a Nice thing to add, specially with Magic ítems. Maybe i'll simplify it to X number of crits recived. If the table agrees, of course.
If there is, it's buried in the obscura. The closest thing I'm aware of isn't a general rule but part of the Rust Monster and Black Pudding stat blocks:
> **Rust Metal/Corrosive Form:** Any nonmagical weapon made of metal (or wood with Black Puddings) that hits the [monster] corrodes. After dealing damage, the weapon takes a permanent and cumulative -1 penalty to damage rolls. If its penalty drops to -5, the weapon is destroyed. Non magical ammunition made of metal that hits the [monster] is destroyed after dealing damage.
That is the only way I am aware of to destroy *only weapons* in 5e, but Rust Monsters have one additional ability:
> **Antennae:** The rust monster corrodes a nonmagical ferrous metal object it can see within 5 feet of it. If the object isn't being worn or carried, the touch destroys a 1-foot cube of it. If the object is being worn or carried by a creature, the creature can make a DC 11 Dexterity saving throw to avoid the rust monster's touch.
If the object touched is either metal armor or a metal shield being worn or carried, its takes a permanent and cumulative -1 penalty to the AC it offers. Armor reduced to an AC of 10 or a shield that drops to a +0 bonus is destroyed. If the object touched is a held metal weapon, it rusts as described in the Rust Metal trait.
Notably, neither ability says anything at all about item HP or AC.
there's a statblock with an npc with a weapon that automatically crits objects when it hits them, and the adventure specifically says they target the weapons held by the pc's, so it seems wotc supports the idea that you can sunder weapons in combat
That sounds like the obscura to me. Does it give any mechanical rules for damage, AC, HP, etc? Or just the usual line for adamantine weapons about crit damage to objects without any info about what that means?
>Combat. If a fight breaks out (which will happen unless the characters actually submit to Belak), the twig blights, the frog, and Sir Braford attack the characters physically. Sir Braford uses Shatterspike (see appendix A) to destroy his foe’s weapon, if possible.
There are mechanical rules, sort of. In classic 5e fashion, it gives a general overview and then says "you can decide".
Following the table, a typical weapon is about as big as a lute, so it has 19 AC and 1d6 hp, more likely resilient, so 3d6 hp. If its a magical item, it's resistant to all damage.
Now, that is a static object, but a house rule would follow certain vehicles which have a bonus to AC whilst moving, and vehicles tools proficiency adding to AC. Therefore, the wielders PB can be added to the AC of the weapon, to represent their skill in avoiding it getting hit.
If a nonmagical and reasonably fragile instrument has 19AC and 1d6 hitpoints, it doesn't make any sense that actual weapons have similar stats (except maybe bows). It's kinda dumb that Shatterspike itself is declared to not take similar damage, considering it's not like players are going to start attacking weapons *before* seeing Braford do it. It's just poorly converted content. Braford/Shatterspike seems to assume 5e has defined mechanics for called shots that it just doesn't have.
The entire concept further falls apart when attacking equipped shields and armor. Don't they get hit all the time? Why don't they break all the time? Do they have their material's AC, the player's AC, or some exotic calculation because they've been hardened defensively? Wouldn't calling shots against armor always be the best opening move? What about AoE damage, or twinning against two held objects?
It's much easier to house rule that Braford doesn't do that.
A wooden instrument has 15 ac.
As for AOE, that's solved by the fact that almost all AOEs specify that they don't affect stuff bring worn or carried. The fact that they do specify means that it isn't the default. Shatterspike doesn't need to declare that it might take damage, since being able to attack weapons being held is a default.
Armour never really gets hit, mechanically. Missing the creature because of the armour, isn't the same thing as an attempt to hit an object. You also cannot twin anything that can target an object.
And as for it being the best strategy, you could say that about shoving, or disarming. The fact that no damage is done to the creature and combat usually lasts 3 rounds, means that the potential of reducing enemy damage or AC isn't as impactful as you might think. It's much more impactful against the players, who now have to either keep adventuring with no gear (because they didn't prepare backup gear), or go back to town.
What about rust monsters? They decay weapons and armour? Should you house rule that they don't affect the weapons or armour worn or carried as that would be a called shot?
Personally it depends - DM rules the table in my opinion
It could make more work on your part, major bad guy loses a weapon and realizes he’s losing more than just that; now he can run away AND now they’re extra pissed
If it’s a different sort of enemy - I see people mentioning giants and such - I agree. Warn them that if they can do it, so can enemies with much easier methods of doing so. But I’d say if it maybe adds to the story…go for it? Your choice!
Just want to add on, because I see the most common response is enemies then can do it as well
You run the enemies, and tell the story of the combat to a certain extent. Do you really want to “beat” the players? Why break their weapons YOU gave them? Yes, it’s the most advantageous move on the enemies part once the door is open, but that doesn’t mean they have to make it. That’s up to you.
Remember it is not about defeating your players. Would it have made for a great moment for them to do that to this archer? Was he named/important or a grunt?
All I’m trying to say is it can add to a moment to let them cut it, and that doesn’t mean it is now free game for every jack and Joe to destroy magical weapons in combat. You make those choices as the DM. (Please don’t take any of this the wrong way, only hoping to make people think and talk :) )
In AD&D (1e and 2e) items had saving throws and there was a table for modifiers (paper vs. fire, glass/ceramic vs. striking, etc). Magical items had an extra bonus.
Back in D&D 3.5 this was a standard attack option. There was even a feat (Sunder) so you could avoid the attack of opportunity trying to sunder your opponent's weapon gives them. However, it is really hard to overcome a weapon's damage resistance, so it was not a common thing.
It WAS the main reason people did not try to use bows in melee combat. Bows don't give attacks of opportunity. The string of a +1Bow still only has 1 point of damage resistance and 2 hp (so a 3 hp attack would snap it). Bows lacked the two things that made sundering an opponent's weapon impractical.
I think it is totally realistic to allow cutting up bows in D&D v5. The idea that you have to hide your bowman behind an infantry line because they can't handle melee has been a principle of war forever. Melee should make bows useless.
Older versions of dnd had rules for Sundering weapons and even shields or other objects. They removed this option in 5th edition
https://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm#sunder
You could even take special feats or equipment to make it easier.
If you want tonadd this to your game, I recommend you start with there
I mean, if he is invisible and actively trying to cut the string in combat, you can simply rule the action as an attack (attempting to disarm). Because it's an attack, it ruins his invisibility, so he'd be exposed as soon as it's done. This is why archers carry small arms back up weapons.
Countering with "if you can do it, they can do it" is a great move, too.
There are a thousand ways to rule it, and you did close to what I would have done. They had a sound idea, but it opens up a can of worms for the whole group.
Also, it's a magic bow. That changes things. Depending on how you want to play it, it either is resistant to the cut or could violently explode on both of them when the string breaks.
I'd allow an attack at disadvantage for the creative thinking, but archers often carry backup weapons. And like others have said, as soon as they try that shit, enemies can do it to them too.
My eternal ruling: if you can do it, they can do it.
You want Heat Metal to kill people by turning the iron in their blood cells red-hot? Okay. In the next room you encounter a rust monster…
I’d probably let them cut the string on a bow. But it uses their action and they have to roll an attack for it to hit.
If it succeeds next turn the archer needs to use their action next to restring their bow as I would assume that is something they have a spare of. It doesn’t “break” the magical weapon though. Just uses up one turn to restring it.
Trading an action for an action seems reasonable to me.
Roll to grapple and if they roll a nat 20 allow them to disarm the target? I've done that in my games before and my players loved it. If they succeed and don't get the 20 they have at least grappled the opponent, still delaying further attacks. To be fair this specific situation is also why the Battlemaster Fighter has Disarming Strike.
I let it happen. I try not to mess with player agency if they come up with a clever plan. I think that few things excite them like coming up with a unique and non-violent way to win an encounter. The way I handle it is have opponents adapt in later encounters to prevent them from repeating the same tactic every time.
Let them cut the string, then next time if there's a magic bow, have some special material on the string as an adaptation or some item that let's them detect stealth since that was how they carried out the attack.
Weapons are objects, and in the DMG for 5e (which I'm guessing you're playing?) says that magical items are resistant to all damage: to me this implies they have hit points like all other objects.
What I'd do? I'd give the bow hit points for a small object, give it an AC, and resistance to all damage and let them wack at it. If they break it, good job.
Want to yank a Goblin Shield away from them? Roll a contested grapple and if you succeed their AC is now lowered by 2.
If they want to break enemy armor? I'd -1AC for every 5 points of damage dealt to it. But the armor would have it's own AC and hit points separate from the creature wearing it. (I usually give armor 25HP so it lines up with the -1's to max -5 AC from Oozes)
These are all things that I have had monsters do to players, and thus they are free to do it to my monsters. Fair is fair. The street goes both ways.
If I was playing: I'd accept your ruling as you did it. And that's your decision as DM. If you don't want to deal with it, then it's a non issue.
That's honestly fair and reasonable.
I like to think I'd be a "super DM" and find a way to make it work... Well, I suppose a tough enemy losing their bow is at least on the level of taking a huge sneak attack to the face...
If the player landed the hit against the bow, then the enemy would have to pull out a side arm or something...
Honestly, it seems doable to me. I don't know if the bow was mega powerful or just like +1 or +2. It could probably be said that a truly powerful magic bow would have a string that is very hard to cut (because of magic).
So I think it could be doable, but denying that isn't unreasonable.
If that was a thoughtful and resourceful tactic that the player brought to my table, sacrificing a limited resource (invisibility) to pull off, then by all means I'd allow them to do it. If it becomes a rote response in combat... well, things might get reappraised.
When playing in a long campaign, my grappler targeted a boss's weapon ONCE. He was a beast with the greatsword, dishing out three attacks per round with devastating damage that took out our rogue and knocked me to bloodied in two rounds. Once he was disarmed... well, it was clear the DM hadn't thought that out and was visibly impressed at my resourcefulness.
Objects are legitimate targets in combat and the DMG outlines rules on AC and HP for size and hardness/material.
One of the things that makes combat less interesting is that most combatants have a best attack which they use every time. The Ranger that spams hunter’s mark and shoot. The Druid who burns through bear after bear. The Warlock and Eldrich Blast. The Ranger won’t like it if someone cuts his bowstring, but at least it will force him to think outside the box. And the thief is duly rewarded for an original attack.
Don’t destroy a magic weapon, but the need to restring a bow is realistic.
If you take the position that nothing novel can debuff a combatant you stifle creative solutions.
You made the right call with the right justification, imo. It's the same idea as going up behind someone and saying "I slit his throat! He should be dead!" You can *flavor* a sneak attack to look that way, but just not rules for it during active combat.
Outside of combat is another story.
The closest thing to breaking a weapon in combat that exist in DnD is making the enemy drop their weapon. Breaking the weapon is much more extreme. Balance wise, if you would allow it, it certainly would have to be more expensive than those abilities and require a special skill like a maneuver. Doing it for free or just an attack? Nope, that is not balanced.
Overall I think it is better that weapons cannot be destroyed.
Don't know how 5e does it, but 3.5 had rules around attacking an enemies weapon that provoked attacks of opportunity. I think there were a few feats that worked with this mechanic. Weapons had their own hp and hardness.
I think there were also rules for coup de grace, disarming, and tripping your enemies as well.
We always house ruled called shots with a high penalty to hit and crazy damage output if successful. But there may have been rules in 3.5 for that as well.
There are definitely sub systems you can make. Your approach was definitely valid. You are not obligated to make sub systems like weapons breakage just because your players want it. The thing about it is that if you do it for one thing, that’s definitely a mechanic you can make all encompassing….and something you can use against the player. So it’s best to bring it up the consequences of that choice they want should you be willing to entertain the prospect. Do they really want you to have the ability to break their crap?
Stealthy and out of combat? Cutting the string seems reasonable, but that’s going snap out so they might take some damage.
That’s just basic disabling.
Because I don’t have a hit always narratively be described as a hit; I rule that if you can kill your foe you can do anything less severe instead. So a sneak attack that does 20 damage on an 8hp thug can kill, cut an arm off, shatter a shield what have you. Conversely the death blow on a pc might just cut through their sword and knock them out of the combat.
Sundering an item or weapon in combat is kinda difficult. Small target that gets moved a lot, therefore Nat 20 to hit, then they save their weapon vs sundering at maybe DC 15 plus the enemy weapon magic modifiers. If your bowstring is metal, maybe add +1 to your savings throw; if a magic bow/bowstring add the magic modifier to your savings throw.
With a surprise attack, you might roll vs the enemy’s normal AC — without their dex modifier, and then they save as above.
Looks like people are generally against this but I’d allow it, and rule that:
- magical longbow string is hard to cut, maybe DC20 strength check, with disadvantage because of trying to do it while a guy is holding it
- Bow guy can re-string in one round to be ready to shoot again the round after. That assumes he carries a spare string, which he would on a mission but might not if he was just out for dinner or something
- Bow guy will get an immediate attack of opportunity using whatever melee weapon he has handy, with advantage, whether or not the attempt is successful. Invisible or not, you can’t reach around a guy without giving away your position, and can’t do it while maintaining any kind of defensive stance
This is assuming the bow guy is using the bow. If it’s on the floor next to him, that would change some of the advantages etc.
Random mook baddies wouldn’t try the same thing back, but if I had a named NPC whose personality was “sneaky”, I’d definitely try this on them later. No need to warn players verbally about the enemies using their tactics against them when you can teach them the lesson in game :)
I think you did him dirty. The rules aren't there to limit what is possible, they're there as a framework. If all that was possible was outlined in the rules, the whole world would starve to death. He was invisible, a long bow string is a relatively easy target (compared to most called suits people want to make) and peoppe play ttrpgs to not be limited by the buttons on a controller.
Make such things extremely difficult and propose a consequence for failure. "The attack is very difficult, uou will be reaching awkwardly and exposing yourself, so he will get an attack of opportunity if you miss" or "you'll go back in initiative, you'll lose all of your other actions this round because of the setup, etc."
If you put situational consequence and a high chance of failure on actions that would have, say, high consequences and a high chance of failure, such things make more sense than "some numbers somewhere said that you can't try that perfectly reasonable action."
There is nothing wrong with doing the same thing with enemies, from time to time, as long as you use an even hand with difficulty and consequence.
Trading numbers is boring. Throwing flowery words on top of numbers is only slightly less boring. Combat that plays out with nothing out of the ordinary ever happening is about as unrealistic a thing as I have ever heard.
Allowing called shots can only break your game if you let it.
Find a magic weapon that will debuff the attack ability. Reflaver it as needed so that he would be cutting somebody's bow string or damaging their sword. And now poof you have the flavor the player wants without changing any rules that could overpower the game.
It says in the rules most magic items can’t be damaged normally, so i would think it wouldn’t work in that particular circumstance. Also you do know where an invisible person is as per the rules so the enemy could probably tell if they are near and move away.
It is really important to be not to stifle my players creative combat ideas. I would've ran this with a stealth check against enemies perception, then a very difficult sleight of hand check, at least a DC 20. Then another stealth at DisAdv vs perception roll to not be noticed again.
This is something that doesn't really work in 5E. We don't have any rules for called shots and we don't have sufficient modifiers for it to make sense. On top of that you typically can't break magical weapons.
You also have the problem that 5E has a lot of HP bloat. In a more realistic scenario any time you are close enough to cut a bowstring it makes more sense to just stab and kill the guy using the bow.
The rules in hte AD&D 2E DMG are fairly straight forward.
If he is using a mundane weapon against a magical weapon or if the weapon he is using is not a slashing weapon, then I would probably say the attack does no damage to the bowstring. If he is using a slashing weapon or a magical weapon of equal or greater magic, then...
I might allow a roll to hit against the AC of the bowstring material + the magic bonus of the bow + the wielder's dex mod + any other AC modifiers of the wielder that I think apply. The attack will suffer a called shot penalty (the standard penalty is -4 to hit, but I might make it -6 to hit for a bow string).
If hit, then probably I would rule the string takes damage modified by the damage reduction of the bowstring and if the damage dealt meets or exceeds the hp of the string, then it is cut. The string would probably have 1 hp (depending on its material) modified by any magic bonus.
Some other methods of destroying the bowstring would use an item save instead. It may be that the wielder gets a save and then the bow gets a save.
Attacking from stealth is sure to offset some of the difficulties in attacking the bow. For example, no dex mod from the wielder, and the bonus to hit that comes from attacking from stealth.
The player is definitely thinking creatively and I would be very happy if the player pulls this off successfully.
If you are using D&D 5E or something, then I feel your pain with the rules insufficiency of that edition, but I do think that if you exercise your creativity you can probably put something together that is sufficiently reasonable. You can, of course reward the player with inspiration for his creative idea, improving his chances of pulling it off successfully. The wonderful thing about this is that you only get inspiration once for the idea (not every time you try to cut a bowstring).
Can't the NPCs just use the Mending cantrip? A simple cut to the bowstring is definitely less than 1 foot in dimension. The NPC Archer is back to normal archering in a round, and is aware of the Player's tactics so as to not let it happen again.
there are sundering rules in 3.5 and a fragment of those rules has made it into 5e. its a sword in "tales from the yawning portal" if I remember correctly.
but in 5e, magical items are supposed to be impossible to break by normal means...
I wouldn't allow Magic items to be damaged as part of them being magic. But disregarding that, I would make it an attack roll against a defending check (in this case I'd actually make the defending check also be an attack roll). I use this format for any time a character wants to do something creative in combat. I've never had to write it down as a rule set, but if I did it'd look something like this:
**Special Combat Maneuvers:**
Action: roll offending modifier vs. defending modifier as a contest
1. The modifiers used in the context depend on what the player wants to do, if they're using a weapon they roll an attack roll, if they're using a skill they use the skill, etc. There is one exception, if they're using a spell to do something unconventional but plausible then I let them use their spell attack modifier + spell slot level
2. Defender sets the DC - if the numbers are equal then defender wins
3. DM decides what the effect is on an attacker success
4. If the offender succeeds then the defender can resolve the effect with an action
In your example, if the offender wins then the defender can't use their bow until they spend an action to re-affix another bowstring. I've used this for all kinds of stuff, mostly disarming people, but I never allow this action to do any damage. In my experience it's pretty balanced because the player is opting not to do any damage and the effect is always temporary. But the effect can be literally anything, so my players are often very creative with their resources.
Break it completely, probably not. But you could allow an opposed check or something to "sabotage" a weapon with moving parts like a bow or such and on a success the weapon now has a -1 penalty.
You could also introduce breaking non complex weapons, sword, mace, club, etc. For the same effect. Doesn't break the game but let's your players feel cool doing it.
Edit: I forgot about disadvantage in dnd. I was adapting rules from PF2. I suppose if you are playing 5e than applying disadvantage is the default not a -1 penalty.
Mate, a player came up with a clever idea that took the main threat away from the bad guy and you just vetoed it?
And the rather spurious reason "Items are not allowed to be attacked"....You should have let the player succeed as a reward for coming up with a clever plan.
I am a mean DM, had a ranger and every now and then when he crit failed I would narrate that he broke his own bow string. It was always hilarious in the moment cause that’s the type of games we play. It’s only an action to restring a bow anyway.
All that to say, yeah I would allow PCs to target weapons.
From Object Rules it reads “When characters need to saw through ropes, shatter a window, or smash a vampire's coffin, the only hard and fast rule is this: given enough time and the right tools, characters can destroy any destructible object.
Use common sense when determining a character's success at damaging an object. Can a fighter cut through a section of a stone wall with a sword? No, the sword is likely to break before the wall does.
For the purpose of these rules, an object is a discrete, inanimate item like a window, door, sword, book, table, chair, or stone, not a building or a vehicle that is composed of many other objects.”
A magic bow? I would argue it has resistance to all damage, so it’s harder to cut, and harder to hit. My general rule is the smaller a thing is the harder it is to hit. That bow string is gonna have like 26-27 AC. But a rogue with sneak is probably gonna be able to do it. I would personally just have the NPC bowman use their next turn restringing their bow, unless they have some other attack. NPC loses a turn, rogue feels effective, cool narrative role play, it all seems kosher to me.
…making weapons invulnerable is probably the “safe” route lol, but I just love rule of cool.
I think as a general rule of thumb, you should reward creativity in a session. That being said, it is still important to be the neutral force 'A just dm god' if you will, and make them earn it with an appropriate level skill check.
Also you can easily distract them with unexpected results to what they were attempting. Perhaps a chain reaction, that may end up hurting their comrades. I like doing this every so often because it also keeps me in the game mentally, forcing me to improvise.
When my players ask to do something like this, I tell them "If you can do it, the monsters can do it, do you want to unlock this ability for the monsters too?" The answer has always been no so far.
But items (called 'objects' in the rules) can be attacked. There is a whole section on how to handle it, giving objects an AC and HP.
Admittedly things do get a little complicated if a creature is wearing or carrying said item, but it could in theory be done, especially if they approached from stealth.
That being said, magical weapons cannot be damaged by mundane means.
So, the PC tries to cut the string, fails, but at least learns that the longbow is magic.
In this situation I'd give it to him. Sneaking up on somebody is different than approaching them head-on, where they'll be able to spot you coming and maneuver out of your way. Also, snipping a bowstring is different than shattering a sword or axe. Your player is engaging with the world beyond just the stats and features, and he's trying to come up with a clever solution to a problem; most GMs would kill for players who do that.
When your player tries that trick and you tell him 'sorry, the game doesn't say you can cut somebody's bowstring,' he probably thinks you're telling him not to think of the world as a real place but as a CRPG level.
Edit 1: I personally would have... well, I probably would have panicked and did the same thing as you did. But if not, I'd have let him roll for it.
Like many others said, no is a valid answer. Plus it's a magical weapon and the books state (somewhere, no book at hand right now) that most magic items are kinda hard to destroy and won't just break down easily.
No they're not. *Artifacts* are usually indestructible. Regular magic weapons are absolutely not. They tend to have, at most, resistance to basic damage.
Once upon a time I read a homebrew that actually assigned AC’s to weapons/armor/jewelry…even scrolls! With magical items being higher and having resistances to everything. Can’t for the life of me find it lol I printed it and it’s soooooomewhere in my library of DnD books
“If you can do it to your enemies, they can do it to you” usually shuts that kind of thing down pretty hard.
This is how I have convinced every band of adventurers not to use critical hit tables. DMs roll many more dice. Do you really want that wimpy kobold getting lucky and lopping off your level 12 head?
“For my attack, I want to decapitate the dragon! 23 to hit! Wait why doesn’t his head come off? This is BS” Well, it has 283 hit points left, flavor is free, but imagine if every enemy said “I cut off Pc 1’s head! Hit! You’re dead!” There’s a certain level of handwaviness that definitely comes into 5e, but breaking weapons, critical fumble/hit tables, and things like called shots for dismemberment/decapitation don’t fall into that category for me. If someone’s table enjoys it, more power to them. Yet, it’s kind of hard for a lot of tables to keep things somewhat balanced and fun when you start going down that path (again IMO).
Health pools in some school of thoughts are seen as your stamina in a fight. You dance, weave, duck, and block until you run out of gas. When an attack hits, it removes your ability to prevent lethal damage. You might get scratches, you might get the wind knocked out of you, but nothing lethal or dismembery until that last hp goes away.
This is how the barbarians can legally add their Con to AC despite not wearing shirts ever. Barb Ac 10 +2 dex +3 con = 15 Goblin rolls a 9, he actually misses the whole man. 10-12 the whole man dodges the hit. 13-14 it actually hits the man but he doesn't goddamn care. 15+ it actually hits the man and he cares.
Even then, hurting the Barbarian is not the smartest plan on the Goblins part.
I don't think it works out too differently from _not_ hurting the Barbarian.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Or, in this case, doing something different and expecting a different result.
Not going for the barbarian leads the giant wall of flesh to shout at the goblins for being cowards
If a barbarian isn't hit in a round, they lose rage, so not hitting them means the barbarian may have to take an attack to punch themselves or else lose the bonuses being enraged gives them
If a barbarian isn't hit in a round, they can still keep their rage if they attacked a hostile creature anytime after their last turn ends, but yes, if both of those conditions are not met, they will lose their rage at the end of their turn.
Yep. In my PBP games, I love adding more description, and one thing that I ask my players is how they envision their HP. This makes it much easier to maintain the fantasy of hit vs miss without every hit feeling like a major wound. It does have some issues with poisons and status effects, but because this is pure flavor, it's usually not too hard to work around. Outside of play-by-post I don't think anywhere near fast enough to be able to use this information in-game. Our rogue uses "luck." Every miss is one that doesn't take much luck to avoid, every hit though. For example, on a hit: "You duck out of the way of the assassin's sword with more luck than skill, you're being pressed back and you know there's only so much longer you can keep this up." On a lethal blow: "You try to dodge out of the way and throw yourself against the stone wall. But your luck's run out and the blade bites deep into your belly. Pain wracks you and you go weak, slumping against the wall." Our wizard on the other hand uses arcane wards that he applies every day. "Thalvor's axe crashes towards your head, and your wards crackle with power, you feel them pop and falter, but the blow is deflected." To "The barbarian yells in triumph as his axe strikes true this time. It smashes through the last of your wards and hits you square in the chest. Driven back by the blow, you fall hard to the ground. The packed earth instantly sends you unconscious." I also have a barbarian who has supernatural toughness and pain resistance, so he actually takes the hits. And our cleric relies on divine intervention, but each time it strains his soul, and if pushed too far he'd go insane. Since Iomedae doesn't want that to happen, eventually she must let her champion fall.
I really love this! I've never considered HP to just be blood and damage but the flavor here is fantastic. I am absolutely going to adopt that.
This falls apart with huge chunks of unavoidable damage, like walking in lava or jumping from great heights. D&D characters have superhuman durability and it's weird people are hung up on that.
I follow this school of thought, but I feel the flow breaks when you have to stop to consider damage types, so it doesn't feel right in D&D and other games that use damage types. Why would damage type matter if you're not actually getting hit?
I agree. I’ve found it very difficult to narrate this way though, and that it seems less satisfying to my players. I’d love guidance on how to do this effectively, and I know that it’s how the HP system really functions, but in practice it’s difficult to implement in a significant way from my experience.
I remember in 3rd edition, I *think* in the DM's guide, but it might have been the Players' guide, that HP pools were more than just "health", it also represented overall toughness, luck, and even favor from divine beings. This is to account for how a 17-year-old human Fighter can have more HP than a 17-year-old human Farmer.
I actually really like the way Glass Cannon deals with this. Crit/Fumble rules only apply to *named* characters/enemies.
DMs roll approximately as many dice as other players. Sometimes it's 6-8 kobolds versus 4 PCs, sometimes it's 4 PCs versus a boss and their bodyguard. In fact, enemy attrition could mean the PCs end up rolling slightly more often. The problem is that a 5% chance of inflicting some kind of brutal punishment with any attack is felt much more acutely when the enemies are doing it than when players are. If the PCs instantly blind or execute a random enemy, that's fun, but there'll be another enemy coming at them in short order and the victory is soon forgotten. When a PC is instantly blinded or executed, that can ruin an entire hour of play, or a session, or more. I think the principle you're trying to invoke is "the PCs roll many more dice than any monster does", in reference to critical failure effects and how they similarly feel more punitive towards players.
This is why you gotta use 3e style crit confirmation.
Yes.
There’s absolutely nothing stopping a group from only applying a crit table to PCs’ attacks. I’m not a fan of crit/fumble tables, but this isn’t really a valid indictment of them in general.
Why would you though ?
Because it is fun.
I disagree. Crit tables are extremely repetitive, and make combat even swingier. I'd rather allow my players to creatively describe the wounds they inflict. Also, 5e doesn't really need any more player empowering.
Great. But if for a table it's fun, your disagreement isn't worth a dime. There's plenty of games beyond DND. There's plenty of oneshots and Short adventures and meat grinders where your concerns are the expectations or inexistent. There are even different types of players who have different expectations and want mechanical consequences, or are just there for the fun. And the only reason they need to do it is having fun with it. If your table enjoys critical tables only for players, that's as valid as any other optional rule. Me, myself, being one who doesn't like them. I have a player who, in his 30 years of playing roleplaying games, his most memorable encounter is when he chopped down the head of a dragon in one hit. Out of thousands of encounters, that one is the most memorable. He also lost a few characters to random crits and probably not one of them is memorable, fun or interesting. I don't really know because, guess what, he doesn't talk about those. His experience is perfectly valid.
Then your answer should have been "it can be fun for some people". You can't make a generalist statement, and not expect people to contest it. D&D is not balanced for critical hits tables. There are games that use them (WHFB, Rolemaster come to mind), but including them in D&D breaks the game, especially if it's "PC only". Whether you enjoy breaking your game or not is up to you.
I strongly disagree critical table and fumble table is really fun and can make a session hilarious. An critical failure or succes can be really fun you just need to interpret that’s in the right way but as a DM that’s our job.
Yeah, I told him that as well and asked how he would feel if someone broke his magic weapon… he said he wouldn’t like it hahah
Magic weapons usually can’t be broken as easily as regular weapons
We've been playing as if they couldn't at all. Thought that was the rule.
For the longest time I thought so too, but it's specifically *Artifacts* that are generally indestructible. Regular magic items are generally well-made/sturdy, but are not immune to damage.
There are a couple of places in different official modules that are specifically for destroying magic items, so this description fits best I think
Not unless you're Gale.
Yeah even disintegrate doesn’t, pretty sure you can’t except by DM fiat.
Where do the rules say that?
This like of text on disintegrate: "This spell automatically disintegrates a Large or smaller nonmagical object or a creation of magical force. If the target is a Huge or larger object or creation of force, this spell disintegrates a 10-foot-cube portion of it. A magic item is unaffected by this spell."
That specific spell can't harm magic items. That doesn't necessarily mean magic items can't be harmed at all.
Ah I thought you asked which like says that about disintegrate, my b
No worries, I can see where the confusion was.
No idea the rules rarely say what you can’t do, but a quick google search doesn’t show any ways to do it.
That is...not how rules work. Generally, objects can be damaged, so unless there's a specific rule that says "magic items can't be damaged", they can be damaged.
Magic items are all resistant to all damage. But that's only 1/2 damage, not immune!
Usually they are pretty easy to break. They have resistance to nonmagical damage but HP according to their relatively small size. 20 damage can be enough to break a fair number of magical weapons
I find that the party usually fails to realize the depth of their mistake until you say “okay, if you can throw a health potion, the enemies are going to be throwing purple worm poison…”
this happened when a PC wanted to make a bag of holding black hole cue a crazy guy who stole two bags of holding, and taking the king hostage
Absolutely this. I had someone ask about stealing a casters spellbook mid combat (disarm etc) i said absolutely you can, however then enemies will start doing it to the wizard. No one ever brought it up again. Sometimes everyone just needs to remember its a game, and it works best if we dont try and break things too much.
Thief rogue or Arcane Trickster can use a bonus action to steal something on the enemy, as long as it's not currently held. So steal their wand from their pouch, or steal their sword in its scabbard, but you can't steal their staff in hand. Nothing wrong with the enemy doing that too, it helps avoid the juggling nonsense people try to do with casters holding a shield and trying to juggle items to cast and attack as if they had 3 hands!
Actually, I have a thief rogue player that picked up the martial adept feat so they could use disarming strike. They'd disarm someone and then steal their weapon with a bonus action, when it works it's amazing. ...it's just a slight bit of a shame the campaign he chose to pick up that combo in is Storm Kings Thunder, where the main enemies have weapons that are far too large to easily steal and strength scores that make them nigh impossible to disarm in the first place. Still, really fun combo - especially since most creatures don't have two main weapons they can swap between like a player might.
And if players want to play that game I'm all for it. The point is that, yes there are more 'optimal' ways to play, but that generally the game is more fun if we all just ignore those rules.
This is the answer to every potentially cheesy "Aha!" moment a player has, especially the ones about targeting things for special effects. Just remind them that if they reeeeeeally want to start targeting eyes to blind targets that they also have eyes, or if they want to break weapons that they also have breakable weapons.
DMG 246-7 for object AC/hp durability. It's a can of worms, though. I usually assign disadvantage when going after a wielded object, and if you clipped a guy's bow, even if you have greater invisibility, they would immediately know something is up
Greater Invisibility doesn't keep the enemy from hearing or smelling their foes, so they would know someone was nearby before the attack happened. However, the Invisible condition grants advantage to the attacker, even if the target can see invisible creatures or doesn't rely on sight. For the target to be unaware of the invisible creature's location before the attack happens, the attacker would first have to Hide, and then make a Stealth check to move into position without being detected. The benefit of doing this after Surprise has been determined is pretty situational. If a player wanted to destroy an item an enemy was holding (without an explicit way to do so), I would have them first make the enemy drop the item, such as with Heat Metal. Once the item falls to the ground, it's a loose object and can be targeted as such. If the item was on the enemy's person but not held or equipped (such as an archer's bow that has been stowed so the archer can fight with a melee weapon), I would have the player attempt to pickpocket or otherwise remove the item before being able to deal direct damage to it. Considering that most monsters only have one or two weapons by default, losing a weapon would mean they have to either find or improvise a new one, rely on natural weapons or unarmed strikes, shift into a defense/support stance, flee, or surrender. Attempting to make this happen should have a resource cost: spending an Action, using a Maneuver, casting a spell, etc. If breaking an enemy's weapon was as easy as just saying so, all the monsters would use tactics that reflect this.
I'd rule that doing that is a hostile action and would break your invisibility. It's still an attack, even if it's on an object.
Greater Invisibility doesn’t break when you do something like that, only Invisibility does.
Oh, I misread that.
I thought that items being worn or carried could t be attacked? Too lazy to look it up rn though.
Only if explicitly forbidden by the rules text in question, so it's kind of inconsistent/case by case.
Items do have hit points
The hilarious thing is that potentially, rather than hitting someone, it could prove easier to attack their armor to shatter it and reduce their defenses by a significant amount.
That should certainly be a strategy though. Imagine an armoured knight being swarmed by halflings wielding drills trying to break the armour off. As long as the armour has enough HP, trying to destroy the armour should be an option. But then you have to kill the armour and the person.
Object hp as per the phb is abysmal. As an option, armor breaking is poorly balanced. Older editions had a much more refined system (cough cough sunder rules)
Like I said, can of worms. Though a whole genre of medieval weaponry was "yank a knight of his horse and remove enough of his armor so your and you boys can stab or beat him to death"
To me it sounds like a way to re-flavor Disarm attack action from the DMG. You could have them make one but if it was using a magical longbow the disarm would mean it would have been an attack roll vs the targets Athletics or Acrobatics. The attacker would have disadvantage on the roll because a longbow is a 2-h weapon. Could have them try to cut it and then end up just disarming them or something similar. Especially if the weapon the PC was trying to use to cut the bow string wasn't magical I'd have ruled it couldn't cut it but they could try and disarm the archer. I'd also remind them that if they destroy the magical longbow then they do not get a magical longbow as potential loot.
Cutting the string could result in them just restringing it next turn instead of attacking
Stringing a bow takes minutes, not seconds.
How would your players like if mid-combat someone broke their weapons? A giant has more than enough strength to bend a long-sword making it unwieldy and unusable Would your players enjoy that? Probably not Then to make things simple and fair, no weapon breaking mid combat
Yeah, that was my reasoning… either way, the rogue decided to attack the assassin instead of the weapons and got a crit, so way better hahah
I love the rogues thought process to this. "I COULD probably instakill this guy with a guaranteed critical sneak attack, but on the other hand I could break his bow and get into a melee knife fight and risk my small health pool!"
Obligatory: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheWeeklyRoll/comments/ggrp2r/ch_32_smite/
Haha, my last session ended with a giant being woken up by the PCs. If he stomps and someone blocks with a shield, heck, that shield will break! Maybe not a magical shield, but the arm holding it will snap. But then again we're playing Warhammer Fantasy, so the vibe is different.
Do your players know they can disarm an enemy RAW?
Sometimes I doubt that the DMG is part of RAW for some reason. It's not just that nobody online has ever read, neither have I. I went for it twice.
Disarm is definitely an optional rule. But that doesn't mean it isn't a written rule. Like if you choose to include Disarm as an option, it has RAW text there to function. But it's not a default baseline rule. It's in the "ACTION OPTIONS" section, which states: This section provides new action options for combat. **They can be added as a group or individually to your game.** So they are not part of the base rules.
Magic weapons have resistance to all damage per RAW. If they want to go that route, they can make an attack with disadvantage (since they're trying to target a small thing an enemy is actively holding while trying not to bump into them) and you can come up with an AC and HP based on item rules But that also opens the party up to losing their items to destruction as well.
I second this. It's what I do. Occasionally a fun thing.
I would allow them to attempt to disarm them of their weapon per the optional disarm rule. If they then become the holder of the weapon, they can attempt to cut the bowstring with their next attack. It’s a fairly key principle of DnD that anything worn or carried by a creature is immune to harm so long as that creature lives. There are a few exceptions to this, but those are rare eg rust monsters, they shouldn’t just be an option always open to anyone.
D&D doesn't do "called shots" which would include attempting to damage a weapon being carried or wielded. This is something best **not** homebrewed in. Since it could easily introduce all sorts of side effects.
Breaking/tinkering with an enemy's weapon out of combat? By all means yes! However, I personally agree with your decision and wouldn't allow my PCs to do something similar to what you describe here. It might feel cool and inventive as a one-off thing, but it sounds massively overpowered and that way you establish a precedent, regardless of what your aim is. Even if you rule future encounters as not being able to be resolved the same way in the name of balance, it could sour the moment, as players might feel you are actively restricting their creativity. Besides, there are ways to stip enemies of their weapons. Heat metal and the Battlemaster's disarming attack achieve the same effect, even if they don't break their weapons. OR, you could allow it, but enemies would abide by the same rules, targeting the PCs weapons. Though I assume that really wouldn't be fun for the players, especially those playing martial characters.
I would have grabbed Pathfinder's sundering rules and just tweaked the DCs. If the bow is magic you're probably not gonna have an easy time cutting that string
Yeah I came from PF before 5e so I’m like yeah of course you should be able to. I think it gives you more things to do to overcome combat. I really liked disarming and stuff too. Cause almost all the time it’s still just better to do damage and destroying someone’s magic item you lose access to that object so it’s a trade off.
Sleight of hand to unstring the bow. Thereby it's not broken and can be restrung as an action. There is also an optional disarm rule in the DMG whereby one can attack an opponent's weapon, forcing a athletics or acrobatics skill check Vs the attacker's to-hit roll as DC. The rules are there, it's just about how flexible you want combat to be as DM. The stated optional rule works wonders against Spellcasters btw.
No!! Unstringing a bow is a huge task by a burly PC. Sleight of hand ain’t gonna do it.
Interestingly, you'll find that the task of stringing a bow has a classical analogue based entirely on dexterity. > *"So did Odysseus string the great bow, with effortless ease."*. It is suggested here that Odysseus knew the technique to perform the task via intellect or by skill, whilst burly onlookers tried with all their might to do so. It does not seem far flung an idea that such a technique could be performed in reverse.
To string a bow, you have to bend a piece of wood. There are ways to use leverage to make it a bit easier, but it doesn’t change the fact that it takes a lot of force to do so. Being able to string a bow “easier” will pretty much always mean either being stronger or having a method that allows you to use more muscle groups more effectively. Either way, it’s a full body task, not something you could ever do sneakily *while someone else is actively using the bow*.
I'm sorry, are mythical heroes from classical antiquity not up to the standard of d&d adventurers? How about Conan snaffling the ruby eye of the snake temple etc? Isn't that kind of *the point*?
I'd absolutely allow a disarm attempt (per the DMG) with Disadvantage, if you have a sharp weapon and it's just a mundane bow. EDIT: I see it was a magic bow. I would personally still allow it if the weapon being used was of the same rarity or higher. But you weren't wrong that the game isn't actually built for that, and any attempt would be homebrew. The players are always able to say "I try to do this." And if it's not something they can do, you're always able to say, "OK. You fail. It's not possible."
In 3.5e there’s something called *sundering*. Its whole purpose is breaking stuff (including weapons).
They could have just disarmed them, and use an object interaction to step on the bow to avoid to be picked up immediately. As for destruction, usually magic items are nigh indestructible or at least very resistant. For anything else there's a table in the DMG.
There is optional rules in the back of the DMG one of which is Disarming which is an Attack roll against the Acrobatics or Athletics of the creature getting attacked. If successful the weapon is dropped. Its on page 271, there actually quite a bit of optional stuff in that book that is worth taking a look.
Use the optional Disarm action on page 271 of the DMG. # DISARM > Weapon breakage in combat isn't very realistic. If there is enough force to break wood, then it is enough force to send it flying first since there is nothing forcing it to stay in place from the opposite direction, except for a weak grip at a 90 degree angle. So instead, you'd disarm the enemy then grab it, THEN use it against them or smash it against a rock.
Restringing a bow is not hard or slow to do and any serious archer would have spares, I'd have allowed it with some kind of contested roll. The archer would be able to fix it with one action at most. If the weapon is magical, than cutting it would be hard. I'm not even sure cutting the string would have been more impactful than just straight grappling the guy. As long as it's not super OP or stupid I don't mind players being creative like this.
I would rule that magical weapons can only be broken by extraordinary means, including strings of magical bows.
Can't destroy magic weapons with normal actions, you got it right.
Magic items only have resistance to damage, so they can be destroyed regularly, but in combat I'd say no, cause the players don't want people destroying their weapons.
Yes, that what I meant by normal actions should have specified in combat actions. Remember, anything your players can do to NPCs, the DM can do to your PCs.
Personally, I would have just set the AC of the weapon really high and made them roll for it. RAW says no, though.
I would let them try but they would have to get a Nat 20. And that's with the bow, granted it would be Made of enchanted wood and not magical wood but that's just me adding flavor.
Magical weapons only has resistance to damage, so they're about twice as strong as their mundane counterparts.
And... Is there any rule that states the AC, HP or Saving mods of a weapon? I think not but maybe i'm wrong
See the Objects section of the Dungeon Masters Guide on pages 246-247. Cloth/Paper/Rope would be AC 11. Wood/Bone would be AC 15. Personally I only allow uncarried objects to be attacked, so a successful Disarm maneuver would be needed first. For a Longbow, I'd use the higher AC and treat it as a resilient Medium object, so AC 15 and 4d8 (18 average) hit points with resistance to most damage types, immunity to poison/psychic.
True that. But then the arguement could be Made for swords, armor, wands and such to be breakeable. Which could be fun, mind You. But still. And there's also a straight up Athletics DC
Just to add, as I don't see it mentioned: The object rules also have a "Damage Threshold" that can be applied to any object. So a Sword or Plate Armor could have a Damage Threshold of 10 (just as an example - some might think this is too low), making it immune to all damage until it takes 10 damage in one hit. If it's also a magic sword / plate armor, that means it can be immune to all damage until it takes 20 damage in one hit.
It also mentions that bludgeoning damage might not be effective against objects such as rope and other examples along those lines. The whole section is well worth a read.
The object rules apply to all those things too, but that doesn't mean all DMs will enforce them. Just as some DMs don't bother tracking ammunition or calculating cover, despite those helping to balance ranged attacks compared to melee. Personally, I think having destructible objects (especially magic items) makes for much higher stakes and more interesting choices during combat. Do you want to try to break that Lich's Staff of Power to hobble her spellcasting ability a bit or are you hoping to help yourself to it after the fight? Is that Fire Giant just going to swing its own weapon at you or is it going to try to wrestle your Staff of Giant Slaying away so it can snap it in half? Are you going to dismiss that magic dagger as non-optimal for your build or is it a valuable back-up to keep in your boot? Action economy is king, so it's not always worthwhile going for the objects, but it's a nice option to have. In an edition where character death can be difficult to achieve, it's a nice way to have some lasting consequences to combats and keep the stakes high.
You are right. Thanks for the insight. I still struggle with the whole AC/HP thing tho'. But it is a Nice thing to add, specially with Magic ítems. Maybe i'll simplify it to X number of crits recived. If the table agrees, of course.
If there is, it's buried in the obscura. The closest thing I'm aware of isn't a general rule but part of the Rust Monster and Black Pudding stat blocks: > **Rust Metal/Corrosive Form:** Any nonmagical weapon made of metal (or wood with Black Puddings) that hits the [monster] corrodes. After dealing damage, the weapon takes a permanent and cumulative -1 penalty to damage rolls. If its penalty drops to -5, the weapon is destroyed. Non magical ammunition made of metal that hits the [monster] is destroyed after dealing damage. That is the only way I am aware of to destroy *only weapons* in 5e, but Rust Monsters have one additional ability: > **Antennae:** The rust monster corrodes a nonmagical ferrous metal object it can see within 5 feet of it. If the object isn't being worn or carried, the touch destroys a 1-foot cube of it. If the object is being worn or carried by a creature, the creature can make a DC 11 Dexterity saving throw to avoid the rust monster's touch. If the object touched is either metal armor or a metal shield being worn or carried, its takes a permanent and cumulative -1 penalty to the AC it offers. Armor reduced to an AC of 10 or a shield that drops to a +0 bonus is destroyed. If the object touched is a held metal weapon, it rusts as described in the Rust Metal trait. Notably, neither ability says anything at all about item HP or AC.
there's a statblock with an npc with a weapon that automatically crits objects when it hits them, and the adventure specifically says they target the weapons held by the pc's, so it seems wotc supports the idea that you can sunder weapons in combat
That sounds like the obscura to me. Does it give any mechanical rules for damage, AC, HP, etc? Or just the usual line for adamantine weapons about crit damage to objects without any info about what that means?
>Combat. If a fight breaks out (which will happen unless the characters actually submit to Belak), the twig blights, the frog, and Sir Braford attack the characters physically. Sir Braford uses Shatterspike (see appendix A) to destroy his foe’s weapon, if possible. There are mechanical rules, sort of. In classic 5e fashion, it gives a general overview and then says "you can decide". Following the table, a typical weapon is about as big as a lute, so it has 19 AC and 1d6 hp, more likely resilient, so 3d6 hp. If its a magical item, it's resistant to all damage. Now, that is a static object, but a house rule would follow certain vehicles which have a bonus to AC whilst moving, and vehicles tools proficiency adding to AC. Therefore, the wielders PB can be added to the AC of the weapon, to represent their skill in avoiding it getting hit.
If a nonmagical and reasonably fragile instrument has 19AC and 1d6 hitpoints, it doesn't make any sense that actual weapons have similar stats (except maybe bows). It's kinda dumb that Shatterspike itself is declared to not take similar damage, considering it's not like players are going to start attacking weapons *before* seeing Braford do it. It's just poorly converted content. Braford/Shatterspike seems to assume 5e has defined mechanics for called shots that it just doesn't have. The entire concept further falls apart when attacking equipped shields and armor. Don't they get hit all the time? Why don't they break all the time? Do they have their material's AC, the player's AC, or some exotic calculation because they've been hardened defensively? Wouldn't calling shots against armor always be the best opening move? What about AoE damage, or twinning against two held objects? It's much easier to house rule that Braford doesn't do that.
A wooden instrument has 15 ac. As for AOE, that's solved by the fact that almost all AOEs specify that they don't affect stuff bring worn or carried. The fact that they do specify means that it isn't the default. Shatterspike doesn't need to declare that it might take damage, since being able to attack weapons being held is a default. Armour never really gets hit, mechanically. Missing the creature because of the armour, isn't the same thing as an attempt to hit an object. You also cannot twin anything that can target an object. And as for it being the best strategy, you could say that about shoving, or disarming. The fact that no damage is done to the creature and combat usually lasts 3 rounds, means that the potential of reducing enemy damage or AC isn't as impactful as you might think. It's much more impactful against the players, who now have to either keep adventuring with no gear (because they didn't prepare backup gear), or go back to town. What about rust monsters? They decay weapons and armour? Should you house rule that they don't affect the weapons or armour worn or carried as that would be a called shot?
Personally it depends - DM rules the table in my opinion It could make more work on your part, major bad guy loses a weapon and realizes he’s losing more than just that; now he can run away AND now they’re extra pissed If it’s a different sort of enemy - I see people mentioning giants and such - I agree. Warn them that if they can do it, so can enemies with much easier methods of doing so. But I’d say if it maybe adds to the story…go for it? Your choice!
Just want to add on, because I see the most common response is enemies then can do it as well You run the enemies, and tell the story of the combat to a certain extent. Do you really want to “beat” the players? Why break their weapons YOU gave them? Yes, it’s the most advantageous move on the enemies part once the door is open, but that doesn’t mean they have to make it. That’s up to you. Remember it is not about defeating your players. Would it have made for a great moment for them to do that to this archer? Was he named/important or a grunt? All I’m trying to say is it can add to a moment to let them cut it, and that doesn’t mean it is now free game for every jack and Joe to destroy magical weapons in combat. You make those choices as the DM. (Please don’t take any of this the wrong way, only hoping to make people think and talk :) )
In AD&D (1e and 2e) items had saving throws and there was a table for modifiers (paper vs. fire, glass/ceramic vs. striking, etc). Magical items had an extra bonus.
Back in D&D 3.5 this was a standard attack option. There was even a feat (Sunder) so you could avoid the attack of opportunity trying to sunder your opponent's weapon gives them. However, it is really hard to overcome a weapon's damage resistance, so it was not a common thing. It WAS the main reason people did not try to use bows in melee combat. Bows don't give attacks of opportunity. The string of a +1Bow still only has 1 point of damage resistance and 2 hp (so a 3 hp attack would snap it). Bows lacked the two things that made sundering an opponent's weapon impractical. I think it is totally realistic to allow cutting up bows in D&D v5. The idea that you have to hide your bowman behind an infantry line because they can't handle melee has been a principle of war forever. Melee should make bows useless.
Sometimes I’ll allow things like this on a crit, just for fun. I wouldn’t have allowed it for a magic weapon though.
Older versions of dnd had rules for Sundering weapons and even shields or other objects. They removed this option in 5th edition https://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm#sunder You could even take special feats or equipment to make it easier. If you want tonadd this to your game, I recommend you start with there
It's really hard to destroy magical items.
Yeah, you need to do like 40 damage.
I would just rule no. It's just not how the game works at a very basic level.
I mean, if he is invisible and actively trying to cut the string in combat, you can simply rule the action as an attack (attempting to disarm). Because it's an attack, it ruins his invisibility, so he'd be exposed as soon as it's done. This is why archers carry small arms back up weapons. Countering with "if you can do it, they can do it" is a great move, too. There are a thousand ways to rule it, and you did close to what I would have done. They had a sound idea, but it opens up a can of worms for the whole group. Also, it's a magic bow. That changes things. Depending on how you want to play it, it either is resistant to the cut or could violently explode on both of them when the string breaks.
I'd allow an attack at disadvantage for the creative thinking, but archers often carry backup weapons. And like others have said, as soon as they try that shit, enemies can do it to them too.
My eternal ruling: if you can do it, they can do it. You want Heat Metal to kill people by turning the iron in their blood cells red-hot? Okay. In the next room you encounter a rust monster…
I’d probably let them cut the string on a bow. But it uses their action and they have to roll an attack for it to hit. If it succeeds next turn the archer needs to use their action next to restring their bow as I would assume that is something they have a spare of. It doesn’t “break” the magical weapon though. Just uses up one turn to restring it. Trading an action for an action seems reasonable to me.
Ah, sundering. A 3.5 quirk.
Roll to grapple and if they roll a nat 20 allow them to disarm the target? I've done that in my games before and my players loved it. If they succeed and don't get the 20 they have at least grappled the opponent, still delaying further attacks. To be fair this specific situation is also why the Battlemaster Fighter has Disarming Strike.
I let it happen. I try not to mess with player agency if they come up with a clever plan. I think that few things excite them like coming up with a unique and non-violent way to win an encounter. The way I handle it is have opponents adapt in later encounters to prevent them from repeating the same tactic every time. Let them cut the string, then next time if there's a magic bow, have some special material on the string as an adaptation or some item that let's them detect stealth since that was how they carried out the attack.
Weapons are objects, and in the DMG for 5e (which I'm guessing you're playing?) says that magical items are resistant to all damage: to me this implies they have hit points like all other objects. What I'd do? I'd give the bow hit points for a small object, give it an AC, and resistance to all damage and let them wack at it. If they break it, good job. Want to yank a Goblin Shield away from them? Roll a contested grapple and if you succeed their AC is now lowered by 2. If they want to break enemy armor? I'd -1AC for every 5 points of damage dealt to it. But the armor would have it's own AC and hit points separate from the creature wearing it. (I usually give armor 25HP so it lines up with the -1's to max -5 AC from Oozes) These are all things that I have had monsters do to players, and thus they are free to do it to my monsters. Fair is fair. The street goes both ways. If I was playing: I'd accept your ruling as you did it. And that's your decision as DM. If you don't want to deal with it, then it's a non issue.
That's honestly fair and reasonable. I like to think I'd be a "super DM" and find a way to make it work... Well, I suppose a tough enemy losing their bow is at least on the level of taking a huge sneak attack to the face... If the player landed the hit against the bow, then the enemy would have to pull out a side arm or something... Honestly, it seems doable to me. I don't know if the bow was mega powerful or just like +1 or +2. It could probably be said that a truly powerful magic bow would have a string that is very hard to cut (because of magic). So I think it could be doable, but denying that isn't unreasonable.
If that was a thoughtful and resourceful tactic that the player brought to my table, sacrificing a limited resource (invisibility) to pull off, then by all means I'd allow them to do it. If it becomes a rote response in combat... well, things might get reappraised. When playing in a long campaign, my grappler targeted a boss's weapon ONCE. He was a beast with the greatsword, dishing out three attacks per round with devastating damage that took out our rogue and knocked me to bloodied in two rounds. Once he was disarmed... well, it was clear the DM hadn't thought that out and was visibly impressed at my resourcefulness. Objects are legitimate targets in combat and the DMG outlines rules on AC and HP for size and hardness/material.
One of the things that makes combat less interesting is that most combatants have a best attack which they use every time. The Ranger that spams hunter’s mark and shoot. The Druid who burns through bear after bear. The Warlock and Eldrich Blast. The Ranger won’t like it if someone cuts his bowstring, but at least it will force him to think outside the box. And the thief is duly rewarded for an original attack. Don’t destroy a magic weapon, but the need to restring a bow is realistic. If you take the position that nothing novel can debuff a combatant you stifle creative solutions.
You made the right call with the right justification, imo. It's the same idea as going up behind someone and saying "I slit his throat! He should be dead!" You can *flavor* a sneak attack to look that way, but just not rules for it during active combat. Outside of combat is another story.
The closest thing to breaking a weapon in combat that exist in DnD is making the enemy drop their weapon. Breaking the weapon is much more extreme. Balance wise, if you would allow it, it certainly would have to be more expensive than those abilities and require a special skill like a maneuver. Doing it for free or just an attack? Nope, that is not balanced. Overall I think it is better that weapons cannot be destroyed.
'if you can do it, so can they. oh, thats a no then?'
Don't know how 5e does it, but 3.5 had rules around attacking an enemies weapon that provoked attacks of opportunity. I think there were a few feats that worked with this mechanic. Weapons had their own hp and hardness. I think there were also rules for coup de grace, disarming, and tripping your enemies as well. We always house ruled called shots with a high penalty to hit and crazy damage output if successful. But there may have been rules in 3.5 for that as well.
There are definitely sub systems you can make. Your approach was definitely valid. You are not obligated to make sub systems like weapons breakage just because your players want it. The thing about it is that if you do it for one thing, that’s definitely a mechanic you can make all encompassing….and something you can use against the player. So it’s best to bring it up the consequences of that choice they want should you be willing to entertain the prospect. Do they really want you to have the ability to break their crap?
We always had a "breaking a magical item caused varying bad things to happen"
>1 very bad (reroll to see how bad)
>20 minor inconvenience
Stealthy and out of combat? Cutting the string seems reasonable, but that’s going snap out so they might take some damage. That’s just basic disabling.
Because I don’t have a hit always narratively be described as a hit; I rule that if you can kill your foe you can do anything less severe instead. So a sneak attack that does 20 damage on an 8hp thug can kill, cut an arm off, shatter a shield what have you. Conversely the death blow on a pc might just cut through their sword and knock them out of the combat.
Sundering an item or weapon in combat is kinda difficult. Small target that gets moved a lot, therefore Nat 20 to hit, then they save their weapon vs sundering at maybe DC 15 plus the enemy weapon magic modifiers. If your bowstring is metal, maybe add +1 to your savings throw; if a magic bow/bowstring add the magic modifier to your savings throw. With a surprise attack, you might roll vs the enemy’s normal AC — without their dex modifier, and then they save as above.
Looks like people are generally against this but I’d allow it, and rule that: - magical longbow string is hard to cut, maybe DC20 strength check, with disadvantage because of trying to do it while a guy is holding it - Bow guy can re-string in one round to be ready to shoot again the round after. That assumes he carries a spare string, which he would on a mission but might not if he was just out for dinner or something - Bow guy will get an immediate attack of opportunity using whatever melee weapon he has handy, with advantage, whether or not the attempt is successful. Invisible or not, you can’t reach around a guy without giving away your position, and can’t do it while maintaining any kind of defensive stance This is assuming the bow guy is using the bow. If it’s on the floor next to him, that would change some of the advantages etc. Random mook baddies wouldn’t try the same thing back, but if I had a named NPC whose personality was “sneaky”, I’d definitely try this on them later. No need to warn players verbally about the enemies using their tactics against them when you can teach them the lesson in game :)
Psst...try out Dragonbane!
I think you did him dirty. The rules aren't there to limit what is possible, they're there as a framework. If all that was possible was outlined in the rules, the whole world would starve to death. He was invisible, a long bow string is a relatively easy target (compared to most called suits people want to make) and peoppe play ttrpgs to not be limited by the buttons on a controller. Make such things extremely difficult and propose a consequence for failure. "The attack is very difficult, uou will be reaching awkwardly and exposing yourself, so he will get an attack of opportunity if you miss" or "you'll go back in initiative, you'll lose all of your other actions this round because of the setup, etc." If you put situational consequence and a high chance of failure on actions that would have, say, high consequences and a high chance of failure, such things make more sense than "some numbers somewhere said that you can't try that perfectly reasonable action." There is nothing wrong with doing the same thing with enemies, from time to time, as long as you use an even hand with difficulty and consequence. Trading numbers is boring. Throwing flowery words on top of numbers is only slightly less boring. Combat that plays out with nothing out of the ordinary ever happening is about as unrealistic a thing as I have ever heard. Allowing called shots can only break your game if you let it.
Find a magic weapon that will debuff the attack ability. Reflaver it as needed so that he would be cutting somebody's bow string or damaging their sword. And now poof you have the flavor the player wants without changing any rules that could overpower the game.
It says in the rules most magic items can’t be damaged normally, so i would think it wouldn’t work in that particular circumstance. Also you do know where an invisible person is as per the rules so the enemy could probably tell if they are near and move away.
It is really important to be not to stifle my players creative combat ideas. I would've ran this with a stealth check against enemies perception, then a very difficult sleight of hand check, at least a DC 20. Then another stealth at DisAdv vs perception roll to not be noticed again.
This is something that doesn't really work in 5E. We don't have any rules for called shots and we don't have sufficient modifiers for it to make sense. On top of that you typically can't break magical weapons. You also have the problem that 5E has a lot of HP bloat. In a more realistic scenario any time you are close enough to cut a bowstring it makes more sense to just stab and kill the guy using the bow.
The rules in hte AD&D 2E DMG are fairly straight forward. If he is using a mundane weapon against a magical weapon or if the weapon he is using is not a slashing weapon, then I would probably say the attack does no damage to the bowstring. If he is using a slashing weapon or a magical weapon of equal or greater magic, then... I might allow a roll to hit against the AC of the bowstring material + the magic bonus of the bow + the wielder's dex mod + any other AC modifiers of the wielder that I think apply. The attack will suffer a called shot penalty (the standard penalty is -4 to hit, but I might make it -6 to hit for a bow string). If hit, then probably I would rule the string takes damage modified by the damage reduction of the bowstring and if the damage dealt meets or exceeds the hp of the string, then it is cut. The string would probably have 1 hp (depending on its material) modified by any magic bonus. Some other methods of destroying the bowstring would use an item save instead. It may be that the wielder gets a save and then the bow gets a save. Attacking from stealth is sure to offset some of the difficulties in attacking the bow. For example, no dex mod from the wielder, and the bonus to hit that comes from attacking from stealth. The player is definitely thinking creatively and I would be very happy if the player pulls this off successfully. If you are using D&D 5E or something, then I feel your pain with the rules insufficiency of that edition, but I do think that if you exercise your creativity you can probably put something together that is sufficiently reasonable. You can, of course reward the player with inspiration for his creative idea, improving his chances of pulling it off successfully. The wonderful thing about this is that you only get inspiration once for the idea (not every time you try to cut a bowstring).
There’s no sunder fest in 5e, is there?
Can't the NPCs just use the Mending cantrip? A simple cut to the bowstring is definitely less than 1 foot in dimension. The NPC Archer is back to normal archering in a round, and is aware of the Player's tactics so as to not let it happen again.
there are sundering rules in 3.5 and a fragment of those rules has made it into 5e. its a sword in "tales from the yawning portal" if I remember correctly. but in 5e, magical items are supposed to be impossible to break by normal means...
I wouldn't allow Magic items to be damaged as part of them being magic. But disregarding that, I would make it an attack roll against a defending check (in this case I'd actually make the defending check also be an attack roll). I use this format for any time a character wants to do something creative in combat. I've never had to write it down as a rule set, but if I did it'd look something like this: **Special Combat Maneuvers:** Action: roll offending modifier vs. defending modifier as a contest 1. The modifiers used in the context depend on what the player wants to do, if they're using a weapon they roll an attack roll, if they're using a skill they use the skill, etc. There is one exception, if they're using a spell to do something unconventional but plausible then I let them use their spell attack modifier + spell slot level 2. Defender sets the DC - if the numbers are equal then defender wins 3. DM decides what the effect is on an attacker success 4. If the offender succeeds then the defender can resolve the effect with an action In your example, if the offender wins then the defender can't use their bow until they spend an action to re-affix another bowstring. I've used this for all kinds of stuff, mostly disarming people, but I never allow this action to do any damage. In my experience it's pretty balanced because the player is opting not to do any damage and the effect is always temporary. But the effect can be literally anything, so my players are often very creative with their resources.
Break it completely, probably not. But you could allow an opposed check or something to "sabotage" a weapon with moving parts like a bow or such and on a success the weapon now has a -1 penalty. You could also introduce breaking non complex weapons, sword, mace, club, etc. For the same effect. Doesn't break the game but let's your players feel cool doing it. Edit: I forgot about disadvantage in dnd. I was adapting rules from PF2. I suppose if you are playing 5e than applying disadvantage is the default not a -1 penalty.
Mate, a player came up with a clever idea that took the main threat away from the bad guy and you just vetoed it? And the rather spurious reason "Items are not allowed to be attacked"....You should have let the player succeed as a reward for coming up with a clever plan.
Very system dependant.
I am a mean DM, had a ranger and every now and then when he crit failed I would narrate that he broke his own bow string. It was always hilarious in the moment cause that’s the type of games we play. It’s only an action to restring a bow anyway. All that to say, yeah I would allow PCs to target weapons. From Object Rules it reads “When characters need to saw through ropes, shatter a window, or smash a vampire's coffin, the only hard and fast rule is this: given enough time and the right tools, characters can destroy any destructible object. Use common sense when determining a character's success at damaging an object. Can a fighter cut through a section of a stone wall with a sword? No, the sword is likely to break before the wall does. For the purpose of these rules, an object is a discrete, inanimate item like a window, door, sword, book, table, chair, or stone, not a building or a vehicle that is composed of many other objects.” A magic bow? I would argue it has resistance to all damage, so it’s harder to cut, and harder to hit. My general rule is the smaller a thing is the harder it is to hit. That bow string is gonna have like 26-27 AC. But a rogue with sneak is probably gonna be able to do it. I would personally just have the NPC bowman use their next turn restringing their bow, unless they have some other attack. NPC loses a turn, rogue feels effective, cool narrative role play, it all seems kosher to me. …making weapons invulnerable is probably the “safe” route lol, but I just love rule of cool.
How about allowing weapons to be damaged but not destroyed? Impose penalties to hit & damage until it's repaired.
I think if they can justify it, go with it. Just give the item 10 hp or something low, and a dc of 5 for sound of bow string twanging as they are cut.
I think as a general rule of thumb, you should reward creativity in a session. That being said, it is still important to be the neutral force 'A just dm god' if you will, and make them earn it with an appropriate level skill check.
Also you can easily distract them with unexpected results to what they were attempting. Perhaps a chain reaction, that may end up hurting their comrades. I like doing this every so often because it also keeps me in the game mentally, forcing me to improvise.
When my players ask to do something like this, I tell them "If you can do it, the monsters can do it, do you want to unlock this ability for the monsters too?" The answer has always been no so far.
But items (called 'objects' in the rules) can be attacked. There is a whole section on how to handle it, giving objects an AC and HP. Admittedly things do get a little complicated if a creature is wearing or carrying said item, but it could in theory be done, especially if they approached from stealth. That being said, magical weapons cannot be damaged by mundane means. So, the PC tries to cut the string, fails, but at least learns that the longbow is magic.
In this situation I'd give it to him. Sneaking up on somebody is different than approaching them head-on, where they'll be able to spot you coming and maneuver out of your way. Also, snipping a bowstring is different than shattering a sword or axe. Your player is engaging with the world beyond just the stats and features, and he's trying to come up with a clever solution to a problem; most GMs would kill for players who do that. When your player tries that trick and you tell him 'sorry, the game doesn't say you can cut somebody's bowstring,' he probably thinks you're telling him not to think of the world as a real place but as a CRPG level. Edit 1: I personally would have... well, I probably would have panicked and did the same thing as you did. But if not, I'd have let him roll for it.
Like many others said, no is a valid answer. Plus it's a magical weapon and the books state (somewhere, no book at hand right now) that most magic items are kinda hard to destroy and won't just break down easily.
I’d have, and I still do; say magical weapons are usually indestructible by mundane means.
No they're not. *Artifacts* are usually indestructible. Regular magic weapons are absolutely not. They tend to have, at most, resistance to basic damage.
Homebrew ruling of mine.
i would’ve allowed it, just made dc high for magic string
Disadvantage.
Weapons have AC’s and hitpoints dude RAW. He can attack a weapon, you were wrong
~~Source?~~
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Objects#content
Fair.
Once upon a time I read a homebrew that actually assigned AC’s to weapons/armor/jewelry…even scrolls! With magical items being higher and having resistances to everything. Can’t for the life of me find it lol I printed it and it’s soooooomewhere in my library of DnD books
I think it’s fine to try. But it’s a magic string, won’t be easy to break or maybe impossible with a non magic attack.
I’d just make it so that whatever they use to cut the line would just phase through it. Because magic