Dark Sun: Weapon Breakage Custom

[P1NBACK]

So, I'm not entirely happy with the mechanic for weapon breakage in Dark Sun. I like the intent, but I'm not totally sold. My idea is to kind of combine the two options presented in the Dark Sun CS.

The first is that weapons break on a 1. The second is that on a 1, the player can choose to re-roll and break their weapon.

Here's my idea that combines the two:

When you roll a natural 1 on an attack roll, nonmetal weapons break. On any miss outside of rolling a 1, you have the option to accept the result, missing the attack as usual, but keeping your weapon intact, or you can reroll. Regardless of the reroll result, a nonmetal weapon breaks once the attack is complete. A metal weapon only breaks if you miss on the reroll. This rule gives you a say in whether a weapon breaks, but also allows for a small chance of random breakage.

Essentially, all nonmetal weapons break on 1 and the attack automatically misses as normal. Metal weapons never break on 1, but still automatically miss.

On any miss that wasn't a natural 1, you can opt to reroll. Nonmetal weapons automatically break once this reroll is resolved. Metal weapons break on the reroll only if the reroll misses.

Thoughts?

 

[Henry]

You're basically giving everyone in the group the class feature of an Avenger, and coincidentally making everyone who uses weapons a striker. It also means honest-to-god misses with weapons are going to be pretty rare events, and most of the time it will either be all hits or breakages.

 

[P1NBACK]

You're basically giving everyone in the group the class feature of an Avenger, and coincidentally making everyone who uses weapons a striker. It also means honest-to-god misses with weapons are going to be pretty rare events, and most of the time it will either be all hits or breakages.

Good thoughts.

Ideas for a similar way to combine random breakage with player choice breakage?

 

[Hof]

How's this:
Whenever one of more [W] dice of a damage roll with a non-metal weapon are rolled 1, the player may reroll those dice but must keep the second result (even if it is a 1 again). If he does so, all weapon attacks using this weapon suffer a -1 breakage penalty to damage. Each attack for which dice are rerolled in this manner increases the penalty by one.
The penalty can be decreased by 1 during a short rest (field repairs) or completely removed after an extended rest.

This allows weapon users to make sure their damage now is decent at the risk of decreasing results later. I realise this never actually removes the weapon from combat , but I think this is ok if you relate weapon breakage to disarm (which was not implemented due to unfunness). A cracked obsidian axe in the eye is still rather painful.

As for random breakage: increase the penalty on a natural 1 and you're done.

 

[t3HW41ru5]

Hey Guys,

Okay, so here is the custom rule I've set up for my Dark Sun game, just as a comparison of ideas:

Okay, as for the next errata rule I'm applying from the books, weapon breakage. Now, the way the book says this is that, if you roll a 1, your weapon breaks OR you can choose to miss and then your weapon does not break, or hit and it does damage, then breaks. I personally am fond of the second rule, but I figured, Since a Critical failure is a Critical, why not make it hit for critical. As such, what I am planning on doing is this; if you roll a 1, you can choose to miss, or choose to hit and do full critical damage. If you do this, the weapon breaks immediately.

Now, magic weapons would work like this. If you work your ass off getting a magic weapons (which is fairly hard in Dark Sun), I'm not going to just destroy it if you decide to swing with it. Also, it stands to reason that magic weapons are a bit hardier than their normal counterparts. So, what happens when you have a magic weapon and roll a 1 is this: choose to miss, or choose to hit, doing critical damage; then roll a percentage die, and add the weapons level to that roll. So if you have a lvl 1 item, you would need to roll under a 51% to avoid weapons breakage. The higher level the weapon, the greater chance of it not breaking.

The one exception to this is if (and this is a big if) you find a metal weapon. If you find a metal weapon, depending on its state, it will not have the breakage rule. For example, if you find and try to use a a rusty, dessicated, iron sword, then yeah, it might break. If you find one in at least decent condition, (which in this world would probably be discarded, minor rust, still structurally sound, handle may or not be intact), then that will not break.