Armor damage

[Nat20]

Armor can be targeted if it isn't worn by a player, but worn armor can't be sundered, and it doesn't appear to take damage through wear and tear. Are we to expect that you can fall off a small cliff, take 36 points of damage, and your armor is fine? Armor absorbs blows that would otherwise strike a player, and some blows penetrate the armor to damage a player.

Adding this mechanic to the game would enhance immersion, it gives a player a reason to spend gold and interact with NPC's when they visit a town, and it adds a layer of danger to their adventures and a cost to exploration. Many players like to show up and roll, but some players enjoy the details. Your tank got his armor crushed in the monstrous maw of a hydra, the party might think of running for once.

But I haven't found any guidelines that a player could read or a way to implement it.

I'm referring to ordinary combat, wear and tear of adventuring gear. What's the best way, do you think, to approach it?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I find armor enhancements pretty useless other than the flat armor bonus (which is both not that useful due to how the math tends to go, but easily gotten outside of actual armor), so magical armor is pretty meh for how much it costs. I'd rather just invest in other sources of AC at anything but the lowest levels, honestly, thereby making this rule just...not apply to me. If I do wear armor, it'd be easily replaced, making this just more bookkeeping to have to bother with.

[Gorthawar]

Bebiliths have an ability to rend armor that you could use as inspiration.

[pabelfly]

I find armor enhancements pretty useless other than the flat armor bonus (which is both not that useful due to how the math tends to go, but easily gotten outside of actual armor), so magical armor is pretty meh for how much it costs. I'd rather just invest in other sources of AC at anything but the lowest levels, honestly, thereby making this rule just...not apply to me. If I do wear armor, it'd be easily replaced, making this just more bookkeeping to have to bother with.

I don't know about most armor enchants being useless, or at least, any more so than other types of items.
- Everyone except maybe arcane gishes uses animated shield
- Ghost Ward is great for heavy armor users, since it fixes up your touch AC.
- Death Ward lets you ignore death effects, energy drain and negative energy once per day
- Twilight is great for gishes that need to reduce ASF cheaply
- Energy Immunity gives you immunity to an element of your choice for the cost of a +2 enchant. Bargain.
- Fortification protects from Sneak Attacks and crits

Could find a lot more but I think that helps make my point.

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?445923-Saving-from-WOTC-Forum-The-3-5-Armor-and-Shield-thread

[Biggus]

I don't know about most armor enchants being useless, or at least, any more so than other types of items.
- Everyone except maybe arcane gishes uses animated shield
- Ghost Ward is great for heavy armor users, since it fixes up your touch AC.
- Death Ward lets you ignore death effects, energy drain and negative energy once per day
- Twilight is great for gishes that need to reduce ASF cheaply
- Energy Immunity gives you immunity to an element of your choice for the cost of a +2 enchant. Bargain.
- Fortification protects from Sneak Attacks and crits

Could find a lot more but I think that helps make my point.

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?445923-Saving-from-WOTC-Forum-The-3-5-Armor-and-Shield-thread

I dunno, the abilities you've listed there are pretty much the only ones I ever see in play. If a high-level character uses both armour and shield (or doesn't need fortification) I'm often struggling to find enough abilities that seem worth the money to fill up the available space. With weapons (either melee or ranged) I never have that problem, the reverse if anything.

[tyckspoon]

D&D also does not care about/represent the damage characters would 'realistically' be doing to their weapons (you think your sword is going to be sharp and shiny after hacking at a stone golem? Trying to carve through inch-thick hide where the outer layer is practically tanned leather already? When that orc that doesn't care about silly things like 'correct swordsmanship' blocks your attack edge on edge? No, your weapon is going to be pretty much wrecked halfway through the standard adventuring day, and that's -before- we get into any actual deliberate abuses) or the way your wooden shield is going to get cut, dented, and splintered from blocking things with it. It's just all below the level of abstraction D&D chooses to use for most things, as well as not really meshing well with the kind of fantasy D&D wants to present - these are more concepts for what people would probably refer as 'low fantasy', where you're supposed to care more about things like matching the weapon you use to the fight rather than using your one all-purpose personal weapon for everything, where food and water are bigger deals than 'ok mark off one ration from your sheet', and where the biggest danger from your 'clear the rats out of the basement' starter quest isn't from the rats attacking you, it's from the disease you probably catch while you're digging into the midden to find their nest.

.. so while you could force in some kind of equipment wear and tear rule, if you really want it for 'realism' or 'immersion' purposes I think this is a 'Maybe experiment with some different game systems' case because weapon/armor durability just doesn't gel well with the style of D&D.

[Remuko]

ive always presumed that the game assumed people are repairing their armor and sharpening their blades etc during downtime between fights, like at night before bed, and its just glossed over.

[pabelfly]

I dunno, the abilities you've listed there are pretty much the only ones I ever see in play. If a high-level character uses both armour and shield (or doesn't need fortification) I'm often struggling to find enough abilities that seem worth the money to fill up the available space. With weapons (either melee or ranged) I never have that problem, the reverse if anything.

Okay, went digging further.
Aporter - dimension door twice a day. Plenty of stuff you can use this for, including escaping grapples and being eaten
Bane Blind - total concealment
Blur - 20% miss chance is great and this works 15 rounds per day.
Called - automatically brings and equips your armor as long as you're on the same plane. Absolutely worth 2K gold
Displacement - you only get five rounds of this per day but 50% miss chance is great.
Heraldic Crest - permanent +1 to initiative for a flat 4K is a bargain
Healing and Greater Healing - swift-action healing and a free heal when unconscious
Mirror Image - three times a day, create six mirror images of yourself.
Nimbleness - improves max dex bonus and reduces ACP by 2. Can make it so some exotic armors can now be worn without any ACP and thus having no penalty when worn, even without the exotic proficiency

I could see myself using all of these too.

[Jay R]

If armor could be easily damaged by attacks while being worn, it would be worthless. Absorbing such attacks is its only purpose.

It can be damaged by blows, but not quickly or easily, and the frail meat and bones behind it will break long before the armor does.

[In real life, if I wanted to damage plate armor that isn't being worn, I'd be attacking the leather straps that hold it together on the inside. They aren't targets when worn; they're on the inside on purpose.]

[Nat20]

If armor could be easily damaged by attacks while being worn, it would be worthless. Absorbing such attacks is its only purpose.

It can be damaged by blows, but not quickly or easily, and the frail meat and bones behind it will break long before the armor does.

[In real life, if I wanted to damage plate armor that isn't being worn, I'd be attacking the leather straps that hold it together on the inside. They aren't targets when worn; they're on the inside on purpose.]

Armor isn't easily damaged, an average human would be hard pressed to overcome the hardness and deal enough damage to destroy it with any haste. Steel or Iron has a hardness of 10, assuming a half inch thick plate for 15 hp's. Conan the barbarian in the dnd world was said to have a 16 strength, +3. Assuming the attacker was able to get past the defenders dexterity, but not the armor class, Conan could break through the armor in 3 rounds if he rolled maximum damage each round (2d6+4 str bonus = 16)

Mithril plate, having 15 hardness and 15 hp's. It would take him 15 rounds to break through. A dragon could probably open that armor like a can opener. Realistically.
But there isn't any stats for armor the way there is shield or weapons, so how could you gauge the armor stats for the different pieces accurately?

Just seems like a bit of a missed opportunity to me, one players might learn to appreciate once they got used to it.

[Twurps]

Are you going to keep track of each piece of armor seperately? And if so: who gets to decide which piece of armor gets hit for each individual hit? How many pieces of armor does a suit of armor even have? Does a 'halfplate' really contain half as many as a fullplate? Do we even count the back-side seperately, and if so, does that mean we have to introduce the 'facing' rules again? Can you crit a piece of armor? And if so: does the confirmation hit really need to hit, or only overcome dex. Does sneak attack damage apply to armors (Aiming at the straps).

And that's just the damage part: how would repairs work. How much downtime is needed to repair 1 damage? Do you need materials? do you need fire. Do you need skill: 'repair armor' and if so: would it be different skills for metal vs leather. Does a fighter need extra skillpoint to even be able to fix his own armor, and if so: does he really have to spend them on that skill? How much would repairs cost? and do we think those costs were originally included in the purchase cost? if so: how much should we lower the purchase cost?

And that's just armor: How about 'regular' clothing. How many miles can a wizard traverse through the woods before his robe needs repairs. How many hours before clothing starts to stink? And is this affected by the amount of exercise the wearer does? Does it enforce a charisma penalty?

And that's just clothing: I think there's a good deal of realism missing in perception skills (smell, feel?) and food (vitamins, calories?)

I could go on, but I think you get the point. IF you want to do this, make sure you have an answer to all of these questions, and have them before you start playing. This game is pretty heavily rules based. Introducing a potentially lethal element to the game without such rules can be very annoying at best.

For me personally: It's a game, it's not real. I like it that way. Adding more bookkeeping would not increase my immersion and/or fun. It would however increase the amount of work I'd need to do, only to have (at best) the same amount of fun. That's just me though, our playgroup already skips many of the more tedious rules anyway. I'm sure many others might like it. If you're playgroup is one of them: go for it!

[Mars Ultor]

My rule is that if an armor or shield suffers a critical hit it has to make a Saving Throw of DC 20 minus its Armor Class. If it fails its Save the armor is damaged and has to be repaired. A professional can fix it and it's good as new, but a partial repair, in the middle of an adventure for instance, means that if it suffers another critical then the armor is wrecked. It costs about 20% of the armor price to repair it, magic bonuses and enchantments excluded, but counting the masterwork cost.

If the armor is not repaired its AC value is lowered by one until it is repaired.

[Nat20]

My rule is that if an armor or shield suffers a critical hit it has to make a Saving Throw of DC 20 minus its Armor Class. If it fails its Save the armor is damaged and has to be repaired. A professional can fix it and it's good as new, but a partial repair, in the middle of an adventure for instance, means that if it suffers another critical then the armor is wrecked. It costs about 20% of the armor price to repair it, magic bonuses and enchantments excluded, but counting the masterwork cost.

If the armor is not repaired its AC value is lowered by one until it is repaired.

We're now trying this approach too, where nat 20's or nat 1's may damage the armor/weapon, although we haven't had to implement it yet as it's only been one session.
The armor isn't divided into pieces or sections, it has hit points just like the shield. Following the rules for breaking objects it's fully functional provided it has hit points remaining, and if it sustains enough damage, it's wrecked. The critical damage is only applied to the player, but the flat damage with bonuses that overcomes the armor's hardness is subtracted from the armor current hit points.