Sunder Rule [Archive] - Wizards Community

Sunder Rule [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Krompt
05-02-07, 02:28 AM One of the other players in my group (and the dm himself) brought up a question about the Sunder Rules...the Player wanted to know if he could use the sunder option on other things besides weapons and shields, namely bones, and wondered what effects it would apply to other creatures and if a Natural 20 would apply an automatic hit between the two opposed attack rolls

The DM wondered if this would be a Break Object check (using a break DC) or a Sunder Attempt. And if he would provoke an AoP, or ignore the AoP and go straight to the break attemp.

And finally a THIRD player called that it would be illegal to break bones, or atleast they would be called shots, in which they arent allowed in 3.5

A very confusing night, but while it didnt slow the game down over rule arguments the player and DM both questioned if it would be allowed or not. So the wizards boards will hopefully answer their questions.

A) Can a player use Sunder (and the Improved Sunder Feat) to break a target's bones or limbs? Or would this be a break object attempt.

A-1) If its a Sunder Attempt, what would the Hardness and HP of a Medium Sized Creature's limbs be, and would they follow normal conditional Modifiers ("Divide by 2 for each size category of the item smaller than Medium, or multiply it by 2 for each size category larger than Medium. ")

A-2) If its a Break Attempt, what would the Strength Check DC to break a bone or limb be?

B) What ramifications would a person take for having a limb broken, not able to hold a weapon in both hands, loosing a natural attack (if its an arm), reduced speed, falling prone (if its a leg)?

C) Would these be allowed options during combat, called shots, or just completely illegal and the player should be hit with a book as is often suggested for dumb ideas.
allenchan
05-02-07, 02:44 AM And finally a THIRD player called that it would be illegal to break bones, or at least they would be called shots, in which they arent allowed in 3.5

This is the only intelligent thing that came from your post. I'd advise punching the rest of the lot in the faces, as you suggested in C. It would be a called shot. Called shots are not in 3.5. Move along.
Merestil Haye
05-02-07, 03:31 AM Think about it like this. When you break an object, you batter it until its hp are reduced to zero.

What happens when you reduce a creature's hp to zero? It dies.

In order to break a leg using the Sunder rules, you'd have to kill the creature first. And if you've killed it, what's the point in breaking the limb?

Besides, called shots are problematic in 3e. Any suggested penalty is easily overcome by the True Strike spell. That's why the rules from 2e were not ported across, and very probably never will be.

If you want combat with limbs breaking and flying in all directions, play a different system which caters for these results in their rules. D&D (intentionally) avoids that sort of thing.
Phrennzy
05-02-07, 10:13 AM No. You cannot Sunder someone's bones.
OneBallJay
05-02-07, 12:43 PM And finally a THIRD player called that it would be illegal to break bones, or atleast they would be called shots, in which they arent allowed in 3.5I understand this is true, but what about sundering the heads of a hydra? Is it because they count as 'weapons'?
olshanski_home
05-02-07, 01:20 PM You can sunder a hydra's head because whoever designed it thought it would be nifty. Because when they created the hydra they didn't imagine the types of damage that a reasonably optimized character could put out.

Hydra needs an overhaul.
Murrdox
05-02-07, 02:33 PM As was said previously, it would be a type of "Called Shot", definitely not a sunder attempt.

By using Sundering rules, it would be way too easy to walk around chopping people's arms and legs off. It'd be the Black Knight all over again!

However, house-ruling a Called Shot system to disable or dismember someone wouldn't be too bad.

After all, there are all those regenerating creatures out there with fluff text in the Monster Manual that say what happens to them if you cut off a limb.

A Troll can pick up a severed limb, and hold it to the stump to reattach it. I've always thought it was kind of sad that there is no mechanic built into combat to allow you to sever its limb in the first place!
Krompt
05-02-07, 02:59 PM Well the entire thing started when the party went up against a death giant that almost dropped our triple digit HP tank in one swing after scoring a critical and confirming with a roll of 2 and the player (as a monk) wanted to break her arm first to make it so she(the Death Giant) could only use one hand to attack with thus cutting the amount of damage she could do by half, then he would begin sundering her weapon.

But thats all he wanted to do, to stop her from using both arms so he figured why not try something similar to muay thai boxing and break her forearm (not break it off, just break it). But according to you all he should be beaten repeatedly for attempting something new (while there is rules about creatures that can simply reattach limbs), and the dm should be likewise beat for an unnamed reason, and all the other players except for the third one listed that stated they were called shots are to be beaten as well for..again..an unnamed reason
Murrdox
05-02-07, 03:11 PM Uhhh not at all. I wouldn't beat the players OR the DM.

You should reward players for thinking outside the box like that, and trying to come up with a tactic that isn't spelled out in the book.

If I were that player's DM, I would try to come up with some kind of way to break the Giant's arm, so that the monk could at least attempt it. It would be kind of difficult to come up with on the fly.

If it were me, I'd probably make it part of a grapple check or something like that, considering the Monk wouldn't be able to just HIT the Giant's arm to break it, but would need to grab it and BEND it to do so.

As for the penalties the Giant would suffer with a broken limb... off the top of my head I would say that the Giant would only be able to make 1-handed attacks, and any attacks that used the 2 hands would be at -2, with 1/2 the STR bonus to damage. Any 1-handed attack using the broken limb would be at a -4 to attack, with no STR bonus to damage.
Krompt
05-02-07, 03:30 PM This is the only intelligent thing that came from your post. I'd advise punching the rest of the lot in the faces, as you suggested in C. It would be a called shot. Called shots are not in 3.5. Move along.

That was the first response and it seemed like a general recuring theme with most of the other posts, just not so blunt.

I'll talk to the DM and the other players about it and see if they would want a system about it and what effects it would have on monsters, or players in the event of it happening to them by monsters.

ps. the way that the player described it, the Death Giant had one leg proped up on a little stone and had just chopped the 'tank' a new one so the player ran up (he would have been hit by an AoO for moving through threatened squares I think but the Death Giant had already made one) and was going to use her leg as a sort of brace and if you know what it looks like to do a frog splash from the old wrestling shows (I might be wrong) but he would jump on her knee and slam his knees into her underside of the forearm and his elbows into the upper part of the forearm I think. Or maybe it was his knee in her elbow and then doing a judo chop thingy on her forearm.
Phrennzy
05-02-07, 04:07 PM Well, in the spirit of added clarification - although I would disallow the Sundering of bones, I would not be adverse to a character trying this sort of move, although I would treat it more like a disarm attempt. If the monk was striking solely to disarm and did not want to inflict damage (and depending on the level of the monk - since it's a Death Giant, I'd say pretty high) that I would rule the giant unable to use the struck limb for a handful of rounds. While the bone would not be broken, the hand strength was rendered nil by a nerve hit to the funny bone (yes, odd that the Death Giant has a funny bone).

In the end, it's just one more monster to slaughter, and the group should have fun. I would also explain to the character that they shouldn't count on this move working very often, as the circumstances in each fight are different (read: don't count on my soft heart in other fights).
Krompt
05-02-07, 05:22 PM actually the Monk was ECL 11 (as was the rest of us) so the death giant (CR 16) was an Overpowering Challenge. And after I talked to the monk's player he said that he didnt care how much damage he did to the arm as long as it left the giant using only one hand so it would go from doing 4d6+18 to 4d6+12 (not that much of a difference but it would make breaking the weapon easier on the following rounds of combat, which were hard enough as it was.)

Edit- The Monk himself does 3d8+5 with his unarmed strikes and he has Eagle Claw Attack from Complete Warrior so against objects he does 3d8+5+6 (he has a wisdom of 22).
Grand Theft Otto
05-02-07, 05:28 PM You should reward players for thinking outside the box like that, and trying to come up with a tactic that isn't spelled out in the book.

No you shouldnt. Seriously, saying the equivalent of "I stab him in the face" isnt creative. Its pretty much what you're trying to do with every single attack.

D&D has HP for a reason. Its usually not a great idea to avoid them.
Merestil Haye
05-03-07, 04:37 AM Edit- The Monk himself does 3d8+5 with his unarmed strikes and he has Eagle Claw Attack from Complete Warrior so against objects he does 3d8+5+6 (he has a wisdom of 22).Just one thing.

The single biggest divide in the D&D game is that between creatures and objects.

If what is being damaged has Wisdom and Charisma, then it is a creature and you must use the rules for damaging creatures. If what is being damaged has no Wisdom and no Charisma, it is an object and the rules for damaging objects apply.

These are objective conditions, and you should not allow the monk the damage bonus against objects in this case.
tos_shai_hulud
05-03-07, 07:29 AM Except Constructs. They can have Wisdom and Charisma, but they have additional rules that specifically say that they count as objects for spells and effects that target only objects. If it does not have that text, the monk probably should not be allowed to apply that damage to it.
Krompt
05-03-07, 07:36 AM well see I actually added the "against objects" line, I didnt mean to imply that he was saying the bone was an object and an object is actually said to be a "stationary, nonliving object, though constructs or animated objects are still considered objects for effects that target objects."

what I meant by saying he had the eagle claw attack was that when he planned to attack the weapon on later rounds he'd be doing a bit more damage, in response to Phrennzy's comment about damage. If the monk was striking solely to disarm and did not want to inflict damage (and depending on the level of the monk - since it's a Death Giant, I'd say pretty high)...
Merestil Haye
05-03-07, 08:26 AM Except Constructs. They can have Wisdom and Charisma, but they have additional rules that specifically say that they count as objects for spells and effects that target only objects. If it does not have that text, the monk probably should not be allowed to apply that damage to it.Constructs are creatures, and are damaged as creatures. In no way do they count as objects for the purposes of damage.

The line you may be thinking of is that constructs are immune to effects that require a Fort save, unless the effect affects objects or is harmless. This is a result of the fact that constructs are not living creatures - but they are creatures. Undead have the same immumuty, and for the same reason. (It means you can't make them drop dead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/slayLiving.htm), but you can turn them to ash (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/disintegrate.htm) (for example).)

what I meant by saying he had the eagle claw attack was that when he planned to attack the weapon on later rounds he'd be doing a bit more damage, in response to Phrennzy's comment about damage.Sorry, I misinterpreted what you meant then.
Murrdox
05-03-07, 01:42 PM No you shouldnt. Seriously, saying the equivalent of "I stab him in the face" isnt creative. Its pretty much what you're trying to do with every single attack.

D&D has HP for a reason. Its usually not a great idea to avoid them.

Sorry, I guess we disagree.

If a player said "I want to stab in the face!", meaning that as the DM, I should make that stab an automatic critical hit, do more damage, etc... then I would say "no, if you want to do something like that, take some Rogue levels so that you can Sneak Attack".

However, if a player said "I want to stab him in the face, and try to blind him with his own blood streaming down over his eyes", then I'd say "Sure thing. You can take an attack at -4 to try and hit." At that point, I'd have the enemy make some sort of saving throw, probably a FORT save. If he failed, I'd say that blood is streaming down the enemy's face, partially blinding him. That enemy now has a 20% chance to miss with a melee attack until he takes some time to wipe the blood out of his face.

The rules are not the Bible. The rules don't have anything in them about toilets either. That doesn't mean I'd forbid a character from trying to creatively brew a potion that had debilitating diarrhea as a result.
PenderGrass
05-03-07, 05:16 PM Yes.

You can sunder a persons bones.

First, you must remove the bone from the owner.

Then, boil the flesh off.

Finally, carry them as an item or equipment.

They may now be sundered.

:dragon:
****
tos_shai_hulud
05-03-07, 05:16 PM The line you may be thinking of is that constructs are immune to effects that require a Fort save, unless the effect affects objects or is harmless. This is a result of the fact that constructs are not living creatures - but they are creatures.

Yup, that's what I was thinking :P.
Flan
05-03-07, 05:24 PM LOLOLOLOL... why of COURSE you can sunder people! Don't all YOUR combats last 1 round as everyone has their neck sundered in round one? :rolleyes:
tos_shai_hulud
05-03-07, 06:53 PM LOLOLOLOL... why of COURSE you can sunder people! Don't all YOUR combats last 1 round as everyone has their neck sundered in round one? :rolleyes:

Depends on the game you are playing... Add in some extras from a White Wolf game, and sure, why not?
Grand Theft Otto
05-03-07, 07:25 PM ".

However, if a player said "I want to stab him in the face, and try to blind him with his own blood streaming down over his eyes", then I'd say "Sure thing. You can take an attack at -4 to try and hit." At that point, I'd have the enemy make some sort of saving throw, probably a FORT save. If he failed, I'd say that blood is streaming down the enemy's face, partially blinding him. That enemy now has a 20% chance to miss with a melee attack until he takes some time to wipe the blood out of his face.

That IMO is semi reasonable (though I'd allow it on a crit rather than a -4 to hit). Breaking someone's arm on a successful grapple is not.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Krompt 05-02-07, 02:28 AM	One of the other players in my group (and the dm himself) brought up a question about the Sunder Rules...the Player wanted to know if he could use the sunder option on other things besides weapons and shields, namely bones, and wondered what effects it would apply to other creatures and if a Natural 20 would apply an automatic hit between the two opposed attack rolls The DM wondered if this would be a Break Object check (using a break DC) or a Sunder Attempt. And if he would provoke an AoP, or ignore the AoP and go straight to the break attemp. And finally a THIRD player called that it would be illegal to break bones, or atleast they would be called shots, in which they arent allowed in 3.5 A very confusing night, but while it didnt slow the game down over rule arguments the player and DM both questioned if it would be allowed or not. So the wizards boards will hopefully answer their questions. A) Can a player use Sunder (and the Improved Sunder Feat) to break a target's bones or limbs? Or would this be a break object attempt. A-1) If its a Sunder Attempt, what would the Hardness and HP of a Medium Sized Creature's limbs be, and would they follow normal conditional Modifiers ("Divide by 2 for each size category of the item smaller than Medium, or multiply it by 2 for each size category larger than Medium. ") A-2) If its a Break Attempt, what would the Strength Check DC to break a bone or limb be? B) What ramifications would a person take for having a limb broken, not able to hold a weapon in both hands, loosing a natural attack (if its an arm), reduced speed, falling prone (if its a leg)? C) Would these be allowed options during combat, called shots, or just completely illegal and the player should be hit with a book as is often suggested for dumb ideas.
allenchan 05-02-07, 02:44 AM	And finally a THIRD player called that it would be illegal to break bones, or at least they would be called shots, in which they arent allowed in 3.5 This is the only intelligent thing that came from your post. I'd advise punching the rest of the lot in the faces, as you suggested in C. It would be a called shot. Called shots are not in 3.5. Move along.
Merestil Haye 05-02-07, 03:31 AM	Think about it like this. When you break an object, you batter it until its hp are reduced to zero. What happens when you reduce a creature's hp to zero? It dies. In order to break a leg using the Sunder rules, you'd have to kill the creature first. And if you've killed it, what's the point in breaking the limb? Besides, called shots are problematic in 3e. Any suggested penalty is easily overcome by the True Strike spell. That's why the rules from 2e were not ported across, and very probably never will be. If you want combat with limbs breaking and flying in all directions, play a different system which caters for these results in their rules. D&D (intentionally) avoids that sort of thing.
Phrennzy 05-02-07, 10:13 AM	No. You cannot Sunder someone's bones.
OneBallJay 05-02-07, 12:43 PM	And finally a THIRD player called that it would be illegal to break bones, or atleast they would be called shots, in which they arent allowed in 3.5I understand this is true, but what about sundering the heads of a hydra? Is it because they count as 'weapons'?
olshanski_home 05-02-07, 01:20 PM	You can sunder a hydra's head because whoever designed it thought it would be nifty. Because when they created the hydra they didn't imagine the types of damage that a reasonably optimized character could put out. Hydra needs an overhaul.
Murrdox 05-02-07, 02:33 PM	As was said previously, it would be a type of "Called Shot", definitely not a sunder attempt. By using Sundering rules, it would be way too easy to walk around chopping people's arms and legs off. It'd be the Black Knight all over again! However, house-ruling a Called Shot system to disable or dismember someone wouldn't be too bad. After all, there are all those regenerating creatures out there with fluff text in the Monster Manual that say what happens to them if you cut off a limb. A Troll can pick up a severed limb, and hold it to the stump to reattach it. I've always thought it was kind of sad that there is no mechanic built into combat to allow you to sever its limb in the first place!
Krompt 05-02-07, 02:59 PM	Well the entire thing started when the party went up against a death giant that almost dropped our triple digit HP tank in one swing after scoring a critical and confirming with a roll of 2 and the player (as a monk) wanted to break her arm first to make it so she(the Death Giant) could only use one hand to attack with thus cutting the amount of damage she could do by half, then he would begin sundering her weapon. But thats all he wanted to do, to stop her from using both arms so he figured why not try something similar to muay thai boxing and break her forearm (not break it off, just break it). But according to you all he should be beaten repeatedly for attempting something new (while there is rules about creatures that can simply reattach limbs), and the dm should be likewise beat for an unnamed reason, and all the other players except for the third one listed that stated they were called shots are to be beaten as well for..again..an unnamed reason
Murrdox 05-02-07, 03:11 PM	Uhhh not at all. I wouldn't beat the players OR the DM. You should reward players for thinking outside the box like that, and trying to come up with a tactic that isn't spelled out in the book. If I were that player's DM, I would try to come up with some kind of way to break the Giant's arm, so that the monk could at least attempt it. It would be kind of difficult to come up with on the fly. If it were me, I'd probably make it part of a grapple check or something like that, considering the Monk wouldn't be able to just HIT the Giant's arm to break it, but would need to grab it and BEND it to do so. As for the penalties the Giant would suffer with a broken limb... off the top of my head I would say that the Giant would only be able to make 1-handed attacks, and any attacks that used the 2 hands would be at -2, with 1/2 the STR bonus to damage. Any 1-handed attack using the broken limb would be at a -4 to attack, with no STR bonus to damage.
Krompt 05-02-07, 03:30 PM	This is the only intelligent thing that came from your post. I'd advise punching the rest of the lot in the faces, as you suggested in C. It would be a called shot. Called shots are not in 3.5. Move along. That was the first response and it seemed like a general recuring theme with most of the other posts, just not so blunt. I'll talk to the DM and the other players about it and see if they would want a system about it and what effects it would have on monsters, or players in the event of it happening to them by monsters. ps. the way that the player described it, the Death Giant had one leg proped up on a little stone and had just chopped the 'tank' a new one so the player ran up (he would have been hit by an AoO for moving through threatened squares I think but the Death Giant had already made one) and was going to use her leg as a sort of brace and if you know what it looks like to do a frog splash from the old wrestling shows (I might be wrong) but he would jump on her knee and slam his knees into her underside of the forearm and his elbows into the upper part of the forearm I think. Or maybe it was his knee in her elbow and then doing a judo chop thingy on her forearm.
Phrennzy 05-02-07, 04:07 PM	Well, in the spirit of added clarification - although I would disallow the Sundering of bones, I would not be adverse to a character trying this sort of move, although I would treat it more like a disarm attempt. If the monk was striking solely to disarm and did not want to inflict damage (and depending on the level of the monk - since it's a Death Giant, I'd say pretty high) that I would rule the giant unable to use the struck limb for a handful of rounds. While the bone would not be broken, the hand strength was rendered nil by a nerve hit to the funny bone (yes, odd that the Death Giant has a funny bone). In the end, it's just one more monster to slaughter, and the group should have fun. I would also explain to the character that they shouldn't count on this move working very often, as the circumstances in each fight are different (read: don't count on my soft heart in other fights).
Krompt 05-02-07, 05:22 PM	actually the Monk was ECL 11 (as was the rest of us) so the death giant (CR 16) was an Overpowering Challenge. And after I talked to the monk's player he said that he didnt care how much damage he did to the arm as long as it left the giant using only one hand so it would go from doing 4d6+18 to 4d6+12 (not that much of a difference but it would make breaking the weapon easier on the following rounds of combat, which were hard enough as it was.) Edit- The Monk himself does 3d8+5 with his unarmed strikes and he has Eagle Claw Attack from Complete Warrior so against objects he does 3d8+5+6 (he has a wisdom of 22).
Grand Theft Otto 05-02-07, 05:28 PM	You should reward players for thinking outside the box like that, and trying to come up with a tactic that isn't spelled out in the book. No you shouldnt. Seriously, saying the equivalent of "I stab him in the face" isnt creative. Its pretty much what you're trying to do with every single attack. D&D has HP for a reason. Its usually not a great idea to avoid them.
Merestil Haye 05-03-07, 04:37 AM	Edit- The Monk himself does 3d8+5 with his unarmed strikes and he has Eagle Claw Attack from Complete Warrior so against objects he does 3d8+5+6 (he has a wisdom of 22).Just one thing. The single biggest divide in the D&D game is that between creatures and objects. If what is being damaged has Wisdom and Charisma, then it is a creature and you must use the rules for damaging creatures. If what is being damaged has no Wisdom and no Charisma, it is an object and the rules for damaging objects apply. These are objective conditions, and you should not allow the monk the damage bonus against objects in this case.
tos_shai_hulud 05-03-07, 07:29 AM	Except Constructs. They can have Wisdom and Charisma, but they have additional rules that specifically say that they count as objects for spells and effects that target only objects. If it does not have that text, the monk probably should not be allowed to apply that damage to it.
Krompt 05-03-07, 07:36 AM	well see I actually added the "against objects" line, I didnt mean to imply that he was saying the bone was an object and an object is actually said to be a "stationary, nonliving object, though constructs or animated objects are still considered objects for effects that target objects." what I meant by saying he had the eagle claw attack was that when he planned to attack the weapon on later rounds he'd be doing a bit more damage, in response to Phrennzy's comment about damage. If the monk was striking solely to disarm and did not want to inflict damage (and depending on the level of the monk - since it's a Death Giant, I'd say pretty high)...
Merestil Haye 05-03-07, 08:26 AM	Except Constructs. They can have Wisdom and Charisma, but they have additional rules that specifically say that they count as objects for spells and effects that target only objects. If it does not have that text, the monk probably should not be allowed to apply that damage to it.Constructs are creatures, and are damaged as creatures. In no way do they count as objects for the purposes of damage. The line you may be thinking of is that constructs are immune to effects that require a Fort save, unless the effect affects objects or is harmless. This is a result of the fact that constructs are not living creatures - but they are creatures. Undead have the same immumuty, and for the same reason. (It means you can't make them drop dead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/slayLiving.htm), but you can turn them to ash (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/disintegrate.htm) (for example).) what I meant by saying he had the eagle claw attack was that when he planned to attack the weapon on later rounds he'd be doing a bit more damage, in response to Phrennzy's comment about damage.Sorry, I misinterpreted what you meant then.
Murrdox 05-03-07, 01:42 PM	No you shouldnt. Seriously, saying the equivalent of "I stab him in the face" isnt creative. Its pretty much what you're trying to do with every single attack. D&D has HP for a reason. Its usually not a great idea to avoid them. Sorry, I guess we disagree. If a player said "I want to stab in the face!", meaning that as the DM, I should make that stab an automatic critical hit, do more damage, etc... then I would say "no, if you want to do something like that, take some Rogue levels so that you can Sneak Attack". However, if a player said "I want to stab him in the face, and try to blind him with his own blood streaming down over his eyes", then I'd say "Sure thing. You can take an attack at -4 to try and hit." At that point, I'd have the enemy make some sort of saving throw, probably a FORT save. If he failed, I'd say that blood is streaming down the enemy's face, partially blinding him. That enemy now has a 20% chance to miss with a melee attack until he takes some time to wipe the blood out of his face. The rules are not the Bible. The rules don't have anything in them about toilets either. That doesn't mean I'd forbid a character from trying to creatively brew a potion that had debilitating diarrhea as a result.
PenderGrass 05-03-07, 05:16 PM	Yes. You can sunder a persons bones. First, you must remove the bone from the owner. Then, boil the flesh off. Finally, carry them as an item or equipment. They may now be sundered. :dragon: ****
tos_shai_hulud 05-03-07, 05:16 PM	The line you may be thinking of is that constructs are immune to effects that require a Fort save, unless the effect affects objects or is harmless. This is a result of the fact that constructs are not living creatures - but they are creatures. Yup, that's what I was thinking :P.
Flan 05-03-07, 05:24 PM	LOLOLOLOL... why of COURSE you can sunder people! Don't all YOUR combats last 1 round as everyone has their neck sundered in round one? :rolleyes:
tos_shai_hulud 05-03-07, 06:53 PM	LOLOLOLOL... why of COURSE you can sunder people! Don't all YOUR combats last 1 round as everyone has their neck sundered in round one? :rolleyes: Depends on the game you are playing... Add in some extras from a White Wolf game, and sure, why not?
Grand Theft Otto 05-03-07, 07:25 PM	". However, if a player said "I want to stab him in the face, and try to blind him with his own blood streaming down over his eyes", then I'd say "Sure thing. You can take an attack at -4 to try and hit." At that point, I'd have the enemy make some sort of saving throw, probably a FORT save. If he failed, I'd say that blood is streaming down the enemy's face, partially blinding him. That enemy now has a 20% chance to miss with a melee attack until he takes some time to wipe the blood out of his face. That IMO is semi reasonable (though I'd allow it on a crit rather than a -4 to hit). Breaking someone's arm on a successful grapple is not.