Armour Dilemma: Am I Wrong Here?

[Tom Cashel]

Why did you set up a climactic encounter in which half the group could potentially be nerfed? Did you forget that with D&D, it's all about the gear?

Hong, you're the Meta Master!

In my campaign, the monsters will give PCs a break to put on their armor. "Could you hurry it up?" they call out, "We're trying to start an inavsion here!" They also stop fighting if a weapon is dropped, or if a PC falls down. They stop fighting to stabilize PCs who fall below O hp. Oh yeah, and they spend their "lives" in suspended animation, waiting for PCs to walk into the room and kill them.

Hong...we know you're a comedian. Would it hurt you to be a little funnier? Thanks.

Fusangite: you player sounds like he was just having a bad day. Everyone has them, right? As always, you should talk it over with him. If nothing comes of reasoned discussion, you can just inform him that he's rude and his PC is a total wuss who uses armor as a security blanket. You tell him Tom said so, y'hear?

 

[hong]

In my campaign, the monsters will give PCs a break to put on their armor.

blah blah blah

Thank you for missing the point.

Hong...we know you're a comedian. Would it hurt you to be a little funnier? Thanks.

D00d, I'm not the one who had the hissy fit and proclaimed he was going back to Mage. That was pretty funny, though!

 

[D'karr]

I don't think you did anything wrong as a DM. Sometimes tough moral decisions have to be made. And sometimes time critical encounters are going to require actions outside of the normal flow of time.

However, let's look at this for a second from the perspective of a player. You mentioned that your group is 10-12th level. Which usually means that a great deal of their protective gear is their armor or should I say Magical Armor. In addition, you mentioned that they've been fighting this group of Vampires for a while. Vampires drain levels - bad stuff. They can drain levels when they hit you. If they're ability to hit you is increased, because you have no armor, then the situation is worse. So the choice you gave your players was simple. Go save hundreds of lives and become a vampire in the process or worse yet - lose a crapload of levels. I think that many players would weigh their odds and decide to don the armor. After all where is the heroism in dying vainly, which is the most possible outcome of this situation.

Another thing, while the characters went to investigate the explosion, what were the others doing? Sitting around sipping tea? No, they were probably donning their armor to go investigate too. So if it took the other characters 5-10 minutes to go investigate the explosion the others would have been fully dressed and prepared when they came back with news. Unless the others instantly teleported to an unknown explosion site not knowing where the hell they were going. Then in a matter of seconds figured out what was happening and then teleported back to the rest of the group. So time keeping in this events seems whacky.

How would I have handled it differently? One of two ways. Keep accurate track of how long it is going to take to investigate the explosion and return to give news. It shouldn't be something instantaneous. Then substract that time from how long it would take to don armor. The end result is that either everyone is ready to go when the news arrive or they have a few rounds left of time to finish donning armor. The other way is to just say that it will take an additional 10 rounds before the others arrive.

Simple solution and everyone is still involved.

Are you a lousy DM as the player said? I don't think so but the situation could have been handled in a more interesting and ultimately fun for everyone way.

 

[Aaron L]

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.

 

[Mark]

I would not extend an invitation to that player the next time. If he came back anyway, I'd take him aside and let him know that I was not playing a game with the intention of cheating anyone from playing nor was I to be abused. If he proceeded to bring up the whole event from that night again, I'd tell him to set that aside for a moment and deal with the abuse issue. I'd repeat that under no circumstances would that attittude be tolerated at any time if he expected to ever play again. Once he finally got it through his skull that he was out of line, and once he understood that he was not allowed to be abusive again, then, and only then, would I revisit the situation regaridng the armor again. Separate the problems and prioritize them. Out of game problem first, then in game problem. Dealing with both at the same time will be unlikely to accomplish anything, IMO.

 

[hong]

...

Simple solution and everyone is still involved.

Are you a lousy DM as the player said? I don't think so but the situation could have been handled in a more interesting and ultimately fun for everyone way.

Exactly. Maybe the player was a dickhead, or maybe not. The point is that with some foresight, the whole messy situation could have been avoided.

Further, a group at 12th level doesn't usually get there overnight. Unless this was a one-off or something, chances are the campaign has been going for at least a few months, so the DM should have had plenty of time to get to know the players, what their styles are, what they like in a game, etc. Thus, it shouldn't have come as a total surprise if a particular player is paranoid about being caught without their gear.

 

[Sir Whiskers]

This reminds me of the problem in Champions, where players would take focus limitations, then complain when the GM took away the focus - they wanted the benefit without any drawbacks.

Virtually all the classes have weaknesses which will come up from time to time. Even with Spell Mastery, wizards need their spellbooks to be at full effectiveness. Ditto for their material components. Fighter types need their weapons and armor. Rogues and monks need to be able to manuever. By setting up an encounter which logically places some of the characters at a disadvantage, you make the encounter more difficult and challenging, but you didn't force any character not to participate.

The player would have a legitimate complaint, IMHO, if this tactic is overused. By the same token, if a player expects that this will never occur, or only occur in minor encounters, that is also not reasonable.

Sounds to me like some of your players missed out on an exciting encounter.

 

[Henry]

I like one thing Tom Cashel said: Talk it over with him. Calm discussion should trump harsh words, if this person is a friend.

Roleplaying games to me are in part about being challenged. In this instance, the challenge was whether or not someone could go be a hero without the optimum advantage. If players are not used to their characters encountering the occasional adverse situation, then they might not rise to the occasion and take up arms when disadvantaged.

Unless the player tells a totally different story, the description of the event does not sound unreasonable. The most unreasonable part was assuming that hundreds of vampires could be formed in 4 minutes. Maybe a few dozen, but not necessarily hundreds, because logistically, it takes time to find the victims, kill them, raise as vampire spawn, get acclimated to their new existances, etc. Your description sounds like the Vampires had an insta-pyramid scheme going - "turn two, and the rest are food," etc.

However, did the players in question come up with alternative solutions to the problem? Sleeping in lesser armor? Having the sorcerer cast a protective spell, such as mage armor, stoneskin, blur, etc.? Having the party cleric juice up the ones in their altogethers? There are other ways than going out on the firing line with nothing but your Touch AC on.

And as interesting as the quote is, D&D ain't all about the gear. the gear's a big part, but true character is defined by whether or not you take the plunge without all your best powers active, and the odds are stacked against you.

But that's just me.

 

[D'karr]

Now, I have no quarrel with my players' choices. The fact that 3 turned down participating in a combat I spent 10 hours setting up is not my problem. My problem is the abusive verbal outburst from one of them who told me that I had ruined his evening and wasted his valuable time by enforcing the armour donning rules and that by not allowing him to don his Full Plate instantaneously, I had decided not to let him play.

BTW, just so there is no misunderstanding. I'm not saying the player is right in being verbally abusive about the situation. A player like that would not get invited to my game again.

However, I don't know how large your group of players is but 3 players decided not to participate in the combat. This should be a pretty clear indication that the perception of these players was that the odds of winning this combat without armor were not too good. I don't care how heroic a character is, rushing into combat with the odds you have described is not heroic, it is foolhardy.

So from the players perspective, not wearing armor for this encounter was not at least a 50/50 chance of winning.

I'm mostly a DM, when I play I try to make heroic characters. Even I wouldn't risk a character that I had nurtured from 1-12th level on those odds. Why? Because if my character dies in that combat it would have been because of stupidity, not heroism.

I have found in over 20 years of DMing that if you don't give players a choice that appears at least winnable, it is the same as giving them no choice at all. Because they will chose not to act which is the same as no choice.

Military commanders never willingly engage in combat that is not winnable or appears by all odds to be winnable. Why do you think ambushes suck?

This choice you provided was not really a choice.

 

[Mystic_23]

Well...as far as I'm concerned, the party is the one that made the mistake. Okay, so, they've been battling against vampires for a while...I'm sure they realize that vampires are restricted to come out at night. Should the party have been surprised that they attacked at night? I don't think so.

"Well...I'm sure the vampires are going to attack at dawn. Better get a good nights sleep!" Zzzzzz...

Add me to the list of people who think you ran this correctly. Sometimes players do things that are stupid, and there isn't anything you can do about it. (Believe me, I'm know for a fact that my DM has wondered about the intelligence level of the party a few times.) I'm all for bending the rules to get an expected result, but there are limits to this.

You go, man! Don't feel that you did something wrong. You did the right thing. Hopefully it was just frustration on the part of that player, and things will blow over.