Quote Originally Posted by ZeroGear View Post
But of a moral pondering:
I know that a lot of systems (mostly in d&d and pathfinder) feature rules for breaking weapons wielded by characters or enemy's. I'm kinda curious as to why few people ever use this mechanic.
Also, could anyone give me their opinion as to how much of a d**k move it would be for a DM to have enemies break characters weapons?
For clarification, I don't mean in every battle, but more commonly in fight with particularly powerful foes or strategically minded enemies.
Now I'm not going into the loot aspect but why break a weapon when you can just kill them. Most people have a backup weapon in the form of knife, shortsword or whatever. Even when you break a weapon you can still use it as an improvised weapon in most cases. You can even grab a weapon from a downed foe. A lot of systems don't have a ridiculous loot focus so grabbing the sword of a fallen foe might be just as good as your own.

In systems that don't involve a bloated HP shield you have to whittle through to down your foe it is much more effective to strike the arm to cripple it or just go straight for the killing blow.

I've never heard of the strategy of breaking your foes weapon. "Boys I have a cunning strategy, now let's sunder their weapons and then we kill them". In a fight you might break your opponents weapon if the opportunity presented itself, like if you caught a blade on the rim of your shield or you trapped your foes fencing weapon with a swordbreaker.