Cloaks, rings, robes, hats, bucklers, and codpieces.

[Ace]

In most of my D&D games clothes don't come into play very often. A simple cantrip will clean them and as long as they are not spattered with blood and offal no one will likely say anything

PC's usually go to places where no one cares what you wear. Anyway who is going to tell a heavily armed possibly socipathic killer they don't like his satorial selections?


My modern games are a bit different. I had a fashion bug sorcerer in a Buffy game who had a spell to summon scrubbing bubbles to help keep things clean

On one memorable occasion he used it to clean demon gore (from his sewer trip) off his Armani before going to fancy restaraunt

 

[Steverooo]

In your games does fashion play even a small part? Does anyone care about what their characters wear?

My PC and I do, but not so much for looks... I play a Ranger, and he sees his clothing as the first piece of his survival gear. His cloak is waterproof, and has a button-in liner for cold weather. His clothes are camouflaged, and each in a different pattern. His usual suit of Adventurer's Clothes are "Stoneflage", in shades of grey. His other suit is Woodland Camo, and his Cold Climate Clothing is Snow Camo. If he's going into the desert, he buys a new suit of Desert Camo Adventurer's Clothing. I can tell you where his armour and clothes are, what type of gauntlets, boots, belts, etc., he has among his gear, and that his "scarf" is a shemagh, where he keeps his over-mittens, glove liners, a change of socks & undies, the soap, etc. I also note the locations of all equipment, what's in which pocket, where his purse is hidden, and where any extra cash is stored, etc. If a thief picks his pocket, I can see what he might possibly have gotten.

Many find this level of detail ridiculous, but I like knowing that, when worse comes to worst, my PC can take off his camouflaged, waterproof raincloak, stake it down by the grommets along its edges, and use it as a tent, then make a DC:10 Survival check to find food & water, run the water through one of his bandannas to filter it, then boil it for 10+ minutes in his pot to purify it, and feed a pretty good-sized party. If the other PCs don't have similar equipment, he can rig a lean-to, etc., with another Survival check, granting all a +4 bonus to CON checks for surviving the weather... And all of that is assuming he has lost his tent!

I have yet to ever have a GM give me a bonus to Hide due to camouflage, but, oh well... I have had one allow me to get an Elven Cloak that acted as a bedroll, blanket, and/or winter blanket, as needed, was waterproof with the button-in wool liner, and weighed only one pound! He later got that enchanted as a non-standard Cloak of Elvenkind (which allows twice/day use of Endure Elements, use of the Camouflage ability, and at-will use of a special spell, similar to True-Strike, but having to do with the Hide skill, not BAB).

Also, my PC's armour has the quality (the name of which I forget) that allows it to appear as any type of clothing, at will. Usually, he makes it appear as a camouflage tunic, matching his outfit. At need, he can change its appearance, making it look like fancy clothes, a breastplate, or whatever else he needs.

So, yeah, my PC cares about what he's wearing. Maybe not for the usual reasons, but he does...

 

[Aeric]

Half of the players in my current group care about their character's appearance, and I'm one of them. The other half rarely puts any thought into it. Getting character descriptions out of them (I do character illustrations for a lot of games I play in) is like pulling teeth sometimes.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Lets see... I know the ranger wears bright white dragonhide pants. The sorcerer wears a dragonhide belt, cape, boots, and vest. The barbarian wears three beast skulls, two on his shoulders and one on his head. Beyond that I don't think we've gone into any detail on non-magical attire.

 

[Aaron L]

Clothing and appearance are just about the most important thing about my characters to me. I almost always start with what I want my character to lookl like and go from there. I didnt think it was that unusual.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I've found it useful to use the mastercrafting rules for alternate effects from the Black Company book.

In one game a PC spent some time and quite a chunk of cash to get a ring made for his wife that would grant a +2 to Diplomacy when he gave it to her as a gift and a +1 to her Diplomacy checks there-after. (It was an arranged marriage, so he was trying to make nice.)

That campaign involved alot of non-combat roleplaying ... after the arranged marriage (business-driven, having to do with a diamond mine and an airship) one of the other players decided his character wanted to buy a house in the city and begin looking for a wife as well, to be more respectable around town. That involved some clothing, I think. Then another character decided to begin woo-ing a dryad whose grove they saved.

Eventually all of the characters had significant others ... then I statted up the "girlfriends" and at one point we had a Girls' Night Out adventure when the boys all got shanghaied by Carniverous Hot Elf Pr0n (think those Sahaguin that look like sea elves) when they were vacationing in my homebrew's Vegas/Bahamas type area. They started off RPing teaching the Dryad how to shop. Then they had to go under the city and spring their menfolk before they got cooked and eaten.

I think the Wealth mechanics helped there. People seemed to be less interested in blowing everything to the last copper on a single magical item ... they certainly could have, at any time, but for some reason Wealth was "more real" and they spent MORE time and money on clothing, non-magical equipment, impressive gifts, and business pursuits.

I've said to people before ... contemplate what your average adventurer would be like if he were translated to Today's Reality Terms. A homeless guy with one set of clothes sleeping in the wild for weeks on end who spends every dime he gets on really huge, expensive machine guns ... which he totes everywhere.

I'd be terrified of that guy.

I'm hoping to start the Age of Worms campaign soon ... I really WANT to use the Wealth rules, but I've not done it with pure D&D before.

--fje

 

[Ace]

Clothing and appearance are just about the most important thing about my characters to me. I almost always start with what I want my character to lookl like and go from there. I didnt think it was that unusual.

Its quite a chore to get anyone to come up with a description of thier character much less less any detail in my gaming groups. I now use a "casting call" and if the players don't pick an actor (or art for a D&D game) I will after three sessions have gine by

The casting has worked quite well in my Angel game. I haven't run D&D for a while so I will see how that goes next campaign. I always have a brief description of my character and his clothes but no one every cares but me

 

[Ace]

snip

I think the Wealth mechanics helped there. People seemed to be less interested in blowing everything to the last copper on a single magical item ... they certainly could have, at any time, but for some reason Wealth was "more real" and they spent MORE time and money on clothing, non-magical equipment, impressive gifts, and business pursuits.

I've said to people before ... contemplate what your average adventurer would be like if he were translated to Today's Reality Terms. A homeless guy with one set of clothes sleeping in the wild for weeks on end who spends every dime he gets on really huge, expensive machine guns ... which he totes everywhere.

I'd be terrified of that guy.


--fje

The wealth rules are an intresting notion.

As for you next point. My PC's are a bit cleaner than what you suggested but I actually play it that way. People leave adventurers alone for the most part --

Think Hells Angels or worse --

 

[EdL]

I generally buy my characters one set of clothing, armor and a bar of soap. Out in the wilds or in the dungeon, who cares? (But the soap and prestidigitation get used whenever something icky happens!) We did have a player who was very much into the clothing thing. (A swashbuckler with several outfits of high quality. He once dove overboard and attacked another ship singlehandedly to get them back!) But one of the reasons for that are the weight rules. Let's see, carry something that can help keep my character alive or an extra set of clothes... Of course, any fancy in town adventuring will set off a shopping spree. As will the onset of a cold weather adventure. Otherwise we don't think about it much. Once money is no longer tight, and we've got some place to keep our stuff instead of lugging it all around with us wherever we go, clothing becomes more interesting.

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

My last character had 4 sets of clothing

but he was a changeling, so they were disguises