Destroying gear - 4 ideas (your thoughts please)

#1

How best to destroy PC gear? I don’t like coming up with different contrived reasons why their gear keeps coming under threat. I think I’d prefer something set into the game, so that I don’t need to keep thinking up new ideas to keep the flow of gear moving.

I’ve got four ideas and I’d like any input, thanks!

  1. Have destroying random gear be a common tactic used by most enemies, its just a typical attack made against PC Defence.

  2. Each time a PC rolls a miss, using an item of gear, it takes a point of damage. At 5 points it’s broken. (I think this is fiddly, and some items are passive)

  3. Each Nat 1 using gear destroys it.

  4. Each time a PC hits 0HP one random piece of gear is destroyed. (I like this but I’m worried it doesn’t happen often enough)

#2

I don’t recycle loot enough either, so I’ll be watching this thread.

But you have some cool ideas there.

  1. Seems to me that this would work best with defensive items such as armour and shields.

  2. Use a d4 or d6 and tick then down each time, this should make it easier to track and for you to see at the table.

  3. Nice, but could be a little too much depending on the loot item. It’d be devastating if the hard won Ancient loot item was borked due to a die roll. Could be cool to have the possibility though.

  4. Perhaps consider giving PCs a harder challenge which would cause this more often.

Maybes.

#3

It’s a good idea to determine beforehand how gear gets destroyed. Here are some thoughts about your list:

  1. That’s very neat but also something that should be telegraphed.

Example: You step into the cave of the ooglet, corroded weapons and skulls are scattered in the floor. You remember the major of Swampington saying that the only thing the ooglet likes more than human flesh is devouring weapons with its corrosive saliva.

  1. I must confess that I really like those fiddly kinds of mechanics. :smiley: Have a look at Mausritter and how they handle using weapons. There’s also a ressource that allows to create your own weapons and print them as little cards: https://mausritter.com/item-card-studio/
  2. That would be quite harsh, but if that’s the game everybody wants to play, this is a very sleek solution. Alternatively: have the weapon be unusable and in need of repair at a nat 1 and destroyed if the repair roll also is a nat 1.
  3. That wouldn’t actually save you from coming up with contrived reasons for why gear gets destroyed, would it?

GM: You fall down dead, roll a d6 for me.
Player: Okay, 5.
GH: Alright, your sword breaks.
Player: But why?
GM: That’s what you rolled and you fell in a way that the hilt, well, there was a stone, and your hilt somehow bashed with its hilt against the stone and it was weakened already, so the hilt just came off.

(I am exaggerating of course, but if you want to avoid coming up with reasons why gear breaks on the fly, idea no. 4 seems not to be helping).

#4

  1. If an enemy is smart, it’s not going to destroy random gear. It’s going to try to break or steal important gear. “Fishmen try to take your spear.” also has more narrative significance than a random piece of gear being destroyed.

  2. People roll misses a lot. It would break very quickly. If you want a scarcity/fragile gear mechanic, look at VDS and the Uses rules for things. That also includes an awesome break it on purpose mechanic.

  3. This is too absolute. It wouldn’t make sense in a lot of situations. When it makes sense, go for it. A nat 1 when trying to stab a stone golem? Definitely shatter that dagger.

  4. Dying is bad enough. But why would you lose gear? Makes sense if the party is running away carrying your body, but not if you’re just KOed on the cave floor because Gruk hit you in the head with a rock.

Tl;dr. I wouldn’t make hard rules about loot destruction. I’d look for moments or create encounters where it made narrative sense. Loot destruction can be so flavorful.

#5
  1. After each Nat1, let them make a ROLL vs ROOM DC o keep the weapon from breaking. It can be repaired in town, if they ever make it there alive!
#6

Grabs notebook and pen to furiously write stuff down

Lots of good ideas already in the thread :smile:

For me, I probably don’t destroy gear as often as I should but how I handle it is making specific monsters, environmental challenges, and crit abilities that target gear every now and then.

Not every monster will destroy gear. But to add variety and make certain monsters scarier, I’ll give them an ability that destroys gear. A party just came against a giant and his Smash ability deals damage and destroys gear. The fish men, like Rogue said, will steal your weapon. The captain of the guard is trained to bash in your shield and armor to lower your defense. If I include narrative reasons into my monster’a mechanics, there’s never really a question of why a player’s gear is destroyed.

Environmental challenges also provide great excuses to break stuff. When players are running through a forest, their gear is probably safe, but while they are exploring a volcano… you can bet their gear is in danger. In scenes that make sense, I’ll drop something in the environment that might break gear. Lava, falling rocks, acid, tangled webs and vines, oozes, etc… Again, the environment becomes a lot scarier when it starts taking away your stuff and narratively it makes sense.

Then finally, and it sort of goes with the monster one, I will often note a specific crit ability for enemies that may include breaking gear. On Nat 20, smash one piece of random equipment. For some bigger bosses they might crit on an 18+ or even a 15+.

I just see breaking gear as another tool in the toolbox that I can add or take out to tune challenges for my players.

#7

Alex gave me fishmen on the brain!

#8

Here are some thoughts on each of your points:

  1. Enemies that destroy gear is a great idea. However, I don’t think having every enemy do this is balanced or fun. I would make this an ability that some enemies have (along with the ability to “grab” gear). I would also not make the gear that is targeted be randomly determined from their equipment list, it makes sense for the gear to be what the character is immediately using (weapon, shield, etc.).

  2. This seems too fiddly for my tastes. Having to keep track of all that would not be time well spent in my opinion, though some folks may like that kind of granularity.

  3. This is a good place for a “break” to make sense but I think that limits what a Nat 1 can mean in a game (there are so many other things that can happen with a Nat 1 roll). I would suggest the GM rolling a quick 1D4 or 1D6 when it happens while using a piece of gear, if the roll is 1 it is broken, otherwise something else happens (maybe it was dropped).

  4. Breaking a piece of gear when a character hits 0 HP doesn’t make sense thematically.

#9

There are already some implicit gear damage recommendations in the rules. Check out the Ripsaw warp shell basic loot and the Ant Men’s Acid Mist. Damaging defenses on page 109 also has some recommendations as well as p.146, the “destroy gear” section.

Basically I’d follow Hank’s suggestions:

  1. Certain attacks cause gear destruction for each 5 points of normal damage done. (Ripsaw)

  2. Certain attacks destroy gear, it’s their entire point. Could put this type of attack on a timer to avoid spamming it too much. (destroy gear p.146)

  3. Certain attacks cause gear damage alongside normal damage. Each piece of gear can take 1 Heart of damage before it’s destroyed. (Ant Men Acid Mist)

TBH I think it’s ok to contrive reasons gear gets destroyed or taken away. The hazard tables for Blood and Snow have examples of this. It won’t feel contrived if you telegraph the danger of losing gear.

#10

Lots of good answers so far. But… There is a far better solution…

Throw them in prison!

(Optional: then run a Molok campaign… https://youtu.be/AIFxPXlTzlQ)

I’ve only done Prison once for my players and it ended up being a lot of fun. They all jumped into a portal trying to chase after a sky giant. The following ‘Escape from Sky Giant Floating Castle’ quest was awesome. All the gear they found was way to big for them & had to be modified or tinkered with to make it work.

#11

You can also steal the idea of pushing gear from Viking Death Squad, in which every piece of gear gets 3 hits, which can be spent hitting more targets, doing more damage, reducing damage, and it gives a point of attack for enemies to harm. Pretty cool.

#12

I like 3 and 4 I think. I don’t actually love the idea of destroying gear at all (or at least not often and not all the time). For #3 I would maybe make it that if you roll a nat 1, make some sort of save vs the target. Fail its destroyed, pass and its just jammed/broken but can be repaired? 4 is good and simple, and I can’t imagine it doesn’t happen enough.

Maybe combine 2 and 3. Items have 3 points and on a nat 1 tick off a point. For Number 1 I would not make it a common tactic, but would have special monsters that might destroy gear (For example a rust monster.)

Oh and another idea, how about putting it in the players hands? They can turn a crit against them into a regular hit by sacrificing some gear.

#13

Bonus thought - if you start destroying more gear, you can come up with special materials that have properties like “can only be destroyed by MAGIC” or “can only be destroyed by ULTIMATE”, and make very special items “indestructible”. I’m doing this with my space fantasy game with a material called “eternium”, which comes in alloy form (takes MAGIC to damage) and pure form, which is indestructible.

#14

Here’s my two cents on the matter :D. This is my first post, so be gentle.

I see at least 7 reasons to lose gear without it seeming like the GM is trolling the players (I hope).

  1. Destroyed by Ultimate damage if it’s armor, shield or a parrying weapon. Perhaps some kind of save roll could work here? Or maybe a piece of combat gear could be sacrificed to reduce the Ultimate damage into Weapon damage?

  2. A creature can grab an item and tear it off the character’s body or hands, like an adult would take a toy out of a toddler’s hand. The item could possibly be regained if the characters win.

  3. Gear destroying attacks from creatures. This already exists.

  4. An item could fall off when the character takes a fall. Helmets can fly off of heads and swords can slide out of scabbards. Things jammed under the belt can fall when the character is tumbling down a hill or swinging upside down, hanging from his leg when held by a giant. Some items could be recovered but some could be lost if the roll down a hill or a cliff or down into a small hole. Or perhaps the party has to leave the area fast and can’t recover their dropped loot. And if it’s dark and the characters don’t have torches, it could be really hard to find the item, especially outdoors.

  5. Camping and traveling. If you’ve ever hiked a lot and made camp every evening, you’ve noticed that it can be difficult to keep all your equipment with you, especially if there’s lots of stuff that you have to use while camping. If you’re packing and unpacking your stuff in the forest, there’s a big chance that you can lose some items and notice it when it’s too late. Similarly, if you travel in the dark, it’s really hard to find anything even if you know what you’re looking for. If there’s some sort traveling mechanic that Ranger-type characters are good at, this could be a penalty for a bad roll?

  6. Rust and natural wear and tear. I think this is harder to rule, because it could require book keeping and some sort of meter to qualify the fitness of each piece of Gear. Or maybe a “Worn” or “Rusty” signifier could be added to the piece of Gear? Leather and iron don’t like water. Sea water is even worse for iron. Bow’s and crossbows don’t do well when they get wet, unless they are made waterproof. Maybe an hours/days timer could be rolled for all leather and sensitive items if they get wet? This will probably get tedious and fiddly, if taken too seriously. But perhaps it could be used as a way to pressure the characters at times. “You’re drenched by the pouring rain. Your bowstrings will snap on a roll of 1, until you can replace them into dry ones.”

  7. Gear can be stolen. There can be thieves in the cities but some overly curious animals could steal too.

#15

Another idea someone came up with was when you’re about to drop to 0 HP you can sacrifice a piece of gear and fall to 1 HP instead.

#16

In my game items have 3 hits.
Just like Viking Death Squad, but there wil be no pushing here.

Basicly weapons get a hit on a nat 1
Armor and shields get hit when the character wearing it is hit in the armor range.
example fighter 10 defence has con +3 and a heavyplate +4 armor = 17 defence.
So when struck a 17 - 20 is a hit followed by dmg/effort
a 13 - 16 is absorbed by armor so 1 hit on an armor piece and no dmg on the player
2 - 12 is a full miss
Nat 1 is a epic miss with negative consequences.

There could be sessions with special monsters and/or situations where items get either lost or destroyed.

#17

Has anyone here ever played Flesh and Blood? Its a card game about two fighters dueling with equipment and abilities. in that game if a piece of equipment has a defense value you can destroy that equipment to block damage equal to its defense score. Only my idea is that you can sacrifice a piece of armor to double its defense value for an attack. This is kind of similar to the old houserule of sacrificing a shield but i think its more fun, instead of waiting for damage to get rolled it could be something players need to decide right after a hit is rolled.

Here’s a scenario. The party sneaktheif’s elaborate plan has gotten them surrounded by skeletons, and now they’re about to eat 3 attacks. sneakthief has a Mixed Armor garb that provides +2 defense, and Corrosion-Proof Gloves that give +1. All in all they have an armor class of 14 and 10 hp. the skeletons are all going to roll 14 to hit and deal 5 damage.

Skeleton 1 rolls its attack at 14, sneakthief sacrifices their gloves to boost their AC to 15 in this instance, first skeleton destroys the gloves and sneakthief takes no damage.
skeleton 2 is up and rolls a 14, since sneakthief doesn’t have gloves their AC is now 13 so they sacrifice their Mixed Armor to boost their AC by 2 to 15 again, they take no damage.
Skeleton 3 is up but now sneakthief is down to 11 AC and nothing to save them from the hit, they take the 5 damage.

#18

This might be a good mechanic to combine with the armor recovery roll from Black Hack; that way the PC could “lose” their armor for the fight, but after the fight, they can make a simple check to see if the armor can be recovered, or is permanently damaged/destroyed. That way the players might be more willing to engage with the mechanic.

#19

I think that’s a great idea. There are a lot of players who would rather gamble on their character dying before willingly getting rid of their loot so I could see players not engaging with this option unless there is a chance to get it back, especially since gear plays such a big role in defining your character in ICRPG.

#20

fun topic with many great ideas

I personally make weapons become damaged whenever the players roll a NAT 1 while using them

they get -1 to all rolls with that weapon (the d20 roll and the d6 roll)

when they roll another nat 1 then its -2 to the rolls

on the 3rd nat 1 the item is ruined and beyond repair.

I have consumable repair kits that repair damaged weapons before they break, players feel smart for thinking ahead and repairing and its another thing for them to spend money on in town.