Craft and Ponder

Water Bob

Adventurer
Here's something to ponder. Let's say your sword is victim to a Sunder attack. Your sword doesn't break, but its hit points are reduced.

The Crafting rules allow for repairing items, and I'm assuming returning HP to swords is a regular activity among smiths. But, is there anything a character can do in the wild? Do you think there's some sort of Crafting check that could be made with the character using a whet stone? To allow for the character to sharpen out nicks and stuff like that? Maybe return 1 HP only to the sword?

As always, looking for your input and opinion.
 

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The spell Make Whole will repair any nonmagical item to 100%.

Somewhere in the rules (maybe the DMG or DMG2) it states something about characters usually spending time everyday to do upkeep on equipment; such as using a whetstone to sharpen a sword. While I don't remember reading anywhere about HP recovery for weapons you could use apply the same natural healing rules of characters to weapons if they take sunder damage and don't break. While this doesn't logically make sense in real world terms it could easily work for game terms.

And with bags of holding and Hewards Haversacks it is concievable that a PC could have all the materials needed to use the craft skill in that bag.

Just my two cents worth. Hope it helped.
 



More is needed than tools if you don't have magic on your side. If your spear haft is broken, you are going to have to fashion a new haft and affix the spearhead or get a splint to tie the broken haft together. What I am getting at is that you need materials to fix a weapon, and those raw materials can usually only be found in civilized areas. If you are "in the wild" then you better hope you have magical means. There are no rules for a jury-rig in D&D unfortunately; you'd be at the mercy of your DM in such cases.
 


The Crafting rules allow for repairing items, and I'm assuming returning HP to swords is a regular activity among smiths. But, is there anything a character can do in the wild?

Make Craft checks with improvised tools?

You'd still need to cover the "raw materials" cost somehow, but I've never run into a DM who wouldn't let you buy "spare stuff" to carry around with you.
 


IMO, either:

1) That's standard maintenance which is assumed in the rules, and therefore doesn't count as enough to repair damage done to a weapon, or

2) It's using a purpose-built repair tool (and therefore not improvised tools) to make Craft checks to repair a weapon.

I'm leaning towards the 1st, but if you want to treat it as the 2nd, then I'd say you'd need to determine exactly how many GP worth of raw materials a whetstone is worth before it's "used up" or otherwise limit it somehow (e.g., a whetstone can be used to repair 1 hit point when an edged weapon is damaged; it cannot remove the broken condition; it cannot be used more than once for a single weapon / instance of damage).

I don't think that would be imbalanced.
 

I'm leaning towards the 1st, but if you want to treat it as the 2nd, then I'd say you'd need to determine exactly how many GP worth of raw materials a whetstone is worth before it's "used up" or otherwise limit it somehow (e.g., a whetstone can be used to repair 1 hit point when an edged weapon is damaged; it cannot remove the broken condition; it cannot be used more than once for a single weapon / instance of damage).

I don't think that would be imbalanced.

Yes, I was thinking either 1 hp max, or 1 hp each time the weapon is damaged.

And...I think it would only work on edged weapons. Not blunt.

There's already a rule in Conan where, if you use a whetstone for X amount of time, and make a check, you get +1 to your crit thread range for the first strike that hits.

For example, if you used the whetstone for the required time, and you passed the check (forgot what it was....something like a DC 10 Craft weaponsmith), your weapon, that normally scores a critical threat on a 19-20, scores one on an 18-19-20 until the first time the weapon hits and causes damage.

So, there's a good chance that you won't score a crit hit, but I like how the rule makes the whetstone mechanically useful to the players.

I could broaden its use by also allowing 1 HP repair with a, say, DC 15 (or maybe a DC 10, to give the unskilled a chance) Craft Weaponsmith check.
 

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