Adapting Breath of the Wild: Weapon Durability

[AureusFulgens]

Good day, all! So I've been working on a long-term project to adapt the Switch game Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to a D&D 5E campaign, and the question on the table today is:

Weapons in Breath of the Wild have a durability score, which determines how many times they can be used before they break. Should it be ported over in a D&D adaptation?

I'm of two minds. On one hand, I feel that the effect of this mechanic - constant weapon switching as the player breaks his weapons and has to scrounge for new ones or take them from defeated enemies - gives the game a unique flavor that I'm reluctant to lose. HOWEVER, on the other hand, it sounds like a lot of bookkeeping for players to remember how many times they use their weapons and when they should be breaking. (On the other OTHER hand, though, spellcasters do similar amounts of bookkeeping all the time anyway.)

What do you all think?

As an addendum, do you think measuring this probabilistically (roll for possible breakage whenever you hit with a weapon) could be a good substitute?

[mephnick]

Weapons in Breath of the Wild have a durability score, which determines how many times they can be used before they break. Should it be ported over in a D&D adaptation?

No. It's the most controversial mechanic in BotW (other than the damn rain) and would not be fun to play out at the table. It's also unwieldy and non-heroic which kind of strains against the design of 5e in general.

The problem is you either:

a) come up with an in-depth subsystem, similar to crafting, and really key in on the survival stuff as the central focus of the game (in which case I would say hack a different system) or,
b)make it as simple as just finding weapons which will eventually lead to players just crossing out weapons on their character sheet as they go and no one will really engage with it

[Unoriginal]

You could use the rules to break items in the DMG, which indicates the HPs of items, and say that a weapon loses 1 HP per fight, or every 10 hits, or any time it its something with an AC higher than theirs (or something similar).

I'd say if you really want to do that, including the possibility for repair (ie give HPs back) if the adventurers or NPCs have the proficiencies in the right tools would be better, though.

I'd advise against a percent-chance-to-break, it'll mostly make the breaking feel divorced of the combat.

Overall, it ill indeed be extra bookkeeping, along with several more issues, so if you absolutely want to implement that make sure your players are ok with it. Also you could make so that it also happens to NPCs.

Though to be fair, I'd say the weapons in BotW breaking like they do might be more due to this incarnation of Link's Beowulfian strength, allowing him to take on creatures outside the reach of normal people, than a fragility in the weapon themselves.

EDIT:

Mephnick is right, it's most likely not going to be fun at all for players, especially when it happens to weapons they like.

So honestly I can't recommend it.

I can't say it's not heroic, though: from the ancient myths to the stories of Conan, the heroes' weapons and armors breaking happened more than a couple of time, generally to show how awesome the hero is, to show the strength of the combatants, or to add to the drama.

[oxybe]

It's annoying, but remember that in BotW you can carry two dozen flaming claymores and consistently farm them, as tedious as it is.

Weapons in BotW are plentiful and you go through them quick. How many flaming longswords are you ready to hand out and let people carry?

[Boci]

Done realistically, this would likely push your party towards certain weapons more than others. A warhammer is likely going to be far more endurant use fatigue than a sword. Dex based melee gets to cry softly to themselves I guess.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Weapons in Breath of the Wild have a durability score, which determines how many times they can be used before they break. Should it be ported over in a D&D adaptation?
No. It absolutely should not be. Never mind the crapton of book-keeping; do you want characters to tote around golf bags full of swords? Not to mention the lack of definition between weapons in 5e. And the fact that it's not even slightly set up to be a survival-oriented system.

[Mellack]

I don't see this adding much to the game. Either the character totes around a bag full of swords, they get magic ones (if those broke there would be no magic swords), or you make sure somebody has the mending cantrip. None of these options would seem to add a lot of new flavor to the game more than the hassle.

[PhantomSoul]

I've considered having specific items get a special damaging mechanic, but I think it would probably get cumbersome as a widespread mechanic. That said, some thoughts for weapons:

(a) Easy version. The Weapon takes Damage upon a Critical Miss. Just one point or something, for easy tracking.

(b) Complex. When you Roll a Critical Miss with the Weapon, you still Roll Damage. Additionally, you Roll Percentile Dice. If the Damage exceeds the Percentile Dice Total, then the Weapon takes Damage (either 1 or, for more uncertainty, the amount of Damage you Rolled).*

Obvious potential flaws:
1. This "punishes" having more attacks, though for a durability-style mechanic that would be fitting.
2. This "punishes" having more-damaging attacks, though maybe you like the idea that hitting harder with a weapon means that weapon, well, also gets hit harder.


_______
* Edit: This is the "Damage Threshold" implementation; effectively the Percentile Dice acts as a variable Damage Threshold for the Weapon. That's probably my favoured option because it's somewhat simple, I think, but you could alternatively use a Damage Reduction mechanic quite easily: you subtract the Percentile Dice Total from the Damage, giving you smaller amounts of Damage taken per failure (at the cost of having to do marginally more thinking). I prefer both of these over a consistent amount of Damage, though.

[Mellack]

It would seem to me to be just adding a lot of extra tracking. Especially since I see it as a slippery slope. If a weapon is getting damaged, isn't the shields and armor they are hitting also getting damaged? So now you also need a mechanic to track them.

[Ganymede]

This would result in a lot more book keeping, as well as everyone carrying way more weapons.

Is that what you want?

[Kane0]

How would tool proficiencies and Mending play into this?

[ImproperJustice]

Also be prepared for lots of players choosing to focus on characters that don’t need to rely on weapons such as cantrip users and monks.

[GreatWyrmGold]

No. It's the most controversial mechanic in BotW (other than the damn rain)...
It's controversial rather than merely hated because it has some positive aspects, and if you're going for the feel of BotW you'll want to preserve the positives.

The idea behind the weapon durability mechanic is that it encourages the player to constantly be on the lookout for new weapons, make even relatively ordinary loot meaningful (rather than "Oh geez, another +1 dagger?), and encourage the players to use different strategies (both in the sense of using different weapons and not using weapons).
If I were to pick a system that would do something similar...I'd say making consumable magic/alchemical items that perform various unique effects would do the trick. They'd need to provide something that characters can't normally do, or that are powerful enough to overshadow similar spells and class abilities, but which won't break the game to be given out regularly and require some forethought to use properly.
I'm not sure what other ideas you have in your head and notes for this campaign, or what you expect your PCs to be capable of by the time they face Ganon, but I'm sure you can think of something. Maybe pull inspiration from other Zelda games, with items or powers from other Zelda games being turned into temporary buffs from strange magical talismen or elixers or critter-blood extract or something. Or if the characters are missing some typical role (e.g, no spellcasters), you could have the consumables duplicate the missing class abilities. If nothing else, magical fragments that can be put together to enchant your own magic item or potions that give you the benefit of a rest (combined with regularly encountering several encounters per day) could do the trick.

[CantigThimble]

If you're going to do this (which I wouldn't, but I also wouldn't do Zelda D&D so whatever) then make the bookeeping as simple as possible. Give weapons like 3-5 durability and take 1 off whenever someone rolls a 1 or a 20. Those rolls are memorable enough anyway so doing this won't be a complete chore in play.

[Kane0]

Death saves for equipment!

[ImproperJustice]

I think if done right, this could make for a fun experience that captures the initial desperation of BoTW.

I would consider giving weapons and tools longer life expectancies than they have in BoTW.
Players with smithing tools and skills should be able to extend the life span of their weapons.
Unless you hate your warriors, don’t make weapons degrade by use.
It may be better to do a check “per encounter”, and give players a warning when their weapon is about to break.

I think you will need to give serious thought on how magic, monks, and various other character abilities will work in this environment, or else you will be unfairly punishing martial classes.

It may be worth looking at some other systems to better fit your model.
Savage Worlds at least considers equipment access to be a factor in character creation just as much as ability scores and powers.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I think you will need to give serious thought on how magic, monks, and various other character abilities will work in this environment, or else you will be unfairly punishing martial classes.
And also how ZelD&D is going to work in general. LoZ is about a single heroic warrior (aside from that one game where there were four Links), while D&D is about a band of people who come together to do great things. There are ways to make it work, maybe even in the Zelda mythology (maybe the Triforce pieces got broken or something), but you'll need to compromise either the Zelda feel or the D&D feel.

[strangebloke]

No. It absolutely should not be. Never mind the crapton of book-keeping; do you want characters to tote around golf bags full of swords? Not to mention the lack of definition between weapons in 5e. And the fact that it's not even slightly set up to be a survival-oriented system.
I'm going to mostly agree with this.

It's fine (sort of) in BotW because all the book-keeping is done by the game, and because there's always tons of level-appropriate weapons available. You'd have to add that into DND and that would be a a bit of work. Arguably a little annoying.


(a) Easy version. The Weapon takes Damage upon a Critical Miss. Just one point or something, for easy tracking.

This would be my approach. Each weapon has durability. On a nat 1, the weapon loses 1 durability. Over the course of an hour, a PC can make a smith's tools check to restore durability equal to their proficiency. If the durability of a weapon hits zero, it breaks.

[MagneticKitty]

I would do this. Have a rate of fail percentage on a scale of 5%s. The best weapons have a low fail rate. After each fight have them roll a d20. Depending on how good the weapon is 5 and under could be a fail 20% fail ratio or if it is good 5% fail rate.
Although as a player, I'd be mad if magic weapons could break. At the same time that removes the mechanic from your game pretty early on after everyone picks one so they don't have to mess with it. Maybe magic weapons are like the master sword, they go inert if you fail your roll and recharge 1d4 hours or after a rest.

[AureusFulgens]

And also how ZelD&D is going to work in general. LoZ is about a single heroic warrior (aside from that one game where there were four Links), while D&D is about a band of people who come together to do great things. There are ways to make it work, maybe even in the Zelda mythology (maybe the Triforce pieces got broken or something), but you'll need to compromise either the Zelda feel or the D&D feel.

This is a particularly interesting point, and I've written a fair amount of meditation on how to deal with it. I think Breath of the Wild is uniquely suited to overcoming this problem, because the mythology of that game in particular includes several partners for Link: the four Champions, who not only accompanied him during the doomed battle against Ganon 100 years ago, but echoed similar legendary figures from the successful fight of 10,000 years ago. I don't think it's a stretch to make the legend cover several reincarnating heroes, and to have several of them survive to the present in the Shrine of Resurrection. One would be the wielder of the Master Sword, others the defeated pilots of some of the Divine Beasts seeking to cleanse their war machines, still others researchers on the Guardians (like Purah) or the ancient legends (like Kass). It bends but doesn't break the Zelda legend, in my opinion.

The harder-to-fix issue is actually less this and more the problem of the players creating unique characters you can't plan for. You don't have, say, Link, Mipha, and Revali as your party. You have Luke, Miranda, and Ricardo. And you have to work these unique characters into the mythology. That's especially troublesome for the subplot of recovering lost memories: the DM doesn't have set character relationships to rely on and reveal. Heck, it's difficult to design a D&D game where characters don't know crucial aspects of their own backstories without a LOT of player-DM agreement and trust.

Maybe I need to get my thoughts on this into a more presentable form and post them. I'm still convinced that this is a project worth undertaking (and my D&D group are all Zelda fans who have expressed interest in playing it if I manage to complete it; it was partly their idea), but it won't be without difficulty.

Still tabulating the business about weapon durability. I wasn't really aware how much negative feedback that mechanic had gotten in the original game (I thought it was neat, but then I'm Lawful enough to implicitly accept the rules of a game if they aren't completely infuriating), but I just went back and looked up a ton of reviews and found that, yes, anyone who had any quibbles had quibbles with that.

[Honest Tiefling]

I haven't played the game, but weapon durability can work in video games, but I wouldn't say it works well in table top. I assume Link can make and switch to a different weapon in the span of a few seconds. With a DM, that exchange could take longer. A video game also has a visual aspect that tabletop just can't measure up to. Searching for goodies is typically handled in a few rolls that can become monotonous with most DnD groups. I mean, I guess the DM can describe finding a stick multiple times but I think that is better glossed over.

Having weapons break on a percentile is also a really bad idea because it throws a monkey wrench into balance and then decides to throw an exploding monkey wrench into the mix because the first one didn't mess things up enough. Melee is worse than magic, and any melee that hits repeatedly is going to be hit by the nerf bat with the force of Demogorgon having a rough day.

If you want some crafting/survival...Stuff, how close are you trying to replicate the experience of the video game? Perhaps having quests to fetch items for NPCs, establishing a camp, interacting with the environment with things like traps or keeping track of food might serve you better.

[krymsyn_link21]

As for myself, I actually have implemented this very concept. It wasn't actually difficult and my group actually loves the challenge of it. Each battle a weapon/shield is used it loses one durability. They can be restored by a blacksmith or the mending cantrip. The Master Sword doesn't actually break but has a cool down period of 1d4 hours or a long rest. However if a weapon or shield reaches 0 durability, it breaks and disappears. The master sword excluded of course. Armors have a upgrade system and I have also implemented set pieces of armors as well. We are playing a full botw campaign if y'all haven't already guessed. However we are taking 5e DND to a new level as lvl 20 is not the maximum level limit due to the fact that botw is such a long game we aren't sure what lvl we'll be by the end of the campaign.

[BaconAwesome]

1) No - the weapon durability mechanic led to problems like this:

https://voices.clickhole.com/modern-video-games-are-giving-kids-unrealistic-standard-1825124240

2) Alternatively, yes - it's not BOTW if your Holy Avenger doesn't shatter after 50 hits.

3) The rain would be hilarious, and allow for a lot better railroading.

Players: We don't want to go fight the ogre.

DM: Tough - every other path has a tall hill, and it's raining.

Players: We wait for the rain to stop.

DM: OK, but there's no place to build a fire except for the ogre's lair, so you can't fast forward and I'm going to sit here and stare at you for 20 minutes of real time while we wait. Feel free to shift your weight occasionally.

4) OTOH, stealth would be a lot more fun if you got status counters of ? and ! for your miniatures.

[krymsyn_link21]

Think about d&d magical items. The bag of holding can solve a lot of these issues. Secondly the challenges of the durability actually make players think strategically

[Mellack]

Think about d&d magical items. The bag of holding can solve a lot of these issues. Secondly the challenges of the durability actually make players think strategically

How when it can be solved by just using the mending cantrip?

[GreatWyrmGold]

How when it can be solved by just using the mending cantrip?
Which brings up an important point: You can't just import bits from such a radically different game and expect it to work. If you want to make D&D more BotW-ey, you need to adapt not only the raw mechanics but some additional design sensibilities.

[AureusFulgens]

Well, I certainly didn't expect to see this thread wake up again, but I'm not going to complain :)


How when it can be solved by just using the mending cantrip?


Which brings up an important point: You can't just import bits from such a radically different game and expect it to work. If you want to make D&D more BotW-ey, you need to adapt not only the raw mechanics but some additional design sensibilities.

I have in general been trying to think in those terms: what mechanics and story elements actually work in D&D? I'm already thinking I'll have to put some heavy limitations on some kinds of magic, and the shrines will have to be radically altered if I include them at all - neither the forms of puzzles nor the rewards involved make much sense in the new game system.

But mending is not something I'd thought about. My bigger concern is trying to maintain the tone and flavor of the original game - the feeling of always having to hunt for things to use and try to survive. So, it's good to know that weapon durability probably isn't a good way to do it.

[Mellack]

It is the same problem people who tried to make a basic survival campaign found. There are so many spells even at first level to end any difficulty for the characters.

[DanyBallon]

If you are willing to modify the character sheet layout, you could add a few boxes (squares, circles, etc.) as for ammunition, below each weapon and armors, and check one of these every time "damage" is taken by the weapon, once all boxes are checked, the item is now broken and unusable. Mending, or having an artisan fix it, can removed checked box one at a time. You might want to move mending from cantrip to 1st level spell (ritual) in order to prevent fixing an item in just a few rounds.

As for what damage an item, it could range from only on critical miss; a critical miss or success; or something even more complex where every items have different range (i.e. a club would take damage on a roll of 1 to 6, while a long sword on a roll of 1 or 2, and an heavy mace only on a roll of 1...); or any other system you come up with.

At least with these check box, it would be easier to track damage or repair on an item.

[Slayn82]

I have a proposal.

A small weapon has 5 hit points. A medium weapon has 10 hit points. A large weapon gets 18 hit points. Shields are considered medium weapons, and armors are considered large weapons.

Critical hits or Critical failures cost the gear 1 hit point. You can attack enemy weapons, with disadvantage, but weapons made of metal or magic weapons have resistance to physical damage. Gear made of metal has a base AC 19, while gear made of wood or leather has a base AC 15. Any magic bonuses should be added to its AC.

Mending can restore all the HP of a non magical gear, but doesn't work for magic gear. Repairing magic gear requires working with apropriate smith tools. Repairing takes 2 hours for a small object, 4 hours for a medium and 8 hours for a large object, recover all of the gear HP, and cost 25/50/100 gp in materials depending on size. The cost of materials for Magic Weapons of smaller size become 25% cheaper, while Magic Weapons of larger size are 40% more expensive. Limited offer and higher Demand may alter those prices further.

Magic gear under these rules becomes a simbol of status.

Edit:

I will have to add rules for using broken weapons giving disadvantage, and broken armors losing AC and reducing mobility. Also, maybe fixing the damage dealt to weapons in 1/2/3 depending of the attacking weapon size instead of resistance. Or use animate objects Table for the items HP.

[Kane0]

My own proposal:

- Weapons, shields, armor, etc have 'charges'
- Using a piece of equipment in an encounter uses one charge
- Optionally, when you are hit by a critical hit you can use your reaction and spend one shield or armor charge to turn it into a regular hit against you
- Optionally, when you miss with an attack by less than X on the roll you can use your reaction and spend one charge on your weapon to turn the miss into a hit
- Upon reaching 0 charges an item falls apart, or alternatively use the wand standard of roll a d20, it falls apart on a 1 and is otherwise just unusable until repaired
- Poor quality equipment typically has 3 charges, standard gear 5, 'Masterwork' equipment 7 and magic items 10
- Mending can repair an item by 1 charge, up to a maximum of 3 charges. Items that already have 3 or more charges are unaffected.
- Relevant tool kits can be used during a short rest to restore up to 3 charges on items
- Fabricate creates standard quality items

I wouldn't use it personally, but it's an option.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I have in general been trying to think in those terms: what mechanics and story elements actually work in D&D?
Well, if you're incorporating major mechanics from another game, you're not really playing D&D; you're playing a D&D hybrid. So, I'd suggest thinking of the question more as "How do I get these mechanics and story elements to work in this D&D-based RPG?"
A good place to start might be looking at all the differences between base D&D and BotW. For instance:
BotW has only one adventurer; D&D usually has 4-6.
Link has access to limited, specific magic (bombs, magnetic telekinesis, etc). Adventurers either have access to a wide variety of potentially game-breaking (or at least entire-category-of-obstacle-trivializing) magical abilities or diddly-squat, depending on if they're a caster or not...and most groups have a couple of casters.
In BotW, it's expected that you will need to use equipment found on enemy corpses, in treasure chests, etc. In D&D, you're probably going to sell them unless it's better than the weapon you've stuck with since your last upgrade (or character creation); most weapons you stumble on are weaker than your current weapons (or of a type you can't use), so this doesn't happen often.
In BotW, there are a wide variety of consumable resources (weapons, food, etc) which are replenished by exploration and discovery (like everything else in the game—it's very tightly-designed). In D&D, most of your consumable resources are replenished by taking a nap or calling it a day, and a few (e.g. potions) are replenished with cash. (D&D deserves another look, given how both game design and expectations for TRPGs have changed in the past 40-odd years.)
With a few exceptions (e.g, shrines), BotW isn't strongly segmented; exploration is the main driver of gameplay, and its gameplay loops usually don't lend themselves to required or obvious starting and stopping points. (Which isn't to say there aren't any; when you're running out of time and find a shrine/Korok seed/tower/etc, that's a good exit point. But there's nothing that inherently differentiates that from the other potential exit points in the play session.) D&D, on the other hand, has very strong break points built into its structure—not just between sessions, but with a campaign being broken into distinct adventures (and, generally, each adventure broken into distinct "chapters," which are further broken into encounters).
And so on. Once you have a list of everything you can think of, figure out what elements of BotW you want to incorporate into D&D and which of these differences will affect them. For instance, in the above list, the first and last probably don't have much impact on breakable weapons, but the other three probably would.
Once you've done this, you have a list of problems which can be solved. For instance:
The widely-available magic in a D&D setting trivializes (among many, many, many other things) maintenance and repair of weaponry.
At most levels, weaponry of the appropriate type and power level will be rare.
This adds yet another criterion needed to replenish one's limited resources.
With this list of problems, you can come up with a list of solutions as well, and incorporate them into the game.

Just a way of thinking about this sort of problem in general. I hope it's useful in the future!

[Mellack]

I have a proposal.

A small weapon has 5 hit points. A medium weapon has 10 hit points. A large weapon gets 18 hit points. Shields are considered medium weapons, and armors are considered large weapons.

Critical hits or Critical failures cost the gear 1 hit point. You can attack enemy weapons, with disadvantage, but weapons made of metal or magic weapons have resistance to physical damage. Gear made of metal has a base AC 19, while gear made of wood or leather has a base AC 15. Any magic bonuses should be added to its AC.

Mending can restore all the HP of a non magical gear, but doesn't work for magic gear. Repairing magic gear requires working with apropriate smith tools. Repairing takes 2 hours for a small object, 4 hours for a medium and 8 hours for a large object, recover all of the gear HP, and cost 25/50/100 gp in materials depending on size. The cost of materials for Magic Weapons of smaller size become 25% cheaper, while Magic Weapons of larger size are 40% more expensive. Limited offer and higher Demand may alter those prices further.

Magic gear under these rules becomes a simbol of status.

Edit:

I will have to add rules for using broken weapons giving disadvantage, and broken armors losing AC and reducing mobility. Also, maybe fixing the damage dealt to weapons in 1/2/3 depending of the attacking weapon size instead of resistance. Or use animate objects Table for the items HP.

Note, at lower levels you essentially need a party member to have the mending cantrip. Repairing a suit of chain mail/scale/studded leather would cost more than buying a new suit.

[Citan]

Good day, all! So I've been working on a long-term project to adapt the Switch game Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to a D&D 5E campaign, and the question on the table today is:

Weapons in Breath of the Wild have a durability score, which determines how many times they can be used before they break. Should it be ported over in a D&D adaptation?

I'm of two minds. On one hand, I feel that the effect of this mechanic - constant weapon switching as the player breaks his weapons and has to scrounge for new ones or take them from defeated enemies - gives the game a unique flavor that I'm reluctant to lose. HOWEVER, on the other hand, it sounds like a lot of bookkeeping for players to remember how many times they use their weapons and when they should be breaking. (On the other OTHER hand, though, spellcasters do similar amounts of bookkeeping all the time anyway.)

What do you all think?

As an addendum, do you think measuring this probabilistically (roll for possible breakage whenever you hit with a weapon) could be a good substitute?
I think that everyone here saying "no it's an horrible idea in essence" are painting it much darker than you need it to be.

First, you don't have to make it pure bookkeeping. Get inspired with Dead Dice system, which uses a "roll 1d6, on 1 you lose chunk of ammunition" system.
That could be easily ported to be something done...
- at the end of each encounter,
- everytime player rolls a 1 on an attack roll (critical failure).

Or you could simply make durability based on the maximum amount of damage die: club would have 6 points, greatmaul would have 12.
And make every weapon lose one point every fight.

Or anything in-between really, depending on how much your players would like it.
This is just extending the resource management from "arrows&similars" to all weapons, making the adventuring part a bit more immersive. Not a big deal unless players dislike resource management in the first place.


Second, everyone seems here seems to have forgotten about Mending.
Which kinda negates any drawback of that system, except for the few times when people don't think of repairing items before entering combat.

So as long as at least *one* people in party has access to Mending, party won't even have to trouble itself with this mechanic usually except when they are under such a time pressure they cannot take a few minutes to collect/repair weapons.

The only really annoying thing would be if also magic weapons broke without a way to repair them, so I'd either make them unbreakable, or with at least much higher resistance, or make in my world some NPC that can repair any magic item.

--> Ask your players first would be my prime recommendation: if they all intuitively say no, then it's pointless. If they are more open but are wary of implications, just suggest one or two systems and let them choose.
(Honestly, if one takes Mending, I'd rather go with the "Dead Dice" like system personally).

To push a bit the thoughts...

No. It absolutely should not be. Never mind the crapton of book-keeping; do you want characters to tote around golf bags full of swords? Not to mention the lack of definition between weapons in 5e. And the fact that it's not even slightly set up to be a survival-oriented system.


This would result in a lot more book keeping, as well as everyone carrying way more weapons.

Is that what you want?


Also be prepared for lots of players choosing to focus on characters that don’t need to rely on weapons such as cantrip users and monks.
Let's say that Mending doesn't exist.
And say that you DM decide to go with the most bookkeeping mechanic, aka "weapons have HP that are tracked".
Well, just add the Disarm mechanic from DMG so party doesn't need to have especially classes like Battlemaster or Thief. And allow people to target weapons instead of characters (which is a houserule but should really be in core), calling that a "break weapon attack" or whatever.

Now you just opened the way to a whole new strategical aspect: managing and taking care of own weapons, hurting enemy's threat by breaking their weapons, or even stealing them to use against their former owners to add insult to injury.

[Kadesh]

The game is intended to be played with your full nonmagical equipment. Classes like Monk and Druid are intended to not be inferior to weapon using classes. Classes and builds which require equipment (mainly Str based characters, but also affects others weaponry) are thus going to be lagging behind.

I had a DM who created a tier of weapons called Makeshift' with a 1 in 6 chance of failure when used to make an attack, and then spent an age telling us how he then went into a new tool proficiency seperate from blacksmithing, and blacksmithing didn't fulfil how he wanted to have the proficiency represented, so the new tool proficiency allowed us to make makeshift weapons which took less damage. We would all be starting in abject poverty.

As a result, 2 of the 5 played monks, another a Tavern Brawler Druid and the 4th and 5th played casters. Noone took the proficiency, and my Dwarf's Monks first purchase with signifant money was land to set up a Blacksmiths, and by level 3 we had pilfered enough stolen actual weapons to outfit a company of soldiers.

General idea is to not have people need to replace their equipment. If there is a way to fix it, such as through mending, they'll either just use that, or force them to do a tonne more bookeeping. If it is the result of a character making more rolls than another one, they are more heavily penalised than another one is.

It is like ammunition: unless it is relevant, past a certain stage, does anybody track ammunition usage? As an example, in Sunless Citadel, a 1st level adventure, you can locate 60 arrows in the second room, and 3rd encounter in the adventure. You can easily afford another 200 arrows after the first day of adventuring for the cost of 20gp.

And i'd suggest that like spending time in a city has a day to day cost associated with it, I think the easieat way is to put a day to day cost on adventuring, representing upkeep of kit. Martial Weapons and Heavy Armour having the highest cost, while a monk would have low cost.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Let's say that Mending doesn't exist. And say that you DM decide to go with the most bookkeeping mechanic, aka "weapons have HP that are tracked". Well, just add the Disarm mechanic from DMG so party doesn't need to have especially classes like Battlemaster or Thief. And allow people to target weapons instead of characters (which is a houserule but should really be in core), calling that a "break weapon attack" or whatever. Now you just opened the way to a whole new strategical aspect: managing and taking care of own weapons, hurting enemy's threat by breaking their weapons, or even stealing them to use against their former owners to add insult to injury.
I like this idea.



The game is intended to be played with your full nonmagical equipment. Classes like Monk and Druid are intended to not be inferior to weapon using classes. Classes and builds which require equipment (mainly Str based characters, but also affects others weaponry) are thus going to be lagging behind.
This is a big problem, and not alone. That's why I keep stressing that you need to be willing to tweak base D&D a bit to compensate.
The first step would, of course, need to be defining scope. Does this Hyrule have (PC-able) monks, rogues, barbarians, etc? Will there be dragonborn and dwarves? And by the same token, will you write up rules for Zoras, Triforce pieces, or Epona? And while we're at it, would clerics, bards, elves, etc need some kind of adjustment to fit? Picking a good mix of things to remove, add, and change will hopefully give you enough available knobs to tweak to fix issues.

[5a Violista]

There are several reasons why BotW's durability worked (positive aspects to it) that should be kept in mind for any porting over:

(1) Weapons were extremely plentiful. An overabundance of them, in fact. Even strong ones were freely available if you knew where to look. Unless you intentionally chose the low-durability high-power ones or wasted weapons on unnecessary fights, you probably had excess weapons (with the sole exception of the beginning of the game if you were playing hard mode).

(2) Special/powerful weapons were either easily reparable by way of an NPC smith, magically repaired themselves, or had enough durability that was effectively high enough that you didn't have to worry about it.

(3) You had advance knowledge of the weapon breaking.

(4) Weapons lasted longer when used for their intended purpose. Hammers and blunt weapons lasted longer against stone and blunt objects. Swords and other bladed weapons lasted longer against fleshy targets. Torches lasted forever with fire. Elemental weapons lasted longer when used for elemental purposes. Reflective shields lasted longer against laser beams. Leaves lasted forever when just blowing things.

(5) Skill could make weapons last longer. Shields weren't damaged by perfect parries, weapons weren't affected by flurry rush, better accuracy meant the bow lasted for more battles.

(6) (important) When a weapon broke, it was a benefit. A weapon breaking meant it automatically caused a critical hit and the enemy was knocked back. If you threw a weapon and it broke, it did double as much as a critical hit. If you port this over to D&D, you should make it so players want their weapons to break against strong enemies. Make it auto-crit when you break a weapon and cause other effects on the enemies. Basically, you want the player to think "I want this weapon to break right now".

(7) You can freely switch weapons mid-battle with no downside. Breath of the Wild, you can pause whenever and switch weapons. D&D, switching weapons takes an action and leaves your character vulnerable.

(8) There's enough good weapon variety and situations that certain kinds of weapons are better in. Players should think "This is clearly a situation where a sword and shield is superior" or "A spear makes this battle trivial compared to other weapons, so I'm switching to spear".

(9) (Also important) In BotW, the player always had several options that didn't use the weapon's durability. Using bombs, throwing objects, stasis, magnesis, knocking enemies into water or lava, avoiding the enemies, running past the enemies, taking advantage of the environment, etc. In most D&D sessions, fighting the enemy is usually not only necessary, but it's frequently the goal itself (because fighting enemies gives you EXP and EXP makes you more capable). And, characters who use weapons frequently have "use weapon" as the only reasonable option.


In other words, BotW was designed to be balanced around weapons breaking. D&D is not. You can change the balance in D&D so that it's designed around weapons breaking. Keep the above points in mind when doing that.