Xanathar's Guide says, under the smith's tools, that a smith can restore 10 HP to an object per hour of work. Is there an official ruling or how much HP a suit of armor or weapon has, or would it need to be homebrewed?
My homebrew idea is just the item's price is it's HP, but I'd rather an official ruling.
The official rules regarding AC and health of objects are found here. Bottom line is that a suit of armor probably has 18 hit points and a weapon probably has 10.
[Edit]Dammit. I spent 10 minutes trying to search for this, finally use Google (because the in site search is useless), but DDB blocks google from searching paid books so I only get the basic rules, and I want a real book, so I go to what chapter it should be in and scroll through all the sections until I find it. Only to get sniped.
I’ll add that unlike some computer games, and real life, weapons and armor do not degrade, at least according to the standard rules. You can pick up a sword at first level and keep on using it all the way to 20 and it will be just as effective. I think the artificer rules are meant to apply to things like doors or boats or other things players may want to break.
I'm a few months late to the party on this, but I'd look at the animated armor & flying sword statblocks for what should the AC and HP of those objects would be, maybe those are that's the hit points of magical equipment because it also mentions the durability of magic items is beyond that of mundane equipment & also most magic items have resistance to all damage, which makes sense.
It's interesting that they had to specify this though, because as far as I'm aware, there aren't many methods of damaging equipment in the game. Even if you cast shatter on somebody the equipment they're wearing or holding are unaffected & it's like that with most spells, there are some though that let you target objects somebody is wearing like firebolt. The few ways that I could see that it would come into effect is if you are disarmed and then spells like shatter would be able to harm your equipment, or I could see it being a potential option of success at a cost described in Chapter 8 of the DMG. This last one is super iffy, but according to the rules if you're making a weapon attack, you can target objects, so you could attack your opponent's weapon, shield, or armor, which is weird.
The way I'd try to implement this is have something similar to the Hitting Cover optional rules in the back of the DMG with another creature as cover, so if you've got a commoner with plate on (work with me) if you roll an 10-17 you would've hit the commoner if he didn't have the plate on so you hit his plate armor. Then you roll to hit against the armor to see if you hitting the armor actually did anything to damage it, if you surpass the armor class of the armor (depending on its material), you actually deal damage to it. If the commoner had plate and a shield, a shield would be viewed as the last bit of armor class, so in order to roll to hit against the shield you have to roll an 18 or 19, because 10-17 is what the plate armor protects. So if you rolled a 19, you roll to hit again against the shield, and if you bypass the material armor class of whatever the shield is made out of you deal substantial damage to it.
Xalthu was stating that unlike computer games and real life, weapons in D&D don't degrade. Hence why in D&D you can take the same weapon from level 1 to 20 without any degradation.
It's more for objects with HP like vehicles, fortifications, and the like and not for weapons and armor.
You can repair that stuff - if your group uses that mechanic.
I do not know of any group that goes into repairing the HP of walls or ships. Only one group I watch has done damage against fortification and a boat ship. For the repair, they just indicate that they're repairing and it just happens.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I would like to say that this thread has saved my bacon as my group just got into a fight with some well armed hobgoblins and their skyship has taken a beating so will need some repair. This thread has given me a point of reference that I needed.
So I decided to use Rust Monster rules for damaging weapons and armor. If hit by a crit the armor takes a -1 penalty and needs to be repaired. Same for nat 1's, the weapon takes a point of damage and breaks at -5. My players seems to like the realism. What brought all of this up was Xanathar's Guide, under their Smith's Tool Prof it says "Repair. With access to your tools and an open flame hot enough to make metal pliable, you can restore 10 hit points to a damaged metal object for each hour of work.", so that was the start of this. Wondering what the original HP would be if an hour can restore 10 hp.
There are Monsters (Like Zorbo) that degrade your armor on attacks, I would argue many other attacks like Fire and Acid should deteriorate wood and cloth items. It's a bit too much to keep track, but bottom line is that a higher level party would have to keep magical items otherwise, realistically, anything they came across could break their items, even with things like cold and thunder damage, not to mention fall.
You could look up for this monster ^ and either give its ability to other encounters or use it as a template for an homebrew degradation system. Ex, you took so many arrows and cuts to your leather armor that it just don't cover you anymore. The AC for big things could be a bit like Swarms, which deal half damage when at 1/2 hp... maybe a 1/2 deteriorated blade needs sharpening or it deals half the damage (without changing the pc modifier of course! just the item itself)...so a greatsword would be 1d4 instead of 1d8. A sharpening stone is a mundane item available in the manual btw, and I think it's 10 copper? So this reasoning was there but never explored in the RAW.
In general, items which are held, carried, or worn do not take damage of any kind from spells or effects. It's the default assumption that people who pay their Lifestyle expenses in town get non-magical items repaired without anyone having to say anything about it.
It is also true that if you take 10 minutes to cast the Mending cantrip:
This spell repairs a single break or tear in an object you touch, such as a broken chain link, two halves of a broken key, a torn cloak, or a leaking wineskin. As long as the break or tear is no larger than 1 foot in any dimension, you mend it, leaving no trace of the former damage.
This spell can physically repair a magic item or construct, but the spell can't restore magic to such an object.
So it's pretty trivial most of the time to keep your stuff in shape. Unless something specifically states so, gear isn't damaged by anything, no matter what damage type.
Rust Monsters eat metal. Xorn eat gems and precious metals.
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Xanathar's Guide says, under the smith's tools, that a smith can restore 10 HP to an object per hour of work. Is there an official ruling or how much HP a suit of armor or weapon has, or would it need to be homebrewed?
My homebrew idea is just the item's price is it's HP, but I'd rather an official ruling.
The official rules regarding AC and health of objects are found here. Bottom line is that a suit of armor probably has 18 hit points and a weapon probably has 10.
Yep, here they are in the DMG nestled right between social interactions and combat with no table of contents link:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg/running-the-game#Objects
[Edit]Dammit. I spent 10 minutes trying to search for this, finally use Google (because the in site search is useless), but DDB blocks google from searching paid books so I only get the basic rules, and I want a real book, so I go to what chapter it should be in and scroll through all the sections until I find it. Only to get sniped.
I’ll add that unlike some computer games, and real life, weapons and armor do not degrade, at least according to the standard rules. You can pick up a sword at first level and keep on using it all the way to 20 and it will be just as effective. I think the artificer rules are meant to apply to things like doors or boats or other things players may want to break.
I'm a few months late to the party on this, but I'd look at the animated armor & flying sword statblocks for what should the AC and HP of those objects would be, maybe those are that's the hit points of magical equipment because it also mentions the durability of magic items is beyond that of mundane equipment & also most magic items have resistance to all damage, which makes sense.
It's interesting that they had to specify this though, because as far as I'm aware, there aren't many methods of damaging equipment in the game. Even if you cast shatter on somebody the equipment they're wearing or holding are unaffected & it's like that with most spells, there are some though that let you target objects somebody is wearing like firebolt. The few ways that I could see that it would come into effect is if you are disarmed and then spells like shatter would be able to harm your equipment, or I could see it being a potential option of success at a cost described in Chapter 8 of the DMG. This last one is super iffy, but according to the rules if you're making a weapon attack, you can target objects, so you could attack your opponent's weapon, shield, or armor, which is weird.
The way I'd try to implement this is have something similar to the Hitting Cover optional rules in the back of the DMG with another creature as cover, so if you've got a commoner with plate on (work with me) if you roll an 10-17 you would've hit the commoner if he didn't have the plate on so you hit his plate armor. Then you roll to hit against the armor to see if you hitting the armor actually did anything to damage it, if you surpass the armor class of the armor (depending on its material), you actually deal damage to it. If the commoner had plate and a shield, a shield would be viewed as the last bit of armor class, so in order to roll to hit against the shield you have to roll an 18 or 19, because 10-17 is what the plate armor protects. So if you rolled a 19, you roll to hit again against the shield, and if you bypass the material armor class of whatever the shield is made out of you deal substantial damage to it.
Xalthu was stating that unlike computer games and real life, weapons in D&D don't degrade. Hence why in D&D you can take the same weapon from level 1 to 20 without any degradation.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
It's more for objects with HP like vehicles, fortifications, and the like and not for weapons and armor.
You can repair that stuff - if your group uses that mechanic.
I do not know of any group that goes into repairing the HP of walls or ships. Only one group I watch has done damage against fortification and a
boatship. For the repair, they just indicate that they're repairing and it just happens.Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I would like to say that this thread has saved my bacon as my group just got into a fight with some well armed hobgoblins and their skyship has taken a beating so will need some repair. This thread has given me a point of reference that I needed.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
So I decided to use Rust Monster rules for damaging weapons and armor. If hit by a crit the armor takes a -1 penalty and needs to be repaired. Same for nat 1's, the weapon takes a point of damage and breaks at -5.
My players seems to like the realism. What brought all of this up was Xanathar's Guide, under their Smith's Tool Prof it says "Repair. With access to your tools and an open flame hot enough to make metal pliable, you can restore 10 hit points to a damaged metal object for each hour of work.", so that was the start of this. Wondering what the original HP would be if an hour can restore 10 hp.
There are Monsters (Like Zorbo) that degrade your armor on attacks, I would argue many other attacks like Fire and Acid should deteriorate wood and cloth items. It's a bit too much to keep track, but bottom line is that a higher level party would have to keep magical items otherwise, realistically, anything they came across could break their items, even with things like cold and thunder damage, not to mention fall.
You could look up for this monster ^ and either give its ability to other encounters or use it as a template for an homebrew degradation system. Ex, you took so many arrows and cuts to your leather armor that it just don't cover you anymore. The AC for big things could be a bit like Swarms, which deal half damage when at 1/2 hp... maybe a 1/2 deteriorated blade needs sharpening or it deals half the damage (without changing the pc modifier of course! just the item itself)...so a greatsword would be 1d4 instead of 1d8. A sharpening stone is a mundane item available in the manual btw, and I think it's 10 copper? So this reasoning was there but never explored in the RAW.
In general, items which are held, carried, or worn do not take damage of any kind from spells or effects. It's the default assumption that people who pay their Lifestyle expenses in town get non-magical items repaired without anyone having to say anything about it.
It is also true that if you take 10 minutes to cast the Mending cantrip:
This spell repairs a single break or tear in an object you touch, such as a broken chain link, two halves of a broken key, a torn cloak, or a leaking wineskin. As long as the break or tear is no larger than 1 foot in any dimension, you mend it, leaving no trace of the former damage.
This spell can physically repair a magic item or construct, but the spell can't restore magic to such an object.
So it's pretty trivial most of the time to keep your stuff in shape. Unless something specifically states so, gear isn't damaged by anything, no matter what damage type.
Rust Monsters eat metal. Xorn eat gems and precious metals.
<Insert clever signature here>