D&D 5E low-magic 5E: rules for item wear?

[GlassJaw]

Has anyone come across (or made themselves) rules for armor and weapons wearing down (and therefore becoming less effective) and eventually breaking?

I'm specifically thinking of rules appropriate for a lower-magic setting where magic items are very rare (or non-existent) and acquiring a well-constructed weapon is significant.

 

[Jester David]

For magic, I'd use the rules wands use. When the item needs to recharge the player rolls a d20 and on a 1 the item "breaks".
For mundane, I'd reduce the AC and damage dice every so often. So the long sword goes from d8 to d6 to d4 then breaks.

 

[Stuntman]

There are rules for armour in the 2nd Edition Complete Fighter's Handbook. Armour has a certain number of damage points (DP). Whenever a character wearing the armour is hit, the armour loses one DP. When the armour has no DP remaining, it falls apart and is useless. They have a table that lists the DP for each type of armour.

There are no similar rules for weapons. I guess you could do the same for weapons and on a miss, it loses one DP and falls apart if it loses all DP.

 

[Flamestrike]

Try this:

• Critical hits reduce the targets worn armors AC by 1. Roll 1d6: 1-3 shield, 4-6 worn armor.
• A roll of a 1 on a saving throw also damages an item in addition to any other damage. (determined randomly)
• A fall damages a random carried item if any of the d6 damage dice come up a 6.
• On a roll of 1 on your first attack roll on your turn your weapon might break. Roll 1d6: Wooden weapons break on a 4+, metal weapons break on a 6. Broken weapons are treated as improvised weapons (DM fiat).

Simple and easy to implement.

DC 15 Int (relevant tools) check to repair.

 

[LapBandit]

I never like rules that punish martial characters as they gain greater it becomes punitive whereas Mr Mage never or rarely has to play and pay by the same rules.

 

[pkt77242]

I once played in a group that gave armor "HP", basically you took the armor class and times it by 20. For example Studded Leather gives you an AC of +2, it would have 40HP, and everytime a player took damage from an attack roll you would subtract the damage from it. A character would need to repair the armor before it hit zero hit points.

Personally I hated the system as it just gave us something else to track.

How about every time an attack is made against the character and it is a natural 20, you roll a second 20 dice and if it comes up as a 1, the armor is destroyed (maybe can be fixed for half the cost of buying a new set of armor?). Quick and easy to keep track, though I do feel that martial characters are being punished.

 

[pukunui]

FWIW: One of the things the Lifestyle Expenses cover is the repair of weapons and armor.

 

[the Jester]

I use a "wear point" system. I give items wear points when it seems appropriate, so maybe everyone's footwear gains a wear point during the 30 day march to the adventure site, or maybe a pc who has worn the same armor for months gains a wear point on it during a big fight. I also use wear points in lieu of the official rules for rust monsters, gray oozes, and other item-destroying creatures and items; sometimes especially vicious corrosion effects deal more than 1 wear point.

Typically, 1 wear point is cosmetic damage; 2 wear points gives an item a -1 penalty where appropriate; and 3 wear points destroys an item. Magic items can (generally) sustain 1 additional wear point without suffering more than cosmetic damage. Some items, mundane or magical, have extra wear points or abilities that interact with my wear point system; for example, dwarven master smiths can craft special durable metal items (such as weapons) that, whenever they would take a wear point, can make a DC 10 save to avoid gaining the wear point.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I use a "wear point" system. I give items wear points when it seems appropriate, so maybe everyone's footwear gains a wear point during the 30 day march to the adventure site, or maybe a pc who has worn the same armor for months gains a wear point on it during a big fight. I also use wear points in lieu of the official rules for rust monsters, gray oozes, and other item-destroying creatures and items; sometimes especially vicious corrosion effects deal more than 1 wear point.

Typically, 1 wear point is cosmetic damage; 2 wear points gives an item a -1 penalty where appropriate; and 3 wear points destroys an item. Magic items can (generally) sustain 1 additional wear point without suffering more than cosmetic damage. Some items, mundane or magical, have extra wear points or abilities that interact with my wear point system; for example, dwarven master smiths can craft special durable metal items (such as weapons) that, whenever they would take a wear point, can make a DC 10 save to avoid gaining the wear point.

I like this. It's a clear framework that can be used ad-hoc or built upon more formally. I would probably label the different states: new, worn, damaged, destroyed.

A handful of things that can cause wear:

• Not paying lifestyle costs.
• Critical hits against armor (with some sort of save)
• Part of a critical fumble system
• Using an item in an unintended manner

Items could be repaired, with a worn item costing 25% of it's cost to go from worn to new, and 50% go from damaged to worn. Destroyed items can't be repaired.

 

[Saeviomagy]

My main issue with this sort of thing is that it serves to take more non-combat skills and devote them towards combat. If you have item wear rules that need to have resources expended to fix them, it encourages every character to make their tool choices things that will repair their weapons and armor.

To me the only benefit of such a system is the dramatic possibility of equipment failure at inopportune times.

I would go with this:
Most non-combat equipment use of consequence can have this as the description of a failed skill check. So it's down to equipment failures in combat.

Armor fails if an attack against it is a natural 20. The the first time in a combat that this happens, the critical hit is cancelled, and you suffer a -2 to AC for the rest of the fight. This applies to normal clothing too (ie - you have a wardrobe malfunction that hampers you).
You can choose to have a shield fail in this way, cancelling the critical, but cancelling it's bonus. You are still wearing the shield.
These does not apply on automatic criticals, only natural 20s.

A weapon fails if your attack roll is a 1. The weapon now gets disadvantage to attacks. A second 1 will break the weapon, rendering it useless.

In all cases, the malfunction is fixed during a short rest for no money: it's assumed that weapons don't have major and permanent malfunctions because they are automatically kept in a good state of repair as a part of long rests.

I would probably also damage armor, clothing, shield or weapon when a natural 1 is rolled against appropriate spells like shatter or fireball.