Activating Sunder- house rule thoughts

[FinarinPanjoro 126]

Hey all,

I'm GMing a game with two lightsaber weilders, a technician, and a smuggler.  As they've gotten more skilled with their sabers I've been trying to make sure that we emulate the feel of many of the primary encounters seen in the movies.  The one I'm thinking of currently is Jabba's Sail Barge and Luke's use of his saber to destroy the blasters wielded by Jabba's minions.

Presently you have to hit the target with the saber and then spend 3 advantage to destroy a weapon they are wielding.  To my knowledge there is no mechanic for only destroying their weapons (a merciful Jedi-like choice if ever there was one).  I suppose one could use the aim maneuver to do so, but taking two setback dice and expending a maneuver seems a steep price to pay making it a far more efficient choice to cut the guy in half than try to mercifully destroy his weapon.

So I was considering two house rules:

1. Allowing Sunder to be activated intentionally and spend successes for activation rather than advantage (ie. if you attack to sunder you cannot use advantage to sunder).  If attacking a minion group you can use 2 advantage to sunder the weapon of another minion in the group (essentially giving Sunder the Linked quality) .  Example- Jedi decides to sunder weapons rather than directly hit the minion group he's engaged with.  He rolls and gets 3 successes and 4 advantage- the 3 successes activate Sunder 3 times (destroying any weapon hit), the four advantage allow him to sunder two other weapons in the minion group- so 3 of the minions in the group find their weapons destroyed.
2. Allowing Sunder to be activated on a missed attack like Guided: On a miss the attacker may spend 3 advantage (or Triumph) to activate Sunder once, then additional advantage normally to activate it again (so 5 advantage required to destroy a weapon).  Alternatively maybe only Triumph on a miss can be used to activate it (so Triumph plus 2 advantage needed to destroy a weapon- now that I'm writing this I kinda like that better).

Thoughts?

[Darzil 778]

My initial thought is that it is easier to kill the target than sunder the weapon. If you want to take the light side path and target the weapon, rather than the easy temptation of the dark side, it's harder.

[whafrog 10,384]

There's no reason a merciful PC has to apply the damage from a successful attack.  I still think you need to succeed in your basic attack, and need the advantages to Sunder, because it's a finesse move, and the PC is trying not to hurt the opposition.  IOW, I don't think it needs to change, just allow the PC to forego the damage.

Besides, if you make it too easy (by using successes instead), you put it within reach of characters with only a couple dice in their pool.  It should require quite a bit of skill to pull off with any regularity.

[syrath 1,316]

There is a mechanic for this under the aim maneuver. You forfeit damage to target something for a mechanical benefit like hitting an arm , a leg, a weapon etc. single aim 2/setback, double just one (unless you have Called shot (Gunslinger)

[FinarinPanjoro 126]

2 hours ago, syrath said:

There is a mechanic for this under the aim maneuver. You forfeit damage to target something for a mechanical benefit like hitting an arm , a leg, a weapon etc. single aim 2/setback, double just one (unless you have Called shot (Gunslinger)

So in this case would you not require them to spend the advantage as well to Sunder (does the hit destroy the weapon)?  Or would you say the hit is equivalent to a single Sunder activation thus two advantage are also needed to destroy the weapon.

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

A house rule I've allowed on occasions is to allow the PC to forgo dealing wounds on a successful attack and instead get a free activation of an active weapon quality (such as Sunder or Entangle or Knockdown) on a successful attack, with each success counting as an additional activation of the quality where appropriate.  I also allow for choosing to disarm instead of dealing damage, and on a few occasions have had NPCs do that to PCs.

Of course, said house rule carries the caveat that the bad guys can do that too, so my players are cautioned that if they try to abuse this house rule too often (such as using Sunder like it's going out of style against every foe), then I'll start doing the same with my bad guys using things like Concussive, Entangle, or Disorient.  Thus far, the caveat has kept players from abusing this option, with the Sunder trick only having been used a couple times and those were appropriate moments, such as Sundering a foe's disruptor rifle after seeing one of their friends get nearly atomized by the weapon.

[syrath 1,316]

5 hours ago, FinarinPanjoro said:

So in this case would you not require them to spend the advantage as well to Sunder (does the hit destroy the weapon)?  Or would you say the hit is equivalent to a single Sunder activation thus two advantage are also needed to destroy the weapon.

Really its down to the gm, hitting a weapon could be a simple disarm hitting it with a single triumph or a few advantage could destroy it, A "called shot" result could be as good as a medium critical without requiring advantage, but if aimingto destroy a weapon, I dont see why not, or at least make it damaged. Note that sunder itself only damages the weapon one stage. If, however you want lightsaber users chopping up weapons, then improved sunder is what you want.

[Darzil 778]

You can activate sunder multiple times, though, at one advantage per level, so four advantages to destroy in one hit.