Does Armor Deteriorate with Hits?

[valdus]

It may seem like a dumb question. I looked through three editions of the rules and nothing, does armor "break" or become useless after it gets the specified number of hits?

[zanshin]

Prior to 5e warriors could 'burn armor', double the value of its protection but then have the value reduced for future fights. In 5e warriors got double armour value as a matter of course and armour only became damaged by special circumstance or monster abilities.

So in the normal run of events, no.

[valdus]

Whoa that over 16 on armor, got to give my warrior bigger prey!

[darrght]

zanshin is absolutely correct that 5th edition allowed warriors the never wearing out double armour protection and frankly, particularly in solitaire play, this remains an absolute lifesaver for lower level characters.

In later editions; 7/7.5 and Deluxe, there are rules for armour deterioration but I have tended to shy away from their use. To my mind, the introduction of 'spite damage' in what is called edition 5.5, which ignores armour and hit point total, redresses this imbalance in play somewhat. This is especially true with tougher opposition who will occasionally nick 4 or 5 points off CON in one combat round even if not 'victorious'

[trollphan]

Jul 15, 2020 14:52:42 GMT -5 darrght said:

zanshin is absolutely correct that 5th edition allowed warriors the never wearing out double armour protection and frankly, particularly in solitaire play, this remains an absolute lifesaver for lower level characters.

In later editions; 7/7.5 and Deluxe, there are rules for armour deterioration but I have tended to shy away from their use. To my mind, the introduction of 'spite damage' in what is called edition 5.5, which ignores armour and hit point total, redresses this imbalance in play somewhat. This is especially true with tougher opposition who will occasionally nick 4 or 5 points off CON in one combat round even if not 'victorious'

In my Deluxe house rules, I dropped the armor deterioration rule as well. Too crunchy for my taste. Agree about spite - simple rule that provides enough gotchu potential to keep things interesting. 

[mahrundl]

There is a comment in 5th edition, just after one of the early combat examples, that suggests that armour that has taken repeated hits over many rounds may no longer take its full rated value. But it's never codified as part of the rules. I'd assume that anyone who is seeing that much combat is probably also doing maintenance on their armour when they have a bit of down time, so I wouldn't have armour deteriorate on this basis unless there was no opportunity for such maintenance.

I don't tend to worry about armour degradation as a rule. Some magic armour in my campaign is self-repairing and self-cleaning, but other than one gauntlet that got badly damaged by acid, I don't think that the self-repairing aspect has ever really come into play.