Equipment Degradation

[Jets]

Many times as DM I always think about when my players are going to buy new equipment? Most of the time nobody gets their weapon/armor damaged, whenever a critical failure happens I interpreted as a funny miss/epic fail/completely blocked attack, this doesn't quite follow the game mechanics of items and breaking them.
Looking for a system that isn't complicated and messy I found several that uses hardness, thickness, material composition, thus only made my players get more confused and harder to get used to.
I have to give special thanks to Kyle Maxwell and his post https://technoskald.me/2017/09/02/shatterspike-in-5e/ for the inspiration.

Trial after trial I came up with a system that I kinda think is balanced and designed to make artisan's tools useful and doesn't penalizes a lot the party in combat and off-combat.
NOTES: Smith's tools, Leatherworker’s Tools, Carpenter's Tools can repair armors/weapons out of combat, the PC with proficiency can repair an item HP = their proficiency bonus x hour.

https://dumpstatadventures.com/the-gm-is-always-right/making-tools-useful-in-5e-smiths-tools#:~:text=Smith%27s%20tools%20allow%20you%20to ,%2C%20rags%2C%20and%20a%20whetstone.

36808

I tried to design it to make it sinergize with the disarm action and disarm attack, also any PC/NPC can disarm you, grab your weapon and shatter it.

Any feedback is welcome. 5E ruleset only.

[SirMotte]

I really like your approach to this! I might just introduce this to my group next time we play. Thank you very much for sharing.

[Jets]

I thinked about buffing Magic Items, since they are very rare, and quite hard to destroy, here's an update to that, plus; any player would be upset if an NPC easily shatters their precious magic sword.

Magic Items

Any magic plus(+) grants the item double the AC. and stacks x2/x3/x4 HP.

* Example: Longsword + 1 = +2 AC, +12 HP
* Longsword + 2 = +4 AC, +24 HP
* Longsword + 3 = +6 AC, +36 HP
* Plate +1 = +2 AC, + 18 HP
* Plate +2 = +4 AC, +36 HP
* Plate +3 = +6 AC, + 54 HP

Mithral Material

* +4 AC
* x3 HP
* Resistance to damage caused by an effect/feature/item that is magical, besides from the typical iron/metal resistances.

Adamantine Material

Adamantine, when smelted, was ultra-hard but this was a costly procedure. Adamantine weapons were useful for damaging the weapons and armor of opponents. A set of adamantine armor or a shield was nearly impenetrable to normal weapons.

* +6 AC
* Only damage caused by an effect/feature/item that is magical can affect an object made of Adamantine.
* x4 HP

[SirMotte]

I thinked about buffing Magic Items, since they are very rare, and quite hard to destroy, here's an update to that:

Magic Items

Any magic plus(+) grants the item double the AC. and stacks x2/x3/x4 HP.

* Example: Longsword + 1 = +2 AC, +12 HP
* Longsword + 2 = +4 AC, +24 HP
* Longsword + 3 = +6 AC, +36 HP
* Plate +1 = +2 AC, + 18 HP
* Plate +2 = +4 AC, +36 HP
* Plate +3 = +6 AC, + 54 HP

Mithral Material

* +4 AC
* x3 HP
* Resistance to damage caused by an effect/feature/item that is magical, besides from the typical iron/metal resistances.

Adamantine Material

Adamantine, when smelted, was ultra-hard but this was a costly procedure. Adamantine weapons were useful for damaging the weapons and armor of opponents. A set of adamantine armor or a shield was nearly impenetrable to normal weapons.

* +6 AC
* Only damage caused by an effect/feature/item that is magical can affect an object made of Adamantine.
* x4 HP

Considering how rare crits are, this would render the system pretty much impactless. I'd rather use the adamantine rule of only damagable by magic effects/feature/item at a rarity level equal or higher to the used weapon, but keep item hp the same. This way your longsword of +3 doesn't get damaged when hittig normal plate with a 1, but still gets damaged if that plate is of the same or higher rarity. This rule would also prevent high level gear from suffering damage when fighting large, low level mobs.

In conclusion: keep rules as they were, but make items only damagable by effects of the same or higher rarity. Other effects would have to be ruled accordingly, like that a spell needs to be of level x to damage an item of y rarity.

I also would use some sort of degredation for magic users. E.g. a large HP pool for the used Focus, that slowly wears down with any used spell, maybe dependent on spell level. I think this is important for fairness sake.

[Jets]

I was thinking about what if a high CR NPC disarms you and focuses in destroy your weapon, would it be easy or hard? Depending on its nature (magical or not), could a mid level spell like fireball just simply melt your magic weapon in one shot?
Now that you pointed out, I have to balance that stuff, btw I'm glad you consider using it, thank you very much.

[SirMotte]

I was thinking about what if a high CR NPC disarms you and focuses in destroy your weapon, would it be easy or hard? Depending on its nature (magical or not), could a mid level spell like fireball just simply melt your magic weapon in one shot?
Now that you pointed out, I have to balance that stuff, btw I'm glad you consider using it, thank you very much.

If an NPC is hell bend on destroying a players weapon I'd still would make this depending on how he would want to do this. Break the weapon by stepping on it? Sure, try it, if it's a common one. But you need more punch if it is uncommon. And starting at rare you'd definitly need to use tools of equal or higher rarity to do so. I suggest, that if a NPC or Player distinctively wants to destroy an item, then they either don't need a crit to do so, or make extra damage if they succeed.

This would prevent player frustration by you going around and destroying their precious gear, but still keeps the system alive.

I really like where this is going, keep it up!

[Three of Swords]

could a mid level spell like fireball just simply melt your magic weapon in one shot?

No. Never. A normal fireball is a brief flash of flame (and heat). You can easily pass a non-magical weapon, even most wood ones, through a hot flame w/o damage. If a fireball was hot enough to do destroy a weapon, creatures would simply explode from a fireball as the water in their bodies boiled.

Now maybe a duration spell like Heat Metal could melt an unattended weapon if the caster concentrated on it for X number of rounds, where X could equal 15 - spell level so low level versions of it can't do it at all, and high level versions can do it more rapidly. But don't allow gear to be melted if a person is wearing/using it. Third-degree burns aren't heroic.

Note: It's magic. So it can do whatever you want, of course.

[Jets]

Here's a quick update to the system, that I think balances it more to many situations(in combat/off combat). Feel free to use or edit it in yor campaigns.
36834