Locworks
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I'm concerned by the potential confusion brought about by the "Broken" condition.
"Broken" means quite commonly "completely unusable" or "ruined".
See "But Narsil was broken and its light extinguished, and it has not yet been forged again.(The Fellowship of the Ring: "The Council of Elrond")
See "I am Aragorn son of Arathorn and I am called Elessar, the
Elfstone, Donadan, the heir of Isildur Elendil’s, son of Gondor. Here is the Sword that was Broken and is forged again! Will you aid me or thwart me? Choose swiftly!" (The Two Towers: "The Riders of Rohan")
See http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0114.html
See The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000
broken
1. Forcibly separated into two or more pieces; fractured: a broken arm; broken glass.
[..]
10. Not functioning; out of order: a broken washing machine.
The Alpha 3 rules indicate that "broken" items are still usable, but at a penalty.
My suggestion would be to replace "broken" with the term "damaged", which is commonly used to refer to items which have been weakened by an external factor but have not necessarily been rendered unusable.
Damaged also works well with the gradation of effects for sunder attacks:
- hit but not damaged (hardness not overcome)
- hit and damaged (hardness overcome)
- hit and destroyed (hardness overcome, hit points exceeded)