Armour Dilemma: Am I Wrong Here?

[jdavis]

It would be silly for him not to learn anything from this episode. Something went wrong with his encounter (we can agree on that, no?), and whether it was the players or DMs or anyones fault, why not make something good out of it?

If we all just though that changing something "was just silly" solely because the idea came from outside your group, ENWorld would be pretty useless.

Yes but all the slights and double talk not to mention several downright rude exchanges from people here take away from this being a helpful discussion and move it into a fight over who is percieved as right (that's the silly part). To say "I would of done this" is fine but to say he is wrong or ignoring obvious facts to pick on something as meaningless as the rounds taken for the side encounter to get the Duke (which would not of happened if the characters were all there in the first place) is the silly part. It's missing the forest because of all the trees.

As far as his encounter goes, things go wrong all the time, and things get learned all the time, it's just that this is so obviously a problem that has very little to do with rules or set up or what actually happened ingame. This is a problem with people making a decision to skip a fight and put on armor then getting mad because of their own choice took them out of the fight. When he said it would take 40 rounds to put on the armor then it should of been obvious that they would miss the fight, they choose to continue on with the armor, everything else is irrelevent here. They could of went as is and got in on the encounter or stayed where they were and missed it all. It was obviously a set up so they would have to either go without the armor or let people die, it was obviously a choice they had to make, the only way it could of been more clear was if he just came out and told them to ditch the armor or set it out. Whether his encounter was fair or not is irrelevent, his time measurements are irrelevent, it was obvious by the set up and the discriptions there were two choices to make, sit it out or go witout Plate Mail. That is the whole point here they made a choice, one thought it was funny, one said he made the wrong choice that same night and one had a fit and stormed out (which seemed to not be all that uncommon for him). You can nitpick it or twist it around but that is the fact, they were not forced to miss the fight, the fight was obviously set up for them to be able to do it without the armor, it was obviously planned that way, when you start counting rounds and you tell them it will be 40 rounds before they can leave for the fight then it should be obvious that this was designed to be ran without the plate mail armor. They are Clerics and a Paladin, they had other means, they had powerful means that would of turned the tide of the fight without them having to go into hand to hand. Sometimes there is going to be a risk in D&D but for the Clerics the big risk here (negative levels) did not exist as they had spells to protect them from that. They had all they needed to win without the armor, they knew that they would miss the fight with the armor, it's a cut and dried decision, they made a choice and that's that. Every other issue here is irrelevent, the rules were used properly (and I do agree a little to strictly on the time issue I would of allowed more time too, but he was not wrong in what he did), they should realize how he would use the rules they are his regular players.

What went wrong? well the Paladin decided to sit this one out intentionally, one guy gets irrational, and one guy admits he should of sucked it up and went without the plate. What's the lesson here, well it's that you can never assume the caracters will make the proper choice no matter how obvious it is. They set it out and realized they were to dependant on their Plate Mail. Fusangite probably learned that sometimes even 10 hours of prep work is not enough to cover everything off the wall that can happen in a game. You can never be prepared for everything and sometimes you just have to spell it out for the players, no matter how obvious it seems somebody is bound to miss the point.

 

[Scarbonac]

Sweet Paps of Ishtar, how this thread has grown!

No, I'm with Numion. The whole scenario happened unrealistically fast.

I think that ''realism'' only counts when the PCs are donning armor.

Well, Scarbonac, please try to take it down a notch.

Well, I've repeatedly stated (a) the palace is guarded; (b) the guards had standing orders to allow the characters to see the duke.

And so when Skippy the Boy Sorcerer came swooping down out of the nighttime sky, apparently directly into the ducal palace like there are no such things as doors, they all recognized him in time to not kill him? Gosh, that was lucky for him, I suppose.

In addition, (a) the duke was not in his bedroom; (b) the duke was not resting

Ah, so he was just frozen in place, like the inhabitants of a bad old dungeon or a videogame, awaiting the presence of a PC to activate him? Oh, right, he was ''in a meeting''.

(c) the guards were not ready to let the sorceror in

Even though they had ''standing orders'' from the Duke to do so? How very odd.

but his statements in the 12 seconds after his arrival (including his intimidate and diplomacy rolls with a +4 charisma bonus) were sufficient to cause them to follow him into the chamber where the duke was meeting with another person rather than engaging him in combat, in case he was telling the truth.

So, they were under ''standing orders'' from their liege lord to admit the party at all times, but they weren't going to let Skippy in until he made a couple of skill checks?


12 seconds, regardless of how carefully and lovingly you've counted each and every one of them, is hardly any time for role-playing out a scene, let alone for people to identify persons, process information and decide on a course of action outside of a direct combat scene, where those sorts of split-second decisions habitually have to be made.

I accidentally walked up to his house when I was wandering through the streets of a residential neighbourhood in Harare in 1992 and inadvertently walked up to his house; I was subsequently stopped by men with machine guns.

Sounds scary; I have had guns stuck in my face too, and a bit worse, so I can empathize. It just struck me as odd that you'd have chosen Mugabe to reference, as he's an admittedly minor infamous person...but I digress...

So, in other words, you don't actually know that what I've stated is impossible under the rules. You have decided that I must be breaking the rules because I'm doing things differently than you would.

No, actually;

1) I suspected that the rules weren't being applied evenly, based on your descriptions of the action,


2) I thought that my grasp of the rules was better than it apparently is (but that could go for most everyone in this thread; see quite a bit further below),



3) I wanted to see what you thought were reasonable distances to cover in the stated period of time by the means used plus any of the other specifics that would influence the situation (though probably not to the obviously hyperbolic extent that I posted), to compare them to what I found in the PHB and DMG.


4) at the same time, I wanted to lighten the mood a trifle (isn't that what the is for? Otherwise, I'm swearing off the retarded smiley use in future posts).

As you know I'm not going to do anything of the kind

But I don't know that; how could I possibly?

however, you cannot argue that it is clear I'm violating the rules at the same time as you argue that you lack sufficient information to determine which rules I'm violating.

Dash it all, Sir, you have seen through my brilliantly fiendish plot. Shall I await Scotland Yard, call for my Seconds, or merely do away with myself in a suitably-refined and gentlemanly fashion with my trusty old service revolver?


I have to admit that I have been depending largely on the ''smell test'' here, and I'm picking up strong indications of well-ripened Limberger and end-of-the-year gym-socks.


Everything strikes me as having happened waywayway too fast -- nigh-instantaneous recognition/threat-assessment, little or no discussion or RP, near-perfect precision on the part of the vampires in their enthralling/herding activities (except for a stray lightning bolt), and so forth...



Further, when people are startled bolt-awake in the middle of the night, they generally aren't going to get their bearings immediately and rush off into the night in their undies to confront Dire Eeee-vile unless they're being overrun...idiots in bad movies do this sort of thing, but we watch those movies to see those people turned into gory messes of screaming confetti by Jason & Freddie (at least I do); we generally don't play our games so that the BBEG can turn our PCs into gory messes of screaming confetti.



That the DM expects them to strikes me as plain odd; also, wouldn't it take a goodly amount of time for them to have grabbed chain shirts, magic cloaks, et cetera, from wherever and put them on, plus cast spells on themselves and saddle up the griffin...?

...all of which you seemed to think were viable alternatives to just letting them put on their armor and get to the battle in time?



Having Super-Duke fly in to save the day-err, night was one of the worst things that you could have done, IMNSHO; are the NPCs the focus of the game? Or is it the fun? Almost half the group being left out the battle (partly their own fault, I might be convinced to concede) sounds like the antithesis of ''fun'', but that might just be me.

Actually, Lightning Bolts make exploding noises and I'll note, vampires do not have a special vulnerability to electricity. Sorry to disappoint.

I could see Lightning Bolt making a ''horrible explosion'', but this is the first mention of Lightning Bolt in this thread; Mass Suggestion, Mind Fog, Wall of Fire (which is what I was referencing in my ''fire-wielding'' comment. You musta missed that in your stab at cleverness) and Wall of Stone, but no Lightning Bolt.


Amazing how the vampires had this all so carefully-planned, perfectly-timed and well-thought out, but then they somehow managed to blow it by tipping off their enemies with a stray lightning bolt. Oopsie.

In case you haven't picked this up from my synopsis of episodes 19-21, the duke is, himself, evil and, in fact, a patron of the darkness god. In fact, his brother is the god's high priest; however, unbeknownst to the duke, his brother has allied with the vampires in the hopes of succeeding him to the ducal throne. Thus, while the duke thought he was placing the only mainstream clerics friendly to his interests in charge of the defenses, he ended up placing people even more hostile to his power in that position than if he'd let the sky god clerics who volunteered do the job.

One of the major themes in my campaign is the internal squabbling between different evil factions. The previous season was a race between two different evil factions (1 led by the duke, the other by foreign invaders) to control the opening of a planar gate beneath the city. To give you a better sense of the duke's nature, his family name is Vichy.

Other than the isolated and easily-missed use of the descriptor ''evil'' in your first post (which was essentially buried under a mass of information in that and the subsequent flurry of messages), the first mention that the Duke might not be a good guy is when we hear from you that he was reneging on a deal that he'd made with the PCs. Even so, what he did do didn't sound particularly evil. Not ''nice'', definitely, but not really evil, either.

''Vichy'', eh? Not too bad.

BTW, the Paladin was OK with the Duke's assassination?

I have to ask, what is it that I've said to cause you to take such an increasingly hostile tone about me and everyone I associate with. People miss the obvious all the time -- especially when they're overwhelmed with details and new developments coming at them from all quarters.

I frequently come off (even to myself) as brusque & occasionally alternatingly flip and stiff in my manner of expression. *shrug* I don't have any particular personal beef with you and your posse, but I'd also say that it looks to me like you've been pretty short with several persons posting in this thread who has had the base temerity to disagree with you.

The cads. The bounders. How dare they not give you the apparent unconditional acceptance that you deserve. Da noive of some people.

Of course, it may once again be a case of the inherent flatness of Internet communications leading to misperceptions of the tone in a post on a message-board.

Wouldn't be the first time, won't be the last, either.

Haste can be used to increase a character's speed by providing him with an extra partial action per round.

Already been covered by D'karr, Chief. That musta slipped by you. Nice try, though.

Perhaps, after asserting your intellectual superiority over me and my friends, you might want to consider how such a piece of information escaped your notice.

I don't recall asserting that I'm particularly intellectually-superior to anyone; that would be immodest.


Since you apparently didn't correctly understand how elves still have to trance for four hours a day, which is functionally equivalent to sleep, and how sorcerers, like wizards, still need 8 hours of rest (so, trance plus four hours of rest, basically, for Super-Vichy) plus a brief period of concentraton in order to regain spell slots, I wouldn't talk much, ya dig?


Remember?

Originally posted by fusangite As far as I understand elves, they don't sleep. As far as I understand sorcerors, their big mechanical advantage is that they're almost always equally prepared.

That's a bit more basic than the effects of haste spells on fly spells. I'd be willing to call it even if you do, however.



I suppose that you could say that he'd gotten his rest earlier, but anything that you come up with after the fact to CYA would basically be you blowing sunshine and butterflies, and not originally part of your carefully-crafted binary scenario.

I don't think that I did that badly with the haste business, having had 4 hours of sleep out of 60 (at the time of my last posts). Had I managed to get a suitable amount of rest over the last several days, I might have sussed that one out in time to not look like such a colossal dumbass.


It could happen.

 

[Deadguy]

Thanks, Deadguy. I really appreciate you elevating this discussion and reintroducing some civility. I really appreciate your intervention.

Thank you fusangite, for taking the time to say this. I really appreciate it too. I was a little worried as I was writing my comments that they might've sounded a little confrontational, when I know perfectly well that it's meaningless to talk of right and wrong in matters of style. My pleasure to be able to contribute.

I wanted to pick out one point you made for comment:

Now, I'm not saying one style is better than the other. I've run games both ways; but I find D&D, GURPS, Runequest and other heavily-codified systems very ill-suited to flowing time story-based games. Thus, when I play D&D, it's all about the rules; I choose D&D not because it's the only system out there but because it is one of the few systems with a large enough volume of rules to create the special narrative dynamic I'm after right now. I'm, frankly, surprised that people who are into the story-based, flowing time games would choose D&D over another system friendlier to this kind of play.

I do understand what you mean here. In playing D&D3e I have found that some of the mecahnical aspects of the game could well do with porting into other games I play. I particularly miss, when I am playing a game like Mage or Earthdawn, the concepts of AoOs and cyclical initiative. It's not that a GM giving the matter careful consideration couldn't allow for such things in any game system. It's just that with them not being built into the rules, and with combat being a pretty hectic and intensive time for everyone, it's often hard to spot and seek specific rulings on such mechanical points.

So, to an extent, I have taken a similar path to your own in running D&D. I still have a more narrativist style in overall gaming, but my combats have become much more tactical. This doesn't suit all players (and there are a couple of friends I would never run D&D3e combats for, since they'd hate the tactical aspect), but for most of my friends it provides an interesting mix of style in a single game. I guess it's just a matter, as always, of where we draw the line..

One further thing it occurs to me to comment on. You are right that a narrativist approach certainly runs the risk of just running the DM's story, with the players simply as actors working to a script. I have been stung by that mistake before now, and I managed to destroy at least two games because I wanted the campaign to go in a direction which didn't interest the players. But it needn't be so automatically. These days I find I plan specifics much less and put more effort into background development. The upshot is that I have fewer things that I want the PCs to do ('want' in the sense of this takes the story in the direction I am thinking of). Instead I am much more responsive to player ideas - I incororpate their ideas of the adventure events into the storyline, since this seems to produce a tale with more subtlety, imagination and satisfaction for all parties.

Anyway I am glad that you and your group have things sorted out now. No group playing an earnest game ever gets away with some disagreements. What matters is that we can deal with them and move on.

 

[Numion]

In addition, (a) the duke was not in his bedroom; (b) the duke was not resting

So you've planned. But if you were the only one (as a DM) who knew where or what the Duke was doing, what do the plans matter? The Duke should be where he's most beneficial to the adventure. There's no real reason for his location to be set in adamantine. You could've just improvised and organized so that the Duke took a little more time in coming to his senses (maybe he was in the toilet, drinking, praying to his god or torturing someone. Use your imagination).

If you had wanted to give time for the group to make the effort as a whole, which probably wasn't the case.

Maybe the Dukes speedy arrival to the scene was by the rules, but I'm a little confused why you keep insisting that it was the only way it could've happened?

 

[jdavis]

By the way I read what happened the whole thing was going south before the Duke was even mentioned. Was it obvious to the 3 with armor that they were going to miss the whole fight? If it took 12 rounds to get the Duke then you could of doubled it and it wouldn't of changed the fact that the ones getting armor wouldn't make it. It's 4 minutes to put on Full Plate (even with help) that's 40 rounds, even if you doubled time to get the Duke that's only 24 rounds. They would still be 16 rounds from leaving the room, more/less joining the fight. It just seems to me the Duke part is irrelevent to this as it seems the whole thing had went south before he was even mentioned.

 

[Deadguy]

So you've planned. But if you were the only one (as a DM) who knew where or what the Duke was doing, what do the plans matter? The Duke should be where he's most beneficial to the adventure. There's no real reason for his location to be set in adamantine. You could've just improvised and organized so that the Duke took a little more time in coming to his senses (maybe he was in the toilet, drinking, praying to his god or torturing someone. Use your imagination).

If you had wanted to give time for the group to make the effort as a whole, which probably wasn't the case.

Maybe the Dukes speedy arrival to the scene was by the rules, but I'm a little confused why you keep insisting that it was the only way it could've happened?

It's that stylistic thing again, Numion, the difference between a gamist and a narrativist perspective. I think you and I share what one might call a Schroedinger's NPC approach. Until the moment that the PCs interact with an NPC in some fashion, you and I would say that his state is undetermined. From our perspective the actual location of the Duke, beyond just a general 'in the palace' note, isn't relveant unless it has some specific effect on the story which predicates his location and activity.

However, as fusangite has made clear, he is specifically taking a more gamist approach. In order to fairly apply the rules he has already decided what the Duke is up to, and where he might be found. It is thus inappropriate, a breach of DM-player contract indeed, to fudge that.

It's just a matter of approach, and you and I approach the game differently to fusangite. Where you (and I) see the advantage of flexibility, he sees the danger of railroading and being unfair to other players. It's not a point on which one can be right or wrong, merely different in approach.

Indeed I hope that this thread has helped those who have read and participated in it to re-examine their own approach to DMing. Trite though it sounds, it's a salutory reminder that we don't all play the same way. That's something we need to bear in mind when we play.

 

[Elvinis75]

caliban

“They were NOT FORCED. They CHOSE to sit out. You can't say they were forced if it was their choice. It's one or the other. “

Respectfully and IMHO your wrong. Like I said before given two choices and one of those choices is completely unacceptable then it there is only one action therefor they took an action. Ex. If a mugger in a dark alley clubs you and takes your wallet and has a gun pointed at you head gives you two choices leave the alley or get shot. Are their really two choices there? Not if that person was me.

“Then they should have prepared for a night attack. They knew they were dealing with vampires. “

Agreed.
What they should have done isn’t the point though. You have a situation where conditions are set(after they messed up). Now you have to deal with it from then on as fluid. So now that they have made a mistake should they be forced to sit out an entire session? If this happened more than once in a campaign I’d be looking for another group. I would like to ask how experienced are these people as roleplayers? Were the rest of the party any better prepared or just lucky because night and day isn’t that big of a change for them.

“Why is it the DM's responsibility? The PC's were perfectly capable of getting to the fight whenever they wanted to.
They failed to plan appropriately, they failed to take precautions, and they failed to act like heroes.
Thus, they got to sit out the fight. “

I wish that I had the DMG with me for some of the favor text but I’m sure that in more than a few places in that book it says that you’re the responsible person that runs the game and gives everyone the chance to play. Yes they were but as I said before there chances against vampires in the 20 fold would be nill.
I‘m still looking for this better decision. The one with the back up armor, what was the ac difference? +6? Did they all have backup armor?
Negative Energy Protection isn’t going to cut it.
Assume that 60% of the blows bounce off. How long would it take say 4-5 them to hit one person 4 times? How many attacks do they get? At what bonus? These are 12th level characters right? The enemy is going to have a great to hit bonus. Maybe a couple of attacks a round. I give him 3 rounds. What kind of weapons did the characters have? Maces of disruption? There are a lot of unknowns here but PCs usually make decisions based off percieved danger and their ability to handle it. They didn’t think that they could so they where punished with sitting out a whole session. Why did the other half go? Because they believed that their characters could handle it. I just think that the DM pushed the players too hard and they cracked and said this is the only choice. The DM after some point should have helped to speed up the other combat thus shortening the RT that the other charcters were sitting out or IG done something to pull them in.

 

[Mark]

Fighting without your armor is not an "unacceptable" choice. It ain't the ideal way to go to combat, but saying it is "unacceptable" is just not right. With that logic, no player would ever have their character do anything unless victory was guarenteed. The paladin was clearly in the wrong for refusing to go and help his comrades because he would have to do it unarmored. Further, the player was being ridiculous suggesting that the DM not devise situations where choices need to be made that have no ideal option.

 

[Caliban]

Re: caliban

“They were NOT FORCED. They CHOSE to sit out. You can't say they were forced if it was their choice. It's one or the other. “

Respectfully and IMHO your wrong. Like I said before given two choices and one of those choices is completely unacceptable then it there is only one action therefor they took an action. Ex. If a mugger in a dark alley clubs you and takes your wallet and has a gun pointed at you head gives you two choices leave the alley or get shot. Are their really two choices there? Not if that person was me.

No gun was being held to their heads. Going with less than optimal armor is not "completely unnaceptable" unless your a crybaby.

“Then they should have prepared for a night attack. They knew they were dealing with vampires. “

Agreed.

They chose not to prepare. They set themselves up for the situation.

They had a choice, even before the fight occured, and chose poorly.

What they should have done isn’t the point though.

I'm afraid it IS the point. The hard choice only came about after they flubbed the easy choices.

You have a situation where conditions are set(after they messed up). Now you have to deal with it from then on as fluid. So now that they have made a mistake should they be forced to sit out an entire session?

They weren't forced. They could have started acting like heroes at any time.

“Why is it the DM's responsibility? The PC's were perfectly capable of getting to the fight whenever they wanted to.
They failed to plan appropriately, they failed to take precautions, and they failed to act like heroes.
Thus, they got to sit out the fight. “

I wish that I had the DMG with me for some of the favor text but I’m sure that in more than a few places in that book it says that you’re the responsible person that runs the game and gives everyone the chance to play.

It's a two-way street. Having a fun game is just as much the responsibility of the players as it is the DM. Being the DM does not mean catering to the players whenever they make mistakes.

Yes they were but as I said before there chances against vampires in the 20 fold would be nill.

This is untrue. As pointed out by a few other posters, they had ample magical defenses they could have used in place of armor, if they had worked as a group.

I‘m still looking for this better decision. The one with the back up armor, what was the ac difference? +6? Did they all have backup armor?
Negative Energy Protection isn’t going to cut it.

Really? Why not? It can protect against the level drain, and damage the vampire who hit you.

Sounds like an excellent defense to me. Actually makes getting hit almost desirable.

The fact of the matter is that PC's will not always be fighting under optimal conditions. Those that insist on doing so, deserve to sit out a fight or two until they learn how to deal with it.

Sometimes wizards have to do without their spells, and sometimes fighters have to deal without their armor.

 

[Mark]

Re: Re: caliban

They could have started acting like heroes at any time.

That might be asking too much...