My AL character has a staff of charming that one DM thinks is too overpowered, and he wants to ban it. The staff of charming was stolen by an enemy in AL DDEX 1-10, and was bent with a Strength check of 21.
My DM says that according to the AL FAQ v6.1, there is no rule that says permanent magic items can't be broken. I know that magic items usually lose their magic when they are broken.
Is the staff irreparably broken?
The latest version of the AL FAQ (v9.0, p. 9) states:
Destroying Magic Items
Unless the conditions of an item's destruction is specifically stated (talon card from deck of many things, ioun stone, +2 nets, etc.) permanent magic items can't be destroyed.
The staff of charming only mentions the following means of becoming nonmagical:
If you expend the last charge, roll a d20. On a 1, the staff becomes a nonmagical quarterstaff.
Your DM is using a (very) outdated version of the FAQ, which did not contain guidance about magic item destruction. The only way the staff of charming could be destroyed is by you choosing to spend the last charge, rolling a 1, and then someone could damage or destroy it.
Magic items cannot be destroyed at the whim of the DM. Just like its not up to the DM if a character's body is destroyed, both cases must be called out by the creature or adventure to be possible. This prevents a vindictive DM from permanently destroying an item or character and puts the fate of the character and their hard won magic items in the hands of the owning player.
According to the D&D AL FAQ v6.1, any official rules guidance posted to Facebook is official:
Any rules guidance given by an Admin using the #AL_Admin or #AL_Official hashtag is considered official rules guidance. In time, it may be added to this FAQ and made available without the drudgery of having to resort to Facebook’s “search” function.
If a magic item is broken, mending specifically cannot repair it, according to the spell description (Player's Handbook p.259):
This spell can physically repair a magic item or construct, but the spell can't restore magic to such an object.
This implies that a broken magic item loses its magic, although strictly speaking there's no rule that this is the case. It's entirely up to the DM whether a broken magic item can be repaired.
