D&D 5E Damaging Armor

[Grazzt]

But honestly doesn't the mending cantrips existence kind of make any system like this pointless.

DMs call I guess on whether mending works or not.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Mending works on damaged things, but not destroyed things, IIRC. So it would probably work on rust monster stuff, too. But, y'know, it's not that great of a cantrip most of the time, so I'm cool letting it work wonderbar here! Reward that person who took it!

 

[Mephistopheles]

I think it'd be fine to allow mending to fix the damaged shields and armour and wouldn't make it irrelevant: there is the risk that a character could take multiple hits during the combat. Taking enough hits to lose armour doesn't seem too likely; losing a shield, however, could be - characters may choose not to use them against these creatures once they see what's up. This could add a different dimension of tension to a situation.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

In my home-brewed system I call "Fantasy Elements", I came up with a system that I call "CPAGMEL" ("See-Pagmell"). Those are 'quality levels'; Crap, Poor, Average, Good, Masterwork, Exquisite, Legendary. Average is the baseline, obviously, and going down *quickly* denegrates the item...going up is not linear. The cool thing about this system is that it's used for ALL equipment. It does, however, rely most heavily in DM adjudication of something. Rolling natural 1's isn't an automatic downgrade, and getting your sword sharpened from an expert weaponsmith doesn't automatically upgrade. This system makes it easy for a DM to add those little "story things" that go on in, well, stories, but rarely in an RPG. For example, a party of adventurers slogging through a swamp for 5 days may have all their footwear "reduced by one Quality Level"; so if everyone had Average QL boots, they are now Poor QL boots. If they get reduced again, they go to Crap QL. If reduced yet again, they are destroyed and beyond any use.

Anyway...I have toyed with that for D&D, but I'm still unsure; D&D was never really about all that stuff. If focuses on heroic'ish adventures, delving into deep caves, slaying dragons and taking their treasure. Worrying about equipment degredation seems a bit off in it. That said...if you can find a PDF or hardcopy of Kenzer & Co's Hackmaster 4th Edition (the first one, not the latest), it has rules for armor and shield "hit points".

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Ahrimon]

For me systems like that only make sense if they're consistent. The Leuk-whatever can destroy sheilds and armor by biting it, but the dragon doesn't? Getting hit by the Titan's warhammer doesn't do anything but a narrative scratch, but the dog thing can crunch right though?

Give it an acid bite that damages armor and I'd buy it.

Some of the proposed, whole game, ideas above aren't too shabby though. Not my default taste in a game, but not shabby.

 

[Nebulous]

I would go with the first idea. I don't think HP would be more realistic, armor increases AC mostly because it covers the creature, so the creature's effect might be that of stripping away your armor one piece at a time, thus manifesting gradually but starting as soon as the first hit. HP would have no effect until 0.

I would too. It's simple and easy to implement and instantly becomes the monster's schtick.