PDA

View Full Version : Breaking weapons



ZeroGear
2017-04-15, 03:53 PM
But of a moral pondering:
I know that a lot of systems (mostly in d&d and pathfinder) feature rules for breaking weapons wielded by characters or enemy's. I'm kinda curious as to why few people ever use this mechanic.
Also, could anyone give me their opinion as to how much of a d**k move it would be for a DM to have enemies break characters weapons?
For clarification, I don't mean in every battle, but more commonly in fight with particularly powerful foes or strategically minded enemies.

Vitruviansquid
2017-04-15, 04:07 PM
Most people play DnD.

In DnD, a weapon user is going to have a very bad time if his weapon breaks.

In DnD, magical weapons can be extremely expensive and powerful.

In DnD, there are DM guidelines that restrict the amount of money you are supposed to get.

In DnD, magic users tend already to be far more powerful than weapon users, so most players/DMs aren't that interested in mechanics that further lower the power of weapon users.

thedanster7000
2017-04-15, 04:08 PM
In GURPS there's rules for this, it essentially treats the weapon as having HP and Damage Resistance like characters, thus a particularly powerful hit will break it (or it could be worn down, if your GM's mean), splitting up into smaller, less useful weapons such as a sword into a blade and hilt, which could be used as makeshift clubs, daggers, and the like.

Mastikator
2017-04-15, 04:09 PM
I don't think it's a dingus move if the DM's goal is neutralize you instead of just killing you. Getting super attached to possessions, especially imaginary possessions doesn't seem very healthy to me.

Edit- that sounded way ruder than I intended. Upon further reflection a DM might use sunder as a dingus way to punish a player he feels is "doing something wrong". I don't know the particulars, in general destroying/confiscating player loot is a valid DM move IMO but DMs have a lot of opportunity to abuse their power.

Knaight
2017-04-15, 04:20 PM
In D&D specifically the problem with breaking weapons is that weapons tend to be either nigh irreplaceable or highly expensive, where the interactions between cost and WBL style mechanics (which have been around in some form since first edition, although those more of a level by wealth kind of thing) makes losing weapons often worse than dying. Outside of it it's often just not worth bothering as a deliberate tactic. With that said, there are exceptions - Pendragon doesn't have it as a deliberate tactic, but weapons break frequently (unless it's a sword, in which case you just get disarmed). I've GMed a martial arts game* where you could break your own weapon on your opponent in a fight as a damage incentive or use it to block a shot that would hit you and have it broken in the process.

As for being a jerk move, it's a bit harsh in D&D. That's fine if the group is down with it, but be aware that it will be interpreted as a mean tactic. In a lot of other games, it's much less of a big deal.

*As in martial arts movie martial arts and not anything realistic.

RazorChain
2017-04-15, 04:29 PM
In GURPS there's rules for this, it essentially treats the weapon as having HP and Damage Resistance like characters, thus a particularly powerful hit will break it (or it could be worn down, if your GM's mean), splitting up into smaller, less useful weapons such as a sword into a blade and hilt, which could be used as makeshift clubs, daggers, and the like.

In Gurps it's usually just easier to kill or cripple the wielder. You specifically have to target the weapon and the adversary gets a defense against it. Usually when weapons break in my game it's because someone uses a small light weapon to parry a heavy weapon.

Velaryon
2017-04-15, 04:30 PM
But of a moral pondering:
I know that a lot of systems (mostly in d&d and pathfinder) feature rules for breaking weapons wielded by characters or enemy's. I'm kinda curious as to why few people ever use this mechanic.
Also, could anyone give me their opinion as to how much of a d**k move it would be for a DM to have enemies break characters weapons?
For clarification, I don't mean in every battle, but more commonly in fight with particularly powerful foes or strategically minded enemies.

D&D (at least 3.X, probably other editions) has rules for sundering enemy weapons. Players don't tend to use them because most consider it "breaking their loot," which doesn't strike me as a particularly immersive point of view, but it's understandable. Technically there's nothing preventing the DM from having enemies attack and break the PC's gear, but it tends to fall under the same gentlemen's agreement that covers why few people use Mordenkainen's Disjunction. A character's stuff is pretty much a part of the character, and DMs messing with that feels a lot like messing with the character directly. Even if it's not actually breaking any rules, it comes across as bad form.



I don't think it's a dingus move if the DM's goal is neutralize you instead of just killing you. Getting super attached to possessions, especially imaginary possessions doesn't seem very healthy to me.

Edit- that sounded way ruder than I intended. Upon further reflection a DM might use sunder as a dingus way to punish a player he feels is "doing something wrong". I don't know the particulars, in general destroying/confiscating player loot is a valid DM move IMO but DMs have a lot of opportunity to abuse their power.

The thing is that RPGs are about having fun, and having your prized magical weapon/armor/staff/etc. destroyed falls outside of a lot of people's idea of fun, especially in a game like D&D where magical gear is such an important (and in some editions integral) part of the character.

As far as DMs destroying or confiscating loot, the question is - why are they doing it? If it's to further the story, then it's important to ask "is this an a story hook that the players will enjoy?" and it's also quite reasonable of the player to want to know "will I get my item back?" If it's being done because the DM finds that the character is overpowered, then there are better ways to handle that issue most of the time.

In a healthy game environment where everyone is having fun and nobody is carrying grudges, being passive-aggressive, taking out real life frustrations in-game, etc., most players will try to work with the DM when there's an imbalance that's creating a problem for the game. They can voluntarily tone down their character's actions or power level to match the rest of the group, or help the DM come up with encounters that better challenge the players' capabilities, or maybe they will agree to have that weapon broken/taken away and replaced with something else. My point is that the DM deciding unilaterally to break or take away a character's stuff is not likely to make players happy.

I do think there's potential for a cool adventure centered around re-forging a magical sword or what have you, but it's not everyone's cup of tea, and if I were the DM I would feel out the player ahead of time and get some buy-in to the idea.

KillianHawkeye
2017-04-15, 04:38 PM
Well, the main reason that players don't use that strategy often is because the general assumption is that you'll get your enemies' stuff when they're dead. If that's the case, then you're really just destroying your own loot. Players generally expect that they'll be able to sell anything they don't need to keep, to even if it's a strange, exotic weapon it will still be worth gold if you get it intact.

As for the DM, the only times I've done it against my players was when I'm intentionally putting in a replacement weapon for them. One example is when I put a player's greataxe-wielding half-orc barbarian up against an NPC full orc frenzied berserker with Improved Sunder and an even better greataxe. Chopping the player's axe in half was pretty shocking, but they got over it when they saw the loot, and we had a tough, dramatic fight scene that was a lot of fun. Still, I don't recommend doing that kind of thing too often, or it will lose its shock value and your players will grow complacent knowing there'll be a replacement item coming.

Velaryon
2017-04-15, 05:01 PM
Well, the main reason that players don't use that strategy often is because the general assumption is that you'll get your enemies' stuff when they're dead. If that's the case, then you're really just destroying your own loot. Players generally expect that they'll be able to sell anything they don't need to keep, to even if it's a strange, exotic weapon it will still be worth gold if you get it intact.

Exactly! There's a reason Improved Sunder got the nickname of Improved Break Own Treasure. To spell it out that way feels a bit metagamey to me, but at the same I don't go around trying to break items that I'm going to lay claim to if I can defeat their current owner.

RazorChain
2017-04-15, 06:43 PM
But of a moral pondering:
I know that a lot of systems (mostly in d&d and pathfinder) feature rules for breaking weapons wielded by characters or enemy's. I'm kinda curious as to why few people ever use this mechanic.
Also, could anyone give me their opinion as to how much of a d**k move it would be for a DM to have enemies break characters weapons?
For clarification, I don't mean in every battle, but more commonly in fight with particularly powerful foes or strategically minded enemies.

Now I'm not going into the loot aspect but why break a weapon when you can just kill them. Most people have a backup weapon in the form of knife, shortsword or whatever. Even when you break a weapon you can still use it as an improvised weapon in most cases. You can even grab a weapon from a downed foe. A lot of systems don't have a ridiculous loot focus so grabbing the sword of a fallen foe might be just as good as your own.

In systems that don't involve a bloated HP shield you have to whittle through to down your foe it is much more effective to strike the arm to cripple it or just go straight for the killing blow.

I've never heard of the strategy of breaking your foes weapon. "Boys I have a cunning strategy, now let's sunder their weapons and then we kill them". In a fight you might break your opponents weapon if the opportunity presented itself, like if you caught a blade on the rim of your shield or you trapped your foes fencing weapon with a swordbreaker.

CharonsHelper
2017-04-15, 07:01 PM
It's because the only time it's worth the effort to break their weapon instead of just stabbing them, they're a badass and their weapon is awesome! I want it!

I have considered playing a crazy sunder-master in Pathfinder Society where my treasure wouldn't be affected though. My buddy did play one at level 1 (he ended up re-specing) and it was pretty sweet when he broke the minotaur's axe and he had to start punching us instead.

RazorChain
2017-04-15, 07:07 PM
It's because the only time it's worth the effort to break their weapon instead of just stabbing them, they're a badass and their weapon is awesome! I want it!

I have considered playing a crazy sunder-master in Pathfinder Society where my treasure wouldn't be affected though. My buddy did play one at level 1 (he ended up re-specing) and it was pretty sweet when he broke the minotaur's axe and he had to start punching us instead.

Don't minotaurs have horns? Last time I fielded a minotaur I'm pretty sure I gored one PC's with horns before flinging him into the bushes.

TheCountAlucard
2017-04-15, 07:57 PM
Breaking an unattended mundane weapon in the current edition of Exalted just requires pulling off a pretty solid feat of strength; for destroying a mundane weapon in the other guy's hands, though, I'd handle that as a tougher version of the Disarm Gambit.

(Most magic weapons in the Exalted system are, if not indestructible, pretty darn close.)

Tactically it's a pretty good idea, since a guy who's invested heavily in parrying may suddenly be much easier to fight when forced to rely on his evasion skills.

CharonsHelper
2017-04-15, 08:08 PM
Don't minotaurs have horns? Last time I fielded a minotaur I'm pretty sure I gored one PC's with horns before flinging him into the bushes.

Yeah - but the GM had the minotaur 5ft step away so that he could use the unarmed attacks & horns (since he was out of AOO range after the 5ft step).

TripleD
2017-04-15, 10:57 PM
There are a few reasons:

1. D&D, generally, isn't built around the idea that weapons will break often. There are systems which handle it well, but they are built from the ground up with two ideas in mind:
a) Characters will carry an array of weapons into battle to deal with specific threats, weapon loss or damage
b) Weapons are easily replacible. Power comes from the character rather than the tool.
D&D is, at best, middling on both fronts, so weapon damage and destruction feel especially damaging.

2. There's no advantage to only "partially" breaking a weapon. If I succeed on a shove then the opponent is on the ground. If I succeed on a disarm then the weapon is out of their hand. But if I succeed on a "sunder" and remove half the weapon's hp? Nothing has changed. The enemy is in the same position doing the same damage.

3. Most monsters don't carry weapons. DMs like to use monsters, so investing any time in "building" around this concept feels like wasted effort

thedanster7000
2017-04-17, 06:46 AM
Now I'm not going into the loot aspect but why break a weapon when you can just kill them. Most people have a backup weapon in the form of knife, shortsword or whatever. Even when you break a weapon you can still use it as an improvised weapon in most cases. You can even grab a weapon from a downed foe. A lot of systems don't have a ridiculous loot focus so grabbing the sword of a fallen foe might be just as good as your own.

In systems that don't involve a bloated HP shield you have to whittle through to down your foe it is much more effective to strike the arm to cripple it or just go straight for the killing blow.

I've never heard of the strategy of breaking your foes weapon. "Boys I have a cunning strategy, now let's sunder their weapons and then we kill them". In a fight you might break your opponents weapon if the opportunity presented itself, like if you caught a blade on the rim of your shield or you trapped your foes fencing weapon with a swordbreaker.

I think it's more for monsters, or to punish the player that parries the giant's club with his knife.

Hunter Noventa
2017-04-17, 09:03 AM
It's also impractical to focus on for the fact that most higher-level threats tend to not use weapons at all. You can't sunder a dragon's claw, though that would be kind of awesome.

And at least magical weapons are usually harder to break, the more enchanted they are, the harder to break they become. Of course, the moment players get worried about weapons breaking, they'll invest in adamantine weaponry.

jayem
2017-04-17, 09:21 AM
It's also impractical to focus on for the fact that most higher-level threats tend to not use weapons at all. You can't sunder a dragon's claw, though that would be kind of awesome.
You so should be able to. It would be like Princess Leia in spaceballs

Necroticplague
2017-04-17, 11:54 AM
Easy:

By the DM, it feels like a d*** move, because that's something that cost them permanently to get. It's frequently mechanically identical to just taking away stats from their sheet.
By the player, because they plan on selling stuff after they defeat the enemy, so attacking enemy equipment is just removing your own resources the vast majority of the time.

Regardless, in character, it doesn't make much sense to intentionally go after gear. After all, a person down some piece of gear is still dangerous to some degree. A person who's dead is no threat at all. Therefore, your effort is better spent attacking them directly, instead of attacking there stuff.

Slipperychicken
2017-04-17, 11:08 PM
In games where people aren't married to a single irreplacable weapon, I think breaking weapons is perfectly valid.

To name a few examples: shadowrun, acks, dungeon world, pendragon, even dnd 5e, and many other games. In some of those it might be a moderate blow to lose a favorite weapon, but it's totally possible to recover and not be permanently crippled by it's loss.

Even in a game like PF or 3rd edition dnd, I think the risk of equipment breakage and loss should exist to discourage people from making whole characters that only function with irreplacable one-of-a-kind weapons.

Knaight
2017-04-18, 12:04 AM
It's also impractical to focus on for the fact that most higher-level threats tend to not use weapons at all. You can't sunder a dragon's claw, though that would be kind of awesome.

You can in some systems - Low Fantasy Gaming has a system for martial feats* which has as an explicit example cutting a giant scorpion's stinger off.

*In the traditional sense of the word, not the D&D term of art.

Kane0
2017-04-18, 02:42 AM
The same reason Disjunction is considered a last resort.

Its a fine tactic if the gear is easy to come by. If its worth a kings ransom your either breaking it and losing all that value or failing and wasting your effort.

Glorthindel
2017-04-18, 07:42 AM
I find such things are best used sparingly, and to telegraph it rather than just spring it on players. In one system I played, they included the sword-breaker as a weapon; it was good in that it was a fairly sub-standard weapon in and of itself, so any user was taking a disadvantage in weilding it, and also because the players could see straight-off that the enemy duelist was weilding a sword-breaker, and knowing I wouldn't gimp my NPC without good reason, expect to be facing some weapon-breaking action. Meant I was actually able to put the fear of weapon-loss in to them, despite it not actually coming off all too often.

Kane0
2017-04-19, 02:00 AM
I find such things are best used sparingly, and to telegraph it rather than just spring it on players. In one system I played, they included the sword-breaker as a weapon; it was good in that it was a fairly sub-standard weapon in and of itself, so any user was taking a disadvantage in weilding it, and also because the players could see straight-off that the enemy duelist was weilding a sword-breaker, and knowing I wouldn't gimp my NPC without good reason, expect to be facing some weapon-breaking action. Meant I was actually able to put the fear of weapon-loss in to them, despite it not actually coming off all too often.

Much like rust monsters and some oozes. As soon as they are identified they often become top priority because of their gear-destroying abilities, so they don't actually get to do their thing because everyone is so worried about them getting to do it. Like a mage powering up a doomsday spell.

NichG
2017-04-19, 04:54 AM
If I were to set out to design a system in which breaking weapons/armor/etc was a fairly regular part of play, it ends up sort of like:

- Breakable gear should have a fairly sharply limited range of intrinsic value/power. So the system should feature gear as a way to shape character abilities - e.g. a sword is a precondition for using Sword powers, rather than something that adds a +2 to your powers. The intrinsic value of breakable gear should basically be more or less trivial on game-to-game timescales - picking up a random discarded sword from the battlefield should be a reasonable move, not a way to get rich or a huge debuff.

- In order for breaking gear to still be meaningful, it must be difficult to replace on short timescales and there must be a moderately severe cost to carrying around backups (since otherwise, the character with the broken sword just draws another from their bag of holding). Since stun-lock mechanics are tedious, we don't want to aim for something where breaking gear primarily encourages the opponent to waste actions drawing backups from their bag; instead we want it to act as a pressure to force the opponent to change tactics or deny options, but still permit them to act.

So what I'm thinking is, a system with fairly rigid encumbrance rules when it comes to on-person possessions, without easy ways to overcome those restrictions - so no bags of holding, carrying capacity is pretty bounded (or alternately, bulk is the primary consideration rather than weight, with penalties to attack, dodge, etc accumulating as a character carries around additional stuff during a fight, and characters having an option to basically drop their pack on the ground for free when the fight starts so that inventory management doesn't get too tedious).

Additionally, weapons and armor would act as enablers for different kinds of combat style abilities or moves, rather than items which grant bonuses to a character. Such items would be very commonplace, maybe even having the major difference between a mass-produced item and a mastercraft being the item's durability - so when the mastercraft eventually does shatter, you still got your money's worth. This is making me think it should be something very wuxia, with the primary supernatural aspects being different kinds of martial arts, and characters generally wanting some kind of weapon to use a few special moves but everyone having some kind of basic unarmed moves (and nothing of the form: 'I fight with my mind, so I can ignore this entire subsystem'). If you did want a kind of pure caster character, dividing those supernatural abilities up into a couple sub-types and requiring a different physical focus for using each type would help keep it from being all or nothing. The pure hand-to-hand user might be a problem.

That then makes me ask, what if characters just lead with their weapon moves with the expectation that their weapons are going to get broken? Why not just go for the kill rather than go for a debuff? So that suggests to me the need for some kind of charge-up system, where characters have to spend a few rounds fighting before they can necessarily use their weapon-based finishers - meaning that trying to break the other guy's sword before he has enough points built up to try a Decapitation Strike could be a reasonable strategy, without necessarily being the only strategy you'd ever use. This also works nicely with having moves where you damage or destroy your own weapon to use the move - if players are used to their gear coming and going through their own actions, it normalizes it when there are attacks others can make to do it to them by force. This even more so makes durability a reasonable stat for variance between specific weapons - if you have a bronze sword, you can do your finisher once before it breaks; if steel, you get to do it three times. For the pure hand-to-hand users, their powers could encourage using points more frequently but with less in the way of finishing moves.

Given the rate at which gear would be cycled, it could make sense that the quality of gear a character can gain access to is a function of rank. So rather than 'I own this specific steel sword', it'd be 'my rank of Lieutenant means that no matter how many steel swords I break, I will always be given another'. Game systems with a baked in status or rank aspect tend to restrict the settings and plots quite a bit, so its unclear to me if this would be worth it here. But I could see it as being covered by an abstract Wealth score as well.

Anyhow, this looks quite different than D&D, but it seems doable.

Cluedrew
2017-04-19, 08:24 AM
To NichG: I do believe you have managed to create a system off of "let's have weapon breaking". I'm impressed. The other type of game I could see that would be some sort street level system, where most weapons are improvised and discarded at the end of a fight anyways. Also just having police officers as unbeatable enemies would be kind of interesting, but I digress.

Razgriez
2017-04-19, 01:32 PM
I think there's definitely a point to also be made, that pretty much any time you base a game around an abstract Health/Durability systems, (Read: Hitpoints, or as TV Tropes calls it: Critical Existence Failure. I.E. "Hey, so long as I'm at HP 1+, and baring any status effects, I am still good to fight!"), any form of subsystem damage is immediately made secondary. )

In other words, anytime there is a "Critical Existance Failure" system in play, it is generally better to knock any foe to 0 (or whatever) to win, than worrying about things like disarming/breaking their weapons. To quote a certain League of Legends meme: "Death is the best Crowd Control".

As others have said, for players, unless destroying the weapon has a good/story purpose (I.E. "it's an evil/cursed weapon!"), they generally have little interest in "wasting a turn of action" or "No! not our future loot!"

For DMs, especially if you're targeting an item a player has grown attached to (Or needs to have to be effective!), you're asking to stir up a hornets' nest, unless you have some plan to give them the weapon back, or something better.

Knaight
2017-04-19, 11:56 PM
In other words, anytime there is a "Critical Existance Failure" system in play, it is generally better to knock any foe to 0 (or whatever) to win, than worrying about things like disarming/breaking their weapons. To quote a certain League of Legends meme: "Death is the best Crowd Control".

That's not necessarily true. To use one example - in Qin: The Warring States there are a set of nigh supernatural martial abilities, called Taos. One of them is dedicated to blowing stuff up, and makes destroying weapons pretty easy. Your skill with your particular weapon has an effect on your defense and even your attacks per round, so taking the weapon out first for a weapon specialist is often a good idea. More broadly, spending one attack not to hit someone but to reduce the number of attacks it will take to finish them by more than one is generally a better decision than just attacking them, and that can crop up all over the place.

Kadzar
2017-04-20, 12:24 AM
I think there's definitely a point to also be made, that pretty much any time you base a game around an abstract Health/Durability systems, (Read: Hitpoints, or as TV Tropes calls it: Critical Existence Failure. I.E. "Hey, so long as I'm at HP 1+, and baring any status effects, I am still good to fight!"), any form of subsystem damage is immediately made secondary. )

In other words, anytime there is a "Critical Existance Failure" system in play, it is generally better to knock any foe to 0 (or whatever) to win, than worrying about things like disarming/breaking their weapons. To quote a certain League of Legends meme: "Death is the best Crowd Control".

As others have said, for players, unless destroying the weapon has a good/story purpose (I.E. "it's an evil/cursed weapon!"), they generally have little interest in "wasting a turn of action" or "No! not our future loot!"

For DMs, especially if you're targeting an item a player has grown attached to (Or needs to have to be effective!), you're asking to stir up a hornets' nest, unless you have some plan to give them the weapon back, or something better.That reminds me of how the rust monster is different between 3.5 and 5th edition D&D. In 3.5, it simply swallows weapons or armor whole, whereas in 5th it instead gives your weapon or armor a cumulative penalty to damage or AC, respectively. I like how it makes your weapons and armor less useful, but not immediately useless, and wonder if it might not work well as a more widely implemented system.

Also, there's been a lot of talk about intentional weapon breaking, but what about unintentional? Especially if you have rules that make weapon damage a more gradual thing, it might be cool to have something where your weapon takes a penalty to damage every time you crit miss (if you use Total Existence Failure rules, this may not be as much fun). Then weapon repair would have an actual in-game use, and you could maybe use something like a whetstone to correct minor damage (like if you only have a -1 penalty so far). And weapons of different quality levels might have different thresholds for what counts as a crit miss, or have penalties show up at different levels of weapon damage or something.

Knaight
2017-04-20, 12:54 AM
That reminds me of how the rust monster is different between 3.5 and 5th edition D&D. In 3.5, it simply swallows weapons or armor whole, whereas in 5th it instead gives your weapon or armor a cumulative penalty to damage or AC, respectively. I like how it makes your weapons and armor less useful, but not immediately useless, and wonder if it might not work well as a more widely implemented system.
It also has the advantage that something gradually weathering away better fits the feel of rust than something instantly being destroyed does.


Also, there's been a lot of talk about intentional weapon breaking, but what about unintentional? Especially if you have rules that make weapon damage a more gradual thing, it might be cool to have something where your weapon takes a penalty to damage every time you crit miss (if you use Total Existence Failure rules, this may not be as much fun). Then weapon repair would have an actual in-game use, and you could maybe use something like a whetstone to correct minor damage (like if you only have a -1 penalty so far). And weapons of different quality levels might have different thresholds for what counts as a crit miss, or have penalties show up at different levels of weapon damage or something.
There is room for this, and it fits fairly well if maintainence and similar are central concepts (e.g. "The Grind" in Torchbearer, which is more about maintenance of the character as they are worn down by the grind of their lifestyle), or if the rules are sufficiently simple. There's a real risk of this turning into fairly complex rules that don't produce an interesting space to make decisions in though, and that's best avoided.

Doorhandle
2017-04-20, 03:04 AM
Exactly! There's a reason Improved Sunder got the nickname of Improved Break Own Treasure. To spell it out that way feels a bit meta-gamey to me, but at the same I don't go around trying to break items that I'm going to lay claim to if I can defeat their current owner.

It doesn't seem that meta-gamey to me. If you're reading a supply train to add to your own stocks, you shoot the guards, not the supplies. Same thing with the weapons.
The main reason people don't scavenge weapons off the enemy in real life is that most combatants in modern wars have quite different technology/weapons. Guns have distinct noises, and if you steal an enemy's weapon, you sound like them and you're likely to get shot by your own side. That, and you probably don't have the parts to maintain it, or the knowledge of proper welding/reloading.

That said, I think disarming should be more of a thing. It's a happy medium between "Forcing player to adapt without their weapon" and "Everyone still keeps their loot. "

CharonsHelper
2017-04-20, 10:49 AM
The main reason people don't scavenge weapons off the enemy in real life is that most combatants in modern wars have quite different technology/weapons. Guns have distinct noises, and if you steal an enemy's weapon, you sound like them and you're likely to get shot by your own side. That, and you probably don't have the parts to maintain it, or the knowledge of proper welding/reloading.

That is actually quite true. I heard a story (my dad knew the guy) where when in Vietnam he took an enemy gun and decided to try it out. Once he fired a burst or two, he started being fired on from both sides. Needless to say, he just kept his head down the rest of that firefight.

Plus they often use different ammo.

Plus - resources such as the amount of food & ammo that a single soldier carries isn't very significant anymore. I know I've read that in modern combat there are literally thousands of bullets fired for every casualty.

Grod_The_Giant
2017-04-20, 11:30 AM
Leaving aside the question of unique-and/or-expensive magic weapons, there's also the point that disarming is usually just better. It accomplishes much the same goal, but it doesn't have long-term narrative consequences, and the tactical consequences are actually more interesting-- it adds a new approach (reclaim your weapon), in addition to the usual switch-weapon-switch-tactics choice.

Actually breaking a weapon, in most genres, seems more like an alternate defeat condition than anything else. Your foe shatters your sword, humiliates you, and leaves you to gather the shards and swear vengeance. I can see it as a significant Consequence in a Fate game, for instance.

Knaight
2017-04-20, 11:45 AM
Leaving aside the question of unique-and/or-expensive magic weapons, there's also the point that disarming is usually just better. It accomplishes much the same goal, but it doesn't have long-term narrative consequences, and the tactical consequences are actually more interesting-- it adds a new approach (reclaim your weapon), in addition to the usual switch-weapon-switch-tactics choice.

Actually breaking a weapon, in most genres, seems more like an alternate defeat condition than anything else. Your foe shatters your sword, humiliates you, and leaves you to gather the shards and swear vengeance. I can see it as a significant Consequence in a Fate game, for instance.

It depends on the standards for backup weapons more than anything - switching to a sword after your spear breaks can show up in basically any bronze age game, if you're running a cinematic martial arts game then being unarmed means you can still fight, if at a disadvantage.

Then there's the matter of style. Kicking someone's staff in half is just a more fun visual than disarming it, though the sort of game that features that would probably also benefit from disarming and taking weapons.

dps
2017-04-20, 01:59 PM
In D&D specifically the problem with breaking weapons is that weapons tend to be either nigh irreplaceable or highly expensive, where the interactions between cost and WBL style mechanics (which have been around in some form since first edition, although those more of a level by wealth kind of thing) makes losing weapons often worse than dying.

Yeah, though this can be a bit dependent on the specifics of the campaign. Many non-magic users are very dependent on their weapons. Breaking a really awesome sword might well take a fighter from being a useful party member to being a load. OTOH, if the characters don't really have access to really good weapons, it might not be that big a deal, but in that case it might be too much trouble just to add a bit of flavor.


As for being a jerk move, it's a bit harsh in D&D. That's fine if the group is down with it, but be aware that it will be interpreted as a mean tactic. In a lot of other games, it's much less of a big deal.


Like a lot of other things, it's something that needs to be discussed before the campaign starts. If the players are cool with it, who are we to say you shouldn't use it?

One other thing, though. If you want to do this fairly, you have to have a very small chance for a weapon to break every time a PC or NPC uses one. Otherwise it is just arbitrarily and unfairly handicapping the weapon user. Do you really want to make someone roll for weapon damage every time they swing a sword? With modifiers depending on what if anything they hit? I wouldn't want to.

CharonsHelper
2017-04-20, 02:08 PM
One other thing, though. If you want to do this fairly, you have to have a very small chance for a weapon to break every time a PC or NPC uses one. Otherwise it is just arbitrarily and unfairly handicapping the weapon user. Do you really want to make someone roll for weapon damage every time they swing a sword? With modifiers depending on what if anything they hit? I wouldn't want to.

It sounds like one of the many things which can work in a CRPG where all of the math is done instantly by the processor, while it's a bad idea for a TTRPG. Though about the only complaints I've heard about the new Zelda have to do with weapons breaking way too often. (Not that they're against it entirely, but that it happens too fast & foes' weapons never break the same way.)

dps
2017-04-20, 04:19 PM
It sounds like one of the many things which can work in a CRPG where all of the math is done instantly by the processor, while it's a bad idea for a TTRPG.

Yes, it's works in CRPGs 'cause the computer does all the work. Pain in the neck otherwise, though to be fair a lot of tabletop RPGs have combat systems that are unwieldy enough already that it wouldn't add that much complexity.

Lord Torath
2017-04-21, 07:26 AM
2E AD&D Darksun had a simple weapon breakage mechanic. Any time a non-steel weapon inflicts maximum damage, it has a 1-in-20 chance of breaking. Steel weapons (rare and expensive) are immune. I think magical non-steel weapons were also immune (but I don't recall for certain).