HQ Weapons with limited durability

[Kessandria]

Hello everyone,

I'm a HQ player myself and, together with my best mate I started to play when I was about 12 years old (I'm coming to 32 this year, so that's quite some time). Anyway, together we've expanded the game significantly, first with the expansions available in the toyshops and later with our own houserules and even gameboards en spellcards (you gotta love Photoshop and Illustrator!). We also pick up ideas from websites such as these.
The reason I joined was to share my HQ experiences with other players.

One of our houserules is that weapons can break during the fight.
We have given every type of weapon a number on a D10 that's rolled with every attack and defence roll.
0-1   damages your weapon during an attack
2      damages armor (body)
3      damages helmets
4      damages shields

Weapons can be restored in between quests at a weapon smith (we actually have 'villages' were the heroes can go 'shopping') or with special potions, but when they reach dur 0, they are lost forever!

This is probably our way of 'levelling', because you constantly have to buy new weapons.
And the more they cost, the more dur they have.

I hope that someone can use this as well!

We've also added restrictions to wich types of weapons a hero can use, but I'll come back to that in another post.

Meanwhile, good gaming and untill next time!

[Billiam Babble]

Really nice idea.  One which would work well in many games.

Disposability of any equipment definitely gives it more value and something to spend money on at markets or random pedlar wondering the underworld.

Hero: "Look, it doesn't even need to be magical, just as long as I can wear it as a helmet.  That cooking pot looks good... 15 gold pieces?!"

[Kessandria]

The cooking pot idea is a really nice one! Haven't thought about it myself,
allthough we do have some "weapons" that are similar in idea, by that I mean things that weren't really meant to use as a weapon, some examples:
- bone: a bone from a corpse found in a dungeon that's used as a club. It breaks easily, but hey, it was for free!
- pitchfork: used by a villager or peasant to aid you in your quest, or a hero for that matter! Cheap and sturdy.

Some of those tools (like axes and so on) can even have some extra specialty:
- woodcutters axe: a bonus against wooden obsacles/ creatures
- forge hammer: this is something we actually made unique by making it an artifact instead of a regular 'weapon'.
                              only the dwarf can use the special ability of this weapon: the ability to restore lost dur points
                              to a weapon at a forge once per mission!
- pick axe: normally used for mining purposes, it's also great to hit an enemy with.
                   The special attribute we gave it is 2 bonus dice when attacking obstacles.

If anyone has more ideas like that, I would love to hear about them!

[MortiS-the-Lost]

I like this idea, but I'm not sure how keen my players would be on it

Kessandria wrote

we actually have 'villages' were the heroes can go 'shopping'

I have done the same for my campaign, with settlements marked out on a hex-grid map - the locations of dungeons are also marked out as the Heroes take on new quests and they must pay 'Travel Expenses' (10gc +1D10gc per hex traveled) to get from the last settlement they were at to the next dungeon

[Midknight]

Cool idea. Although I may use a D12. A 20% change of a weapon  being damaged (and 10% on everything else) on every combat seems a little high. Mind you, I haven't tried the work-mechanics out on it yet.

Question on it, though.

1) As I assume that you've play-tested this for a while, how many 'dur' points have you given each item? I assume the bigger weapons and armour would have more?
2) Do you have the items become less-efficient as they get more damaged, or is it in perfect working order at 1dur, shattered at 0?
3) And would (for example) the shield be damaged on a roll of a 3 whether you're attacking OR defending?

[Kessandria]

Well MidKnight,

good question (we've been playing like this for quite some time so I didn't even think about the misunderstandings that could occur)!
1) The points we use varies a bit. The cost and size of the weapons are our main indicators, also the strenght of a weapon is important. For instance: a heavy battle axe with attack strenght 4 looks silly with only a dur of 4, so it can go up to 10 or higher. Standard (basic) weapons though mostly vary between 3 or 4 to 6/7.
I'll ask Chaoswarrior for some correct examples, because there all in his cabinet!
2) Most weapons just break when they get to dur 0, with no devaluation of their strength. But there are specialised weapons with extra rules where the dur value dous have an impact. They just haven't been tested yet!
3) Normally the 0-1 only apply during offense, while the other numbers (2-3-4) only apply during defence.
When a hand weapon gives you a defence bonus in some way you might say that this affects your 'dur' roll as well, but that's one we haven't tested yet!

hope I've helped you with this, and keep the questions coming!

Kessandria

[chaos-warrior]

about + / - 5 a 6 for an average weapon,
+ / - 1 for poor weapon (eg bone),
and good weapons + / - 10
and the assault weapon can only be damaged by an attack /
 defense armor (helmet, breastplate, shield) only in the defense roll