D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[Maxperson]

You just ignoring the RAW and substituting your own approach.

That's allowed. Rule 0 is a thing, but it's not RAW or nor does it appear to be RAI. There's nothing to suggest the passive check isn't the norm.

Let's see the real RAW, not your cut-down version:



How are you reading that to suggest you need giant boulder holes?

What part of, "A character actively looking for a trap can attempt a Wisdom (Perception) check against the trap's DC." are you failing to understand?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

What part of, "A character actively looking for a trap can attempt a Wisdom (Perception) check against the trap's DC." are you failing to understand?

I mean, is my quote of the actual rules not showing up for you?

 

[Greg Benage]

The "you can also" after the statement of the general rule gives the DM a lot of freedom about when to allow passive Perception to detect a trap, it seems to me. You running it as "always" or @Maxperson running it as "when it's noticeable" both seem fine.

 

[Greg Benage]

Just in case it's possible to head this off before you both dig in.

 

[Maxperson]

I mean, is my quote of the actual rules not showing up for you?

You literally quoted the exact same thing I did(other than you included disarming which isn't relevant). The RAW You(and I) quoted says that you get a roll when you actively search. You CAN(as in it's optional for the DM) allow passive percept to work.

It's clear that the intent is for traps to require active searching unless there's a good reason for the DM to engage the passive option, such as the trap being obvious in some way.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It's clear that the intent is for traps to require active searching unless there's a good reason for the DM to engage the passive option, such as the trap being obvious in some way.

No.

It's not "clear" at all.

It's obvious the DM has a choice, but the idea that it requires the trap to be "obvious" is not evidenced or supported at all, in any reasonable English-language reading of the sentence.

You're welcome to run it that way, but that's not RAW, and I doubt it's RAI.

 

[Maxperson]

The "you can also" after the statement of the general rule gives the DM a lot of freedom about when to allow passive Perception to detect a trap, it seems to me. You running it as "always" or @Maxperson running it as "when it's noticeable" both seem fine.

Yeah. I think that it's pretty clear that the intent is for traps to be searched out and that the passive rules are for the more obvious things, but yes the DM can run it however he likes. The DMG doesn't have rules in it other than the optional ones in the DM Toolbox, but rather it consists or guidelines and suggestions.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think that it's pretty clear that the intent is for traps to be searched out and that the passive rules are for the more obvious things

I'm just not seeing literally a single word of the RAW that supports the "clear". The only thing that's clear is it's optional. There is, as a cold matter of fact, zero guidance either way on whether it should be:

A) All traps.

or

B) Only obvious traps.

Neither of us are wrong to run it the way we do, but you can't claim RAW/RAI is that only obvious traps are subject to Passive Perception, and to be clear, I'm NOT claiming all traps are, just that it's not "only obvious traps" RAW/RAI.

 

[Celebrim]

There is no reason to think you are going to stop at equipment.

Why?

You're going to assume all types of things about my character and then "punish" me when I don't have evidence to counter your assumptions.

This is at the least a huge leap. Fundamentally this is a question of adjudication of a proposition. The player offered a very simple very straight forward proposition with no adornment. The player got a negative consequence. The player then retroactively tried to adorn the proposition with a previously never before mentioned, disclosed, or used tool for which the player had zero evidence that he even had much less was wearing. The player now is demanding a retcon.

No one here is being "punished". The GM in question used the best available evidence to adjudicate a natural proposition in the most natural way. That is not GMing in bad faith. I have previously outlined any number of extenuating circumstance that would cause me to give the player the benefit of the doubt - wearing armor (implied to also have gloves), having gloves listed in ones equipment, even so much as having an illustration of the character shown to be wearing gloves, or even simply knowing the player to be one who has been scrupulously fair and reasonable in the past. All of that is fine. "I want now to be wearing gloves just because." is not reasonable, and is just obviously bad faith and anti-social gaming.

Everything else is people trying to wiggle out of that quite obvious truth. Probably solely to avoid table arguments preemptively yielding to the demand to get the game going.

"You got a bladder infection because you never said you went pee. You died from the infection because you didn't say ..."

This is such a ridiculous leap that I really feel you ought to feel some shame offering it up.

Simple: It's adversarial.

No it's not. There is not a single thing adversarial about adjudicating a natural proposition offered by the player in the most natural and logical manner. One can only imagine the howls that would be going on now if we reversed the situation and had the DM give a negative outcome to the player for wearing gloves in that proposition that were not mentioned in the proposition, not listed on the character sheet, not referenced in the rules merely because the DM thought it was common sense that a player would be using them. One can only imagine the howls that would be (rightfully) going on if the DM added some unnarrated actions to the proposition that caused a negative outcome like "You crouch to the side as you lift the chest, flinching in fear as you look away, trying to avoid darts or other missiles, and as such you are completely taken by surprise and unable to dodge when a purple tentacle reaches out and grabs you". Again, simple natural propositions should be adjudicated in a simple and natural manner. There is nothing adversarial about doing that.

What's adversarial is demanding gloves you didn't mention, didn't put on your character sheet, and aren't referenced in the rules only after learning that there are possible negative consequences for not wearing them.

 

[Charlaquin]

It's not cold weather clothing, foraging clothing, riding clothing, etc. Those things would specifically come with gloves. Clothing that you put on to walk to the next town or city wouldn't need it.

“Foraging clothing” and “riding clothing” don’t have their own specific entries in the equipment list, so I feel like traveler’s clothes is meant to cover similar space (especially “riding clothing;” riding feels like a pretty typical part of traveling). Cold weather clothing is indeed a separate entry from traveler’s clothes, but I picture that as like polar weather clothing, since temperature management is like the primary function of most outdoor clothing.