Damaging Armor

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

I found the section in the Player's Handbook about armor's hit points and the fact that it cannot be sundered while being worn.

How can armor be damaged in combat? Excluding magic and elemental damage?

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I'm not sure that it can be damaged in combat so long as it is currently being worn (as silly as it sounds). The damage to armor is just abstracted away for simplicity's sake.

Edit: On second thoughts, don't magic items have to make a saving throw if a PC rolls a 1 on a saving throw? Wouldn't that be a way for armor to be damaged?

Olaf the Stout

 

[useness]

This just came up recently in our gaming session. As the DM I was tired of one of my characters nigh indomitable AC due to class bonuses and mountain plate. So had them fight a massive acid spewing critter ( I believe it was a Purple Worm ) which should IMHO do damage to his gear. Since I'm a rather low level DM, lacking in useful xp, I learned quickly that you are unable to damage doth armor whilst donned!

Of course I could've, as DM, overruled this revelation but I dislike changing stuff on the fly without hashing out pros or cons.

If anyone knows of a good variant for destructible gear I would be interested as well.

 

[Stalker0]

I believe a bebilith damages armor when it attacks.

And yes, technically if you roll a 1 on a reflex save, your equipment can get damaged.

Curious, how many people actually use that rule?

 

[irdeggman]

Then there is always the infamous rust monster.

 

[Whimsical]

A shatter spell will destroy worn armor as long as it's not magical. Rusting grasp specifically degrades or destroys armor.

Back in 3.0, I used polymorph any object to transform +5 full fortification full-plate armor on a storm giant into green slime. Now the spell doesn't work on magic items.

When I was playing a Living Greyhawk adventure, a fellow player had his character's armor destroyed with shatter. Normally this is something that simply sucks for the player, except that he had just spent over 10K to craft this full plate mithral armor, which required him to burn a regional campaign favor to simply get the mithral. It was probably the most expensive non-magical item of gear a player could have, which he would then have been able to afford to magically enhance after this adventure.

At this point the player was near campaign-suicide. But all was well when I told him that I could cast make whole and that would restore his armor completely. This was especially significant because the armor would have been gone from his character if I wasn't able to restore it by the conclusion of the adventure.

Nice to know I can make a positive difference in the world. Well, at least in a game world.

 

[Aus_Snow]

If anyone knows of a good variant for destructible gear I would be interested as well.

There is such a variant in 'From Stone to Steel' (now OoP), from Monkey God Enterprises. It's also (in fact, it's mainly) a kick ass d20 encyclopedia of arms and armour through the ages, from stone age up.

Highly recommended, if you can find a copy at a reasonable price. I've used lots of stuff from it, including a modified version of the rules variant in question. Awesome stuff!

 

[shilsen]

Then there is always the infamous rust monster.

I see your rust monster and raise you a delver.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

Thanks, everyone.

I was hoping that there were an official way to damage armor while being worn.

We were thinking of house-ruling that the armor takes 1 point of damage on a critical hit, but that still seems a bit artificial and arbitrary.

I just think that there ought to be a way for Fighter X with his handy-dandy greatsword to damage Fighter Y's splint mail in combat... Without resorting to spells or monsters.

I know this isn't the house rules forums, but what if there were a Greater Sunder feat that allowed a character to attempt to sunder armor whilst it was being worn?

 

[Whimsical]

If Greater Sunder requires Sunder as a prerequisite, then I recommend the feat also makes the armor wearer become entangled in their armor if the sunderer successfully damages the armor.

That would make it a feat worth taking.