He rolled a natural one on his save...

[Li Shenron]

This is possibly the rule we most often forget about. When we remember to use it, it's enough for us to keep it at ONE random item, not more!

 

[VirgilCaine]

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

Bye
Thanee

I'm not one to use Mordenkainen's Disjunction, but when you are at the level of enemies using 9th level spells, players are going to have to suck it up and realize that the risks have increased and if you do the wrong thing, you're dead.

Actually, thats kind of my outlook on the game as a whole--I don't play around.

 

[ecliptic]

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.

I don't think so. It happens so little its worth the effort.

Especially when they are running around completely naked because their clothes failed a saving throw against a fireball. Funny as hell.

 

[painandgreed]

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

That's not bad. In one campaign I made them make saves for all their equipment anytime they were hit with an area effect weapon. They started paying much more attention to how they packed up their equipment since if the container (backpack, flask, leather wrapping, etc.) saved, the items inside didn't have to. Of course, they were harder to get out when needed. THis was mostly because it was a high level campaing filled with Elven 12th level magic-users/ 12th level something else. Fireballs rained down on everything they encountered until I made that change and then they decided to stop destroying the treasure.

 

[atom crash]

When I was playing 1st edition, we ruled such that EVERY item had to save whenever we MISSED a save (regardless of how badly it was missed). And all normal items were instantly destroyed in an area effect spell, no save. Fireballs were a party killer because they were likely to toast everyone's equipment. And in that campaign magic items were much harder to come by.

I remember we would spend a load of gold on special fireball-resistant containers to keep healing potions in.

The 3.5 rule of ONE item having to save if you roll a 1 is incredibly easy and much less dangerous by comparison. Especially considering that magic items are such a prevalent part of the game.

 

[Marius Delphus]

When I was playing 1st edition, we ruled such that EVERY item had to save whenever we MISSED a save (regardless of how badly it was missed).

We did this too in 1E and 2E, though we did use item saving throws. A wizard of mine once lost half his gear to an acid bath, and a cavalier of someone else's became a pile of coal (plate armor, sword, shield, and all) after rolling *very* poorly against dragon breath. (We always pictured the rest of the party running away, leaving the armored guy laboring hard trying to keep up... then WHOOF... maybe you had to be there.)

Put me down in favor of the nat 1/1 item rule, but only just; it preserves the fear of losing valued stuff and does away with the multitudinous item saves (we didn't roll for every arrow or sling bullet, mind, but we did -- and do to this day -- have a habit of keeping fairly detailed item inventories). However, the abject terror that precedes every saving throw against energy damage is almost entirely gone. Ah, the good old days....

 

[Kalendraf]

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

The first time it came up, we had difficulty finding the exact ruling in the book. The lead character had been nailed by a black dragon's acid. To keep things rolling, I was forced to make a ruling. I decided that if the player failed their save, then all their equipment had to then make saves. Any item that failed would then be destroyed. As a result, this player lost his magical armor and bow. A few rounds later, the dragon charmed the character as well, effectively neutralizing him from the battle.

Of course, we found the correct ruling later on, and we realized that the character hadn't lost his items. I merely ammended the story to explain the here-gone-here armor and bow: the character had been brainwashed by the dragon into thinking his armor and bow were gone which seemed plausible given he was charmed. Meanwhile, the rest of the party had never seen it happen since the dragon was using darkness spells to cover his lair. Phew!

 

[Lord Pendragon]

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).

I thought energy attacks ignored hardness....?

 

[MerricB]

I thought energy attacks ignored hardness....?

Not a bit of it. Hardness applies to all damage an object takes.

Animated Objects are the toughest foes in the monster manual because of it.

"Cold attacks deal one-quarter damage to most objects; divide the damage by four before applying the hardness." - PHB 165.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

One thing that it's important not to forget is the item saving throw rule for unattended objects. Nonmagical items always fail, magical items get a save based on their Caster Level.

When characters are throwing around fireballs, any gems or art objects just sitting in the room tend to get fried.

Cheers!