Level Up (A5E) Can Mending Restore a Damaged Item?

[Faolyn]

I hope you put out an errata or some other official-type document that explains this.

 

[noodohs]

I feel it is clear? You seem to understand it just fine!

I get that you don’t like it, and that’s your prerogative, and if a designer wants to pop in to debate with you why they made particular design decisions, they’re welcome to, but that’s not something I can really do.

Sorry. I’m not trying to be unhelpful, I promise, but I’m only able to pass specific rules questions to the designers. I can’t really be passing messages back and forth in an essay debate.

It's all good, I think I mistakenly assumed you were one of the designers and were being a Crawford about it Of course, my own games can always rule however we want, so my feedback is only here for future consideration/clarity. I appreciate that there's at least someone involved in the project on here to see this sort of feedback.

 

[Morrus]

It's all good, I think I mistakenly assumed you were one of the designers

I am -- there were about 30 designers in total. If you want to talk about strongholds or the journey rules, I'm all ears! Those I had a very direct hand in.

 

[Stalker0]

By contrast, I have a longsword. Same material, roughly the same dimensions, and let's say the blade snaps. Should I not also be able to mend that back together?

Perhaps the takeaway is that once a weapon or armor is "damaged", the damage is already much greater than the "1 foot dimension rule". Aka the sword is cracked down through the blade, the armor has a very large rip, etc.

 

[Szadek]

I find this confusing what Marrus stated as that assumption undermines the Elective Studies: Persistent Mending Feature from the Wizard class, which allows "When you finish a long rest, choose up to 6 creatures who rested with you, including yourself. Choose one piece of their equipment to enchant with a persistent mending effect." If that is indeed the case an errata for both the cantrip and Elective Study should be given.

 

[getquarked]

personally, I would consider it a "max value" repair type of thing, where it seems a max value is repaired using the cantrip, and with regards to this one:

I find this confusing what Marrus stated as that assumption undermines the Elective Studies: Persistent Mending Feature from the Wizard class, which allows "When you finish a long rest, choose up to 6 creatures who rested with you, including yourself. Choose one piece of their equipment to enchant with a persistent mending effect." If that is indeed the case an errata for both the cantrip and Elective Study should be given.

I think its fair to say "specific trumps general" in this case, in that with "persistent" mending, no crack or break or chip becomes great enough to warrant repair.

I think an errata would be nice for this though to address this, definitely.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

For my own house rule, after watching the discussion, I'd probably do something like the following.

Mending is a "rough" sort of fixing and if you just used it to fix a snapped sword you'd end up with a crooked improvised weapon. However, you can choose to make the check needed to repair it when you cast it, and you get an expertise die on it. Furthermore, the spell negates the need for any tools. So, for instance, with the snapped sword, you need neither smith's tools nor a forge to attempt it.

I think actually using tools should probably help, so maybe it upgrades the expertise die in that case.

The idea is that almost all adventuring gear is precision tools, and this sort of rough mending can't automatically repair precisely. The repair quality is the same regardless of the type of object, but that degree of repair just isn't good enough to get some things working properly unless you make a check.

 

[noodohs]

That is more or less my thoughts. Mending can fix the break (if it's literally broken in a way that qualifies), but you still have to maintain it to make it useful. Really, for me the question is if it goes from broken to only damaged as a result.

 

[getquarked]

For my own house rule, after watching the discussion, I'd probably do something like the following.

Mending is a "rough" sort of fixing and if you just used it to fix a snapped sword you'd end up with a crooked improvised weapon. However, you can choose to make the check needed to repair it when you cast it, and you get an expertise die on it. Furthermore, the spell negates the need for any tools. So, for instance, with the snapped sword, you need neither smith's tools nor a forge to attempt it.

I think actually using tools should probably help, so maybe it upgrades the expertise die in that case.

The idea is that almost all adventuring gear is precision tools, and this sort of rough mending can't automatically repair precisely. The repair quality is the same regardless of the type of object, but that degree of repair just isn't good enough to get some things working properly unless you make a check.

Oh wait this is actually brilliant. Morrus said it grants an experience die, so this is how it checks out, with mending being the "ROUGH" repair.

With mending being written as it is, I would still allow it to take weapons from Broken -> Damaged, imo, but not damaged -> anything else. Im not sure if that could hold up, maybe it could be an Dexterity-Engineering check to hold the sword steady in place as you do a mending spell, so a 1d20+1d4 + modifiers, just to start