Armour Dilemma: Am I Wrong Here?

[Celtavian]

re

Anyone who wears heavy armor should have a backup breastplate, or at least a chain shirt, that they sleep in. IMC they call it paladin pyjamas.

I don't know the history of your campaign. Most of our heavy armor wearing people carry back up armor for sleeping in.

Is this the first time you have ever put them in a situation where they wouldn't have their armor? If it was, maybe that is why they are miffed and surprised.

A good way to prepare your players for a situation like the one stated is to have prior smaller events that train them to be prepared for the possibility of such a situation. For example, you might want to throw a few random encounters with reasonably dangerous monsters to make them aware of the fact that donning armor is time consuming and not always possible in dangerous situations. Then they might wear lighter armor while sleeping and have the mage or cleric prepare more defensive spells.

Basically, give them a little prior warning with smaller, less deadly encounters that allow them to think about what they might do to survive in a situation where they have to use alternate equipment.

No criticism towards you, just offering advice.

I can sympathize with both sides having DMed along time. I have made many errors where I overpowered a counter and assumed it was the players fault. Then I finally discovered that the players can't read my mind, so I need to give them "clues" as to what I am thinking. Preparatory encounters are a great way to provide your players with a "clue" of how to handle an encounter you have made that you are not sure they are prepared for.

Glad it was cleared up.

 

[Valiantheart]

Hey, i merely respond in kind. I was participating in the discussion with what I thought were fair criticisms. If somebody creates a thread asking for responses, I thought they would be mature enough to read them without sniping because somebody disagreed with them.

 

[jasper]

GEE to sum up and change the view.
The marines attack at oh dark thirty in the a m. The officers and cooks responded meanwhile the sixty team had to run to the armory to check out the sixty. Forgetting they were carrying M-16 and grenades. Why because they wanted to rock and roll.

You did nothing wrong. Occasional some heroes will be the oddman out.
Or do some people believe every PC must have a scene in every combat every day.

Nice discussion.

 

[Tsyr]

GEE to sum up and change the view.
The marines attack at oh dark thirty in the a m. The officers and cooks responded meanwhile the sixty team had to run to the armory to check out the sixty. Forgetting they were carrying M-16 and grenades. Why because they wanted to rock and roll.

Don't take this the wrong way, but:

A) Last time I checked, the average adventuring party wasn't equivilant to the Armed Forces

and

B) I really can't follow that paragraph.

 

[Ampolitor]

Cheese with the Whine

hmm well in reality the PC would have realized that it was a dire situation and they would maybe at best just grabbed a chestplate, strapping it on as they ran. You should of had them attacked in their room as they donned their armor to help push em out the door.

 

[Scion of Vyshaan]

Tsyr,

In regards to what you said earlier, i must agree completely: the purpose of the game is to have fun, not for the GM to be "right." I would like to restate one caveat: there is no reason to yell at a GM for an in-game ruling.

 

[mmu1]

GEE to sum up and change the view.
The marines attack at oh dark thirty in the a m. The officers and cooks responded meanwhile the sixty team had to run to the armory to check out the sixty. Forgetting they were carrying M-16 and grenades. Why because they wanted to rock and roll.

You did nothing wrong. Occasional some heroes will be the oddman out.
Or do some people believe every PC must have a scene in every combat every day.

Nice discussion.

A better analogy (given the importance of armor in D&D) would be tank crews running for their vehicles instead of grabbing an M-16 and charging the treeline...

 

[D'karr]

GEE to sum up and change the view.
The marines attack at oh dark thirty in the a m. The officers and cooks responded meanwhile the sixty team had to run to the armory to check out the sixty. Forgetting they were carrying M-16 and grenades. Why because they wanted to rock and roll.

The only difference between the situation described and this analogy is that the group that decided to put on the armor was never told what was happening. They weren't directly under attack. They heard and explosion and assumed that getting ready to do battle might be a good idea. So assuming that you can get prepared might not be an unusual thought.

In addition, apparently the other PCs decided that getting the Duke was a better idea. Of course the Duke and his troops must have been able to be roused from sleep, prepared for combat and moved into position to attack the vampires before the others were able to get their armor on. It seems to me that everyone that responded to the threat had multiple stackable haste effects going on. The guys donning armor were suffering from the effects of multiple stackable slow effects.

You did nothing wrong. Occasional some heroes will be the oddman out.
Or do some people believe every PC must have a scene in every combat every day.

I agree the DM did nothing apparently wrong. However, a large portion of his players didn't participate at all (3 out of 7, IIRC). That seems strange to me from a DM's perspective. It tells me that either they didn't understand the situation. In this case they were happily donning gear while the guards were slaughtered. But the other PCs (the ones that had the information) did nothing to let them know how important it was to get to the combat.

Or the other case would be that they were using the metagame knowledge of what was happening and decided that the risk was not worth taking. This is the same metagame knowledge that the player that went and got the Duke used to figure out that his comrades were not going to join the battle (they were putting on armor) so it was better to get the Duke... Now, that whole metagame logic seems very flawed to me.

Did the DM do something wrong. I haven't said that.

I think he handled the encounter like he had planned it. However, I think that the timing of the encounter was off. And it was off in a clear disadvantage to the ones that were donning armor.

The DM even mentioned (I quote below) that he was tired of people having armor on at inappropriate times.

What I meant by laxness is my willingness to accept people's lame excuses about why, at a particular moment, they already have their armour on and therefore don't need to don it. For this reason, I picked a time in the dead of night when there was no possible reason anyone could reasonably have their armour on unless they were sacrificing their capacity to regain spells by not sleeping.

So this encounter was clearly a way to put those characters at a disadvantage. There is nothing wrong with that. I put characters at disadvantages all the time. That is part of making a believable and fun game.

However lets look at the whole timing of this encounter and see if it just seems slightly skewed.

There is an explosion. They PCs hear it. The ones that don't wear armor head out to investigate. The one that wear armor decide to don it. (START THE CLOCK)

The investigators head over to the tower (supposedly 4 rounds)
They see what is happening and make an assessment of the situation (This apparently happens instantaneously.)

Then the funny timing really begins

How can someone:
1. Get to the scene of the battle.
2. Take some time to assess what is happening.
3. Make a metagame decision to go get the Duke because the rest of the party will not join them.
4. Get to the Duke and rouse him from his sleep in the middle of the night.
5. Explain to him the situation at hand.
6. Get the Duke to decide that he will help.
7. Get the Duke and whatever troops the Duke decides to send outfitted and ready.
8. And then get back to the scene of the battle.

All that sequence had to happen in less than four minutes

Mind you the person that went and got the Duke didn't have to stay and wait for the Duke and his cronies. But the Duke and his cronies were obviously there in less time than four minutes. So how does that make sense?

Nice discussion.

I agree.

Fusangite, I still say that you did nothing fundamentally wrong by pitting the party against uneven odds. But I do believe that your distaste for them always having armor on skewed this encounter so that the players were not able to be involved. That part I don't agree on.

I already recommended two courses of action that would have still accomplished what you wanted and still would have kept the players involved.

1. Let them get there later but still be part of the combat
2. Assume that the whole time that was taken to warn the Duke, etc. was longer than the time it takes to put on armor.

In either case I'm sure that involved players are much more pleased with a game than players that are basically forced to sit in a corner while the combat rages around them because they decided to don armor.

That the player was verbally abusive is not excusable. I've said that before and I will continue to say it. Gauging from the attitude that he displays in most situations that you and Teflon Billy have described I think this players should be talked to separately and advised that his behavior is not welcome. If he chooses to continue with that behavior ask him nicely not to come back.

 

[Valiantheart]

A) Last time I checked, the average adventuring party wasn't equivilant to the Armed Forces

and

B) I really can't follow that paragraph.

a). I dont know, but I have always thought of my d&d groups as special forces teams.

b) Me either but it had a kinda military theme so I just kinda went with it.

A better analogy (given the importance of armor in D&D) would be tank crews running for their vehicles instead of grabbing an M-16 and charging the treeline...

You sir have hit the nail on the head. That is exactly the situation the melee PCs are in this scenario and in 3E. 3E has no inherent class based dodge level so armor is life.

 

[Tiefling]

This isn't a job, this isn't a duty. You're game might be great... But if the people you are DMing for aren't having fun, you are not playing the game the way it was meant to be played... It wasn't meant to be played as a tool to express your views on the player/DM relationship or anything else... It's a game, to have fun with. If the players aren't having fun, you either should change your DMing (If you can, and still have fun), or DM for different people...

Alternatively, you can attempt to explain to the player that occasionally being at a disadvantage can heighten the drama, increase the challenge, and make for a fun evening. If the player can be made to get past the feeling that it's somehow personal, I'm sure he could have fun in such a situation.