D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[loverdrive]

The problem is, what do you do with magic weapons? After all, a major element of a martial character is the magical lumpy metal thing he's picked up. If that Holy Avenger is going to break after a dozen attacks or so, then, well, I'm thinking that the players might be a tad pissed off.

"Amulet of the Flame Tongue: while you are equipped with a sword, you can spend a bonus action to cause flames to erupt from it, dealing additional 2d6 fire damage with each strike"

 

[Stormonu]

After many hours of having played Zelda: Breath of the Wild, I would not inflict weapon breakage on my players unless we were doing something like Dark Sun.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

all i have to say about this is
Jury Rigging + Blade of the West + 9 Iron + 9 Iron + 9 Iron + 9 Iron + 9 Iro

 

[loverdrive]

But a weapon breaking system either prevents or punishes a character for having their own preferences.

Having my weapon break all the time gets extremely tedious. It's the game telling me "no, your fun is bad and wrong and stupid, you don't get to have that fun anymore, you have to find other fun, which you probably won't find for several weeks at best". It's one of the reasons why, despite video game designers constantly trying to shoehorn in "durability" mechanics, video game players almost always remove that s#!t whenever they can. Because it's tedious and annoying, for a lot of people.

I have a favorite weapon in Quake, it's the rocket launcher. I also like how Quake as a game is set up, that I'm not going to always have access to the rocket launcher or might want to keep in my back pocket for a quick escape, so I'd better also learn how to use all the other weapons.

Is that bad? Is that the game telling me that my fun is bad and wrong and stupid? Or is it the game making me consider my moves, and manage my ammo and positioning?

Sifu, the best action game in the history of action games, has weapons breaking all the time and it's aggressively fun. Granted, unlike BotW your best weapon in Sifu is your bare fists, but I can certainly see a less kung fu game having a mediocre unbreakable fallback option.

A far easier way to get people to reach for other weapons is giving weapons individual features and not just the same nigh-identical stat sticks. If a trident handles stuff in water better but a guisarme can use its hook to have an increased chance of tripping, you've got reasons to switch up what you're using right there rather than sticking to just the one weapon

Is it, really? Because the way I see it, most of the time, people pretty quickly realize what weapon + perk combination is the best one, and never reach for anything else. And something is always going to be the best.

Are you a card carrying member of the Spellcasters Supremacy Society? There is already a wide enough gap between casters and martials without reducing their one glimmer of hope.

I think caster vs martial disparity is overstated, but I'm totally on board with screwing the mages over too. Hate their guts.

Vancian casting where you have to assign specific spells to slots when preparing spells is very similar to what I'm proposing for weapons breaking -- you are often forced to just deal with the hand dealt to you. "Yeah I fireball would be really nice here, but I only have Fly prepared".

 

[BlackSeed_Vash]

That sounds horrible.
What's next; force spellcasters to use a spell focus to cast any spell, including cantrips. Make it so each casting of a spell risks breaking the spell focus. Bonus points if each spell focus it tied to a single spell school.

 

[Stormonu]

That sounds horrible.
What's next; force spellcasters to use a spell focus to cast any spell, including cantrips. Make it so each casting of a spell risks breaking the spell focus. Bonus points if each spell focus it tied to a single spell school.

* Takes notes *

 

[Stalker0]

That's right! Thank you for the correction.

I think it would mesh well. Your weapons and armor have a quality. It could be as simple as having a crit fail reduce the quality, or receiving a critical hit for an armor. When it's at 0 quality it's broken. It can be repaired. You might find equipement that's already damaged in dungeons.

But I think I'd like for it to be more frequent.

Just noting that 5+ level, even just a break on a 1 means a fighter will be breaking a weapon every 3-4 fights on average. So on a typical adventuring day, a fighter would expect to lose 1-2 weapons to breakage.

 

[GreyLord]

Sifu, the best action game in the history of action games, has weapons breaking all the time and it's aggressively fun. Granted, unlike BotW your best weapon in Sifu is your bare fists, but I can certainly see a less kung fu game having a mediocre unbreakable fallback option.

That's a very strange wording you have for Doom...or the Doom series of games.

I don't recall the weapons breaking all the time in Doom though you can run out of ammo...

Or maybe you meant Counter-Strike or Half-Life...same principle as Doom though with weapons and ammo.

 

[Mecheon]

I have a favorite weapon in Quake, it's the rocket launcher. I also like how Quake as a game is set up, that I'm not going to always have access to the rocket launcher or might want to keep in my back pocket for a quick escape, so I'd better also learn how to use all the other weapons.

Is that bad? Is that the game telling me that my fun is bad and wrong and stupid? Or is it the game making me consider my moves, and manage my ammo and positioning?

Sifu, the best action game in the history of action games, has weapons breaking all the time and it's aggressively fun. Granted, unlike BotW your best weapon in Sifu is your bare fists, but I can certainly see a less kung fu game having a mediocre unbreakable fallback option.

Quake's a bit different though, because the rocket launcher doesn't act the same way as every other weapon. Its great at rocket jumping and clearing enemies quickly, but does fail at tasks that the shotty or nailgun can excel at, even if they have less damage. You also keep your weapons regardless, your restriction there is ammunition where you're also helped by increasing accuracy and getting better at the game. Weapon durability doesn't have that playstyle, you just have a time limit on your weapons regardless of what you do.

Axes and swords don't work different ways in D&D. The only difference is the damage. You don't get some axe moveset

Also Sifu is a beat 'em up which is an entirely different style of game than D&D. Its closer to Streets of Rage where weapons are a temporary bonus and not your main thing. Its not really comparable to D&D were weapons are far more important.

Is it, really? Because the way I see it, most of the time, people pretty quickly realize what weapon + perk combination is the best one, and never reach for anything else. And something is always going to be the best.

Carrot and stick. If people go for one weapon, you make the other weapons stronger so they're in line with it and its no longer clear what's the best choice. That way people won't just gravitate towards one, because they've got multiple choices with viable use cases.

Your method just screws over all weapon users and makes specialising in weapons a useless feat. Which, well, why a way for balance, 'nerf it into the ground, make it useless, play a laugh track anyone picks it' isn't a friendly or enjoyed way to balance things.

Your way is "Every weapon is equally useless to you so you don't care what you use", whereas my idea of buffing it all is "Every weapon has its unique benefit and gives you a reason to consider using it, to the point you may want to not just go with your obvious response"

 

[Clint_L]

Weapons constantly breaking just...doesn't seem very fun to me. I'm not sure what the sell is, here.