D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[DND_Reborn]

So like, the poison eats through leather? Fine if it does, but otherwise why make the save?

Because there are several ways poison can be delivered besides direct touch?

Perhaps touching the chest disturbed the poison and some parts were inhaled?

Or after touching the chest the PC accidentally touched part of their exposed skin?

Or any other explanation

This is D&D. Saves are specific. This isn't a generic "luck save", which would be absolutely 100% justifiable. Some games have them. D&D should probably have them, but it doesn't.

Really? It is D&D? Oh, well then...

Seriously, much of saves are luck. A big factor of saves in D&D has always been luck. Being stung by a scorpion, for example, doesn't mean you "resist the poison" with your hardy Constitution when you make the save. It certainly can be that, of course, but a bigger factor is the luck of where the stinger hit exactly. Perhaps it was far enough away from major arteries, etc. that the poison was injected but failed to get into your blood steam. Perhaps when the scorpion hit it failed to inject enough venom, if any, to injure you?

Let's examine a sample saving throw: CON 14 and proficiency +3, for example, vs. DC 15.

How likely will you make the save? Your total bonus is +5, so 10 or higher or 55%. Of that 55%, the break down is 10% CON modifier, 15% is "skill, determination, etc." via proficiency, and the remaining 30% (more than twice either of the other factors) is just luck.

LUCK is a HUGE factor in saving throws. Otherwise, why roll the d20?

With D&D this is going to be a CON save. But that means you got the poison into your bloodstream. And that makes no sense if you were wearing leather gloves or the like.

I think the above points refute this statement enough without further comment.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Something else I noticed about contact poisons in the DMG was that they don't really do damage. In contrast to ingested, inhaled, or injury poisons which can do damage, contact poisons appear to just poison/paralyze/knock out. I wonder if that is the design expectation for all contact poisons, given that there are no damn gloves in the D&D 5e universe (except magical ones).

To me, the problem here is that poison used to have an effect rather than "damage" directly. Save or die, ability reduction, unconsciousness, what have you. Then in 4e (might have been 3e; I don't have my books available) it was decided that each form of dragon breath should use it's own damage type, and poison damage was born. 5e carried that over. If the contact poison in question does poison damage in 5e, than whether or not you wear gloves isn't intended to matter, just your success or failure on the save; it's a consequence of the system's simplicity and abstraction.

If you want the gloves to matter, I feel you should use rules for poison that specifically take that sort of thing into account. Vanilla 5e really doesn't.

 

[Reynard]

I mean, this pedantry of the silliest kind, isn't it?

Hold on -- YOU brought up the pedantry of gloves being historically accurate, now you don't want to look too deeply into it?

Also -- if gloves are a fashion accessory, wouldn't you take them off before you do dirty work?

But, more importantly -- if you are going to rely on saving throws, then the dice are telling you something about how the situation played out.

For example, maybe the description of the chest looks like this: The chest has been smeared with an almost imperceptible, deadly contact poison. Any creature touching it with exposed flesh is killed instantly.

versus: The chest has been smeared with an almost imperceptible, deadly contact poison. Any creature touching it must make a saving throw versus poison or be killed instantly.

There's room to quibble, but in the first example the PCs need to approach the situation and potentially make a perception check/search for traps (at disadvantage perhaps?) to notice the poison. If they fail and the rogue tries to pick the lock -- boom, dead, UNLESS the character is established as wearing gloves. Which is up to the player.

In the second example, i would suggest the result of the saving throw could potentially inform us about the presence and efficacy of gloves. Are the worn from battle and adventuring -- that makes sense if they failed their save despite wearing gloves.

I am more of a second example GM most of the time. I like the die rolls to define the world state at times.

 

[Reynard]

I'm not sure I'd characterize violating player agency as "forcing a choice,"

There's is literally no other definition.

so much as enforcing a consequence (which is a large part of what the DM does anyway) where the PC doesn't want said consequence.

Um, no, that's enforcing consequences of the choices the player made.

If the player doesn't want to be Chaotic Evil, but consistently acts in such a manner, then that's going to be their alignment regardless of whether or not they want it. Hence, their agency with regard to their character is violated.

The agency is the acting Chaotic evil and the consequences are whatever the result of forced alkignment change exists at that tabe.

Like, if a player says their character is going to walk down the hallway to listen to the door at the far end, and falls in a pit trap halfway there, are you really saying that pit trap violated their player agency?

So you've seen it come up, then. Likewise, I've seen it come up too. Hence, there's a justified pretext for saying "no, that's not what your character does," violating the player's agency of their character.

I also said a lot more after that but I guess it wasn't germane...

 

[Maxperson]

I mean, I challenge you to do the same, with a well-made pair of actual leather gloves, not some bumbly-wumbly gloves designed to keep your little fingeroos warm, or industrial gloves. But the thing is, almost nobody owns well-made leather gloves now. Do you?

Leather isn't fabric. Poison won't "seep through" it unless there's something very special about the medium the poison is contained in, or the gloves are damaged.

Leather is permeable. It doesn't keep water and liquid out, even when oiled. It will slow it down, sure, but some liquid seeps through. Hell, even most latex glove brands don't keep out water and blood 100% of the time.

And gloves are guaranteed to limit your sense of touch, even well made gloves. They don't have the nerve endings that your fingers do.

Nothing in the rules supports this, and it makes very little sense. For abstract disarming of a trap, maybe, especially if you had to get into the mechanism. I wouldn't call it a reasonable position.

The rules do support it. If you read the traps section it notes that some part(not all parts) of a trap will usually(not always) be visible. So you might see tiny holes in the wall that let gas into the room, but you wouldn't necessarily be able see the trigger for the trap or other trap components.

 

[Alzrius]

There's is literally no other definition.

Um, no, that's enforcing consequences of the choices the player made.

The difference between "enforcing consequences" and "violating player agency" strikes me as being largely a semantic distinction, largely because "what happens to the PC" is often the issue in question, but there's quite often an unclear distinction between "the PC's choices" and "the results of their choices." Hence the gloves issue discussed in the OP; the line between what the PCs did (both beforehand and during the event) and what the DM says happens is nebulous, with questions of who defines what aspects of the scenario in question.

If you hold that the DM has the authority of defining those unclear areas when they come up, then there's necessarily going to be times when they violate the player's agency of their character.

The agency is the acting Chaotic evil and the consequences are whatever the result of forced alkignment change exists at that tabe.

Like, if a player says their character is going to walk down the hallway to listen to the door at the far end, and falls in a pit trap halfway there, are you really saying that pit trap violated their player agency?

With regard to the alignment issue, the player's agency over their character is in defining their moral outlook, i.e. them stating as a declarative "I'm not Chaotic Evil," regardless of how their PC acts. Telling them that they are, because they're acting that way, is violating their agency in that regard.

The pit trap issue is one that only seems different, until you apply a "but I was wearing gloves"-style issue to it, in that the PC was identifying themselves (retroactively) as having had a hand on the wall to feel for unusual stonework and so should have had advantage on their save since they would have had an arm out to grab the edge of the pit. When you say "no you didn't" (or even "it doesn't matter"), that's violating their agency, at least to a particular degree.

I also said a lot more after that but I guess it wasn't germane...

Strictly speaking, no, it wasn't.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Is the PC repeatedly acting in a way that violates their alignment? Then their alignment is going to change accordingly, whether or not they like it.

Joke's on you, I wrote 'lol' in the alignment space.

 

[Alzrius]

Joke's on you, I wrote 'lol' in the alignment space.

Isn't that shorthand for Chaotic Neutral?

 

[Reynard]

The difference between "enforcing consequences" and "violating player agency" strikes me as being largely a semantic distinction, largely because "what happens to the PC" is often the issue in question, but there's quite often an unclear distinction between "the PC's choices" and "the results of their choices." Hence the gloves issue discussed in the OP; the line between what the PCs did (both beforehand and during the event) and what the DM says happens is nebulous, with questions of who defines what aspects of the scenario in question.

I am flabbergasted that you don't see a clear distinction between "This is what I do" and "Okay, this is what happens."

With regard to the alignment issue, the player's agency over their character is in defining their moral outlook, i.e. them stating as a declarative "I'm not Chaotic Evil," regardless of how their PC acts. Telling them that they are, because they're acting that way, is violating their agency in that regard.

Presuming the game has a mechanical thing called alignment that is defined as being determined by the actions of the PC, then forcing an alignment change (again, mechanically) is not a violation of player agency any more than the player having to suffer the effects of a cursed backbighter because they weren't careful about picking up magic spears.

The pit trap issue is one that only seems different, until you apply a "but I was wearing gloves"-style issue to it, in that the PC was identifying themselves (retroactively) as having had a hand on the wall to feel for unusual stonework and so should have had advantage on their save since they would have had an arm out to grab the edge of the pit. When you say "no you didn't" (or even "it doesn't matter"), that's violating their agency, at least to a particular degree.

A lot of these discussions about agency you are bringing up is what I call "wheedling." The player isn't worried about their character's free will, they are worried about suffering the consequences for their actions.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Isn't that shorthand for Chaotic Neutral?

Nope. It's Super Unaligned