[5e] Rules for damaging (magic) items

[merxa]

I've implemented a rework on how damaging items in 5e works, the rules are below. I've only recently implemented them and therefore do not have much live play feedback yet. Opinions welcomed.

As a reminder the normal rules state:

Magic items, besides potions, scrolls, have resistance to all damage, and all items are immune to poison and psychic.


Additional rules

1.) Any items carried or otherwise on a creature are considered attended items, and if ever targeted use the saving throws and AC of the creature attending to the item or of the item unattended, whichever is greater.
2.) Magic items that are +2 or rare, very rare have twice the normal hit points. Items that are +3 or legendary have four times normal hit points.
3.) For magic items, you may either take the average hit points or roll and then apply the hit point multiplier.
4.) Magic items reduced to 0 hit points are broken and can’t be used until repaired. Broken items can be repaired for 10% of its cost and 8 hours.
5.) Area of Effect damage spells that harm creatures may also harm unattended objects as determined by the caster when casting the spell. Attended items are never harmed by an AoE unless explicitly stated by the ability.
6.) Equipment worn by unconscious characters is still considered attended, but not anything that had been held. Dead characters are not attending their equipment.
7.) Items are not immune to con saves if the effect could reasonably damage them.
8.) Unless explicitly mentioned, radiance AoEs do not damage objects.
9.) Magic items below their maximum hit points can be restored using mending, similar effects, or mundane repair.
10.) At the GMs discretion, some items may be especially vulnerable or immune to particular damage sources, for example a ring conferring fire immunity is likely itself immune to fire damage.[/list]

For reference, official object hitpoints:

Code: Select all

Object Hit Points
Size						| Fragile		| Resilient
Tiny (bottle, lock)				| 2 (1d4)		| 5 (2d4)
Small (chest, lute)				| 3 (1d6)		| 10 (3d6)
Medium (barrel, chandelier)			| 4 (1d8)		| 18 (4d8)
Large (cart 10-ft.-by-10-ft. window) 		| 5 (1d10)		| 27 (5d10)

Example Magic Items:

Potions, scrolls, necklaces are tiny and fragile
Rings are tiny and resilient
Wands are small and fragile.
1 handed melee weapons, shields, rods are small and resilient
2 handed melee weapons, staves, and armor are medium and resilient
Ranged weapons are fragile
Wondrous items vary based on description, but some popular examples:
Bags of holding are small and fragile
Heward’s handy haversacks are small and resilient
Portable holes are large and fragile
Cloaks are small and resilient.

[deaddmwalking]

I'm not familiar with the normal rules. If I attack an attended object (like a ring) does resistance mean I can't hurt it?

Is your rule trying to make it EASIER to destroy magical items?

What is your intended result by changing the rules?

[erik]

Resistance is half damage. And current rules I think make no distinction between attended and unattended items so no distinction between whether an AoE hits items.

Area attacks in 5e by RAW just destroy everything worn and carried so fights go naked very fast at higher levels.

Therefore this change seems to be intending to not have that same end result and allow equipment to survive a single round of an encounter.

[deaddmwalking]

But nobody actually applies damage to carried or worn items. Right? Like literally nobody that plays 5th edition does that, do they?

[merxa]

indeed, the base 5e rules for damaging items are so terrible that I strongly suspect no one uses them, so the in game effect at tables is probably that items are never targeted and never destroyed.

So by RAW these rules are incredibly generous (for the most part), but if the end consequence becomes items are sometimes destroyed, then most tables are probably going from an experience of 'items were never destroyed' to 'sometimes items are broken' -- indeed my local group insisted that even items brought to 0 are still repairable by some means, which isn't my preference but I'm convinced it's somewhat minor really.

The reason these rules exist is because there has been several times when I've wanted to target an item, but the rules are so terrible it didn't feel fair, but playing without targeting any items ever is just not going to work for me in the current campaign, so here we are.

[deaddmwalking]

Destroying items tends to make people feel bad. If it's an item your enemy is using it's potential treasure, so even if it is beneficial to stop your opponent from using it, someone on your team might end up being upset. And if it's the bad guys destroying your PCs precious items, well, they might shed real tears.

What might help is having a rule that SUPPRESSES magical items. If you hit an item (using the rules you outlined) it makes an item save or is unable to function for 1d4+4 rounds. Or you can target it with a dispel... We like everyone with a caster level have a chance to dispel (not just people who have dispel magic prepared) so having more generous rules on that might also be helpful.

[Kaelik]

I really think people would be better off just setting the expectation that items can be destroyed and replaced and just aren't that big a deal instead of jumping through a lot of hoops to invent rules for how you can't break people's amulets.

(Which doesn't mean 5e rules aren't too easy to break things in)

[phlapjackage]

Broken items can be repaired for 10% of its cost and 8 hours.

How are broken magic items repaired ? Village blacksmith, or spells like mending, or ? My opinion would be that it would need some kind of magic or very highly skilled person fixing it...

[merxa]

Broken items can be repaired for 10% of its cost and 8 hours.

How are broken magic items repaired ? Village blacksmith, or spells like mending, or ? My opinion would be that it would need some kind of magic or very highly skilled person fixing it...

Yes, I am somewhat avoiding wading too deep into those details. Personally I don't want to especially disadvantage noncasters. In the case of repairing an item that still has some hit points i just point to 'mending, similar effects, or mundane repair.' Mending takes 1 minute in 5e and is a cantrip. I don't specify the mundane repair, I leave it to table variation, some GMs may say mundane repair also takes a minute for anyone with the relevant profession / skill, or maybe they will have some other time frame. Or the PC will just not deal with whatever the GM says and get access to a cantrip. I'm trying to limit the scope of these rules, I'm not trying to backdoor introduce crafting or even general repair rules.

In terms of repair being 10% cost and 8 hours, there's no strong principals at play here, it's a number plucked from the air and there's probably better numbers. I'm not referencing any spells or other explicit repair mechanics (I'm not actually aware of repair spells beyond mending in 5e, there's fabricate, but that creates items and explicitly excludes interacting with magic items).

I was originally in the 'destroyed items are only restored by wish and similar effects' camp, but in my group that was also a camp of one. So some cost is introduced, and I think the time cost is the more significant one, reducing or removing the gp cost entirely would have little impact i think.

If Mending takes a minute, which is pretty much hand wave time outside a combat clock, a complete repair is trying to introduce a more serious road bump, 8 hours is 'we lose the day to repair our stuff', could it be 1 hour? sure, 'we lose the opportunity cost of a short rest', that may not be much of a cost as often that OP cost is negligible, is mostly a cost borne and interacted with by PCs, while 8 hour pauses have lots more significant mechanical impacts in 5e for monsters, and spending a day to repair items has a clear psychological / narrative consequence to players. The way I'm speaking about it I'd probably let a group repair any given number of items in an 8 hour period, or limit to 1 per character or instead of 1 have it equal to their tier, so a level 5 (tier 2) character could repair 2 items in 8 hours, or use a characters proficiency bonus (2 to 6 depending on level), overall I would want to avoid situations where the group spends multiple days repairing items. That is all to say you can be very flexible here, and no reason to gate keep repair to being 'wizards and artificers only', but if having the barbarian repair magic items doesn't match a given groups head canon, the GM can gatekeep repair as they chose. For any mundane repair I usually ask a character has some relevant background / skill / tool proficiency which is already a higher bar than 'being a wizard'. And if your bar is 'cast spells', that's not much higher really.