Stuff Shall be Sundered!

So special maneuvers don’t get a lot of play. Here’s a little tweak that might help… it also folds into a fairly famous house rule out there…

Sundering and Disarm rules stay largely as they are, but the attacker rolls damage on a successful attack. This damage acts as a penalty to the Saving Throw to resist the effect. In addition, the ST is penalized by 2 if the attacker has the appropriate Combat Trickery. On a failed save, the defender suffers damage equal to the margin of failure, up to the rolled damage.

Magic weapons/shields cannot be harmed by weapons with a lower bonus, so a failed save becomes a disarm.

The two trickery skills (Disarm and Sunder) should be combined into one, probably… “Hand Attacks” maybe?

Further, a character may interpose a weapon or shield into the path of any attack. The character must then make a saving throw as if the shield had been subjected to a sunder attack (as above). Characters with Fighting Style: Weapon & Shield add +2 to this ST when blocking with a shield, as can characters with an appropriate weapon focus. On success, the damage is absorbed by the weapon or shield. On a failure, the weapon or shield is destroyed, and the defender suffers damage equal to the margin of failure (up to the original damage). Magic items which cannot be damaged by the attack are considered disarmed by this action.

Attempting to block an attack in this way causes the defender to sacrifice his next action.