Equipment quality (EvilHack)

Equipment quality is a variable that determines the condition and durability of weapons, armor and barding in EvilHack. This can in turn affect their base price, to-hit, damage and/or AC, among other qualities.

Types of quality

There are effectively four levels of equipment quality, which each have the following effects on equipment.

• Inferior: An inferior weapon has -2 penalties to damage and to-hit, and has a small chance of falling apart upon landing a hit. Inferior weapons subjected to shattering blows from other weapons have a much higher base chance of being destroyed before accounting for erosion between the two weapons. An inferior piece of armor or barding has its AC value lowered by 2, and has a small chance of falling apart upon blocking an attack. Inferior items have half the base price of their standard counterparts.
• Standard: This is not a formal level of equipment quality, but essentially covers all weapons, armor and barding that do not fall within any of the other three categories and serves as a comparison point to those qualities.
• Superior: A superior weapon has a +1 damage bonus, and has a halved base chance of being broken by shattering blows. A superior piece of armor or barding gains a bonus point to its AC value. Superior items have twice the base price of their standard counterparts.
• Exceptional: An exceptional weapon has +1 to-hit and +2 damage bonuses, and cannot be destroyed by shattering blows. Exceptional pieces of armor and barding have a 2-point bonus to their AC value. Exceptional items have three times the base price of their standard counterparts.

Knights and Samurai have the innate ability to appraise equipment quality without the need for formal identification.

Generation

Equipment qualities are only applied to weapons, armor and barding that can be created by the hero at a forge, and these items can be randomly generated or wished for with a certain quality. Creating items at a forge in general takes the quality and enchantment of the ingredients into account for the resulting object's quality:

• If using a blessed blacksmith hammer, there is a random chance that the forged item it creates will be superior or exceptional.
• If using a blessed blacksmith hammer and both component objects are of exceptional quality, the forged item will be exceptional.
• If using a blessed blacksmith hammer and either both component objects are of superior quality or better, or else if one is superior and the other is exceptional, the forged item has a chance of being exceptional and will otherwise be superior.
• If using a blessed blacksmith hammer with component objects of normal quality or lower, and both components have an enchantment of +3 or more, the forged item will be superior with an enchantment of +0.
• If using a blessed blacksmith hammer with component objects of normal quality or lower, and both components have an enchantment of +5 or more, the forged item will be exceptional with an enchantment of +0.
• If using a non-blessed blacksmith hammer with component objects that both have a negative enchantment, the forged item will be inferior.
• If using a cursed blacksmith hammer, the forged item has a ⁴⁄₅ of being inferior.
• If either component object is inferior and none of the above conditions apply, the forged item will also be inferior regardless of the hammer's beatitude.

Sacrifice gifts of "mundane" items given by the hero's deity will have a chance of being inferior, superior or exceptional, directly influenced by the hero's alignment record abuse (or lack thereof).

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