Ye Olde Inn

As the Evil Wizard I was always apprehensive to use the Rust Spell since it hurt the Hero's to greatly. So was wondering this instead.
RUST SPELL: -Long Sword keeps its Attack value of of 3Att but can only do 2Dam Max till you have the weapon repaired for 35g.

Orcs Sword does 3Att until it it does 3 points of dammage, then it breaks. It still keeps its Attack value of 3 but does less & less damage till it breaks. Same with all enemy weapons.

Don't give this option to players until the Rust Spell comes into use though.You could even force them to use the weapon until it breaks just so that it will be annoying enough to where they'd want to buy their own again as soon as possible.

I like your idea here.

"Back in the Day", i.e. the very early 90s', When I was running HQ as an RPG-lite for my friends, I took the approach that enemy weapons could be looted. if I recall correctly, If used in a Quest, they would break at the end of the Quest. Anything the Heroes kept to sell in town, was valued at 10% of the normal Armory price.

This kept the Players from profiting too heavily off of looted weapons, but still kept them in the fight when something went awry. The rust spell wasn't the only way I'd have Heroes break or lose weapons.

The long-term problem, was that after the first encounter or so the Party could arm up pretty quickly--though not having their own better quality weapons was dangerous in those initial encounters.

At some point I may have added a roll at the end of each fight to see if the weapon held up or not. I remember thinking about it, but not sure if it ever was implemented.

Thanks for reply! The hardest part is the constant availability of enemy weapons. Perhaps only one weapon per room can be picked up & maybe even roll a combat die like you said to determine what shape the weapons in.
- the weapon is at full power.
- half power(round up)
- is at only 1 point of Dammage that it can do.

Wait, this still sucks because the Hero will be left with no weapon at some point & that ain't good in the middle of a fight.

I guess I could make this easy & say all enemy weapons keep their attack value but at some point will only do One Point of damage. That's when a hero can find another enemy weapon(one per room) or but never do more than one point of damage.

Josh wrote:Orcs Sword does 3Att until it it does 3 points of dammage, then it breaks. It still keeps its Attack value of 3 but does less & less damage till it breaks. Same with all enemy weapons.

I like that. I might consider that rule with some houserule bash that I'm working out.

Since the beginning (in the early '90s), I wanted Heroes to be able to use weapons and armor left behind from some types of fallen monsters, as well as to dole out gear with the Weapons Rack.

On top of that, I wanted monsters to have weapons and armor beyond what you see on the figure.

For Skeletons, Zombies and Mummies, their weapons are too rusted and rotted to use. All the "greenskin" monsters would have one Attack Die less than normal (minimum of 1) and the option of carry one weapon, and a shield if allowed. That is, an Orc would typically have a Broadsword, with the option of having a Shield, but they may wield a Crossbow or Battleaxe with no option to a shield. So yeah: Goblins usually assume to have a Shortsword, an Orc and the Fimir with a Broadsword, a Chaos Warrior with a Battleaxe and the Gargoyle with a Broadsword and Whip (2 AD + diagonal).

But at the same time, I wanted the players to earn their gear from the gold they made from Quest rewards and what they find in the dungeon, and I wanted to avoid players building up too much money like with D&D and video games, so I never gave out equipment too lightly. Although, I still equipped monsters with different weapons and armor to keep them from being stagnant and to allow for greater combat strategy, even though they would not be able to use them after a fight (unless I reward them for a tough battle).

For a time, I give out random bits of coin (I used those coins from DarkWorld numbered 1-to-5) to players who defeated monsters (1 coin for each Goblins, 2 for Orcs, 3 for Fimirs, 1 x10 gp for Mummies, 4 for Chaos Warriors and 5 for the Gargoyle), but I found that was too much of an incentive for the players to "farm" the monsters in needless combat for literal pocket change. In the end, it is about leading the Heroes to main objective and not have them get waylaid with every last Goblin the dungeon has to offer.