Item degradation and repairing - a simple house rule

[Michebugio]

As a premise, I realized that Craft is the only skill that is not used for any standard Adventuring mechanic (Journeys, Combat and Interaction), and in my experience it has always been exceptionally rare to make rolls for it and impact the game significantly. It's a very secondary skill, but I believe that in a Tolkien-ish imaginarium it should be one of the most important.
Then, in a resources-intensive game like this, I see fit that while characters get fatigued after journeys, equipment gets degraded after use.

So I came up with this rules about item degradation and repairing. Sorry for my bad english in advance.


Armors and Helmets: Whenever an Eye icon is produced on the Feat die while making Protection tests, the armor gets damaged (whether the test that produced the icon was a failure or not). The armor may or may have not impacted the blow successfully, but it has been now perforated or crushed. A damaged armor suffers a cumulative penalty of -1 to Protection tests until it is repaired.

Weapons: when an Eye icon is produced on an attack roll, the weapon gets damaged (whether the roll that produced the icon was a failure or not). The blade gets chipped after hitting the opponent’s shield or weapon, the handle partially cracks after a violent blow, or the string gets damaged after pulling. A damaged weapon suffers a cumulative penalty of -1 to its Injury rating until it is repaired.

Shields: a shield may be broken after a successful Called Shot by some opponents’ weapons (no change in rules).


The characters have the following options to repair or substitute broken equipment:

1) With a Frugal or Martial Standard of Living, the character may have one piece of equipment completely repaired or substituted during his Fellowship Phase, but only if he is spending the Fellowship Phase within his Culture.
With a Prosperous Standard of Living, the character may have one piece of equipment completely repaired or substituted during his Fellowship Phase. The piece of equipment may be also that of another Companion instead, if he wishes so.
With a Rich Standard of Living, the character may have up to two pieces of equipment completely repaired or substituted during his Fellowship Phase. One or both of the pieces of equipment may be also those of another Companion instead, if he wishes so.

2) As a Fellowship Phase Undertaking, the character may attempt to repair additional equipment with a Craft test (TN 14). On a normal success, he removes 2 points of penalties from weapons and armors, or he repairs a shield. On a Great success the penalties removed increase to 4 points, and on an Extraordinary success the penalties removed amount to 6 points. He can distribute these points as he wishes among his items (for example, if he obtained a Great success, he can remove 3 points of penalties from his weapons, and 1 point of penalty from his helm).

3) During the Adventuring Phase, given enough time a character may attempt to jury-rig his damaged equipment with a Craft roll. This has the same effects as described above, but it is made against TN 18 and it removes half the penalties (1 point with a normal success, 2 points with a Great success and 3 points with an Extraordinary success).


Feedback would be really appreciated!


EDIT 19/02: extensive modifications after the first feedback. Keep commenting please

[Angelalex242]

Too harsh on the players...and really MMOish.

Craft skills should be useable at least once per rest phase, even on the road. That lets the dwarf with smithcraft do stuff on the fly. Also, High Elves with their craftsman virtue may likewise be able to repair things on the fly.

[Deadmanwalking]

Craft gets used a lot in the game I'm in. It can be used to remove Shadow (which is shiny), but is also the skill for building or repairing anything, from a boat to a fire, to a barricade (other skills can occasionally be used for some of these...but Craft can do them all). It can also (by forum consensus) be used to pick locks, and likely just generally for figuring out the best way to, say, break down a door or otherwise destroy a physical object. Logically, it'd also be the skill to understand mechanics,architecture, and the way physical objects are constructed, and could likely sub in for Lore to figure out who made a particular thing.

In short, this seems harsh and unnecessary. Craft is really useful in a game with a focus on travel and wilderness survival.

[Falenthal]

I don't find this rules bad per se. I think they're fine if you want to add equipment degradation to the game.
Myself I don't want more bookkeeping and don't feel the game needs it (Craft is almost as used as other skills in my campaign).

But some thoughts that occured while reading your rules:
1) I'd try to make the condition to lose -1 the same for Weapons and Armors. Else it becomes a pain to keep record durign combat of degradations. Maybe everything loses 1 point when Failure AND Eye. That way it's also less harsh on players, while still a danger for them.

2) I find that having to use a full Undertaking might be too much for the players. One option could be that if the Heal Shadow UT is made using Craft, it can at the same time be used to repair the equipment.
And if they decide to use Treasure to hire someone do the job, it doesn't cost an Undertaking.

3) Buying and selling is not very important in TOR, but with this rules you might want to add to the towns and settlements the group visits what war gear they have for sale and what standard of living is required to buy each one of them. So, a rich dwarf might be able to buy an entirely new mail shirt at Dale during the Adventure Phase, but a Woodman might not be able to do the same with his broken great bow. Another consequence might be that, during the Fellowship Phase, the adventurers could want to raise their standard of living for one month so that they can buy new expensive equipment (if they spend the FP in the right place, like Erebor, Dale or Laketown).

In general terms, if I wanted to include something like war gear degrading, I think I would do it more in an all-or-nothing sense. This way you elude bookkeeping, but still introduce the chance of being in the middle of Mirkwood, surrounded by attercops, when suddenly the string of your bow breaks...

[Michebugio]

Craft gets used a lot in the game I'm in. It can be used to remove Shadow (which is shiny), but is also the skill for building or repairing anything, from a boat to a fire, to a barricade (other skills can occasionally be used for some of these...but Craft can do them all). It can also (by forum consensus) be used to pick locks, and likely just generally for figuring out the best way to, say, break down a door or otherwise destroy a physical object. Logically, it'd also be the skill to understand mechanics,architecture, and the way physical objects are constructed, and could likely sub in for Lore to figure out who made a particular thing.

In short, this seems harsh and unnecessary. Craft is really useful in a game with a focus on travel and wilderness survival.

Theoretically, this is all very true. In practice... well, maybe it's just my group, but after the whole Tales from the Wilderland campaign, we almost NEVER rolled Craft, except for building barricades in The Crossings of Celduin. Ok, maybe if we had a Hobbit or a Dwarf we could have seen it a bit more, to remove Shadow, but the general impression (mine and of my players) was that Craft is almost a dump ability.
You can always do the stuff using Traits and Specialties (Smith-craft, Stone-craft, Woodwright and Burglary): every character has 2 of these, so an entire Fellowship can almost always do any artisanship-related task without even rolling.

Again, maybe it's just my group. It's quite surprising for me that you didn't have the same impression. Since stuff doesn't get broken in TOR, it doesn't need repair, so... what should players repair then? Broken bridges, boats, barricades? Yes but this occurs so rarely... While there are some other abilities that really matter and that are used so often (think about Stealth, Travel, Athletics), Craft seems to be used just for trivial and secondary tasks that never impact the game in a deep way.

[Yusei]

In practice... well, maybe it's just my group, but after the whole Tales from the Wilderland campaign, we almost NEVER rolled Craft, except for building barricades in The Crossings of Celduin.

It's not just you, my group also rarely used it. Since you can also sing to get rid of shadow, you rarely have to use Craft unless you're already good in that skill.

While there are some other abilities that really matter and that are used so often (think about Stealth, Travel, Athletics), Craft seems to be used just for trivial and secondary tasks that never impact the game in a deep way.

On the other hand, it makes sense that not all abilities are equally used all the time. If all you do is travel and fight orcs, then clearly Craft, Riddle and Courtesy will rarely be used. If you spend years at Thranduil's court or in the Shire, you will rarely use Awe or Battle in any meaningful way. If characters are good in skills that they never get to use, it's up to them and to the LM to create opportunities.

A good example from TfW: when they brought back a piece of Wolfbiter to the Woodmen, the dwarf PC in my group offered to reforge the axe and include that piece. She could have used a trait, but she wanted to axe to be really good, so she rolled (an extraordinary success, btw).

[Michebugio]

Myself I don't want more bookkeeping and don't feel the game needs it (Craft is almost as used as other skills in my campaign).

1) I'd try to make the condition to lose -1 the same for Weapons and Armors. Else it becomes a pain to keep record durign combat of degradations. Maybe everything loses 1 point when Failure AND Eye. That way it's also less harsh on players, while still a danger for them.

I'm against bookkeping too, but in this case the penalties are pretty straightforward and you simply write down a -1, -2, -3 etc. next to your armor box, or next to the Injury value of your weapon - the malus is there, once written you just have to read it (like an Endurance loss or a Fatigue gain) until you get rid of it. Personally, I don't think that's too painful to keep.

2) I find that having to use a full Undertaking might be too much for the players. One option could be that if the Heal Shadow UT is made using Craft, it can at the same time be used to repair the equipment.
And if they decide to use Treasure to hire someone do the job, it doesn't cost an Undertaking.

Yep, perhaps you're right and maybe I should add some gain through Craft rolls, or making the triggering conditions for item damage less harsh on the players. But I think that an Undertaking is necessary, there are tasks in the RAW that call for an Undertaking that are theoretically even less time consuming. Think of it as a Heal Corruption limited to equipment. I'll think about adjusting the gain values, by the way: keep an eye on the first post.

3) Buying and selling is not very important in TOR, but with this rules you might want to add to the towns and settlements the group visits what war gear they have for sale and what standard of living is required to buy each one of them. So, a rich dwarf might be able to buy an entirely new mail shirt at Dale during the Adventure Phase, but a Woodman might not be able to do the same with his broken great bow. Another consequence might be that, during the Fellowship Phase, the adventurers could want to raise their standard of living for one month so that they can buy new expensive equipment (if they spend the FP in the right place, like Erebor, Dale or Laketown).

This is a very clever observation. Why should I repair equipment, while I can simply buy a new weapon or armor when the old one gets broken? This would require some ruling that includes the effect of Standard of Living on item buying and/or maintenance: the effect may be very positive, as it would make a more interesting option to use Treasure to raise the Standard of Living (I bet that none of your players has ever spent Treasure for that!).


Thanks everybody for the feedback so far, also to those I didn't answer directly. This is a work in progress and I expect to make many other changes to the system described above, to make it a viable option for Loremasters who want an increased sense of "dwindling resources" in their games, while also increasing the importance of the Craft skill as well as of the Standard of Living.

[Michebugio]

Updated the first post with a revision of the previous rules, check it out.

Lower harshness on the players (way lower, actually!), streamlined mechanics and Standard of Living / equipment substitution rules (these would supersede those present in the sourcebooks).

[Rich H]

I've been using a similar house rule in my game...

ARMOUR DAMAGE AND REPAIR
Armour may be damaged during combat, directly affecting its capability of protecting its wearer. Whether a Protection Test is successful or not if the Feat Die results in an EYE being rolled, then the armour's rating is reduced by 1D. This can only occur up to three times; therefore a mail hauberk may only be reduced in total from 5D to 2D.

Characters can repair any damaged armour during a Fellowship Phase by selecting the Repair Armour undertaking.

NEW UNDERTAKING: REPAIR ARMOUR
This undertaking may be selected during any Fellowship Phase. Appropriate equipment and materials should be present and if so, any damaged armour is fully repaired on a successful Craft roll (TN 14).

This Undertaking may also be applied to broken shields and weapons or any other piece of equipment the Loremaster deems appropriate.

A bit more straightforward and simpler than yours, Michebugio, but it seems to be working okay.

[Michebugio]

I've been using a similar house rule in my game...

ARMOUR DAMAGE AND REPAIR
Armour may be damaged during combat, directly affecting its capability of protecting its wearer. Whether a Protection Test is successful or not if the Feat Die results in an EYE being rolled, then the armour's rating is reduced by 1D. This can only occur up to three times; therefore a mail hauberk may only be reduced in total from 5D to 2D.

Characters can repair any damaged armour during a Fellowship Phase by selecting the Repair Armour undertaking.

NEW UNDERTAKING: REPAIR ARMOUR
This undertaking may be selected during any Fellowship Phase. Appropriate equipment and materials should be present and if so, any damaged armour is fully repaired on a successful Craft roll (TN 14).

This Undertaking may also be applied to broken shields and weapons or any other piece of equipment the Loremaster deems appropriate.

A bit more straightforward and simpler than yours, Michebugio, but it seems to be working okay.

That's practically identical, a bit more straightforward regarding the repair phase, and more penalizing for players (three times as penalizing as mine, to be precise). If it works for you, then it works for me too. But how do you treat the wealth of characters then? What if a rich dwarf simply wants to buy a new set of armour after he broke the old one? Do you think that the part of rules regarding the Standard of Living and repair/substitution of items could work for you too?