Houserules for Weapon Breakage

I’ve been thinking about how to make weapons breaking a thing in my game to spice things up. I think Logan Knight from Last Gasp perfectly describes my motivation here:

“I find it really boring for characters to be able to pick a weapon when they start out and then hold onto it forever unless they find something magic or wake up naked in a pit. I mean sure, it’s nice to have a weapon with history, but don’t you want that history to actually mean something? I also want some kind of indication that all this murdering necessitates equipment maintenance, but I don’t want that to be a gaping pain in the arse.”

The breakage rules from the GLOG are pretty close to what I’m aiming, but also I really, really like the ideas in Last Gasp’s (namely, notches and weapon quality).

My goals

• Weapons take damage on a critical fail.
• Weapons take get progressively worse as they take damage (they don’t break immediately).
• Keep it as simple and system-neutral as possible.
• Dice rolls should only have one > or < check.
• Add as few additional rolls as possible.
• Add as few variables as possible.

Thematically related Yu-Gi-Oh! card: Shattered Axe

Weapon Breakage

Whenever you roll a natural 1 on an attack or do something that would obviously damage it (like stabbing a stone golem with a dagger), roll a d6. If the result is equal to or under your weapon's quality, it withstands the hit. Otherwise, it’s damage die is reduced one step (1d10>1d8>1d6>1d4). If it can’t go any lower, the weapon snaps in two. The standard rate for repair is 50% of the item's full cost per die.

Every weapon has a quality rating that depends on material and craftsmanship. Higher quality weapons are less likely to break but also more expensive.

Quality	Cost	Example
1	0.5x	Improvised weapons; corroded or rusted metal.
2	0.75x	Poorly made; soft metal like gold or silver.
3	1x	Average craftsmanship; average quality steel.
4	1.5x	Well made; high-quality material.
5	2x	Superb craftsmanship, rare material (something like mithril).
6	-	Rare artifacts; the stuff of legends.