Armour breaking?

[Orco42]

Does any one use armour breaking rules?

I was thinking if a character is misses because of armour (ie a miss but it would have hit if the person had no armour) that the armour could be damaged.

For example if a fighter in full plate with a dex af 12 (ac 19) is being attacked by someone who gets a from 11-18 to hit then you would do damage to the armour.

The armour has a hardness of 8 so if the damage was hit for 10 it would take 2 damage.

Do you think this is a good idea? And how would I determine HP's of armour.

Thanks.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I don't really think it's a good idea, but it's your call. Remember to check if the atatck would make a melee touch attack before checking for armor hit...

 

[Crothian]

Destroying armor can really hurt the PCs. They have to constantly replace it, and they have to keep track of it. I think it's not a good idea. To complicated.

 

[Shinsetsu]

I think armor breaking is a great idea, but it could slow down gameplay if it's a factor in every attack roll. Here's my house rule on armor breaking.

Those who possess the sunder feat can attempt to break through their opponent's armor, and if successful, cut their opponen'ts armor AC bonuses in half.
The states of armor are:
1. Not broken- full AC
2. Broken- 1/2 AC.
3. Destroyed- no AC bonus but still penalizes with encumberance and armor check penalties (haven't ever used this)
The worst part of this option is keeping track of armor hit points, but that's the way it is.
Armor is not damaged from ordinary blows- only intentional attempts to damage it as per the sunder feat. If the sunder is successful, but only damages the armor and does not break it, the armor absorbs all damage from that blow. If the blow breaks the armor, the guy underneath also takes damage, but only half- the armor eats part of it.

A table for substance hardness and hit points is on pg. 136 of the PHB. This should be your guide for determining armor hardness and hp. Use the listed HP values/2 for hp concerning the material used to construct the armor, and add bonuses to that total for the total AC of the armor, and of course, a +1 bonus if it's a masterwork item. Magical armors can only be damaged by magical weapons of the same or higher +X enchantment bonus etc, etc.

The armor is broken when this total damage is inflicted (the armor reaches 0HP). Armor is destroyed when this total is reached again after the armor is already broken. If your Masterwork Adamantite Breastplate has 26HP (20HP for adamantite material+ 5HP for breastplate AC+ 1HP for masterwork construction), and ignores 20 points of damage per hit thanks to that great hardness, it should last a while. The possible 3 points of AC you can shave off may or may not be worth the trouble, if you have to inflict more than 20 points of damage just to make a dent. You might have a better chance of defeating the guy wearing this if you just make a normal attack roll against the higher quality armors. On the other hand, high level characters with power attack could really abuse this option. Then, there's that possibility of gaining that armor after you defeat the guy. Who wants a great piece of BROKEN armor? Anyway, I hope this helps.