Item Wear and Tear

[Janx]

How exactly bows are explained as being limbered or unlimbered as needed has always been handwaved away in my experience (at least since I have been led to believe it isn't possible to keep a bow strung for very long periods as I understand it). It would take a round or three to string a bow when going from total non-combat to combat, with worse for crossbows, but most groups just handle them as always ready.

as an odd-side note. My Hollow Earth Swordworks crossbow is of their earlier design. Nobody mentioned unstringing it when I bought it. It still shoots with about the same strength, and it's been strung for like 10 years.

On the same string.

Granted, it sees less use. But just sitting there? Getting cleaned a couple times a year? It can be fine.

some qualifications:
my x-bow, undrawn is under minimal tension, it's not bending as much. The way the did the ends, makes it harder to unstring than the new design.

a long bow, strung, is under higher tension as the bow is bent far greater in its idle position. So I wouldn't leave a bow strung like that.

I have no idea if people marched around with a bow slung all day (given that it's easier to carry over your shoulder that way, and to use it in a hurry).

 

[Neonchameleon]

I have a party that is about to embark on a long journey across uncharted yadda yadda yadda... Everyone knows how this goes. I'm running a Pathfinder campaign with a dash of Iron Kingdoms, and have a rules issue.

My predicament is being created by the fact that I want to give the players a little something extra to worry about during their travels: Armor ripping and denting, swords chipping and dulling, longbows stretching, and the rest of the issues that come with repeated and long-term use. The only problem is that I cannot find any rules or suggestions on how to calculate this type of item damage, how it should be dealt and how much it should be.

I trust you are going to track each of their pieces of armour and their weapons yourself. Because if not, you are putting your PCs in a situation where the more work they do the less fun they have with the game - whereas if they forget they benefit and have more fun with the game. This is a big enough perverse incentive that it is not something you should ever do to your PCs.

I've considered dealing 1 point of damage per battle encounter, or possibly only dealing damage with significant occurrences such as critical hits/misses.

Don't penalise players for critical hits! And as has been said, critical misses are bad in 3.X. The best critical miss rule I've seen is the 4e one where if you roll a 1 you get the option to reroll. Play it safe and it's just a miss. Play it reckless and you may break your weapon.

 

[callinostros]

Be aware that this is a can of worms that once opened can not be closed. Once you introduce these rules into your game they will be there for the rest of your campaign...long after this epic long journey.

If your damage occurs by combat, ie from crits/fumbles, this mechanic will be with you in each and every fight from then on. If instead it it due to long periods of usage/travel in inhospitable circumstances then you will need to go more abstract and do a check after an extended period of time; perhaps once a month of game time.

Personally, I do not think the reward is worth the extra effort.

 

[Janx]

you definitely need to keep it a light weight system. And making PCs track it will not be a good thing. Its in my best interests to "forget" to update it.

Additionally, the ultimate consequence in-game of these rules, is they come out the other side with all their gear broken. Is that fun?

If you're keen on having a gear decay rule, consider:
normally PCs do regular upkeep on gear.
in harsher climes, lack of resources, etc, then there's a chance of something breaking each day/week/month/whatever.

Let's say there's a 1% chance an item breaks. Do that check, and then roll to generate a number between 1 and the total # of inventory entries on their sheet. Basically, whatever you roll, count down their inventory list to find out what item it was.

That item has finally worn out. Maybe it got sat on, stressed out from all the use, dried out and cracked, whatever. That item is broken and can't do it's normal function. It could be repaired or replaced. Maybe the Mend spell can fix it if it is a mundane item (not a weapon/armor/magic).

This method means you don't have to track anything. It's exception based. You check to see if an exception occurred, then find out what broke.

Another benefit to this method is that things break and wear out, not just from use, but disuse, lack of care, weather, and accidents. The attack roll method only hurts weapons and armor, which tend to be the hardiest thing a PC is carrying.

 

[LostSoul]

How about this:

Get some tokens, two different colours.

If someone's hit with a crit, give them an armour/shield (player's choice) token. If they already have a token, don't worry about it.

If someone fumbles an attack, give them a weapon token. If they already have a token, don't worry about it.

At the end of the battle, roll 1d6 for each token. Add the enhancement bonus of the weapon/armour or shield to the d6 roll. If the roll is 1-3, the item loses 1/2 its max HP (ie. two will break it).

 

[Janx]

How about this:

Get some tokens, two different colours.

If someone's hit with a crit, give them an armour/shield (player's choice) token. If they already have a token, don't worry about it.

If someone fumbles an attack, give them a weapon token. If they already have a token, don't worry about it.

At the end of the battle, roll 1d6 for each token. Add the enhancement bonus of the weapon/armour or shield to the d6 roll. If the roll is 1-3, the item loses 1/2 its max HP (ie. two will break it).

Obviously, I like my method better....

My concern with yours is, the only thing that gets broke is armor for people who get hit, or weapons for people who attack with them.

backpack straps get stressed
stuff in backbacks break when I keep dropping it when monsters pop-out to attack
wands get broke when I get dive to save vs. dragon
bows get broke during sword fights because they were dropped on the ground and I backed into it or because it was slung over my shoulder during the fight.

Furthermore, your method emphasizes stuff breaking because of combat. What if I spend 3 months hiking, and never fight? Nothing breaks?
humidity and aridity cause leather to stretch or dry up and crack.
things get jostled during riding and hiking and stumbling

If you're going to model stuff breaking/wearing out, all items are candidates and all candidates are viable for a variety of reasons, not just combat.

 

[LostSoul]

Good point.

You could have it trigger on any d20 roll of a natural 1, then roll on the "what equipment got burned by the dragon's breath" (Items Affected by Magical Attacks) table somewhere in the DMG. Caster level checks would burn out your spell component pouch.

Though that's more tedious.

I guess you'd want to figure out what kinds of things you want the PCs to be doing (ie. what the game is about), then figure out some way of dealing with it that's not a pain.

Now that I think about it a little more, you'd probably want to rewrite 3E's overland travel stuff.

You'd want to make it about getting the proper amounts of supplies, figuring out how much forage to carry on the back of your mule vs. tools, have a good system for wandering monsters, setting up camp, and a good system to determine how much time it takes to repair something.

What I do in my 4E hack is, if there are environmental problems, I just get the players to tell me how they are dealing with them and have them make checks. If they failed I associate the failure with their action.

This sort of thing is pretty easy under my system since I have a basic economy working: there's only so much you can do/so far you can travel in 4 hours, some things/routes are more dangerous and rewarding than others, and wandering monsters may come by every 4 hours. Decisions, decisions, though not particularly deep ones.

This is pretty interesting. I will think about it while I'm at the gym.

 

[KiloGex]

Just wanted to give a little background as to the players involved in this campaign and why I'm even considering putting this into the game:

We use a lot of the alternate combat rules from Pathfinder to make the game a little more realistic, including the Armor as Damage Reduction, Wounds and Vigor, and Piecemeal Armor. Along with this, we also play with critical damage affecting specific body parts and the combination of this, while it does put a bit more stress on the GM (in this case, me) it does put a boost into the game, especially where we play with a bit less emphasis on the combat and more on the exploration and RP of the characters.

Ultimately, I'm hoping that this system will give the players more to think about that a normal traveler would have to consider.

 

[KiloGex]

Thanks to broghammerj, Vascant, Janx, and LostSoul for giving me enough background info, ideas, situations, and meta decisions to construct the following...

Figuring that "Item Wear and Tear" will be added to the random encounter table for their daily travels, if this comes up then each player has a 50% chance that one of their items will become worn. The GM will roll on the player's character sheet to determine which item will become worn down. Every item starts out as having 1 point score, correlating to a number chance on the die rolled. Each time a weapon critically misses, or armor gets critically hit, a point is added to its chance. If an item gets selected, then it becomes "worn". With a craft check (DC is the same as it would be to create the item) a player may reduce the items points by 1, to a minimum score of 1. For each 5 points above the DC, the wear is reduced by an additional 1 point.

If weapons or armor become worn, they will lose 1 HP for each time they are used during combat until they reach 0. For non-combat items, they will reach 0 after 24 hours. At this point the item will become "defective" until repaired and is unusable; however, a critical roll from a d20 means that the item becomes broken.

An items defective status will be reduced to worn with a successful craft check. Another successful craft check will remove the worn status completely. A craft check of 10 or greater than the DC removes any status effect on an item, while less than 10 increases the status (ie worn to defective, or defective to broken).

 

[the Jester]

I use a highly abstracted system of "wear points".

1 wear point means an item is cosmetically damaged- perhaps your boots are visibly worn

2 wear points means that the item's function is damaged; your boots are not comfortable. Where appropriate (mostly armor and weapons), this means that the item suffers a -1.

3 wear points means the item is destroyed.

Magic items can handle an extra wear point per plus (or per tier, in 4e) before being damaged.