Questions regarding equipment destruction.

[Mastikator]

1) If acid is used as an attack, should it destroy any equipment that is subject to corrotion?
(example: an archmage with elemental mastery casts a fireball on a fighter and turns it into acid, should the acid melt the armor and shield and sword?)

2) If an attack misses, but hits the armor or shield, should damage be rolled against the shield?
(example: a fighter has a full plate mail, and thus has 18 AC (10 base, +8 armor), and a barbarian with an axe attacks, he rolls a total of 16, the hit misses, but it would have it if not for the armor, so the armor took the hit, should the axe dent the armor?)

3) If a wizard with a spellbook and a bunch of scrolls gets tossed into water and submerged, but he can swim. Should the paper be destroyed by the water? Are spellbooks and scrolls destroyed by water? Should this mean that anyone who has a bucket of water can make a wizard useless?

4) If you stab someone to death, and that someone has an armor, is the armor destroyed?

[Talic]

Bringing physics into D&D rarely has any positive effect, other than killing catgirls.

The rule of thumb is that acid attacks are touch attacks. Any attack that hits, hits the armor.

The 2nd rule of thumb is that a character's gear is safe unless he rolls a natural 1 on a save. If that happens, there are charts and rolls for what gets affected.

Bottom line, keeping track of armor hp, scroll hp, shield hp, weapon hp, helmet hp, backpack hp, sandals hp, belt hp, and the like quickly gets tedious.

It's not Dungeons and Dragons (For Accounting Majors).

[Dhavaer]

In regards to the first question, your equipment is only damaged if you roll a 1 on your save.

[nagora]

1) If acid is used as an attack, should it destroy any equipment that is subject to corrotion?
(example: an archmage with elemental mastery casts a fireball on a fighter and turns it into acid, should the acid melt the armor and shield and sword?)

Yes, with a saving throw. Likewise, the fireball on its own may melt armour.

2) If an attack misses, but hits the armor or shield, should damage be rolled against the shield?
(example: a fighter has a full plate mail, and thus has 18 AC (10 base, +8 armor), and a barbarian with an axe attacks, he rolls a total of 16, the hit misses, but it would have it if not for the armor, so the armor took the hit, should the axe dent the armor?)

If you like, but it might get complicated and slow.

3) If a wizard with a spellbook and a bunch of scrolls gets tossed into water and submerged, but he can swim. Should the paper be destroyed by the water? Are spellbooks and scrolls destroyed by water?

If the "intelligent" magic user hasn't taken steps to protect the items, then yes (probably no saving throw).

Should this mean that anyone who has a bucket of water can make a wizard useless?

No.

4) If you stab someone to death, and that someone has an armor, is the armor destroyed?

No. Most hits are proably at joints or other weak spots so most DMs would not rule this way, IME.

[Ionizer]

For the wizard thing, normal spellbooks and scrolls are alchemically treated to be all but waterproof (part of why it costs 15 gp for parchment bound in leather, because of the treatments). They can stand being briefly submerged, but if they are, for example, left at the bottom of a lake for a week, they will most likely be destroyed. Note that most important documents and books are also alchemically treated like this. Also note that there is an enchantment that can be placed on spellbooks to make them entirely waterproof (somewhere in Complete Arcane is the actual text).

[Mewtarthio]

Should this mean that anyone who has a bucket of water can make a wizard useless?

Yes. Much like how getting hit with a water balloon instantly disintigrates all cash on your person.

[Tsotha-lanti]

1)
2)
3)
4)

1. No.

2. No. Also, it'd be impossible to determine, in many cases, whether the armor or the shield should be damaged. If your AC is 21 as a result of full plate (+8), a heavy shield (+2), and Dex 13 (+1), and the attacker rolls a total of 20, did you avoid it with your armor, your shield, or your Dexterity? Without any one of those, you would have been hit.

For both points, if you want that kind of level of detail, try RuneQuest - it's an awesome game, and weapons can and will get damaged. (Armor not so much.)

3. DM's call, but check out Complete Arcane for some spellbook durability rules, as well as sturdier spellbooks.

4. No.

Realistically, if you're wearing plate armor, it will get dented in combat whether you're killed or not, but no weapon will actually pierce it - swords are incapable of piercing metal plates like that. A warhammer's spike may punch a hole in plate armor, but that wouldn't affect your protection a lot. (Besides, in D&D, if you start with 100 HP and get killed by some 10 hits, only the last one might even have drawn blood. HP are abstract.)

[CthulhuM]

The simple fact is that, realism aside, letting equipment get damaged in the normal course of combat (that is, when enemies aren't specifically targeting it) doesn't really make for good gameplay. My groups don't even use the "if you roll a 1" rule, because it basically just means that, as you get up into higher levels, every time you roll a 1 you lose a piece of equipment. Most equipment doesn't have have much hardness, and none of it has a ton of hit points (plus, few groups are actually prepared to repair a damaged item).

At lower levels this wouldn't be so bad, but as equipment gets more and more expensive, and becomes a larger and larger part of your character's power, randomly losing pieces of it is both unbalancing and very annoying. Losing your 50,000gp sword because of a crappy roll? Yeah, that's not fun. You'd be better off if your character had just died - that would only cost you 25,000 gp, after all.

[nagora]

The simple fact is that, realism aside, letting equipment get damaged in the normal course of combat (that is, when enemies aren't specifically targeting it) doesn't really make for good gameplay.

I generally agree, and for the same reason I dislike hit locations, but I don't count being hit by a 20' ball of acid as "normal course of combat", so I would probably ask for a save there. By the time the character's at risk from that sort of thing they'll probably have magical equipment with a good chance of saving anyway.

[Knaight]

The simple fact is that, realism aside, letting equipment get damaged in the normal course of combat (that is, when enemies aren't specifically targeting it) doesn't really make for good gameplay. My groups don't even use the "if you roll a 1" rule, because it basically just means that, as you get up into higher levels, every time you roll a 1 you lose a piece of equipment. Most equipment doesn't have have much hardness, and none of it has a ton of hit points (plus, few groups are actually prepared to repair a damaged item).

I'm going to have to disagree with this. In D&D yes, but as a blanket statement, I strongly disagree. This link is an example with fudge, where armor and weapons are wrecked, sent over cliffs, people cause problems with the environment, and it prevents damage. Its cinematic, and really fun.