Damage to magic item when unconcious

[Scavenger1977]

Hi all,

Question:

A prisoner put into magical shackles gets hit by a 70+ hitpoint area effect of force damage rendering her unconcious and dying after the damage has been dealt. My question is this, she made her save (for half damage) but would not want to extend that save to her forcefully worn shackles (in fact, she'd even lift them into the blast hoping it would break the damn thing)

How would one go about such a thing? I take it the shackles get their own save? Or just take damage, apply metal hardness and then go from there?

Or does it mean that if the creature makes her save that goes for all equipment worn, even the involuntary ones?

So she was concious when the blast hit her, and unconcious and dying afterwards just to make that clear.

Thanks

[Wheldrake]

Go with what's important for the story.

The character is on death's door. The least you can do is say that she held the shackles in the path of the blast and managed to partially shield herself, while the shackles got blasted to smithereens. Have the shackles be the reason for the successful saving throw.

[Vatras]

There is no exact rule for such a thing.

I'd go with the flow and let the shackles take the damage in that situation (= don't make a rule of it). It is a nice move and one cannot be nitpicking/rulelawyering all the time.

[Scavenger1977]

Well its in regards to an npc not a pc but just curious as to what would apply :-)

[GM Rednal]

Quote:

Attended (Held/Wielded etc.) Items: Unless the descriptive text for a spell (or attack) specifies otherwise, all items carried or worn by a creature are assumed to survive a magical attack. If a creature rolls a natural 1 on its saving throw against the effect, however, an exposed item is harmed (if the attack can harm objects). Refer to Table: Items Affected by Magical Attacks to determine order in which items are affected. Determine which four objects carried or worn by the creature are most likely to be affected and roll randomly among them. The randomly determined item must make a saving throw against the attack form and take whatever damage the attack dealt. If the selected item is not carried or worn and is not magical, it does not get a saving throw. It simply is dealt the appropriate damage.

That said, characters *are* allowed to willingly fail their saving throws. It may not be exact by-the-rules, but as a GM, I would absolutely allow a player to deliberately put an object in harm's way during an attack. This wouldn't protect the character any more than normal - no tossing pebbles in front of you for perfect defense or anything - but if they were trying to get an object damaged, it seems quite reasonable for that to happen.

[Kenky]

I would treat the shackles as unattanded magic item hence having a saving throw of 2 + 1/2 caster level.

[Scavenger1977]

@Rednal>> well thats the thing, if she willingly fails the saving throw and takes full damage she would have died. There was hard stone cover though so just putting her wrists and hands in harms way to break the item while keeping the rest of yourself covered is not as I'd read into it, failing her save (she isn't suicidal after all)

Perhaps just rolling an item saving throw applies best here.