D&D 5E [ToA] Heat & Heavy (armor)

CapnZapp · Sep 26, 2017

Oofta said:
Just to be clear: prestidigitation has the option You chill, warm, or flavor up to 1 cubic foot of nonliving material for 1 hour. I'm quoting it because I didn't realize it lasted a full hour.

There is no logical reason it would not work. In theory you might have to sleep without your armor, but jungles can actually be downright chilly at night (50s at night are not uncommon at night in many jungles). I've backpacked/camped in the Amazon and we had to have sleeping bags.

Of course this does nothing to punish people wearing heavy armor, it makes it far too easy to circumvent so it probably isn't acceptable. I could always create a new, harder, challenge later on...

Thank you for your reply.

I'm sure it's acceptable to some, just not to me.

If I were to run the game for a bunch of newbies, and perhaps start the adventure at level 1, I would most definitely reward such inventive thinking, mentally scratching off heat as one of the jungle challenges.

But with veteran gamers 'porting into Chult at level 5, I can already from the beginning see that spending all those words on water-collecting and exhaustion saves are a total waste, and something much more difficult is necessary for the players to actually engage with the environment.

This is after all our collective goal, I imagine. To bring Chult to life, the jungle needs to meaningfully affect the mechanics of the game.

To newbies, drinking 2 gallons of water is just that. To you and me, probably not.

Oofta · Sep 26, 2017

CapnZapp said:
Thank you for your reply.

I'm sure it's acceptable to some, just not to me.

If I were to run the game for a bunch of newbies, and perhaps start the adventure at level 1, I would most definitely reward such inventive thinking, mentally scratching off heat as one of the jungle challenges.

But with veteran gamers 'porting into Chult at level 5, I can already from the beginning see that spending all those words on water-collecting and exhaustion saves are a total waste, and something much more difficult is necessary for the players to actually engage with the environment.

This is after all our collective goal, I imagine. To bring Chult to life, the jungle needs to meaningfully affect the mechanics of the game.

To newbies, drinking 2 gallons of water is just that. To you and me, probably not.

Just be prepared for the legitimate question "Why does prestidigitation to cool armor not work?" Because there is no reason it should not work.

On a related note, there will always be times that players bypass or circumvent something you thought would be or should be a challenge with the clever use of a spell or proper planning. You can either accept that or implement a ban hammer because your players aren't playing the way you want them to play.

You are conflating a goal - bringing Chult to life - and one particular implementation of the effects of the environment. You've jumped to a conclusion so you are asking the wrong question. The question you should be asking is "how do you bring the jungles of Chult to life".

Flexor the Mighty! · Sep 26, 2017

One reason I'd skip this is I would have a hard time not thinking its ridiculous to have guys in plate or even chain mail, plus padding under that walking around a hot and humid jungle like its nothing if they get a little more water. Do the inhabitants of the jungle walk around half naked due to the heat or are they loaded down with plate as well since it not that big of a deal? Iron and steel rust pretty quick in humid environments. Not only those, all kinds of things just disintegrate in the jungles from reading accounts of soldiers fighting in the Pacific in WW2. Paper, clothes, etc. It all comes down to how much realism do you want and I'm already butting heads with core 5e stuff like healing so better not to aggravate my situation.

I should probably read the thread before commenting though...

Flexor the Mighty! · Sep 26, 2017

CapnZapp said:
Thank you for your reply.

I'm sure it's acceptable to some, just not to me.

If I were to run the game for a bunch of newbies, and perhaps start the adventure at level 1, I would most definitely reward such inventive thinking, mentally scratching off heat as one of the jungle challenges.

But with veteran gamers 'porting into Chult at level 5, I can already from the beginning see that spending all those words on water-collecting and exhaustion saves are a total waste, and something much more difficult is necessary for the players to actually engage with the environment.

This is after all our collective goal, I imagine. To bring Chult to life, the jungle needs to meaningfully affect the mechanics of the game.

To newbies, drinking 2 gallons of water is just that. To you and me, probably not.

Yeah I'd run it where maybe their biggest foe is the jungle itself. Its a unfeeling ravenous consumer of all the things the PC bring with them. Rusting metal, decaying everything else. Soon the party is fully native, loin clothes and spears...

Mull Ponders · Sep 26, 2017

Oofta said:
Just be prepared for the legitimate question "Why does prestidigitation to cool armor not work?" Because there is no reason it should not work.

On a related note, there will always be times that players bypass or circumvent something you thought would be or should be a challenge with the clever use of a spell or proper planning. You can either accept that or implement a ban hammer because your players aren't playing the way you want them to play.

You are conflating a goal - bringing Chult to life - and one particular implementation of the effects of the environment. You've jumped to a conclusion so you are asking the wrong question. The question you should be asking is "how do you bring the jungles of Chult to life".

I could think of lots of reasons why Prestidigitation may not be that useful. Non-living, 1 cubic foot. It doesn't work on things bigger than 1x1x1 foot. So maybe your helmet, gloves or boots. A breastplate? Nope, also no plate mail, splint, etc. Chain shirt? If you take it off once an hour and scrunch it into the box, sure, I can see a chain shirt collapsing into a 1x1x1 box. Leather armor isn't very flexible either.

CapnZapp · Sep 26, 2017

Oofta said:
Just be prepared for the legitimate question "Why does prestidigitation to cool armor not work?" Because there is no reason it should not work.

On a related note, there will always be times that players bypass or circumvent something you thought would be or should be a challenge with the clever use of a spell or proper planning. You can either accept that or implement a ban hammer because your players aren't playing the way you want them to play.

You are conflating a goal - bringing Chult to life - and one particular implementation of the effects of the environment. You've jumped to a conclusion so you are asking the wrong question. The question you should be asking is "how do you bring the jungles of Chult to life".

Sorry what?

If I want to talk about making the jungle environment challenging for D&D heroes, I'm bloody well not satisfied by concluding a cantrip neutering the challenge.

I don't understand you. Perhaps what you're saying is you don't believe the jungle environment *should* challenge level 5 heroes, in which case I kindly ask you to talk about that somewhere else, since that's exactly what I'm talking about!

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

Oofta · Sep 26, 2017

Mull Ponders said:
I could think of lots of reasons why Prestidigitation may not be that useful. Non-living, 1 cubic foot. It doesn't work on things bigger than 1x1x1 foot. So maybe your helmet, gloves or boots. A breastplate? Nope, also no plate mail, splint, etc. Chain shirt? If you take it off once an hour and scrunch it into the box, sure, I can see a chain shirt collapsing into a 1x1x1 box. Leather armor isn't very flexible either.

There's a gizmo you can buy for backpacking that is basically a mini AC unit. There are a couple of variations - one that goes around your neck, another that you slide under your clothes. According to reviews they work rather well.

So cool the helmet, cool something that you can slide under your armor and it should become reasonably comfortable. Not perfect, but enough to keep your core temp from getting out of control.

Yes you have to "recharge" the magical AC unit once per hour but that's a small price to pay.

Tony Vargas · Sep 26, 2017

CapnZapp said:
Not sure what your actual suggestion is here.

That the simplest way to circumvent any rule punishing a heavy-armor-dependent character is not to play such a character.

That's really the point, to steer players into setting-appropriate choices by introducing a mechanical 'imbalance' that disfavors inappropriate ones.

CapnZapp said:
I'm thinking you and I have very different outlooks.

I'm not interested in realistic rules one bit. D&D is a game, and I want it to be a challenging game.

Being told you need to drink 2 gallons a day is not a challenging task for my players, so I'm not interested in spending time on it.

So don't. Unless something in-game makes water critically hard to acquire, assume it, like air and bathroom breaks and everything else. Skip to the fun/challenging bits.

Oofta said:
You are conflating a goal - bringing Chult to life - and one particular implementation of the effects of the environment. You've jumped to a conclusion so you are asking the wrong question. The question you should be asking is "how do you bring the jungles of Chult to life".

Evocative descriptions could help.
Also having a clear idea of what sort of jungle you want to bring to life. The 'deepest darkest Africa' mis-conception of a prior century, with furnace heat, chopping through every yard of jungle choked with vines & under-growth, facing giant snakes, and deadly spiders - or the 80-degree, comparatively open under the canopy and away from the river, RL Amazon jungle of nature documentaries?

Mull Ponders said:
I could think of lots of reasons why Prestidigitation may not be that useful. Non-living, 1 cubic foot. It doesn't work on things bigger than 1x1x1 foot.

Nod, it's another ruling: does 1 cu ft mean a cubic foot of material, regardless of how it's spread out, or does it mean an exact 1x1x1 cube AE? Par for the Empowered DM course.

Oofta · Sep 26, 2017

CapnZapp said:
Sorry what?

If I want to talk about making the jungle environment challenging for D&D heroes, I'm bloody well not satisfied by concluding a cantrip neutering the challenge.

I don't understand you. Perhaps what you're saying is you don't believe the jungle environment *should* challenge level 5 heroes, in which case I kindly ask you to talk about that somewhere else, since that's exactly what I'm talking about!

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

So basically you don't like the obvious, simple solution so you ban it or just say it doesn't work.

There are plenty of ways to implement the feel and character of the jungle. The group may come up with ways to overcome obstacles posed by the environment that you do not anticipate. People come up with solutions to overcome obstacles all the time, it's part of the game.

You can either let them overcome obstacles in ways you didn't anticipate or dictate that the only way to overcome an obstacle is the option you've given them. That's your prerogative, but I wouldn't play in a game run that way.

You asked for how to deal with armor in the jungle. You've been given the DMG answer, [MENTION=6785802]guachi[/MENTION] came up with a solution, etc.

Cap'n Kobold · Sep 26, 2017

Oofta said:
Just to be clear: prestidigitation has the option You chill, warm, or flavor up to 1 cubic foot of nonliving material for 1 hour. I'm quoting it because I didn't realize it lasted a full hour.

There is no logical reason it would not work. In theory you might have to sleep without your armor, but jungles can actually be downright chilly at night (50s at night are not uncommon at night in many jungles). I've backpacked/camped in the Amazon and we had to have sleeping bags.

Of course this does nothing to punish people wearing heavy armor, it makes it far too easy to circumvent so it probably isn't acceptable.

Bear in mind its probably not the metal armour that you'd want to cool: its the suit of padded armour worn underneath. Its the padding that prevents heat from escaping and soaks up the sweat instead of letting it evaporate.

I doubt that this will present much of a difference in the effectiveness of the cantrip however. Even a couple of patches of cool areas will take away a lot of the problems that people wearing armour will be suffering if the entire piece of armour doesn't fit into the dimensions.

I'm pretty sure that people will have to take off their armour to sleep anyway. As you say, it gets rather cold, and anyone trying to sleep in the sweat-sodden clothing that they were wearing during the day is just asking to catch a chill.