D&D General Incorporating Equipment Wear and Tear into the HP abstraction.

[Shadowdweller]

Fair Warning: This is mostly a thread about narration or "fluff" techniques rather than actual alternative mechanics or anything more significant than perception. If that's not your cup of tea, then...best wishes finding something more to your tastes elsewhere.

Background: One of the long-standing issues with the concept of hit points is that they return results that break significantly from verisimilitude - the perception of reality. That is, situations arise for various game purposes that come across as unrealistic. Characters survive blasts of fire, immersion in acid. People survive multiple sword blows...and heal up none the worse for wear after an hour or at worse a day. People have invented various ways to get around this over the years such as describing hit points as "stamina" and damage as "fatigue". But these run into issues where you have instances of hp loss that can't really be described as causing individuals to become tired - such as when an individual is immersed in lava or falls off a cliff. But if HP significant physical injury, then it becomes highly unrealistic to heal up after merely an hour or a nights sleep. Many injuries IRL, such as broken bones, can take months or longer to recover from. If one ever does.

Similarly, in the real world, weapons and armor were often subject to significant damage during battle. Padding would be cut, rings would break open, wooden shafts would splint, blades would chip or dull. Metal bits would bend or dent. And equipment or parts of it would need to be repaired and replaced frequently. In fact, armor would often fail BECAUSE of progressive wear and tear. It is MUCH more difficult to pierce padded cloth armor (such as a gambeson) with blades and arrows than many people who haven't studied or thought about this might think. Medieval soldiers would frequently carry multiple weapons, in part because weapons would break or otherwise fail in a combat. The game large ignores equipment attrition and for generally for good reason - we play for fun not for excruciatingly detailed realism after all. But the thought of joining these two ideas into one way of describing hit points and damage has gradually been occurring to me. I doubt I'm the only one who has had this idea...but I don't personally remember ever encountering someone describe damage this way in a game during my 30+ year gaming history.

Proposal: Equipment damage becomes incorporated in the concept of Hit Points - along with stamina and health/physical wholeness. So...maybe the boulder doesn't break the skin when it hits you, but tears your clothing or dents your armor. Under this conception rather than healing from a giant bruise or broken bone during a short rest, maybe you're sewing your clothing back together; renewing your magical wards; hammering the dents out your breastplate; or re-sharpening your weapons. But what's to prevent someone to from merely putting on a spare suit of armor or picking up a new weapon? I don't know if this part of the idea is realistic or not, but what if we presume that an individual is constantly optimizing, practicing with, and maintaining their spells and equipment during rest periods. Tightening straps, oiling leathers, finding and padding the precise places where chafing occurs, or getting used to the exact balance of what they're presently using. So...merely putting on an undamaged suit of armor doesn't restore hit points in this case because the user needs to make adjustments to or get used to the new item...and usage is more fatiguing (tiresome) until they do. So someone who lost hit points, for example, could simply replace his torn leathers...but would be unable to use the new suit as efficiently until they have a chance to adjust it (tighten the straps just so, stitch the loose bits together more tightly) and/or retrain themselves to the new distribution, support, or range of mobility.

So someone or something with low HP under this method might be described as "Panting from exertion", "bleeding from minor wounds", "holding a splintering spear", or "wearing clothing that has holes burnt through it". If they fall unconscious, it could be because their weapon broke rendering them unable to block an injurious strike.

Of course, this technique also has its own set of issues that could stand to be addressed. Like the mending cantrip. Or how less durable materials don't change the HP equation. Or how you can restore hp/ repair damaged equipment without the proper tools. I don't know - maybe this isn't an issue for many other people. Maybe I'm overthinking things way too much. Or maybe nobody cares. Just some thoughts.

 

[Charlaquin]

I like this idea. How do you envision narrating hits and misses? I usually treat AC as an abstract representation of the difficulty in landing a potentially life-threatening strike, and HP as an abstract representation of a character’s ability to turn a potentially life-threatening strike into a superficial one. But this concept kinda flips that on its head - HP becomes an abstract representation of your equipment’s ability to protect you from a potentially life-threatening blow. So what would AC represent in this paradigm? Why do Dexterity and armor make it less likely for your equipment’s protective properties to degrade?

 

[Quartz]

Your suggestion looks to mesh well with the Grim & Gritty rules where a Long Rest takes an extended time, when you have time for the armourer to fully repair your armour. Spending HD during a Short Rest could actually be, in part, patching armour. But just remember that it's all SFX. The game mechanics don't change. You can't use Mending to heal a Warforged, for instance.

 

[robus]

Hmm I might propose that a player might be able to choose to lose a point to their AC instead of taking the HP (or perhaps halving the HP if they lose a point of AC. Armor is not HP, but it is a resource that could be managed.

 

[Shadowdweller]

I like this idea. How do you envision narrating hits and misses? I usually treat AC as an abstract representation of the difficulty in landing a potentially life-threatening strike, and HP as an abstract representation of a character’s ability to turn a potentially life-threatening strike into a superficial one. But this concept kinda flips that on its head - HP becomes an abstract representation of your equipment’s ability to protect you from a potentially life-threatening blow. So what would AC represent in this paradigm? Why do Dexterity and armor make it less likely for your equipment’s protective properties to degrade?

It's admittedly bit kludgy but...presumably either missing from the enemy dodging out of the way (dexterity) or weapon /spell strikes glancing off without causing significant damage to the armor / magical wards (AC from armor or spells). Whereas a hit would be a solid strike that tear, dents, or cracks armor around the usual gaps. Or causes something like faint sparking disruption to mage armor. I'm not sure how to narrate things like a barbarian's unarmored defense precisely. If we accept HP otherwise as an abstraction of stamina and physical integrity then the alternative without EQ damage is....the enemy dodges aside at the last possible moment, tiring them but avoiding more than a little scratch? After the weapon manages to slash between seams or through helmet eyeslits? Or maybe slashes through the thick bandages they managed to paste on after injuring that part last time...Seems a bit strained anyway.

 

[jasper]

This works if your players like accounting. Back in 1E I gave weapons and armour hit points. I see if I can remember it all.
With an adventure kit you could fix 5 points of equipment damage per night. 10 uses per kit. Take the AC of armour divide by x and once you lose x equipment points(EP) AC dropped 1 slot. Ex Plate AC +8 (18 today) 400 ep every 50 ep damage lose an AC.
I think the armour took 1 ep of damage per 10 hp on you. Robes were 10 EP.

 

[Laurefindel]

My humble (and unsolicited) opinion on this matter is that DMs don’t have to narrate hp, damage and misses. At least not all the time; just enough to remind players that this is your way of handling AC vs damage. Otherwise it becomes pretty heavy pretty fast.

personally, I like to let the players take care of their own hp, theatre-of-the-mind style. Most of the time, all I say is that you take X damage, and let you figure out why you’re not dead yet. Once or twice per battle, I’ll narrate a miss, or narrate a hit that would have killed anyone but you, how your opponent is progressively overpowering you, and how you won’t be able to keep at it for long, even if you’re still unscathed.

I like to see hp as something someone *spends* to avoid being killed, and let the player decide what this means for his or her character. Equipment wear and tear is just one of the answers and to be honest, I’d rather attribute going back to full hp overnight because of the mage’s mending cantrip than regrowing an arm.

TL;DR: That works, along other realities of life abstracted to hp. Let your players know, and trust them to imagine what’s best for them.

 

[Krachek]

It is funny that only hit points tick your need of verisimilitude.
if you look more carefully all the game lack of it.

 

[Shadowdweller]

My humble (and unsolicited) opinion on this matter is that DMs don’t have to narrate hp, damage and misses. At least not all the time; just enough to remind players that this is your way of handling AC vs damage. Otherwise it becomes pretty heavy pretty fast.

I don't narrate every single attack nor even every single enemy death. There's definitely such a thing as too much detail / extraneous information. I describe things in depth for a variety of purposes - to paint a picture, to emphasize particular attacks (for example from a crit), to convey information about an enemy to the players, and/or to draw players in who are zoning out. I encourage the players to describe events and the effects of attacks on enemy or themselves maybe a third to one half of the time I would otherwise choose to narrate.

It is funny that only hit points tick your need of verisimilitude.
if you look more carefully all the game lack of it.

It's hardly the only thing that breaks verisimilitude. But it's what this thread is about. If you are bothered more by other things feel free to go elsewhere.

 

[aco175]

My group tends to cross off 5gp each time they visit a town to take care of little things like getting their weapon sharpened, buying a new shirt, getting a dent out of the armor, and the other little things that are not roleplayed.

Adding a new mechanic for me needs to be simple and worth the effort to play. I could see something where each encounter you get -1 to your AC and these points reset or half reset after a short rest. It is kind of simple but has problems. "My guy was never hit or even attacked, so why do I get -1AC." "Shouldn't metal armor reset at a lower rate than my cloth armor." Mat not be worth it in the long run.

I may be tempted with something that lets you have your shield destroyed to avoid an attack. You save some damage at the cost of 2 AC points. Now the rest of the encounter you are easier to hit. It is up to you to decide. Goblins would need to use this the first attack, so now they could stay around for 2 hits.