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

[Shadowdweller]

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.

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'm not sure if I was unclear in the OP or not: But I'm not proposing any mechanical changes at all. Just conceptual or narrative ones. AC wouldn't change in response to damage through my proposal...a character at low HP wouldn't have AC that was any lower (that being a mechanical effect). But their gear would be considered beat up, in addition to their body being tired and wounded. Though having gear break instead of character death seems like a perfectly reasonable way to fudge or retcon party misfortune where desirable.

 

[GMMichael]

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. . . Let your players know, and trust them to imagine what’s best for them.

This. Except ask the player what happens. That way, if the healing/loss of HP doesn't make sense later, at least it was the player's fault, not yours. I find that players like narrating their hits and misses.

 

[Eubani]

The problem with equipment damage or degrading is that it unevenly affects martial characters. Not only do you have less utiility than a magic user you also have degrading offensive and defensive capability, versimiliitude can be harmful to a game.

 

[Garthanos]

Spending money on potions to heal and/or spending money on equipment repair to heal hmmmmmm.

 

[CubicsRube]

From a purely narrative point of view, you could keep it simple and narrate damage to equipment if the pc goes to 0 hp.

So a giant club caves in you breast plate, or the beasts claws rend through a chunk of your chainmail. Perhaps the enemy mages firebolt burns a whole in your padding.

No change except the pcs that went to 0 a few times have armor and clothing beat to sheet by the time they get back to town!

Not sure how to handle weapons though. Maybe narrative effectd when you take down enemies?