D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[Micah Sweet]

Of course, nobody's stopping you from rolling Intimidate and telling your players how they should act or whatever. Except perhaps your players. Plus, those games where you could do that within the rules still exist.

People keep saying play other games. You need players for that, and my players don't want to learn another system, so I stretch the 5e core as much as I can to make it work for me, without making it not work for them.

 

[Lanefan]

The error here being using contact poison at all.

I'm not so sure about that. Getting a character's gear loadout sorted ahead of time is going to be helpful in all kinds of other situations as well, while allowing a contact-poison situation (which IME are very rare in any case) to play out as intended.

The simple presence or absence of gloves can make a big difference in many situations other than those involving contact poison, the most obvious being unexpectedly having to deal with very hot or very cold surfaces or items.

 

[payn]

It's still just the immediate touch though, right? There's no time for the character to do anything else but lay hand to no-no juice.

Interacting is interacting to me. I dont differentiate a pit trip, poison dart, contact poison, etc.. If you trigger it it happens. Yes, you always get a chance to spot before hand and you get the save afterwards.

The glove discussion really doesn't matter to me at this point. Even if you touched it with your glove and didnt get contact, you have to act out the whole thing reasonably and how does a character do that now? They will start taking precautions they have no real reason to. I dont want to putz with it. I dont find that interesting and I want to move on now that this encounter has happened.

 

[Alzrius]

How much are they expected to 'bring up' at this point though. Especially if it's a new player who might not be expecting contact poison to be a thing. I go pretty hard on my character descriptions, but I usually don't explain every detail. Like I've never described my socks and the only time I've described a scarf is because I had Iron Scarf as a spell.

I'm not sure it can be quantified in terms of "how much," but there's certainly a greater-than-zero amount. Even if the book had a clear and unambiguous list, we'd just as easily be raising this point with regard to "new players who can't/shouldn't be expected to memorize everything." By that token, if a player scribbled "gloves" on their character sheet despite them not being in the PHB, I think most of us would accept that their character is wearing them.

I feel this runs into the issue with what @TheSword was talking about. What if you run into someone with no visual creative talent or eye for detail who doesn't describe thier shoe laces, but then wants to use their shoe laces as a garrote?

Then, as outlined previously, you run into an issue where I think the DM needs to be the one to adjudicate something, even if it's an infringement on the player's interpretation of their PC. I'm relatively confident that there was medieval footwear that didn't use laces, for instance; with nothing else to go on, who decides whether or not that's what the PC's footwear has?

The other is the AEG. I cannot and will not talk it up enough. It si more essential than the MM and the DMG only beats it by having such player material as magic items and PRCs in.

As an aside, have you ever taken a look at Goods and Gear: The Ultimate Adventurer's Guide (affiliate link) for 3.5? It's actually dual-statted (for HackMaster 4E also), but is by far one of the best equipment books I've ever seen for 3.5, and I can't recommend it enough.

For me, it's like having an ingestion poison in a jar on a shelf and asking for a saving throw not to knock it back like a jello shot. IF the save dictate the trigger for the save, that's pretty suspect.

I mean, presumably there'd be some prior check to, for instance, notice that the chest was trapped before the issue of touching the poison came into play. I seem to recall 3E had that also, requiring a skill check to detect a trap first before any issue of exposure/disarming it was raised.

 

[Celebrim]

I dunno, man, you cited Gygax, so that might not be the sick burn you're intending.

Gygax has some good advice. But it took me running a game similar in many respects to the one he was running at the time he wrote the advice to really appreciate all his advice. If he's guilty of anything, it's assuming that his situation was typical when in fact by the time the 1e DMG came out it was already rare and as such, not everything he was saying was applicable to most tables out there.

By all accounts, he was a very good DM.

And in any event, I tend to err on the side of respecting one's elders.

 

[tetrasodium]

The only overreaching I see is a DM who wants to establish that the character does something so that the poison can take affect on them.

The player had their character character try to open/unlock/whatever the chest and failed a roll then tried to retcon in gloves.

 

[iserith]

The player had their character character try to open/unlock/whatever the chest and failed a roll then tried to retcon in gloves.

The player is saying their character has gloves. That's a statement of a fact the player believes to be true (or possibly lying). They aren't actually changing anything about the world, from their perspective. It's within the role of a player to say what equipment they have, if they have it.

 

[tetrasodium]

The player is saying their character has gloves. That's a statement of a fact the player believes to be true (or possibly lying). They aren't actually changing anything about the world, from their perspective. It's within the role of a player to say what equipment they have, if they have it.

Had the player mentioned the gloves before the roll not knowing if they would help protect or hinder in feeling something I'd agree, but they brought up the gloves after they failed and learned what they failed to detect. it's a retcon with nothing to support it other than a demand of telepathic omniescent GM.

 

[iserith]

Had the player mentioned the gloves before the roll not knowing if they would help protect or hinder in feeling something I'd agree, but they brought up the gloves after they failed and learned what they failed to detect. it's a retcon with nothing to support it other than a demand of telepathic omniescent GM.

It looks like you fundamentally distrust the player here then. I would see "I have gloves on" as no different than "I cast shield" when the orc hits you. The attack would have hit, but now it doesn't. Is shield a retcon? Whether or not the character actually has gloves on would need to be worked out, since it's not explicit in the rules, but otherwise, the player isn't stepping out of their role.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm not sure it can be quantified in terms of "how much," but there's certainly a greater-than-zero amount. Even if the book had a clear and unambiguous list, we'd just as easily be raising this point with regard to "new players who can't/shouldn't be expected to memorize everything." By that token, if a player scribbled "gloves" on their character sheet despite them not being in the PHB, I think most of us would accept that their character is wearing them.

Then, as outlined previously, you run into an issue where I think the DM needs to be the one to adjudicate something, even if it's an infringement on the player's interpretation of their PC. I'm relatively confident that there was medieval footwear that didn't use laces, for instance; with nothing else to go on, who decides whether or not that's what the PC's footwear has?

I don't find it valuable for the DM to be making this kind of determination just to get some damage in on the PC or keep the player from doing something. Infinite Dragons and all that.

As an aside, have you ever taken a look at Goods and Gear: The Ultimate Adventurer's Guide (affiliate link) for 3.5? It's actually dual-statted (for HackMaster 4E also), but is by far one of the best equipment books I've ever seen for 3.5, and I can't recommend it enough.

I'll have to give it a look. I feel like I've seen it before in HBP.

I mean, presumably there'd be some prior check to, for instance, notice that the chest was trapped before the issue of touching the poison came into play. I seem to recall 3E had that also, requiring a skill check to detect a trap first before any issue of exposure/disarming it was raised.

What we have is that the DM telegraphed it, which could honestly mean everything from having the room full of ungloved skeletons to describing the chest as covered in a delicious-looking honey glaze.

3e is a big sinner here as half the time you had to have the right class to notice the trap at all, or you might be a class that isn't allowed to have such luxuries of skill points or a spot check. The barbarian is better off just licking ever surface they come into contact with while raging.