The Weapon-Breaker
In Dungeon Crawl Classics, the weapon-breaker does what its name promises. On any critical hit, it destroys the target’s weapon outright, on top of the usual crit roll. That is the whole mechanic. No save, no check, no clause about relative quality. The crit lands, the weapon is gone.
The instinct is to carry it everywhere and hope for a natural 20 against whatever happens to be standing in front of you. That instinct wastes it. A crit spent shattering an orc’s rusty spear buys you nothing the damage roll wasn’t already going to provide. The item’s value is not in the destruction, it is in the selection of what gets destroyed.
The play is patience. Save the weapon-breaker for the enemy whose threat lives entirely in one object: the warlord with the magic blade, the archer with the only bow, the caster leaning on an implement. Crit that opponent and you do not just wound them, you remove the reason they were dangerous. A crit against anyone else is a coin flip you spent on nothing.
At the table: Hold the weapon-breaker for the fight’s real threat, then land the crit on their signature weapon and watch the encounter reprice itself.
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