He rolled a natural one on his save...

[Plane Sailing]

Don't you find it a little stupid rules-wise that you can roll a 1 on your save vs 1st level burning hands, take 1d4 damage and your magic sword gets destroyed when it fails it's save, yet you could fail you save against a colossal red dragon, sustain 200 points damage and you don't even lose your paper hat?

Personally I prefer to force massive damage saves for items affected by attacks - unless the damage is over a certain threshold there is no effect, if it is the items have to save.

As Darkness sorta implies, which is worse for players - to have items destroyed by the randomness of chance in the face of big bad magic, or to know that the DM specifically put in a monster which was specifically designed to strip you of some of your items. I know which one would seem fairer to me -whichever- side of the DM screen I'm sitting

Cheers

 

[shilsen]

Don't you find it a little stupid rules-wise that you can roll a 1 on your save vs 1st level burning hands, take 1d4 damage and your magic sword gets destroyed when it fails it's save, yet you could fail you save against a colossal red dragon, sustain 200 points damage and you don't even lose your paper hat?

Not really. Firstly, 1d4 damage can't ever destroy a magic sword (or dagger or backscratcher...) unless the item is already significantly damaged. And there are more than enough ways for a DM to describe it appropriately. If your game uses hit points and you can actually find a way to describe how a character can take 200 pts of damage and still be able to function (mine does and I can), describing how/why items survive or are destroyed is hardly a problem. YMMV, and apparently does.

 

[MerricB]

Don't you find it a little stupid rules-wise that you can roll a 1 on your save vs 1st level burning hands, take 1d4 damage and your magic sword gets destroyed when it fails it's save, yet you could fail you save against a colossal red dragon, sustain 200 points damage and you don't even lose your paper hat?

If you roll a natural 1 on your save, then one of your items (at random, using guidelines as to what is affected, PH176-7) gets a saving throw (PHB177) using your bonus (PHB166) and takes damage (PHB165).

Magical swords and armour gets +10 hit points and +2 hardness for every +1 enhancement bonus.

In this case, the cone of cold did 40 damage, whereupon the item failed its save and took one-quarter damage (cold, PHB 165) = 10, reduced by 5 (hardness, PHB 164-5) to destroy the masterwork crossbow (5 hp).

Killing items is difficult.

Cheers!

 

[Thanee]

Arrrggghhhh!!!!

Remember: Your players are not your enemies!

Bye
Thanee

 

[MerricB]

Remember: Your players are not your enemies!

You're quite right, Thanee.

The players are not our enemies! They are our prey!



Cheers!

 

[diaglo]

You're quite right, Thanee.

The players are not our enemies! They are our prey!



Cheers!

so it was your fault Blackleaf died.

 

[green slime]

so it was your fault Blackleaf died.

LOL

 

[jasper]

I have no problem have all items save on nat 1. Trust me the number of times more than two items will fail are so rare you will talk about for years. My brother still remembers when his helm of brilliance failed just leaving his boots of speed and +2 sword left along with his dust. But that was an old 1e rule.
I killed blackleaf She narc me out to Principal Skinner.

 

[Gez]

Houserule: On a natural one, ALL items must save or take damage.

Wow. Don't you think that's a tad dire ?

I mean, out of 20 times, the players WILL roll a 1: by your house rule, they will bog down the game to a grinding halt when that happen, rolling saves for their weapons, their armor, their backpack, their trail rations, their spare scrolls, their 10-ft.-pole, their pants, their rechange clothes, their signet ring, each of their 12 lockpicks, their toothbrush, their bedroll, their... STOP!

I guess it's not too bad if you run a naked primitive campaign, but DANG !

If I played in such a game, I would always take one level of cleric with the luck domain AND pick the Protected Destiny feat from Races of Destiny.

 

[Thanee]

Yeah, and a cleric will lose half of the equipment in every blast spell, when a 1 is rolled. Even 1/4 damage can fry quite a few objects.

I've seen fighters lose 90% of their stuff in a single Mordenkainen's Disjunction. That's simply no fun!

Bye
Thanee