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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Falstaff" data-source="post: 1668170" data-attributes="member: 6060">If you are the type of DM that likes to monitor damage to armor and how it relates to game mechanics, then you might find my variant rule useful.I devised these variant rules for a few reasons. First, I like this kind of attention to detail (but I also like to avoid cumbersome rules). Second, they allow me add a little more verisimilitude to my descriptions of equipment and other items. Third, I like to devise ways to force my players to spend their hard-earned coins (thus keeping them in need of more coins, which drives them to want to adventure that much more).Armor & shields accumulate Degradation Points (DPs) each time they suffer critical damage. A suit of armor or shield can sustain DPs equal to 10 x armor/shield bonus before any degradation occurs. For example a suit of chainmail can sustain 50 DPs before it starts degrading and a light wooden shield can suffer 10. Once a suit or shield takes on more DPs than it can hold, it drops to the next lowest armor/shield bonus. For example, as soon as a suit of chainmail suffers more than 50 DPs, its armor bonus drops to +4 and now it can sustain 40 DPs before it drops to +3, and so on until it is totally ruined. Once a suit or shield has reached +1 armor/shield bonus and it sustains more than 10 DPs, it is beyond repair and essentially useful only to a hungry Rust Monster.A PC who wields a shield and wears a suit of armor, can decide which piece of equipment sustains the DPs. This makes wielding a shield a little more beneficial.I understand that this variant rule requires a little more paperwork on the part of the player, but he/she simply has to have a space on his/her character sheet noted as DPs and just keep a tally.To repair damaged armor or shields, use the rules for Repairing Items under the Craft skill on page 71 of the PHB. Each successful craft skill check repairs a suit or armor or shield up one armor bonus. For example, if a suit of chainmail that has suffered enough DPs to have an armor bonus of +2, would take 30 g.p. to repair up to +3 armor bonus, or 90 g.p. to repair it back to +5 armor bonus. This is calculated on the 1/5 cost in material needed to repair the suit. A player paying an armorer to repair their armor or shield would pay more, maybe a 50% to 100% mark-up.Masterwork armor and shields can sustain 10 more DPs. So, a masterwork suit of chainmail will be able to sustain (at +5 armor bonus) 60 DPs before degrading.Magical armor and shields are immune to degredation.Remember that ONLY critical damage causes armor or shields to degrade.Let me know what you think of these rules and if you have any suggestions on how to streamline them any.cheers and happy gaming!</blockquote>

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