So I used an enormous mimic that managed to hold three characters in its belly doing 6d6 acid damage, particularly that Pali with his plate gear was rocking four rounds of swim fun being swallowed. I feel three rounds of 6d6 damage is enough to destroy the non magical items even carried. The ranger lost her studded leather spending three rounds in the same place. I am getting push back from the Pali saying 5e says nothing on items destroyed in this manner. Looking for opinions and suggestions on this and maybe examples of what has been done in the 5e format
First caveat: punishing players for wearing armor and using weapons by destroying those armor/weapons in combat probably won't be fun, unless you're running a gritty game where resource management (rations, flasks of oil, etc) is part of the adventure. Breaking potions whenever someone falls or gets hit, the wizard's spellbook and scrolls getting consumed in every Fireball, etc... it just kinda sucks, for most players. But that being said...
DMG Chapter 8: Running the Game - Objects has rules for destroying mundane items. The rules don't pre-populate the precise stats of specific items but do give some guidelines about AC and HP based on material and size, as well as suggesting that the DM "also give it immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities to specific types of damage" that they think are reasonable. Also, " use common sense when determining" what sorts of attacks and conditions damage what items. Finally, objects often have a "damage thresshold," where even if the right sort of damage is being done, it does 0 damage unless it's over a certain minimum threshold.
Leather armor submerged in strong acid? Totally reasonable to say that leather could get digested in an acid bath and is susceptible to those kind of attacks. Armor probably is a "resilient" item since its designed to take a beating and doesn't really have any sort of mechanism that can break, so a medium set of leather armor might have 18 HP as a starting point (maybe even more?). But I'd still argue that leather should have resistance, since the acid isn't "damaging" it by killing it, but rather by completely dissolving it, which is much slower than the sort of damage it's doing to the uncured flesh of a living being. If we say that that armor would get digested over an hour (100 rounds) in 6d6 acid damage, then we probably want to set the damage thresshold really high (10+ damage, half its total HP?) + resistance, so that the armor only takes damage on rolls of 20+? Quite possible that the person in the mimic was taking damage while his armor may have never been exposed to a high enough damage roll to take any damage at all?
As for metal armor submerged in strong acid? I'm not a chemist, I don't know if acid reacts with all metals or not, probably up to you whether the mimic acid is just digesting biological materials (wood, leather, creatures, paper, cloth, etc.) or anything and everything.
Anyway, the DMG rules are a jumping off point, but again, most groups are probably going to react negatively to this because it's a system which pretty much only hurts the players which they don't have a meaningful way of turning against enemies, and which slows down gameplay. Can be interesting for outlier encounters like being submerged in acid or a roaring inferno for multiple rounds, but don't make everyone start keeping a separate character sheet for their armor just to track how damaged their plate mail gets every time they get hit by beetle spit.
I'd say that unless it's something like a Black Pudding which specifically calls out the damaging effect it has on equipment, and where the strength and CR of the monster takes that feature into account, you're better off just ignoring damage to mundane equipment.
The only thing I know of by the rules that affects weapons & armor is a rust monster. Otherwise, there are no rules established in the game for wear & tear to weapons and armor. I'd say unless you clearly told everyone in a Session Zero that you were planning to implement homebrewed campaign-wide item damage rules and told them how it would work at that point, don't do it.
Heck, most spells and effects specifically say they only target items "that aren't being worn or carried", exempting a player's armor, weapons, and other gear from that type of splash damage. Springing it on people unexpectedly will absolutely make some people mad. You're basically instituting an "equipment tax" on players that are optimized for expensive armor and gear.
Well was an enormous Mimic from the extended monster manual off the dm site, I was considering as per round being inside the digestive side -1 per round off the ac protection provided. As a middle ground. Not sure if the setting of being in Avernus is something to note.
If its an effect you're writing into the creature's stat block (and accounting for in the encounter challenge rating and experience/treasure reward), that's kind of a different question than "does acid in general destroy armor?". I'm much more willing to get behind that.
Permanent -1 to AC Bonus of armor per round of exposure, armor destroyed when all of the AC bonus consumed sounds like a much more workable system than rolling attacks, damage checks, saves etc against a piece of equipment. Again, just make sure to send your party signals ahead of time warning them that their equipment is at risk (maybe piles of key-shaped mimic poop that contain melted and fused armor, rubble, and skeletons?), so that you aren't catching the tank in an "A ha!" moment for daring to walk up and take hits from this thing while wearing his plate mail, which is literally his main job. It's fair when it's a rust monster, because everyone knows what a rust monster is, and finding a way to fight it without touching it is part of the party's expectation going into things.
Another thought might be, yes you destroy can his armor, if you’re willing to replace it right away with magic armor. Say, the armor of a previous victim was inside the monster as well, long after its wearer was dissolved. It doesn’t even have to be +1. It could be armor of gleaming, but you get to let your acid damage stand, and the pali doesn’t take any lasting hit to his AC. Win win.
Yeah, I was kind of thinking that myself, about the mimic dissolving metal/stone/everything in its stomach but excreting super dense poops... as an angle where the party loses armor mid-combat, but afterwards can re-shellac their armor with the mimic's cooling digestive contents to fully repair their armor and maybe even enhance it +1 for a while (or permanently)? Parties love harvesting useful bits from monsters almost as much as they hate having their armor taken away :p
I'm with everyone else in saying that this type of thing is usually just a player punishment; not really fun for anyone. Plus, digestive acids are typically not that strong or fast-acting, and armor is almost universally treated with a protective coating to prevent corrosion. The most dangerous chemical compound is high-quality H2O.
If you want to have a custom monster that damages equipment, I'd suggest modeling it after the Black Pudding.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
I miss the 1st ed rules regarding equipment saving throws instead of the new "A nonmagical object that isn't being worn or carried also takes the damage if it's in the spell's area."
Why shouldn't vials carried in packs be susceptible to breaking from falling or shatter; or rope, scrolls or spell books or components destroyed by fireballs or acid just because the character made his save?
I know each table can do what they want... Though such rules definitely need to be discussed during session 0.
I miss the 1st ed rules regarding equipment saving throws instead of the new "A nonmagical object that isn't being worn or carried also takes the damage if it's in the spell's area."
Why shouldn't vials carried in packs be susceptible to breaking from falling or shatter; or rope, scrolls or spell books or components destroyed by fireballs or acid just because the character made his save?
I know each table can do what they want... Though such rules definitely need to be discussed during session 0.
I don't fault you for wanting more realism, but in 5e's defence: It is supposed to be simplified and approachable, and making checks for every item you are carrying and tracking equipment wear is neither.
Why shouldn't vials carried in packs be susceptible to breaking from falling or shatter; or rope, scrolls or spell books or components destroyed by fireballs or acid just because the character made his save?
Why it shouldn't? Because it will just take up loads and loads of time that I'd rather our group spent on playing. It's not just the time to have the effects break/damage the equipment or the time to keep track of which equipment is broken/damaged and thus how damaged/how usable every individual item is. You'll also have to allow for PC's to make preparations and for players to detail how they'll keep their equipment safe.
It can certainly be done for a group that wants to but I definitely think that this is something 5e got right.
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So I used an enormous mimic that managed to hold three characters in its belly doing 6d6 acid damage, particularly that Pali with his plate gear was rocking four rounds of swim fun being swallowed. I feel three rounds of 6d6 damage is enough to destroy the non magical items even carried. The ranger lost her studded leather spending three rounds in the same place. I am getting push back from the Pali saying 5e says nothing on items destroyed in this manner. Looking for opinions and suggestions on this and maybe examples of what has been done in the 5e format
First caveat: punishing players for wearing armor and using weapons by destroying those armor/weapons in combat probably won't be fun, unless you're running a gritty game where resource management (rations, flasks of oil, etc) is part of the adventure. Breaking potions whenever someone falls or gets hit, the wizard's spellbook and scrolls getting consumed in every Fireball, etc... it just kinda sucks, for most players. But that being said...
DMG Chapter 8: Running the Game - Objects has rules for destroying mundane items. The rules don't pre-populate the precise stats of specific items but do give some guidelines about AC and HP based on material and size, as well as suggesting that the DM "also give it immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities to specific types of damage" that they think are reasonable. Also, " use common sense when determining" what sorts of attacks and conditions damage what items. Finally, objects often have a "damage thresshold," where even if the right sort of damage is being done, it does 0 damage unless it's over a certain minimum threshold.
Leather armor submerged in strong acid? Totally reasonable to say that leather could get digested in an acid bath and is susceptible to those kind of attacks. Armor probably is a "resilient" item since its designed to take a beating and doesn't really have any sort of mechanism that can break, so a medium set of leather armor might have 18 HP as a starting point (maybe even more?). But I'd still argue that leather should have resistance, since the acid isn't "damaging" it by killing it, but rather by completely dissolving it, which is much slower than the sort of damage it's doing to the uncured flesh of a living being. If we say that that armor would get digested over an hour (100 rounds) in 6d6 acid damage, then we probably want to set the damage thresshold really high (10+ damage, half its total HP?) + resistance, so that the armor only takes damage on rolls of 20+? Quite possible that the person in the mimic was taking damage while his armor may have never been exposed to a high enough damage roll to take any damage at all?
As for metal armor submerged in strong acid? I'm not a chemist, I don't know if acid reacts with all metals or not, probably up to you whether the mimic acid is just digesting biological materials (wood, leather, creatures, paper, cloth, etc.) or anything and everything.
Anyway, the DMG rules are a jumping off point, but again, most groups are probably going to react negatively to this because it's a system which pretty much only hurts the players which they don't have a meaningful way of turning against enemies, and which slows down gameplay. Can be interesting for outlier encounters like being submerged in acid or a roaring inferno for multiple rounds, but don't make everyone start keeping a separate character sheet for their armor just to track how damaged their plate mail gets every time they get hit by beetle spit.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I'd say that unless it's something like a Black Pudding which specifically calls out the damaging effect it has on equipment, and where the strength and CR of the monster takes that feature into account, you're better off just ignoring damage to mundane equipment.
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The only thing I know of by the rules that affects weapons & armor is a rust monster. Otherwise, there are no rules established in the game for wear & tear to weapons and armor. I'd say unless you clearly told everyone in a Session Zero that you were planning to implement homebrewed campaign-wide item damage rules and told them how it would work at that point, don't do it.
Heck, most spells and effects specifically say they only target items "that aren't being worn or carried", exempting a player's armor, weapons, and other gear from that type of splash damage. Springing it on people unexpectedly will absolutely make some people mad. You're basically instituting an "equipment tax" on players that are optimized for expensive armor and gear.
Well was an enormous Mimic from the extended monster manual off the dm site, I was considering as per round being inside the digestive side -1 per round off the ac protection provided. As a middle ground. Not sure if the setting of being in Avernus is something to note.
If its an effect you're writing into the creature's stat block (and accounting for in the encounter challenge rating and experience/treasure reward), that's kind of a different question than "does acid in general destroy armor?". I'm much more willing to get behind that.
Permanent -1 to AC Bonus of armor per round of exposure, armor destroyed when all of the AC bonus consumed sounds like a much more workable system than rolling attacks, damage checks, saves etc against a piece of equipment. Again, just make sure to send your party signals ahead of time warning them that their equipment is at risk (maybe piles of key-shaped mimic poop that contain melted and fused armor, rubble, and skeletons?), so that you aren't catching the tank in an "A ha!" moment for daring to walk up and take hits from this thing while wearing his plate mail, which is literally his main job. It's fair when it's a rust monster, because everyone knows what a rust monster is, and finding a way to fight it without touching it is part of the party's expectation going into things.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
It is certainly realistic and allowed by the rules, but isn't required. Unless you have given players some forewarning, I wouldn't.
Another thought might be, yes you destroy can his armor, if you’re willing to replace it right away with magic armor. Say, the armor of a previous victim was inside the monster as well, long after its wearer was dissolved. It doesn’t even have to be +1. It could be armor of gleaming, but you get to let your acid damage stand, and the pali doesn’t take any lasting hit to his AC. Win win.
Yeah, I was kind of thinking that myself, about the mimic dissolving metal/stone/everything in its stomach but excreting super dense poops... as an angle where the party loses armor mid-combat, but afterwards can re-shellac their armor with the mimic's cooling digestive contents to fully repair their armor and maybe even enhance it +1 for a while (or permanently)? Parties love harvesting useful bits from monsters almost as much as they hate having their armor taken away :p
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I'm with everyone else in saying that this type of thing is usually just a player punishment; not really fun for anyone. Plus, digestive acids are typically not that strong or fast-acting, and armor is almost universally treated with a protective coating to prevent corrosion. The most dangerous chemical compound is high-quality H2O.
If you want to have a custom monster that damages equipment, I'd suggest modeling it after the Black Pudding.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
I miss the 1st ed rules regarding equipment saving throws instead of the new "A nonmagical object that isn't being worn or carried also takes the damage if it's in the spell's area."
Why shouldn't vials carried in packs be susceptible to breaking from falling or shatter; or rope, scrolls or spell books or components destroyed by fireballs or acid just because the character made his save?
I know each table can do what they want... Though such rules definitely need to be discussed during session 0.
I don't fault you for wanting more realism, but in 5e's defence: It is supposed to be simplified and approachable, and making checks for every item you are carrying and tracking equipment wear is neither.
Why it shouldn't? Because it will just take up loads and loads of time that I'd rather our group spent on playing.
It's not just the time to have the effects break/damage the equipment or the time to keep track of which equipment is broken/damaged and thus how damaged/how usable every individual item is. You'll also have to allow for PC's to make preparations and for players to detail how they'll keep their equipment safe.
It can certainly be done for a group that wants to but I definitely think that this is something 5e got right.