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I was reading about Ioun stones and the DMG gave them an AC, HP and resistances. I was wondering if regular equipment such as armors and weapons also have those stats.

Pyrotechnical
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Metalmine
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1 Answers1

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Objects can have "stats" at the DMs discretion.

But:

For the purpose of these rules, an object is a discrete, inanimate item like a window, door, sword, book, table, chair, or stone, not a building or a vehicle that is composed of many other objects.

So, for the purposes of armour, each individual piece could have its own stats rather than the full set being considered one object.

Things like AC and Hit Points are determined by what the object is made of and size of the object. Rules for which can be found in the DMG, pages 246 and 247.

However, in general regular equipment such as armour and weapons do not have stats such as AC and HP.

Purple Monkey
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  • I see. So unless in combat you specifically request to attack armor, that armor piece is assumed to be indestructible? – Metalmine May 01 '17 at 15:43
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    Pretty much. D&D is a fantasy game, and is designed to facilitate exciting stories and adventures. A lot of mundane considerations are glossed over in order to achieve that purpose. If your table finds it rewarding to track food and arrows and HP of your armor, feel free, but that level of detail is not built into the system. – Phil Boncer May 01 '17 at 15:57
  • I have found rules for this come up in two specific situations:
    1. A player wants to attack an opponent's weapon (previously know as Sunder)
    2. A player tried to break down a barrier with their weapons, and we need to know which gives out first: weapon or wall.

    It could also come up if say a character is attacked by acid or lava or some other AoE effect. My player's often fireproof their spellbooks for this reason evil grin

     – lostgrail May 01 '17 at 19:38
  • @lostgrail AoE damage spells generally describe effects for characters-and-carried-stuff separately from unattended objects for exactly that reasoning. Having to track effects against each individual item on each individual character is tedious and boring to most people. – T.J.L. Jan 16 '19 at 19:22
  • The edit history on this post tells a comical story about how one is to spell the word armor/armour. – Token Jan 16 '19 at 20:40
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    @token here is a related Meta on standardization of English :) – NotArch Jan 16 '19 at 20:57
  • @NautArch o7. Good info! It appears Gandalfmeansme's edit is in keeping with "It's probably good to standardize usage within a single post." per the word's spelling used in the question; for whatever that's worth :P – Token Jan 16 '19 at 21:05
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    @Token: Here, I think "a single post" implies "a single question" or "a single answer"; answerers don't necessarily need to match the style preferences of the asker. So there's no need to change "armour" to "armor" simply because the OP used it. (There could be an argument made that one should spell it "armor" in reference to the game mechanics because the rulebooks spell it that way, but that's a different matter. SSD left a relevant comment around that argument.) – V2Blast Jan 16 '19 at 21:09
  • @PhilBoncer While it's true that HP of armor is not tracked by RAW, food (1lb per day) & ammunition such as arrows (half can be retrieved), *are* tracked by RAW. Sure, many tables choose not to track food & arrows, but RAW says you do. Not so, for armor HP... – ProphetZarquon Nov 14 '22 at 12:02