Quality Rating

I have been giving weapons and armor a great deal of thought latley.  Specifically I have been thinking of new ways to make weapons stand out from one another.  You'll remember that I discussed the issue in length here, but now I am considering more how to create a mechanic to respresent item quality without giving combat bonuses as a result and I think I have an idea.


Quality Rating -   Quality Ratings are a measure of both the quality of craftsmenship and the quality of the materials that go into a weapon or piece of armor.  The Rating becomes inportant in any situation where the the item is about to break, whether it be because of critical fumble or any similar mishap.  This rating would give the item a save against breaking, the better the item, the better the rating, the less likely it is to break.  Using the Hackmaster skill system this rating would essentially be a percentage.  The percentage would be the Weaponsmith or Armorsmiths skill total modified by the quality of the materials he is working with.  A sword made by Hattori Hanzō using Adamantine would have a score of like 130 (100 for his skill +30 for the Adamantine) making all but unbreakable.  However, some situations would result in a penalty to the roll.  For example; Hanzō was walking through a mountain path to deliver his new blade to a great warrior on the other side.  On his way he was buried by a great avalanche.  Though he is killed his masterly crafted sword is not necessarily destroyed.  It’s rating is 130 but it suffers a -50 for a massive bolder falling on it.  The GM rolls a d100 to see if it is destroyed.  130 - 50 = 80, so If the GM rolls a 1-80 he knows that the sword survives even the avalanche that killed its creator!  

For an added level of variance I am having the craftmanship quality rating be based on the average of the craftsman skill AND his skill roll when creating the item.  So Hanzo has 100 in weaponsmithing and rolls a 50 on his skill check.  That would be mean the swords rating would be 75 (105 with the +30 bonus from the adamantine as above).  This is just an idea... not sure I need the extra level of complexity, but it is worth considering.  


Overall I like the quality rating.  I may need to flesh it out a bit more, but I definetly think I'll be using it in my upcoming Hackmaster game.