Monday, May 17, 2010

The Sundering Fighter: Pathfinder

Here's the Pathfinder version of my favorite unique weapon:

Shatterspike:

Aura strong evocation; CL 13th Slot none; Price 4,315 gp; Weight 4 lbs.

This intimidating weapon appears to be a longsword with multiple hooks, barbs, and serrations along the blade, excellent for catching and sundering a foe's weapon. Wielders without the Improved Sunder feat use a shatterspike as a +1 longsword only. Wielders with the Improved Sunder feat instead use shatterspike as a +4 longsword when attempting to sunder an opponent's weapon. Shatterspike can damage weapons with an enhancement bonus of +4 or lower.

Construction Requirements Str 13, Craft Arms and Armor, Improved Sunder, Power Attack, shatter; Cost 2,315 gp


That's +4 to damage when sundering weapons.

Keep in mind if you have two of these you can use all the off handed attacks to attack CMD and with Greater Sunder completely ignore their AC, going for magic equipment to debuff them. If they're wearing light armor, take an offhand attack to destroy that in one hit. Ask your GM to let it be enchanted (Mine was fine with it) and throw spell storing on it with a damage spell that affects objects (half damage is better than none).

Doing "Fancy stuff" to foes prevents damage, which is something almost no one ever does (tripping for example stops full attacks). In PF this is amazing because weapons have the same HP regardless of size and even if they have more they don't have any more hardness aside from magical weapons. At 2+ hits a round that's one round where you eat a weapon with two shatter spikes, stopping all damage the target does. For one on one fights this is amazing. Fire Giants actually like to fight in melee, trying to go for the casters and so they can quickly slay the fighters. Unfortunately, Sir Shatterspikes downs his weapon in one round so that's the end of that.

Now here's the thing: You can take a sunder in place of an attack. Any penalties apply so we're at a -2 (+2/4 from feats, so meh). The question here is if your BAB at the CURRENT attack applies (And it's not a penalty). Because if not, Sundering with my left hand at -4 at secondary attacks. If yes, this becomes not nearly as broken. However, RAW (Doubtful as intended) my -10 attacks actually have a use since I can sunder with them at only a -4.

Average damage for a two-weapon fighter stacking strength (started 17+2, current 22) at 6th level with two of these is 1d8+10 per hit, no power attack, +12 to hit primary +10 to hit secondary. With this build you're best off starting turn one walking up, two-handing the shatterspike and breaking their stuff, then drawing another and two-weaponing it. Each hit to a weapon deals 1d8+13 basic damage, plus power attack bonuses. At this level, average damage is 21.5 from a power attack sunder, 17.5 without. Two hits and a +1 weapon is out of commission. A regular weapon is done with power attack unless you roll a 1 or 2 on the damage. The bonus to sunder is +20/+18 since shatterspike acts as a +4 weapon. This can usually kill an 8th level fighter's one-handed weapon in one round unless he has a +2 weapon: Then power attack becomes necessary and a bit of a gamble. I would suggest wielding one weapon with two hands in that case to raise the damage on weapon hit to 26.5. If both attacks hit the Hardness 14 weapon takes an average of 25 damage, breaking a two hander and destroying a one-hander. If it's wooden hafted this just becomes silly and they lose. If you don't destroy it it's going to be broken in all likelihood on two of these attacks hitting.

At high level, you get an Adamantine weapon and deal a ton more damage. IF the DM is nice at 6th level you can make a shatterspike adamantine for just +3000. Bypass all hardness below 20 (which only a +5 metal weapon that you can't sunder anyway) and deals all that damage straight to the weapon/object's HP. With that you can sunder armor effectively (Non-magical armor anyway) using a longsword as per usual. At 6th level that's a 37.5% chance to sunder a +2 weapon. Almost no monsters aside from high-level stuff have magic weapons (specifically the Balor which has two +1 weapons (:D) just in case it tries to be smart)

Adamantine stuff also has another good use: Getting out of wall traps/walled areas in general. Bypass all hardness below 20 and take out walls like the Incredible Hulk (tm). Barbarian is actually a good mix with this build since the rage gives a bonus to strength and con (Two very important stats), and fast movement which is a big help if you're in medium armor. Doing a full multi-class if you're willing to wait a bit to grab Greater Sunder is a good plan if you want to grab the Strength Surge ability and maybe some other not as good power.

Plus, you don't have to sunder all the time. The feat list for this is as follows:
1. Power Attack, Improved Sunder, TWF
2. Weapon Focus (longsword)
3. Double Slice
4. Weapon Specialization (longsword)
5. Cleave
6. Greater Sunder

Out of 8 feats I used 2 for this tree. And done by level 6.

Unless you're at least 50% fighter you will have a hard time doing this. A Barbarian can actually do OK with this, but not as well (big surprise). If you try to do this as Ranger or Rogue, WARNING: YOU ARE ABOUT TO MAKE A MISTAKE. This build really only works one way, and that's my way or with force damage (Ignored hardness in 3.5, couldn't find it in pathfinder).

Sorry if the voice for this is a bit strange: It was originally a forum post.

Anyway, here's his stats:

Rolled scores:
17
11
15
10
14
12

Fighter 6
HP: (6d10+12) 49
STR 22
DEX 15
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 12
CHA 11

BAB:+6

CMB: +12 (+16 to sunder) (+22 with shatterspike) CMD 24 (26 vs. sunder)
If you’re using two weapons/iterative attacks/power attack remember to subtract!

Saves:
Fort: +7
Ref: +4
Will: +3

+1 Shatterspike +12/+7 1d8+10 19-20 x2

+1 Shatterspike +10 1d8+10 19-20x2

Sunder: 1d8+13

Skills: Go for the irony, max Craft (weapon) and Craft (armor)

Feats: 1. Power Attack, Improved Sunder, TWF
2. Weapon Focus (longsword)
3. Double Slice
4. Weapon Specialization (longsword)
5. Cleave
6. Greater Sunder

Fighter: +1 Heavy Blade damage and to hit
One less armor check penalty.

Equipment:
+2 Belt of Ogre Power
2 Shatterspikes (4315)
+1 Breastplate (2300?)
Around 1000 gp of left over assorted goods.

Next level: Heavy armor + some anti-caster stuff or the first level of barbarian for a BIG damage and attack boost, as well as a speed boost. Decisions, decisions.

1 comment:

  1. Not a bad build. A lot of characters end up taking things like "weapon specialization" or the like. If you remove the weapon from the situation a lot of even high profile melee enemies get significantly weaker. Of course you have your casters to worry about but the majority of combat is not done against casters. Almost everyone in the game has a weapon and their hardness doesn't scale with their level so this is actually a half way decent build. The only thing I would worry about is the lack of defense/survivability on the barbarian route.

    If you continue as fighter you can get some nice heavy armor, little to no penalties, and if you have to drop yourself into a fight where you are gonna take a beating (you ARE a fighter after-all and we don't all have d10s for our HD) you'll still be sitting on a decent +20 AC if you switch your offhand out for a shield and have no negative dex.

    The barbarian has it's nice little d12 and rage HP boost but unless you want something like two-weapon defense later on it's gonna suffer at the hands of some big-nasty even if it doesn't have a +1 weapon.

    Creatures also seem like a weakness. Things with natural weapons (unless I'm wrong) can't have those shattered. (Up to GM in some cases I guess. Like with an elephant's tusks or whatever). Your still doing decent damage but your swinging two weapons with those penalties while your friend with the two-hander is hacking away at it and carving chunks out of it like there is no tomorrow. It doesn't look like it's GIMPED in the damage role but I foresee some of the other melee combat focused classes (the nice sneak attack damage from str/dex rogue or smite-driven paladins with high cha and str for example) out damaging them.

    Overall- awesome concept. Scaling effectiveness with level against a non-scaling element always kicks ass. Attack the weapon- not the person... that comes next :D

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