D&D 5E Equipment Damage and Duration Rules

[Bawylie]

Don't know... I never actually implemented it for many of the reasons you listed

Lol

Right?


-Brad

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Say we get some sense of real-ism out of this.

This seems like one of those areas where trying to be more realistic is likely to backfire. There's a term for it, I know, but it's not coming to me.

In real life, people wore armor, because it was better to suffer a broken breastplate than to suffer a broken rib. In the game world, if armor needed to be repaired at the cost of time and money, then it would be better to not wear armor at all, because fixing a broken breastplate would incur costs and fixing a broken rib would be entirely free. Wearing armor would only make sense if we fixed the healing rules - at least to the point where you'd rather take a hit to the armor than directly to the flesh.

 

[Bawylie]

This seems like one of those areas where trying to be more realistic is likely to backfire. There's a term for it, I know, but it's not coming to me.

In real life, people wore armor, because it was better to suffer a broken breastplate than to suffer a broken rib. In the game world, if armor needed to be repaired at the cost of time and money, then it would be better to not wear armor at all, because fixing a broken breastplate would incur costs and fixing a broken rib would be entirely free. Wearing armor would only make sense if we fixed the healing rules - at least to the point where you'd rather take a hit to the armor than directly to the flesh.

Say you had 5 levels worth of HP, but kept all your hit dice as reserves for healing. How about now?


-Brad

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Say you had 5 levels worth of HP, but kept all your hit dice as reserves for healing. How about now?

I can't understand what you're saying.

If I have 30 HP, and I have the choice of taking 27 damage to my meat or 27 damage to my armor, I'm going to choose whichever one of those is easiest to recover. If fixing damage to my armor costs 27 gp and takes a week, but fixing the damage to my meat is free and only takes eight hours, then that's a strong incentive for me to not wear armor.

Monks and sorcerers benefit heavily in this scenario, while paladins and fighters lose out. Unless you do something to compensate the armor-wearing classes for this additional expenses, players have no reason to play one of those classes instead of one of the many alternatives; but if you do give them something to compensate, like higher AC or more HP or something, then you risk upsetting the balance of the game even further than it already is.

 

[MechaPilot]

Durability systems really do seem to add too much bookkeeping for most groups, so much that I think it would really only go over if someone made some kind of digital tool to track it.

 

[MechaPilot]

Unless you do something to compensate the armor-wearing classes for this additional expenses, players have no reason to play one of those classes instead of one of the many alternatives; but if you do give them something to compensate, like higher AC or more HP or something, then you risk upsetting the balance of the game even further than it already is.

Armor-granted damage reduction and/or bonus HPs would be good compensation.

 

[nswanson27]

Armor-granted damage reduction and/or bonus HPs would be good compensation.

Or you could start to allow finding and using armor from fallen enemies (which would also increase realism).

 

[Erechel]

An idea I'm toying with. A natural 1 on an attack is a crit, but also breaks the weapon being wielded.
At a player's option, a crit against them can do No Damage, but break their armor, instead.
-Brad

This has problems of its own, namely the amount of attacks of fighters. An unskilled fighter has lesser opportunities to break its wooden staff than a fighter with its quality steel! Also, quality of weapons is never an issue, which is something that I care about

 

[Erechel]

How about a simple gp fee based on armor type and damage taken? E.g.:

- heavy armor: 5gp per HP damage taken
- medium: 3gp per hp
- light: 2gp per hp
- no armor: 1gp per hp

Throw the item away if it takes more to fix than buy new.

The problem is that you have to track specific damage of every kind every time you fight, which increases a lot the bookkeeping and potentially halts a game. I've playtested with my newbie table the duration rules that I've posted, and we retroactively counted all the fights they had in the prior sessions (plus a non-combat, flash flood encounter), and apply these damage to the equipment they wear. It took us less than 10 minutes in that session, but the players were concerned about the state of the equipment. Their soft armors were mostly broken, and shields and their weapons too, but metal armors were still "intact". They had to go to a blacksmith of sorts and ask him to repair their equipment, and they selected which pieces of equipment (some weapons, some armor) to repair, giving that they had a time issue. Also, they collected after a fight a few shields, as their own were damaged.

Counting a number of fights is easier than counting damage inside a fight, tracking each item separatelly. This way, you can apply damage to every equipment piece once for session or once every few sessions.

As for the prices you post, they are OK, but 10% of the equipment cost to repair it seems easy too.

 

[schnee]

Does this also include ripping, burning or otherwise destroying spell book pages when a Wizard gets hit with damaging spells? And will that necessitate that spell not being useable until that page is re-written at a specific gold and time cost?

Because that reminds me of AD&D failed saves, when you had to make a save for every magic and mundane item you owned when you failed a save vs., say, a Fireball. Let's just say we had spare equipment back in camp, being guarded by our men-at-arms, and the DM generally gave out more stuff because more stuff got destroyed.

A few of these rules, and the balance of where you spend time substantially changes.