The revelation of the weapon breakage rules over at Dungeon's Master came as a shock to some of the people who frequented that blog. I believe the main concern is that characters will generally avoid to risk having their precious items destroyed - after all, the economy of the D&D 4E is set in such a way that keeps these items expensive. If these rules are used in a typical D&D world, I understand how unappealing this could be. But Athas, the world of the Dark Sun Campaign Setting, is anythingbut a typical D&D world.
The decision to include the possibility of weapons breaking is a core part of Dark Sun, even when it was first introduced in the 2E version of the game. This was brought about by the scarcity of metal in the world, which nessesitates the need to make weapons out of inferior materials. Back then, these inferior weapons, though visually appealing, had penalties in its usage and could break at the most inopportune of moments, and players just didn't like that. So while Dark Sun novels and artworks were able to capture the feel of these items properly, in practice players just looked for metal objects at the soonest possible time.
4E's weapon breakage rules still come at random (ie, on a natural roll of 1 on a d20), but the decision to actually break the weapon rests on the player's shoulders (if you break your weapon, you get to reroll your attack). It might not seem to be an ideal choice on paper, but when you really need to hit with that encounter or daily attack power, the choice suddenly becomes more tantalizing. Still, breaking your +6 vorpal sword still isn't worth it to win an encounter, when you know that a fight with BBEG sorcerer-king is soon to follow. So that's where other rules come in.
The use of magic isn't trusted by the general populace in the many city-states of Athas, and as a consequence magic items are rare. To keep this feel of low item tech going, I decided to use the inherent bonus variant rule that was presented in DMG2 in my homebrew intro-Dark Sun game. Under this system, characters naturally get an increasing, inherent enhancement bonus to attack, dmage, and defenses at certain levels in the game. That way the characters remain potent even if they never pick up a magic item during the course of the campaign. Of course, magic items remain tantalizing in that they have interesting powers and bonuses to critical hit damage, so finding a magic item is still a special event. Intriguingly, this system had a couple of interesting but pleasant consequences on how the game turned out.
Firstly, the traditional "we loot the bodies!" mindset so typical of my players lessened. Sure, if the gith was wielding a special weapon like a trikal, the players would still be interested in taking it. But in general, they focused less on attaining riches and more on the unfolding story. Sure, the elf rogue still collected ceramic coins like mad, but the character did so out of character and not player greed.
Secondly, the scarcity of magic items meant that when I did introduce a few such weapons, it truly felt special. In my other D&D games, magic items quickly become so commonplace, it becomes trivial. Magic items didn't feel magical anymore - they were just tools that helped make players bash things better. In this other case, I saw the players' eyes sparkle with fascination at the idea of wielding the Staff of Nok or the Heartwood Spear. Without using artifact rules (for these items were described as such in the 2E version of Dark Sun), I was able to make the items feel like such wondrous weapons.
Of course, cheap, mundane items only needed cheap, mundane replacements, so characters were less skeptical about breaking their weapons in Reckless Barrage. And even if they end up losing their weapons too early, they could pick up improvised weapons to fight on. They were less accurate, but not cripplingly so thanks to the inherent bonuses taking effect. One character, Rikus, was even built with the Weapon Master feat, which allowed him to apply weapon expertise and weapon focus to just about any weapon he picks up!
Now, one negative side-effect of having less magic items is that the powers available from such items are not prominent. However, I personally think that the loss of those powers are mitigated by the extra capabilities available from Character Themes - another new rule that is to be introduced in the Dark Sun Campaign Setting. But I will be discussing that at another day instead. Until next time!
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