Armour Dilemma: Am I Wrong Here?

[fusangite]

How about the whole "getting the Duke's help" issue? That was accomplished inside 108 seconds? You haven't answered anyone who brought up the point that the time it'd realistically take anyone to coordinate, talk, convince, direct, etc. in a situation like this would have been more than enough for the PCs to put on their armor.

Time to fly to the ducal palace while hasted: 2 rounds (it was 120 yards away)
Time to get past the guards to to see the duke: 2 rounds (the character had already been given the duke's blessing to come to see him whenever he wished)
Time to get to the duke's chamber: 1 round
Time to say "The vampires are attacking the now and killing the city guard. Can you help us?": 1 round (I just timed myself saying these words -- it took 4 seconds)
Time for the duke to cast Haste and Fly: 1 round
Time to fly back to the combat from inside the palace: 3 rounds

Given that the city had just held a public meeting called by the duke, a mere 5 hours before about the vampire threat and stationed an extra 80 troops on the earthwork walls around the tower because of what they perceived to be an impending disaster, it was not difficult to explain to the duke either that this event was happening nor the urgency of responding to said event.

While it would have taken 8 rounds to fly to the characters' house and back, the ducal palace, a mere 120 yards away took a total of 12-14 (you'll note that my timeline is only 10 rounds long as I no longer specifically remember what took how long) rounds to reach and summon help from (I'm not sure how the other two rounds were spent -- I think they probably involved further discussion between the sorceror and the duke).

In the whole chaos that was going on vampires are casting spells and herding people. How long does it take to herd 100 guards? I'd say another 10 minutes to herd. Is that an unreasonable time? That is where our opinions differ and it is just a matter of opinion. But what you are doing is assuming that you can get 100 people into a tower that has only 1-2 entrances at a rate of 25-30 a round. That is highly improbable even with dominated thralls.

Well, only 70 people were herded into the building. Also, remember that most of the mind-controlled people were not Dominated but rather, the victim of Mass Suggestion. Based on the width of the building's two doorways (20' each), I calculated that 12 people can pass into the building per second. You assert that this would take 10 minutes; I recommend that you look at fire drill times for elementary school students (less than two minutes in many cases) -- then compare the discipline of a group of trained, professional soldiers, highly accustomed to marching in formation, all of whom are 60' or less from the door through which they are required to march.

 

[Tiefling]

No, you can't, actualy.

Yes, I can.

 

[mmu1]

Time to fly to the ducal palace while hasted: 2 rounds (it was 120 yards away)
Time to get past the guards to to see the duke: 2 rounds (the character had already been given the duke's blessing to come to see him whenever he wished)
Time to get to the duke's chamber: 1 round
Time to say "The vampires are attacking the now and killing the city guard. Can you help us?": 1 round (I just timed myself saying these words -- it took 4 seconds)
Time for the duke to cast Haste and Fly: 1 round
Time to fly back to the combat from inside the palace: 3 rounds

I'm sorry... For a while, you had me wondering whether I wasn't too quick to say you weren't being reasonable in all this, since a lot of the information had to be inferred, but this is absurd...

This took what, a minute? I think that, in an emergency, it might very well take longer to get in touch with someone on a cell-phone...

Excuse me for now being convinced you went out of your way to screw your players...

 

[Darth Shoju]

armour

Originally posted by mmu1 "Excuse me for now being convinced you went out of your way to screw your players..."

I agree that it seems rather unrealistic to be able to accomplish that much in such a timeframe IRL, but he seems to have worked it out properly within the rules for actions in combat. The locations seem pretty close together and the Duke's palace doesn't seem overly large. If there is a problem here I'd say it is with the rules and not the DM.

From his earlier post, it sounds as if everyone in the town was anticipating a vampire attack, and possibly even one in the night. Why were the party tanks completely unarmoured at the time then? It seems to me that they assumed they would be able to just jump into their armour when the time came and go straight into the combat (even though Fusangite has stated he has always enforced the armour donning rule). It sounds to me like the players in question got cocky and got burned because of it. And of those players, Fusangite has said 2 out of 3 accept their responsability and one even agrees with his ruling. It is just the one player that couldn't handle it (which isn't surprising based upon his history of behaviour as recounted by Teflon Billy). IMO, the DM tried to give his players a challenging fight, some players took themselves out of the combat and one had a problem with that.

 

[D'karr]

...

Well, only 70 people were herded into the building. Also, remember that most of the mind-controlled people were not Dominated but rather, the victim of Mass Suggestion. Based on the width of the building's two doorways (20' each), I calculated that 12 people can pass into the building per second. You assert that this would take 10 minutes; I recommend that you look at fire drill times for elementary school students (less than two minutes in many cases) -- then compare the discipline of a group of trained, professional soldiers, highly accustomed to marching in formation, all of whom are 60' or less from the door through which they are required to march.

Heh, Heh. Well I'm sure these guards were glad they were all lined up nice and tidy in a queue with their E-Ticket for the space mountain ride. Disneyworld would make an even bigger killing if they could get "willing" people into rides as fast as you get guards INTO a tower.

Sure going OUT of a building might be faster since you are not heading into a cramped space. A tower might be a different thing all together. Have you ever seen a line of people coming out of a theatre (presumably a cramped space)? Tell me how long does that take?

I originally thought you were being somewhat reasonable in your DMing assumptions. Now I see I was wrong. I won't even go into details about the Duke.

Sorry, now I definitely disagree with your assumption.

 

[Tsyr]

Yes, I can.

Sure, you can say it, as in you can open your mouth and force those words out.

I can also tell a person to enjoy me wacking them with a stick, doesn't mean that anything more is happening than me forcing hot air through my vocal cords.

 

[Tiefling]

Sure, you can say it, as in you can open your mouth and force those words out.

I can also tell a person to enjoy me wacking them with a stick, doesn't mean that anything more is happening than me forcing hot air through my vocal cords.

I can tell a person that I've set him up with a challenge, and have put him at a disadvantage, and (if he is a reasonable person) I can convince him that this is not to spite him or make him lose, but rather to make his eventual victory, should he decides to put his brains to the challenge and overcome it, all the sweeter.

Of course, I'm quite eloquent.

 

[S'mon]

What 30% of us think (And I'm marginaly one of those 30, though I can see the other side as well... hell, maybe not all of that 30% thinks this, but I do), is that it's a blood game... If the players aren't having fun, the game is being played wrong.

Tysr- Maybe the players are playing it wrong, though?

I disagree with your premise, though, anyway - some people just won't have fun playing D&D, no matter how it's GM'd. Also I think it's a lot easier for individual players to make the effort to enjoy different styles of GMing than it is for the GM to adapt his game to suit all players' preferences. That said, I don't think I'd enjoy being in a game with you Tsyr, whether you were playing or GMing - our attitudes and expectations are just too different.

 

[Tsyr]

I can tell a person that I've set him up with a challenge, and have put him at a disadvantage, and (if he is a reasonable person) I can convince him that this is not to spite him or make him lose, but rather to make his eventual victory, should he decides to put his brains to the challenge and overcome it, all the sweeter.

Of course, I'm quite eloquent.

None of that will make him enjoy it, though.

 

[fusangite]

Heh, Heh. Well I'm sure these guards were glad they were all lined up nice and tidy in a queue with their E-Ticket for the space mountain ride. Disneyworld would make an even bigger killing if they could get "willing" people into rides as fast as you get guards INTO a tower.

Sure going OUT of a building might be faster since you are not heading into a cramped space. A tower might be a different thing all together. Have you ever seen a line of people coming out of a theatre (presumably a cramped space)? Tell me how long does that take?

Well, theatre aisles are on average 6' wide. Triple their width and then calculate how many people can travel down the aisle in 60 seconds. I would suggest that this number is greater than 70.

However, I'm not going to continue this debate any longer. I have expressed what happened precisely in terms of the rules. If you wish to argue that "real world" physics rule this impossible, so be it. It's not like D&D physics bear much resemblance to them anyway.

Nonetheless, even IRL, I believe one could walk 70 people through a 20' wide doorway in 12 seconds in the real world; but my vampires spent 30-60 seconds marching them through (in formation, giving them orders as their officers (remember the mass suggestion spells)).

I recommend you stand outside one of those 4' wide movie theatre exits in your city and time how many people can file out through one of them in 60 seconds. Or better still, time how long it takes people queued up outside the theatre the 4' wide doorway through which they will be admitted.

As for the inside of the building, the tower had an extremely large base (160' diameter) and a huge entry hall on the first level.