What actually happens to armor when you take damage?

[eyebreaker7]

I know in some video games theirs repair fees but what happens in D&D? If I'm wearing, say magical leather armor, and I take damage how does this effect my armor worn? It should take some sort of damage IMO. Are there even rules for such a thing? Like the hardness/hp for different types of metals? And when do you determin if armor takes damage? I know with a weapon or shield it works when you try to sunder it but what about armor?

[MesiDoomstalker]

There are rules for Hardness and HP of armor but the more important question is why? What does adding a whole new set of rules to interact with every time you are hit? To penalize martials for daring to want equipment? To add a bunch of fiddly numbers on top of every attack?

[tyckspoon]

Usually, nothing. Equipment in D&D doesn't get damaged unless it gets specifically targeted by something, and armor is explicitly not a legal target for attacking with Sunder. The only time your stuff is at all likely to get damaged is in the case of rolling a natural 1 against a saving throw, in which case one item will also be exposed to the effect - quoted related rules:


Unless the descriptive text for the spell specifies otherwise, all items carried or worn by a creature are assumed to survive a magical attack. If a creature rolls a natural 1 on its saving throw against the effect, however, an exposed item is harmed (if the attack can harm objects). Refer to Table: Items Affected by Magical Attacks. Determine which four objects carried or worn by the creature are most likely to be affected and roll randomly among them. The randomly determined item must make a saving throw against the attack form and take whatever damage the attack deal.

Armor is nearly the top of the list for 'likely to be affected', along with shield, weapon in hand, and a cloak/or cape. However, even then, the item is permitted its own saving throw, and between magical armor getting extra Hardness and HP and that most energy attacks that might trigger this are really terrible at hurting objects.. the end result is unless you have a spell or special attack that specifically says 'destroys target's armor' (and hopefully goes on to explain exactly what that actually does, ruleswise, because it's not a common thing) your armor won't be meaningfully harmed in normal combat.

[Kayblis]

There isn't a mechanic for that. The game is not thoroughly simulationist, and most houserules that try to implement it only result in two effects: no one enchants armor and everyone carries 3 spare armors in their backpack because the DM wants to enforce his new homebrew. No joke, it's something that no one enjoys dealing with in game.

Armor durability is something often implemented as a money sink in videogames - a mechanic that only exists to drain money from players as an economy failsafe. It's why all of them are reduced to "press a button to repair every 3 missions". It's meant to be ignored by design.

[eyebreaker7]

There are rules for Hardness and HP of armor but the more important question is why? What does adding a whole new set of rules to interact with every time you are hit? To penalize martials for daring to want equipment? To add a bunch of fiddly numbers on top of every attack?

Just a curious thing that popped into my head. Was mainly thinking about non-metal armor getting sliced when you take damage. Not wanting to add it into the game. Just curious what happens if anything which has been explained by the other replies :)

[Quertus]

Mechanically? Nothing happens. Unless the specific attack says otherwise, attacks that target *you* are distinct from attacks that target *items*.

Conceptually? Nothing happens. A blow that hits you, hits *you* - it found the chink in your armor. It's the blows that ”*miss*" you that, conceptually, might conceivably damage your armor.

[Ramza00]

I know in some video games theirs repair fees but what happens in D&D? If I'm wearing, say magical leather armor, and I take damage how does this effect my armor worn? It should take some sort of damage IMO. Are there even rules for such a thing? Like the hardness/hp for different types of metals? And when do you determin if armor takes damage? I know with a weapon or shield it works when you try to sunder it but what about armor?

Recreating realism in a fantasy game is both a mental and a time tax. It sucks the fun out of everything.

Even in cRPGSs and computer action games that do the book keeping it is a tax. The abstraction of trying to visualize 50 vs 90% armor damage is not something our mind does. All you did was say the repair bill after the fight is going to be medium expensive or heavy expensive. And if it’s mild expensive why did you bother in the first place?

[Nifft]

If you took damage by failing a saving throw, your armor might also take damage.

It's an infrequent situation, though, and one which many groups outright ignore.

[Thurbane]

I thought UA might have had a variant rule about this, but nothing I can find.

I have played under a DM who home-brewed armor and weapon damage from usage rules: IMHO it added nothing of value to the game, and just led to more bookkeeping.

[Asmotherion]

Normally you need to keep track of the Armor's HP after applying Hardness (DR for items essentially).

But hardly anyone plays by those rules nowdays. Even realism junky DMs will usually have the Armor save against breaking every so often after a massive blow, and leave it at that.

[Ashiel]

Normally you need to keep track of the Armor's HP after applying Hardness (DR for items essentially).

But hardly anyone plays by those rules nowdays. Even realism junky DMs will usually have the Armor save against breaking every so often after a massive blow, and leave it at that.
I'm one of those awful GMs that actually does consider your equipment fair game. Generally speaking, at least in Pathfinder, armor is fair game for Sunder attacks and is a very practical way to soften up a hard nut that needs cracking. CMD often tends to be lower than AC for many levels, and is fair game for power attacking which can easily help to punch through hardness.

Since you only need to inflict 50% of an armor's hit points in damage, it's not terribly impractical to bang up a piece of armor in the middle of an adventure to cut its AC bonus in half, and often acts as a force multiplier, since the moment the armor gains the broken condition it is effective a +1/2 the armor's bonus to attack rolls for every attack against them. So let's put that into perspective for a moment.

Let's say you've got an encounter with an ogre, a buncha goblin archers, a bugbear, etc. Ogre has a +7 to hit or +9 to CMB. Ogre inflicts 2d6+7 with a longspear or 2d6+10 with power attack (+8 CMB, still higher than +7 to hit). Pretty good chance that against a high-AC foe the ogre actually has a better chance to hit your gear with the spear. All the ogre has to do is inflict 15 points of damage to break a breastplate, at which point all the baddies get an effective +3 bump to all their attack rolls (what the ogre did in this case is trade some damage now for a lot more damage later). Alternatively the ogre might just focus on smashing your pointy sticks or tripping you as the case may call.

Often times this can be more than sufficient for causing heroes some attrition in an environment where they aren't safe from wandering patrols and the like (mending has a 10 minute casting time), as "healing" equipment is often less practical for most parties than healing regular wounds.

It's not a tactic that emerges constantly as it's largely situational, but it is definitely a viable option and one that enemies can use to their advantage (or perceived advantage). This also applies to any combat maneuver in the right context. You often don't even need the associated improved feat for ignoring AoOs to attempt a combat maneuver if you are out of the reach of your opponent or have cover (including soft cover).

Because of this, you tend to see a lot of disarming, sundering, tripping, dirty tricking, stealing, bull rushing, feinting and occasionally even overrunning in my games.

For extra icing on the evil GM cake, I do use encumbrance, and copper coins and mundane treasures are a thing.

[Falontani]

I have a game variant that I sometimes use, where monsters and characters all have a lower health pool, while armor, natural armor, and even spell armor (mage armor) grant the user an effective bonus to their health based on what kind of armor your using. Mundane armor that breaks is considered destroyed (and thus not able to be looted) while magical armor is only considered broken (and required at least 1 Point of magic repair to fix into a discernable shape again).
It's an interesting variant, although my play test group has only reached level 8.

The system isn't for everyone, and definitely isn't in a final form.

[Nifft]

I have a game variant that I sometimes use, where monsters and characters all have a lower health pool, while armor, natural armor, and even spell armor (mage armor) grant the user an effective bonus to their health based on what kind of armor your using. Mundane armor that breaks is considered destroyed (and thus not able to be looted) while magical armor is only considered broken (and required at least 1 Point of magic repair to fix into a discernable shape again).
It's an interesting variant, although my play test group has only reached level 8.

The system isn't for everyone, and definitely isn't in a final form. I did something like that but I used SW Saga mechanics, where everyone had a Vitality pool and a few Wound boxes.

Armor did two things:
- Gave some DR x/--
- Provided additional wound boxes


I tried something similar in DFRPG (Dresden Files RPG) which has very limited wounds, and also a "Consequences Track". Armor had an aspect which could be compelled to reduce damage, and also a number of Consequence boxes, each worth some points against a single attack. It was okay. I think the numbers weren't tuned right.


In D&D you'd want to make armor more disposable, which probably means not having magic effects on the armor itself. 5e could probably do that better than 3.5e, unless you moved all the magic enhancements somehow. That change also means wriggling out of armor when you're unexpectedly swimming is less of a character-screw -- the PC had been expecting to lose the armor, so ditching it in the water is unfortunate but not devastating.

[Fizban]

Just a curious thing that popped into my head. Was mainly thinking about non-metal armor getting sliced when you take damage. Not wanting to add it into the game. Just curious what happens if anything which has been explained by the other replies :)
Even Gambeson (actual cloth/textile/"padded" armor) requires an extremely razor sharp edge to cut into, let alone through it- the kind of edge that dulls after a handful of cuts. Boiled leather isn't any worse. If armor was easy to damage, it wouldn't be used as armor.

The bigger question is actually of the metal armors, because you can clearly pop rings out of mail with a strong thrust, or dent plates with a hammer. But even those still require a really strong hit with the right weapon. The kind of hit which in the hit point system only happens when you drop someone to zero, or maybe a critical hit (normal hits always bleed enough to deliver poison, but otherwise don't impair you, and the whole reason armor bonus goes up with coverage is that a normal hit is going around the armor). Even so, a single lost ring or dent is not going to significantly impact the armor, and can be fixed with normal non-magaical maintenance (even magic items are repaired as normal). Attacks that miss because of the armor? Turns out it's really hard to damage something when it's on a moving body that is actively trying to avoid being hit- no anvil to hammer it on.

So nothing happens, unless maybe there's some superficial damage on a critical or lethal blow, or you fall afoul of the natural 1 clause.

[icefractal]

Some games, like Rifts IIRC, treated armor as an extra pool of HP that gets ablated through before you take damage. So in those, it would be damaged (I think zero was "needs repair before it's useful" rather than "totally destroyed", but this was a while ago).

[Thunder999]

If you start breaking armour it starts really sucking to play a character that actually needs to use it, those classes generally don't need the nerf.

Especially as armour is already worse than grabbing something like mage armour or bracers of armour along with an option like monk's wis to AC and a high dex.

[Psyren]

In D&D you'd want to make armor more disposable, which probably means not having magic effects on the armor itself. 5e could probably do that better than 3.5e, unless you moved all the magic enhancements somehow. That change also means wriggling out of armor when you're unexpectedly swimming is less of a character-screw -- the PC had been expecting to lose the armor, so ditching it in the water is unfortunate but not devastating.

You could use something like PF's Automatic Bonus Progression (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/unchained-rules/automatic-bonus-progression/) here - where the enhancement and properties of magic armor come from your attunement with it rather than the armor itself. This would let armor be truly disposable without crippling the effectiveness of martial characters.

[nijineko]

I've had where if one fumbles the defense roll your armor takes the damage instead of you, unless there is too much, in which case leftovers pass through. Otherwise, I pretty much just use the standard rules, which ignores this bit of reality.