Something present in older forms of Dungeons & Dragons that has not survived into the current edition is the destruction of magic items by various effects the party might suffer in combat.

In AD&D and original D&D, when you were hit by a fireball spell, every item you had was required to make a saving throw (with success values determined by a special Item Saving Throw table). In original Dungeons & Dragons, you only needed to check for item survival if the bearer was killed or the item was unattended. In AD&D, the fireball spell states that you needed to check if you failed the saving throw. Strangely, while AD&D expands the item saving throw table, the explanation of when to use it is mostly absent; with the specific rule in fireball giving guidance for more general cases.

Fireballs could also destroy treasure, of course, in addition to expanding to fit the space so that all volume would spell. One of the most iconic and powerful spells of the game had limitations on when it could be used! Woe betide the magic-user who cast it into a ten-foot-by-ten-foot room!

However, all such rules have basically disappeared for fifth edition. Why is this?

I believe that it is because of a number of reasons, just as including the rules in the first place was not due to a solitary reason.

On the Benefits

What are the benefits of destroying magic items?

• It changes things up – players cannot always rely on the powerful item every session. New tactics need to emerge.
• Players get to use the new items they find rather than just discarding them because the old ones were better.
• It helps remove excess magic items from the game.

That last was quite important. In old D&D, magic items, especially held by higher-level NPCs, were a lot more common than they are now. Players of the old AD&D computer games may remember how many longswords +1 they picked up over the course of the game. When every 4^th or higher-level fighter you face has a magic weapon, soon you have a closet of them!

Another aspect to the plethora of early magic items was that Gary Gygax was testing the game; thus, he included a lot of magic items to test them, and then needed to get rid of them (as related by Jim Ward amongst others).

On the Drawbacks

I have noted in the past how some rules get created to deal with a situation, but new players might never encounter that situation! Rules without context can confuse players and cause for poor play experiences.

There is a bit of advice by Gygax in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide that a DM should place magic items with care. I have always interpreted the section to mean further that you should be stingy with magic items at low levels – but only low levels. Others have interpreted it for all levels, thus dramatically reducing magic item counts. In one of those games, if you only get one magic item in five levels and it then fails a saving throw and is destroyed? That is not a great feeling!

And if there’s one item that you feel is key to your character and it is destroyed – such as a staff of power you have been wanting for ten levels only to have it destroyed in the first combat you use it? Not good at al!

I can only imagine the frustration levels from a player (and possibly a DM) when a custom item, with its own history and quirks, is destroyed!

On Implementation

One of the reasons my mind is turning to this is because I gave out a lot of items during our play of Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. I mean, we are talking somewhere about 20 magic items of the non-consumable sort for an adventure where the characters gained one or perhaps two levels.

I think that is a lot more than you will find in most fifth edition games!

If I do go with some form of item destruction, I think I would want to have a relatively simple set of rules for handling it. I rather like the basics of the original game, rather than the more complicated (possibly more realistic) AD&D table.

Here is how I would approach it:

• When a character is dropped to 0 hit points, certain items must be checked to see if they survive.
  • If a character is dropped to 0 hit points by a weapon attack, make a saving throw for the wielded weapon, armour, and shield
  • If a character is dropped to 0 hit points by a targeted spell attack, make a saving throw for the character’s armour, shield, and other defensive items
  • If a character is dropped to 0 hit points by an area spell attack, make a saving throw for all magic items possessed by the wielder
  • If a character is dropped by another damage form, determine which method suits it best – falling into a pool of acid would follow the rules for an area spell attack
• To make an item saving throw, roll a d20. The item survives if it rolls higher than the target number.
  • Staves, Rods and most Wondrous Magic Items require a 10 to survive
  • Wands, Potions and Scrolls require a 15 to survive
  • Rings and Defensive items require a 10 to survive
  • Magic Weapons and Armour require a 12 to survive, with a bonus equal to double their bonus to AC or attack.
• If the item is struck by something it is vulnerable to (a scroll hit by fire, for instance), then the save is with disadvantage
• Conversely, if the item is struck by something it would be resistant to, (a flame tongue sword struck by a fireball spell), it saves with advantage

Final Thoughts

So, will I use this system? I do not know. I am leaning towards some system for cycling through magic items if I continue to award them at a greater rate, but balancing that against the loss of notable items? In some cases, I might just rule that an item is at minor artefact level and cannot be destroyed using this method.

Adoption of this system significantly changes the relationship between characters and their items. When an item can be destroyed, then the bond between character and item is lessened. We think of important items like Excalibur and Stormbringer. Are these just destroyed, or do they persist?

However, I did give myself an out: items only check if the character drops to 0 hit points. That happens often enough in fifth edition combat, but it is still relatively rare, and perhaps this provides something that makes players avoid dropping to 0 hit points more than the regular game does.

This is something to discuss with my players. Would they happy with more and better items if they occasionally lose them? Actual play is the test!