D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[Vaalingrade]

So, tangent question for the DMs in this thread:

Would you allow the PCs to passively ignore traps and hazards purely through mundane means? (Not through magic or class features or even luck.) This thread presents the example of wearing ordinary gloves to automatically defeat contact poison traps, but I'm sure there are others.

Absolutely not.

Pit traps have extra gravity so if you try and jump it, you just plummet.

Spears teleport through obstructions.

Fire will melt steel

Alarm bells psychically awaken all guards and pump them full of steroids and rage virus.

Every door is actually an angry bear.

 

[Maxperson]

So, tangent question for the DMs in this thread:

Would you allow the PCs to passively ignore traps and hazards purely through mundane means? (Not through magic or class features or even luck.) This thread presents the example of wearing ordinary gloves to automatically defeat contact poison traps, but I'm sure there are others.

Yes. The DMG backs that up as well.

Finding the trap: "You should allow a character to discover a trap without making an ability check if an action would clearly reveal the trap's presence. For example, if a character lifts a rug that conceals a pressure plate, the character has found the trigger and no check is required."

Dealing with the trap: "After inspecting the chest and making a few checks, the characters are still unsure if it's trapped. Rather than simply open the chest, they prop a shield in front of it and push the chest open at a distance with an iron rod. In this case, the trap still triggers, but the hail of needles fires harmlessly into the shield."

As long as it makes sense and would succeed automatically, mundane means can ovoid the effects of a trap or even disarm it.

 

[Voadam]

That wasn't the scenario that was being discussed in the OP as I understood it; as was outlined initially, the character touches the chest, and the DM calls for a saving throw.

Correct

The understanding is that, in the course of touching the chest, some activity on the PC's part caused them to be exposed to the contact poison.

An assumption by the DM that with no gloves the PC used exposed skin to contact the contact poison informed their understanding and so a request for a save. Not an understanding by the PC who thinks their gloves prevent exposed skin contact. The mutual understanding is that contact with exposed skin is required for a saving throw and the character is wearing traveller's clothes.

The results of their action, in other words, were adjudicated in the DM deciding that a die roll was necessary to begin with (and, of course, whether the save was made or not).

The request for a save was based on a predicate fact about exposed skin that is disputed, and that the DM would presumably accept as not being met if they thought the PC was wearing gloves.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I'm going to disagree there. What the PC is doing is making a save. "You try to tumble out of the way of the fireball, but it still burns you." is a narration of the result of the saving throw. If the player wants to tell me how he's attempting the save, that's fine, but if he doesn't and leaves the narration of the save result to me, I'm going to make something up.

But if the player did not say their character was trying to tumble out of the way, the DM is now telling the player what their PC is doing. That’s just not the DM’s job in 5e. It is the players who decide how their characters are acting, thinking, or speaking. The DM adjudicates results (and does everything else). In this case, just stick to the result and, if the player whose PC just got burnt is done saying their piece, transition to the next PC: “ouch - 32 fire damage! What does [next PC in initiative] do now that their friend just got scorched by the evil wizard’s fireball?”

 

[Alzrius]

Correct

An assumption by the DM that with no gloves the PC used exposed skin to contact the contact poison informed their understanding and so a request for a save. Not an understanding by the PC who thinks their gloves prevent exposed skin contact. The mutual understanding is that contact with exposed skin is required for a saving throw and the character is wearing traveller's clothes.

The request for a save was based on a predicate fact about exposed skin that is disputed, and that the DM would presumably accept as not being met if they thought the PC was wearing gloves.

In terms of the OP, I'll grant that the question under consideration is whether or not the PC is wearing gloves, with the understanding that they'd obviate the need for a saving throw. I'm suggesting that there's an alternative ways of viewing the scenario in question, one which sidesteps that consideration altogether, i.e. by suggesting that the dice are determinative in terms of what they tell us, at least to the point of overriding minor details that have no (intrinsic) mechanical impact on the scene in question.

Now, you don't have to view it that way (and certainly, a lot of people don't seem to), but the alternative seems to be a lot of wrangling over otherwise-unclear circumstances, with no easy way of adjudicating them before they happen. What type of footwear makes you immune to caltrops, for instance? How thick of a scarf can you wrap around your nose and mouth to get advantage against breathing in poison gas? If you grant the premise that these things make a difference, you can find yourself going down a series of rabbit holes (remember, slippery slopes aren't always fallacious).

 

[payn]

So, tangent question for the DMs in this thread:

Would you allow the PCs to passively ignore traps and hazards purely through mundane means? (Not through magic or class features or even luck.) This thread presents the example of wearing ordinary gloves to automatically defeat contact poison traps, but I'm sure there are others.

No, not after the trap has been missed and triggered. Which was in my answer earlier in the thread. The reason is because I don't want to invite these workarounds every time the situation arises. I want to stick to my guns on consistent rulings.

I would be willing to work with the player on spending an inspiration for advantage to the roll. Also, if the item is mundane but has qualities that allow it to negate something like contact poison, obviously I'll allow it.

 

[MGibster]

I invite anyone who has never played D&D but is interested in giving it a try to read this thread. I expect they might open a thread entitled: How Often Do Sessions Revolve Around Articles of Clothing?

 

[iserith]

That wasn't the scenario that was being discussed in the OP as I understood it; as was outlined initially, the character touches the chest, and the DM calls for a saving throw. The understanding is that, in the course of touching the chest, some activity on the PC's part caused them to be exposed to the contact poison. The results of their action, in other words, were adjudicated in the DM deciding that a die roll was necessary to begin with (and, of course, whether the save was made or not).

The DM called for the saving throw because they believed the character touched the contact poison with exposed skin (as that is a requirement of contact poison). The player objected to the presumption that the character wasn't wearing gloves. So at this point, whether or not the character is wearing gloves would have to be hashed out before the saving throw could proceed.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The comparison pics I commented on were no gloves & bulky reinforced kevlar gloves.

No, they weren't. Scroll back up. There's no "bulky kevlar gloves" in this thread.

 

[CleverNickName]

Sure, if it makes sense in the fiction. In the example of the pit trap in the hallway, if some paranoid player always carried a 12 foot ladder with him and crawled across that ever 10 feet down the hall -- that would be horribly tedious but it would be out of bounds to still make them make that pit trap save.

But this would also be active. The character is performing a tedious action. I'm asking about passively defeating traps. Such as simply wearing ordinary gloves allows the character to automatically, passively defeat contact poison. No need to roll, no need to save, no real need to even mention the trap.

A perhaps better question is how you would possibly prevent players from doing things like this without ending any illusion that players have any agency.

In this example? The player wears gloves, and assumes that this makes the character impervious to contact poison...always, and without needing any action, ability, or roll. This isn't about player agency (ugh), it's about assuming a game hazard--in this case, contact poison--works a certain way and then assuming their character can passively defeat them.

You are probably guessing that my answer would be "no." But my answer is "only once." Because if I'm being honest? The first time the player started an argument at the game table about it, I would make sure that the argument could never come up again. So it would never again matter if the character was wearing gloves or not, because they will never see another contact poison trap. (shrug) It's not worth stopping the game to argue about, when I have loads of other traps and hazards to choose from.