Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 tavitin Aug 23, 2010 15:12:47	Example 1: So, the huge giant screams at the gladiatoral arena, and the crow cheers. It viciously picks you up and hurls you, but your trikal attachs to the giant's clothes. He simply looks at it and break it, leaving you empty-handed in search for a weapon left from previous battles Example 2: "Get the the elves! They're running alway with our water!" At that moment, the barbarian with "Improved Missile" feat look at his axe and breaks it in his thigh, followed by a roar. It then hurls the broken weapon at the fleeing elf, scoring a hit and saving the party water supply Example 3: "I have no need for weapons in here, in fact as a sign of respect..." The Athasian Minstrel, then, breaks its sword in front of the tavern guards that, now amused by one's stupidity, let the vulnareble stranger right into the most dangerous tavern in town. But what they don't know is, its an Athasian Minstrel, it has, at least, 4 weapons hidden, three of which poisoned. How can i make this work? What's the DC of breaking weapons? The material can be taken into account, so players tend to certain types of material depending on their need. I'm not a rules-expert so i'm asking you guys for ideas, maybe home-brew charts or appointed existing rules for such ruling. Also i'm interested in putting a lot of monsters that will aim for the adventurers weapons. Masterwork quality might become a houserule so it can provide more resilience to weapons to such attacks. I don't wanna simply come up with something out of my head because normally such stuff is unbalanced, i'm not a good balance-guy, so i'm asking politely for help in this idea of mine. Thanks in advance athasians.
#2 rollawaythestone Aug 23, 2010 15:17:52	For players breaking weapons on purpose in a non-combat encounter - just let them. No mechanics needed. If you want mechanics, apply a Strength check. For players breaking weapons in combat, I don't know. Similarly, for enemies breaking your weapons in combat I don't know.
#3 tavitin Aug 23, 2010 15:28:01	For players breaking weapons on purpose in a non-combat encounter - just let them. No mechanics needed. If you want mechanics, apply a Strength check. For players breaking weapons in combat, I don't know. Similarly, for enemies breaking your weapons in combat I don't know. During combat encounters ruling, that's my main goal here. A player come up with a fighter that excels in throwing improvised weapons (Barbarian multiclass and Improvised Missile). I'm 100% sure he'll want to break things in half and use them as projectiles (he'll probably even be wanting to get pieces of creatures to throw around) Materials are my main problem here. Breaking an obsidian Sword must be very very hard, but breaking an obsidian-tip spear, not so much. Maybe use the chart for easy-moderate-hard checks on Skill Challenges? I don't know either, that's why i'm asking for help ^^" Thanks for the responde nonetheless
#4 rollawaythestone Aug 23, 2010 15:32:18	Hmm. I see. I would say that you could let the player break a weapon with a strength check taken as a minor action. As long as the damage and attack roll for the improvised weapon is less than the original I don't see that it could be that broken in combat.
#5 mcbraggart Aug 23, 2010 15:47:42	I'm al for the rule of cool.  The players break their own stuff without a problem, enemies have to make some kind of strength check at most. It's a dramatic move that should be encouraged as much as possible.
#6 Duke5150 Aug 23, 2010 16:10:52	Yeah, I wouldn't even require a roll for something like this. I wouldn't allow this for metal, but I highly doubt anyone would want to break a metal weapon. If you must have a roll, make it a strength check against a low DC scaled to level.
#7 tavitin Aug 23, 2010 17:02:50	I wanted rolls because i didn't want to simply punish the players, or look like i'm doing it just for fun. For player's sake i will allow breaking their own weapons, but i want some fights to be fought on the edge and simply breaking everything with no chance whatsoever of resisting is too much tyranny for my sake. Sir Predator, i will try that out and see if works fine. thanks for all responses
#8 Duke5150 Aug 23, 2010 18:56:31	If a player wants to break it's item, then I'd allow it without a roll, if a player picks up a monster's dropped item and wants to break it, that's different and I'd have a moderate to hard DC depending on the material. Same for monsters trying to break pc items. I think there are rules for this already in the DMG, but I'v not used them yet, so I'm not completely sure as I don't remember.
#9 rothe Aug 24, 2010 2:21:50	Example 1: So, the huge giant screams at the gladiatoral arena, and the crow cheers. It viciously picks you up and hurls you, but your trikal attachs to the giant's clothes. He simply looks at it and break it, leaving you empty-handed in search for a weapon left from previous battles This is the most difficult one. There is two ways of looking at this. Either the giant has a disarm type power, which is very uncommon for monsters and after getting your weapon, it breaks it. In this case, if it is not a magical weapon, I'd simply let it break it. The second explanation for this is that you tried to use an immediate interrupt or reaction that makes an attack on the giant when you are grabbed, and rolled 1. You use the reckless breakage rule and don't hit. Your weapon breaks.  This is basically a mechanical explanation to the scene you described, but does not really allow anyone to do this on purpose (on the giants part mostly). Example 2: "Get the the elves! They're running alway with our water!" At that moment, the barbarian with "Improved Missile" feat look at his axe and breaks it in his thigh, followed by a roar. It then hurls the broken weapon at the fleeing elf, scoring a hit and saving the party water supply This is a great stunt example. Still, you might just allow the barbarian to use the axe as the missile (improvised weapon stats), but if there is a size limit, I'd just allow breaking a normal axe as a minor or move action - a magical axe would probably not be broken on purpose anyway since it is too expensive. In general, if someone wants to break something that feasibly could be broken, I would not require a roll. If you want a roll, just set an athletics or Strength DC on the easy side to break it. In any case, this is not unbalancing anything. The barbarian loses his weapon to make an attack - similar to the reckless breakage rule that is actually in the book, just a bit different in execution. Example 3: "I have no need for weapons in here, in fact as a sign of respect..." The Athasian Minstrel, then, breaks its sword in front of the tavern guards that, now amused by one's stupidity, let the vulnareble stranger right into the most dangerous tavern in town. But what they don't know is, its an Athasian Minstrel, it has, at least, 4 weapons hidden, three of which poisoned. Again, just let him do it - it sets a great scene and you should not try to ruin it by requiring difficult skill checks. Especially if it is not a metal magical sword (and I don't believe it is the idea). I'd probably interpret this as a bluff check (make yourself appear harmless, and maybe even goad someone to mug you later), and if the check fails badly, you might botch the breaking of the sword, or reveal one of your other weapons by accident. How can i make this work? What's the DC of breaking weapons? The material can be taken into account, so players tend to certain types of material depending on their need. I'm not a rules-expert so i'm asking you guys for ideas, maybe home-brew charts or appointed existing rules for such ruling. Also i'm interested in putting a lot of monsters that will aim for the adventurers weapons. Masterwork quality might become a houserule so it can provide more resilience to weapons to such attacks. I don't wanna simply come up with something out of my head because normally such stuff is unbalanced, i'm not a good balance-guy, so i'm asking politely for help in this idea of mine. Thanks in advance athasians. Don't make it too difficult. Especially in 4e, it is more important to encourage cool things to happen than to make it really complicated by trying to simulate the difficulty and start digging up tables of DC's for softwood, hardwood, bone, obsidian etc. etc. etc.
#10 tavitin Aug 24, 2010 11:55:28	Good reasoning Rothe, thanks. I've come up with an idea: a Character must deliver 1/4 total hp damage on a creature's/oponent's weapon to break it if its not metal. The defenses of the weapon equals the defenses of its wielder with the following diference: most of it Bone +1ac most of it Obsidian +1fort most of it Wooden +1ref weird non-metal material +1will
#11 chaosfang Aug 24, 2010 23:22:48	At heroic tier delivering 1/4th total HP is way too easy I think [only elites/solos wouldn't worry about their weapons any time soon], while past heroic it gets a bit difficult for non-striker builds. To simplify it, just make it Athletics versus a preset DC to break it, or use an alternative skill if necessary (for instance, if he wants to use magic he could use Arcana instead, maybe offer the chance to defile if he wants to reroll the attempt).  Medium DC for non-metals, High DC for metals [or scale it up to high DC - very high DC if necessary, and grant elites/solos/players a +2 or +5 bonus to the DC other creatures need to hit in order to break their weapons if needed]. And again, if it's in the story, no need for mechanics; you'll probably find yourself fumbling the rolls anyway when you have that Giant rolling a natural 1 in an attempt to break the player's trikal.