Item Durability

[Tanarii]

Inspired by the taking away players stuff thread, I'm curious of some mechanics we can add to the game to make that workable. This is just a theoretical exercise. My campaign is intentionally logistics heavy, so I wish I'd added something like this at the beginning. But I didn't and I'm not adding a major house rule now.

5e is pretty simple, so keeping it simple seems best.

Here's my first idea. It's somewhat expensive at low level. That's intentional. This is designed to be a money sink system more than taking away PC gear or weapon breaking system.

1) Everything non-magical item gets 5 durability. Magic items do not break or wear down.
2) Durability can be repaired at 20% of value per point at any town.
3) natural 1s on weapon attacks cause the attacker to lose one durability. (Yes, attacking more wears down weapons faster.)
4) natural 20s when being attacked cause the defender to lose one durability.
5) at the end of each session/ long rest, everything loses one durability.

6) optional: weapon, armor, or other equipment can be attacked by beating the holders AC. Durability loss is 1 per ten points of damage death, rounded up, for armor or weapons. If it's something flimsy just assume it's destroyed. This optional rule can even apply to magical gear!
7) optional: if something has one durability, either because they took it into the dungeon that way, or it's a weapon or armor that lost some due to a roll, assume it breaks at some point prior to end of session. DM-fiat and Evil-DMing encouraged.

For weapons and armor, individual durability tracking may be needed. For enemies, you can ignore durability unless the PCs are trying to destroy something, then roll 1d3+1 for starting durability.

Non-magical non-combat equipment, most characters will probably elect to just bulk pay 80% of the value every 4 sessions/long rests, or when they get back to town. That's where the simplicity comes in. You can also consider this to just be periodic replacement, for narrative purposes.

Note I'm assuming 1 session = 1 long rest, and 1 long rest includes decent adventuring exploration hardships + 3-6 Deadly to Medium encounters.

Feedback and wildly different / unrelated ideas appreciated.

[X3r4ph]

Many think the simplicity of 5e items is nice...

Me? Not so much. I like have money sinks in everything. It is my experience that gp becomes useless pretty quick.

So I am working on a grand remake of 5e. Flatform, weapon moveset, redoing magic and also items.

Anyhow. Back to item durability. What I have done is to implement two new Reactions into the game.

Block and Parry. Both can negate an attack. Block flat out negates attacks, or turn critical hits into normal hits. Parry requires an ability check.
Both causes damage to the item. With block you lose AC. 1 point per hit.
Parry, negates the attack on a success, but if you parry a critical hit you weapon takes damage. A 1d10 turns into a 1d8 etc.
Some monsters have corroding attacks and sunder attacks. Also. Improved critical hit is a more common thing since it is a common Slashing weapon upgrade.

So hits become more deadly, you equipment can save you, but all cost gold. Both reductions can be fixed by a smith of course.

[opaopajr]

Personally, I would defer to the Lifestyles section and make it a function of being below Modest Lifestyle.

Exceptions would be to use Downtime days. People with good Lifestyles, yet have not been taking Downtime, will start to suffer equipment stress.

And then naturally any attacks to PC objects, including AoEs. Also any unduly rough PC gear usage could induce a check. I would make sure the check is separate from all PC stats, too. Simple 5% increment percentile roll off of a d20 is fine.

This way lack of money and Downtime and general caution threatens gear. That's easier to manage and harder to game.

[Aett_Thorn]

So the fighter making multiple attacks a round and wearing plate mail will likely end up having to pay significantly more money than the rogue making one attack a round and just wearing studded leather. Also, would armor and weapons just break after five days of traveling, when nothing happens?

I get what you’re trying to do, but I don’t think it’s going to have the effect you’re looking for.

[Lombra]

Weapons don't wear down by themselves in 5 days. Even with 1 week long rests 5 weeks is a low amount of time, weapons last longer.

I like your system, but here's a different take on it:

I would follow xanathar's complication rules on downtime activities: set a percentage (which may even be weapon-dependant), and at the end of every fight roll to see if the weapon breaks. The percentage is cumulative, so the more the fights the higher the chance of losing a weapon.

A broken weapon is useless and can be repaired with a tools check as appropriate to the weapon type, or damage type (one could make a table to determinate the nature of the break, like: broken blade, severed handle, missing part, etc...) or through the aid of specialized professionals (blacksmiths, leatherworkers, woodcarvers...) for money.

[Unoriginal]

Have you considered just using the rules for item durability in the DMG?

[Cespenar]

I would make it much more simple, similar to most systems work in 5e.

1) If you roll a 1 on an attack against a target which has resistance or immunity to your weapon's damage type, your weapon is damaged.

2) A damaged weapon has disadvantage on its damage rolls.

3) A blacksmith or similarly skilled character can repair the damaged weapon for quarter the time and gp it would take to craft it.

[Tanarii]

So the fighter making multiple attacks a round and wearing plate mail will likely end up having to pay significantly more money than the rogue making one attack a round and just wearing studded leather. Yes. That's expected and intentional.

Otoh it'd be easy enough to change the durability of combat equipment, which is almost certainly going to be tracked individually anyway, by material or armor type. Like, double for metal or something, reduce cost to repair by half per durability point.


Also, would armor and weapons just break after five days of traveling, when nothing happens?


Weapons don't wear down by themselves in 5 days. Even with 1 week long rests 5 weeks is a low amount of time, weapons last longer.Yes. 5 full adventuring days, full of combat and hard exploration of dangerous environments. We're not talking a hike in a modern park here. That's also enough to gain two character levels or more.

I generally assume that adventurers will return to town long before 5 adventuring days. They hardly are going to gain 2 levels between each trip to town, unless something very unusual is going on.

In other words, I'm looking at it as a game construct interacting with D&D's super fast leveling game construct. Not "things don't break in 5 in-game days".

OTOH it'd be easy enough to change it to 10 durability points and 10% to repair per point. Or just do it for non-combat equipment.

On the gripping hand it's also easy enough to think "hey, it only takes 36 adventuring days to reach level 20, starting equipment won't even break in 36 days of use" and toss the entire idea. :smallamused:

(For a IRL comparison, my climbing gear, which isn't used in combat or serious adventuring environments, is typically ready to be retired after maybe 20-25 trips. Very rough estimate.)


I would follow xanathar's complication rules on downtime activities: set a percentage (which may even be weapon-dependant), and at the end of every fight roll to see if the weapon breaks. The percentage is cumulative, so the more the fights the higher the chance of losing a weapon.My goal was to wear down all equipment and make a money sink. For a goal of taking away/breaking weapons, that might work.


Have you considered just using the rules for item durability in the DMG?What rules for item durability?
Honest question. I've can't recall ever having seen them and I couldn't find them when I looked right now.


Personally, I would defer to the Lifestyles section and make it a function of being below Modest Lifestyle.

Exceptions would be to use Downtime days. People with good Lifestyles, yet have not been taking Downtime, will start to suffer equipment stress.

And then naturally any attacks to PC objects, including AoEs. Also any unduly rough PC gear usage could induce a check. I would make sure the check is separate from all PC stats, too. Simple 5% increment percentile roll off of a d20 is fine.

This way lack of money and Downtime and general caution threatens gear. That's easier to manage and harder to game.I like that. I'll have to think about it. I mean, what I'm proposing kind of is an extra downtime cost, usually 20-40% of gear between each adventure, assuming typical 1-2 adventuring days between each re-supply in a town. The difference is its directly tied to how long it's been since you haven'tt taken downtime, and it's a fraction of value of your equipment.

I mean, I could just make it directly stated instead.
1) At each visit to town, you must pay 20% of the cost of your equipment for each adventuring day since you were last in town.

But the full one was to add some breakage / taking away stuff rules, and ones that were impactful. Probably I shouldn't conflate the two things to be honest.

[Naanomi]

So... someone makes sure to take the Mending cantrip?

[Aett_Thorn]

Yes. That's expected and intentional.

Otoh it'd be easy enough to change the durability of combat equipment, which is almost certainly going to be tracked individually anyway, by material or armor type. Like, double for metal or something, reduce cost to repair by half per durability point.


But then you've made it MUCH more punitive for heavy armor users than light armor users. A Rogue repairing his studded leather armor from 1 point back to 5 would have to spend 36 gold. Meanwhile, the fighter repairing even his Splint Mail has to spend 40 gold just to get back from 4 to 5 durability. Plate Mail would cost 300 gold for each point you restore. The Rogue could buy 6 full sets of new studded leather to bring along for that cost, and still have some gold left over.



Yes. 5 full adventuring days, full of combat and hard exploration of dangerous environments. We're not talking a hike in a modern park here. That's also enough to gain two character levels or more.

I generally assume that adventurers will return to town long before 5 adventuring days. They hardly are going to gain 2 levels between each trip to town, unless something very unusual is going on.

I don't know what your standard pacing is, but our campaigns generally have a fair amount of travel that occurs to get from place to place. Going from town to the dungeon that we need to explore might be two days of walking. Does that mean that we'd start exploring the dungeon with 40% durability already lost? One day spent exploring the dungeon, and two days each way means that all of our items are broken by the time we get back.


In other words, I'm looking at it as a game construct interacting with D&D's super fast leveling game construct. Not "things don't break in 5 in-game days".

I don't get this "super fast leveling" that you're talking about. Again, maybe your campaigns are faster than ours, but after about level 5, our leveling really slows down and I don't see why you'd need to punish people just for normal daily activity. I get combat damage/wear+tear, but not just hanging about.

[Tanarii]

So... someone makes sure to take the Mending cantrip?/thread
I hate you. :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:



I don't know what your standard pacing is, but our campaigns generally have a fair amount of travel that occurs to get from place to place. Going from town to the dungeon that we need to explore might be two days of walking.Thats 0 adventuring days right there.


I don't get this "super fast leveling" that you're talking about. Again, maybe your campaigns are faster than ours, but after about level 5, our leveling really slows down and I don't see why you'd need to punish people just for normal daily activity.2.4 adventuring days per level is super fast leveling. That's for Tier 2, which is the slowest leveling part of the game.

You're aware that "adventuring day" is a game construct, right? It doesn't mean "in game days". I means an day of 3 Deadly to 6 Medium encounters.

[Unoriginal]

What rules for item durability?
Honest question. I've can't recall ever having seen them and I couldn't find them when I looked right now.

DMG pp. 246-247

You could say that any item hitting or being hit for higher than its AC loses some of its HPs.

[MaxWilson]

I see two potential advantages to item durability rules:

(1) It's a potential answer to the question of, "If we can kill an Iron Golem with swords, why can't we hack through a stupid iron door?"

(2) It potentially lets you give out more magic items more freely without turning into a Monty Haul campaign, because you're constantly destroying items too, barring special measures by PCs to protect them.

Unfortunately, given the way cantrips and nonweapon damage work in 5E (including from monks and summoned creatures), item durability rules cannot in actuality solve issue #1. If hacking apart an iron door with your sword damages the sword, the monk or barbarian can just smash it to flinders with their fists. For this you need other solutions.

#2 can be solved with item durability rules, but it doesn't require as much granularity as the OP has. You can simplify down to something like, "Items that can be potentially damaged by an attack must save or be damaged to the point of uselessness. (See table A for item save bonus vs. attack type matrix.) Attuned items that are carried by a character do not have to save unless that character is incapacitated; unattuned items do not have to save if the character carrying them has already saved successfully." So, Fireball won't melt your Holy Avenger unless you've dropped it for some reason, but it might vaporize your dozen healing kits and your vials of drow poison and melt your plate armor down to AC 10. (Plate armor should have a high bonus, perhaps +12 or so, against magical fire due to being made out of thick metal.)

Implementing #2 will encourage PCs to bring only the bare minimum of needed equipment on a given adventure, which gives you a way to threaten to steal the magic items that they left at home, generating more conflict and more adventure.

[Davrix]

I happen to be a fan of the simplicity of 5th and while I dont think this diea is bad. Any amount of addtinal booking during a fight = a big headache for the player and the DM when your already trying to keep track of condtions, dots and your own HP and countless other little things.

Trying to keep track of your durability counter? Nope

Having a money sink isn't a bad idea thought so here would be my simple take on it.

After X combat encounters your weapon becomes warn.

A warn weapon does -2 damage

You can buy a wetstone to hone the blade for an additional amount of X encounters. Once this amount has passed it must be taken to a smith to be sharpened.

Taking a weapon to a smith sharpens it and resets the encounter count to 0

[Tanarii]

Trying to keep track of your durability counter? Nope You already have to track ammunition, rations, water, and other consumables. I don't think it's excessive extra overhead.

I mean, if you're one of those people that house rule and hand waive all that stuff out, then sure, durability wouldn't be a system for you.

(Edit: or maybe it is excessive? I mean, I'm definitely aware that there needs to be some level of simplicity here, to fit the game system goals.)

Other Edits:


DMG pp. 246-247

You could say that any item hitting or being hit for higher than its AC loses some of its HPs.Item damage and durability are not the same thing. I was trying to avoid that level of granularity, but if the primary goal isn't wear and tear / upkeep costs, but rather weapon and armor damage / taking them away during game play, adapting "item hit points" and determine a fair method for resolving damaging them might be a workable system.

I don't personally think item AC works for items being carried by creatures, especially not AC 19 for a metal armor that only provides AC 16, and does so by (one would assume) getting hit.


#2 can be solved with item durability rules, but it doesn't require as much granularity as the OP has. You can simplify down to something like, "Items that can be potentially damaged by an attack must save or be damaged to the point of uselessness. (See table A for item save bonus vs. attack type matrix.) Attuned items that are carried by a character do not have to save unless that character is incapacitated; unattuned items do not have to save if the character carrying them has already saved successfully." So, Fireball won't melt your Holy Avenger unless you've dropped it for some reason, but it might vaporize your dozen healing kits and your vials of drow poison and melt your plate armor down to AC 10. (Plate armor should have a high bonus, perhaps +12 or so, against magical fire due to being made out of thick metal.)

Implementing #2 will encourage PCs to bring only the bare minimum of needed equipment on a given adventure, which gives you a way to threaten to steal the magic items that they left at home, generating more conflict and more adventure.
I was looking at mundane equipment, but I agree there's value to having a specific system to taking away magic items over time.

As I said in the previous thread, I was a fan of failed saves causing item saving throws in AD&D. But referencing a saving row matrix, while trés old school, is far more complex than a durability counter of some kind with depletion rules.

[Naanomi]

Even if tedious in a ‘normal’ campaign, a good system for thinking of this kind of stuff in Darksun or similar campaigns is also valuable

[MaxWilson]

As I said in the previous thread, I was a fan of failed saves causing item saving throws in AD&D. But referencing a saving row matrix, while trés old school, is far more complex than a durability counter of some kind with depletion rules.

Really? To me the durability counter seems waaay more complex.

The saving throw approach is very binary: either your items are fine or they're not. There's not a lot of state to track unless the item is rendered useless. It does make failed PC saves more serious ("you failed your save vs. Fireball--now save for all of your potions at +4 and your sword at +9! also your clothes look terrible now") but on a failed save nothing changes.

There's some mild complexity involved in figuring out the proper save bonus for a given type of item against a given attack, but that table can be as simple as you want it to be. If you really want to split items into just three categories (fragile = +0, normal = +6, and tough = +15), you're free to do so. I'd go a little bit deeper than that and make metal items immune to electricity, for example, but if you see no benefit to that level of detail you can just ignore attack type and make the bonus always the same against all attacks.

Even with that mild complexity, that seems a lot simpler to me than having to track durability separately for every single item on your person, from swords to armor to healing potions to rope to caltrops. State management x20 is a huge pain, far bigger than a table lookup.

[Davrix]

You already have to track ammunition, rations, water, and other consumables. I don't think it's excessive extra overhead.

I mean, if you're one of those people that house rule and hand waive all that stuff out, then sure, durability wouldn't be a system for you.

(Edit: or maybe it is excessive? I mean, I'm definitely aware that there needs to be some level of simplicity here, to fit the game system goals

Thats my point. Its excessive. Your already tracking all those things and you want to start using a system where you have to keep track of a durability system. If your table is heavy into simulation that's cool. Go for it. But if you just want a gold sink i would suggest something more streamlined that requires very little book-keeping.

[opaopajr]

Easiest Lack of Downtime way would be 10% failure per month, or 5% per two weeks, (or according to GM preference naturally). So a fortnight of constant adventuring stresses your gear. Returning to your Lifestyle for a Weekend negates a fortnight's stress.

It assumes you get your gear repaired ASAP when returning to your Lifestyle and will be readied in a day or two. So, as long as players spend two weekends a month and pay up their Modest+ Lifestyle, they are good to go!

Below Modest? Then add 5% per fortnight, then Disadvantage, & finally Vulnerability (double %)! Boom! Covered Poor, Squalid, and Wretched. Stop being a PC Christmas Tree in the slums. :smallyuk:

Ta-dah! :smallcool: Numbers chosen are arbitrary, but you get the idea.

Then let the players roll a whole bunch of d20s for their gear. This'll be their favorite part, probably even busting out mixing bowls of dice, a la Shadowrun. :smallbiggrin: It's wholly avoidable, but there to make players commit to the setting as a coherent thing.

[Lombra]

Thats 0 adventuring days right there.

You did write "long rest" not "adventuring day" in the OP. Which is (reasonably) not what you meant appearently.

[Tanarii]

You did write "long rest" not "adventuring day" in the OP. Which is (reasonably) not what you meant appearently.
Yes. Those are the same thing, from a game structures point of view. If they aren't, then the DM is supposed to look at variant rest rules.

What's not necessarily the same as either of those is in-game days, or end of session.


Really? To me the durability counter seems waaay more complex.
Hmmm. I define "complexity" in 5e as: how much session time is lost? And is it mid-session, or worse, mid-combat?

Looking up a rule (or spell details) in a book is high complexity. Referencing a matrix is high complexity. Reducing ammunition or rations or hit points or spells slots or a durability value by 1 on your character sheet on a 20 or 1 being rolled is all pretty low complexity.

[Lombra]

Yes. Those are the same thing, from a game structures point of view. If they aren't, then the DM is supposed to look at variant rest rules.

What's not necessarily the same as either of those is in-game days, or end of session.

No. Long rests can happen even without adventuring. Most people sleep and relax even not after immediate life threats. Say the party waits a week in a city because of reasons, there's (likely) 7 long rests, which would destroy a weapon constantly sheated. That's why what you said is not clear.

[Tanarii]

No. Long rests can happen even without adventuring. Most people sleep and relax even not after immediate life threats. Say the party waits a week in a city because of reasons, there's (likely) 7 long rests, which would destroy a weapon constantly sheated. That's why what you said is not clear.
There's no need for long rests if you're not doing adventuring days. They are the same game structure. The standard is 1 long rest = 1 adventuring days worth of content.

[MaxWilson]

Hmmm. I define "complexity" in 5e as: how much session time is lost? And is it mid-session, or worse, mid-combat?

Looking up a rule (or spell details) in a book is high complexity. Referencing a matrix is high complexity. Reducing ammunition or rations or hit points or spells slots or a durability value by 1 on your character sheet on a 20 or 1 being rolled is all pretty low complexity.

I define complexity similarly (how much does it slow down the game without increasing player engagement/dramatic tension) but my experience with managing lots of state is very different. Tracking HP and conditions for dozens of creatures is slow, especially if you track them individually instead of doing "blob HP"-ish simplifications, and I expect tracking dozens of item durability modifiers to be at least as painful, especially as durability goes up and down and up again. (Lots of pencil erasing on character sheets, or scratched-out things rewritten again.)

In contrast, rolling large numbers of dice is pretty quick, especially for homogenous things, and rolling to avoid destruction of your items can never be tedious anyway because the outcome is inherently interesting to the players: "I failed my Fireball save--how many of my items will survive?" is not boring even if it involves a table lookup. There's dramatic tension there. If something has become so ho-hum that it's no longer interesting ("I've failed my Fireball save ten times before, but the only non-attuned item I've got on is my plate armor, and it always survives") there won't be a table lookup (player already knows the armor's save vs. fire) and so it will be fast and easy, and possibly waived by the DM.

Fiddling with a dozen durability numbers on your character sheet that won't matter unless they get too low: low-impact, complex, risks being boring.

Trying to see whether your backup weapon and poisons just got destroyed: high-impact, not boring, only as complex as it needs to be to answer the dramatic question.


There's no need for long rests if you're not doing adventuring days. They are the same game structure. The standard is 1 long rest = 1 adventuring days worth of content.

Per Xanathar's, not taking long rests can result in exhaustion. If you start the adventure and the players have not had a long rest in a week because they were travelling, some of them may be near-dead from exhaustion.

Long rest basically = "going to bed for the night," and it happens every day of a normal person's life.

[Tanarii]

Thats my point. Its excessive.


Having a money sink isn't a bad idea thought so here would be my simple take on it.

After X combat encounters your weapon becomes warn.

A warn weapon does -2 damage

You can buy a wetstone to hone the blade for an additional amount of X encounters. Once this amount has passed it must be taken to a smith to be sharpened.

Taking a weapon to a smith sharpens it and resets the encounter count to 0
Okay in that case, swung back to take a look at your idea again.

My questions & observations are:
- What's the functional difference between X encounters and a durability counter? Where's the extra complexity in my method? Is it the 1 and 20 thing for weapons that's the issue.
- what's your idea for armor and other equipment?
- there's no possibility of taking away the weapon here. Is that intentional?

As a side note, the 1 and 20 thing for weapons and armor was something I tossed on top of the base idea of "pay for equipment every 5 adventuring days / long rests" money sink.

Like I said up thread, I kinda conflated two ideas here:
1) taking players stuff away
Vs
2) money sink


Easiest Lack of Downtime way would be 10% failure per month, or 5% per two weeks, (or according to GM preference naturally). So a fortnight of constant adventuring stresses your gear. Returning to your Lifestyle for a Weekend negates a fortnight's stress.

It assumes you get your gear repaired ASAP when returning to your Lifestyle and will be readied in a day or two. So, as long as players spend two weekends a month and pay up their Modest+ Lifestyle, they are good to go!

Below Modest? Then add 5% per fortnight, then Disadvantage, & finally Vulnerability (double %)! Boom! Covered Poor, Squalid, and Wretched. Stop being a PC Christmas Tree in the slums.

Ta-dah! Numbers chosen are arbitrary, but you get the idea.

Then let the players roll a whole bunch of d20s for their gear. This'll be their favorite part, probably even busting out mixing bowls of dice, a la Shadowrun. :smallbiggrin: It's wholly avoidable, but there to make players commit to the setting as a coherent thing.
So this method is for adventuring wear & tear, but no money sink attached? As soon as they start paying for a lifestyle again (ie are back in town) their gear is automatically fixed after two days?

It almost seems like you're saying they need to back-pay for their lifestyle, but lifestyle is for downtime days back in town. So there shouldn't be any back-paying involved.


, and I expect tracking dozens of item durability modifiers to be at least as painful, especially as durability goes up and down and up again. (Lots of pencil erasing on character sheets, or scratched-out things rewritten again.)still reading and absorbing your entire post, but quick comment: a normal character should only need 2-3 durabilities. 1-2 weapons, 1 armor, and "everything else". Because everything else looses durability at the same rate.



In contrast, rolling large numbers of dice is pretty quick, especially for homogenous things, and rolling to avoid destruction of your items can never be tedious anyway because the outcome is inherently interesting to the players: "I failed my Fireball save--how many of my items will survive?" is not boring even if it involves a table lookup. There's dramatic tension there. If something has become so ho-hum that it's no longer interesting ("I've failed my Fireball save ten times before, but the only non-attuned item I've got on is my plate armor, and it always survives") there won't be a table lookup (player already knows the armor's save vs. fire) and so it will be fast and easy, and possibly waived by the DM.
Okay longer comment. That's a damn good point. I'm thinking in terms of logistics, but I terms of excitement, saving for a bunch of stuff is definitely far mor intense. Like I said, I was already a fan of the AD&D method. You're making me even more so. :smallwink:

[LordEntrails]

There's no need for long rests if you're not doing adventuring days. They are the same game structure. The standard is 1 long rest = 1 adventuring days worth of content.

8 hours of undisturbed rest is a "long rest". But, getting into useless smantics. We get what you mean. But I agree that adventuring days doesn't make sense for wear.

A fighter might carry a sword and a dagger. He might never pull out that dagger after using his sword for a hundred adventuring days. And when he does the dagger falls apart...

[sir_argo]

I've considered durability but because of the Mending spell, it doesn't seem any normal adventuring party would be impacted. But if I did, I would not use a counter. I'd go with this:

If you roll a natural 1 on an attack, have your weapon make a saving throw vs. a DC 10. The weapon gets +1 for each magical plus of the item. On a failed check, the item gains a permanent -1 damage until repaired.
If you are hit by a natural 20, have your armor make a saving throw vs. a DC 10. The armor gets +1 for each magical plus of the item. On a failed check, the armor permanently loses 1 AC until repaired.

The premise here is that magic items do not break as easily. Second, I think 5 'dings' is too fast. I chose DC 10 because it is similar to a death save... the item is making a death save. The item also starts losing effectiveness as it gets banged up. The counter method has a sword doing full damage even after 4 dings, but on that 5th ding it just breaks. That's weird to me. I like the idea that even 1 ding has an impact.

[opaopajr]

So this method is for adventuring wear & tear, but no money sink attached? As soon as they start paying for a lifestyle again (ie are back in town) their gear is automatically fixed after two days?

It almost seems like you're saying they need to back-pay for their lifestyle, but lifestyle is for downtime days back in town. So there shouldn't be any back-paying involved.

No. :smallsmile: It means there's a percent chance of loss, that increases, and is checked, every fourteen days. Once you return to civilization that can satisfy your lifestyle, your gear's percent chance of loss per fortnight decreases accordingly.

So, first 14 days in the desert, 5% increase in gear risk, make a check vs. 5% on your stuff. See what's now lost or broken. Spend another 14 days in the desert, another 5% increase in gear risk, make a check vs. 10% on your stuff. See what else got lost or broke.

Get to a town large enough to support at least a Modest lifestyle for a weekend, 5% reduce your gear risk, now make a check vs. 5% on your stuff (you are now actively maintaining gear). Spend at least another weekend coming back to same spot, reduce gear risk by another 5%, your check vs. gear is at 0%. By spending a month nearby, you have spent at least (or at least your gear has spent) enough time and money amid civilization to warrant a Lifestyle cost. Pay your Lifestyle cost. Gear deterioration penalties are now gone for the low, low cost of a Modest+ Lifestyle and 4 downtime days.

All the gear lost or damaged during the month and a half of checks are still lost or damaged. (Just three checks total: 5%, 10%, and 5%.) That's to be repaired, repurchased, or found.

All attempts to cheap out on Lifestyle, trying to get away with below Modest, ends up compounding gear deterioration penalties. You will keep suffering abstracted losses due to breakage, robbery, burglary, pawning for food, etc.

Eventually even valuable gear, spellbooks, and magic items will be vulnerable as long as you stay outside of the comforts and division of labor from civilization. These items stay otherwise pristine while isolated in dungeons explicitly because they are not used and not being moved about. But used items during travel suffer the risks of travel, because travel is rarely easy. :smallcool:

Eventually living Wretched Lifestyle wipes you out, leaving you destitute, as it should. It's a hyper-predatory poverty spiral. You want to leave it ASAP.

Living Wretchedly for 14 days inside a city gets you 0% for civilization, +5% for Poor, Disadv for Squalid, and Vulnerability (double %) for Wretched. So roll a check vs. 10% Vulnerable with Disadv for all your gear. Stay Wretched in the city for another 14 days, add another 0% for civilization, +5% for Poor, Disadv for Squalid, and Vulnerability (double %) for Wretched. Now your second check is vs. 20% Vulnerable with Disadv for all your gear. You save little money and can lose a lot over time. Testing your Survival away from big city civilization might make sense after awhile so as to escape Squalid Wretchedness' Disadvantaged Vulnerability.

Or something along those lines. No hard fast mechanics, just spitballed ideas. As long as your players gave fun, what does it matter? :smallcool:

[Tanarii]

opaopajr. Yeah, that works in terms of travel wear and tear. I was thinking of "day used" wear and tear, thus only looking at adventuring days. Because from direct experience with climbing, I know a long and active day using gear rather extremely burns it out in no time.

20% per day used / adventuring day / long rest is obviously quite high, but I also wanted the number to be meaningful within the context of adventuring, since you only see around 1-1.5 in Tier 1 and 2.4 in Tier 2 in 5e. Which is when equipment burn and replacing it matters the most financially. Even by late T2 it wouldn't be a huge thing except for consumables.

Honestly, that may just mean that it's not worth tracking non weapon/item durability at all. I mean if I really wanted to, I could probably tell players they need to spend 50% to replace or fix their entire kit (except weapons and armor and consumables) after each adventuring day when they return to town, and leave it at that. Even in T1 that'd be possible, although it'd eat most of their lootz.

With that in mind something like MaxWilson's or sir_argo's save methods may be superior. Something that damages weapons and armor. And possibly even normal gear in the case of fireballs or black dragon breath or the like.