Sundering

Version 0.34: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

After you perform multiple consecutive attacks, its next attack will deal greatly increased damage and also cleave into targets an extra space away.

The sundering brand, exclusive to Axes, does the following:

• Every consecutive attack will store up power, releasing it on the 7th attack, dealing triple damage at higher accuracy, and with 1 more tile of cleaving reach.
• Attacking with something else, or doing anything else but attacking on your turn will cause the count to reset.

Sources

Sundering can only generate and exist on axes. It is available through both random generation and through a scroll of brand weapon.

Strategy

Assuming at least one triple damage attack is made, sundering's damage boost ranges from +15.8% to +28.57% -- before considering the accuracy boost or extra reach. It also has the benefit of dealing physical damage, which no enemy resists. However, it requires attacking for 7 turns in a row, which has several flaws:

• The bonus gets reset after any non-melee attack, meaning that evocables, god abilities, escape items, etc. will reset the bonus and thus become more difficult to use. Even switching rings to gain a resistance will trigger a reset.
• It introduces a psycological risk, as sundering discourages the player from making other actions even if said actions are the "correct" choice.
• It is prone to overkill damage, e.g., if an enemy is almost dead after 6 hits.

It is particularly strong in corridor combat, as it is possible to continue attacking even after an enemy dies and the reach will hit an enemy in the back.

Sundering is very dangerous in enemy hands, since monster base damage gets tripled too. For example, a naga warrior with a war axe of sundering can deal up to 105 damage, and even more if mighted.

History

• Sundering was introduced, along with the other weapon type specific brands, in 0.34.