D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[DND_Reborn]

5e splits the baby & takes the worst of all three by having six broad catchall saves that fail at being clear catchalls while also failing at being specific enough to be the clear choice for edge cases,

While I see your point, I don't agree really with it. I find the saves in 5E both broad enough and clear enough in their distinctions that they work well IME. My only issue with them is more with how much the "strong saves" are used compared to the "weak saves." In that respect, I can see more returning to a 3E system, combining a strong and weak save into one.

I wouldn't be opposed to returning to AD&D, either, however. I can pretty much work with whatever system there is I guess.

 

[aco175]

Some will make a 1e or B/X magic user who spends a significant amount of their starting gold and ends up looking like this.

The problem would be when the player says he should get an AC boost since the metal daggers would logically block some of the attacks.

Found Yukon the dwarf barbarian looking for traps.

I see the bomb expert is not wearing gloves. To be fair though, he is not expecting contact poison, but he is protecting everything else.

I did not find a good picture of soldiers using silly string to search for trip wires.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Do we want to add to the equipment list, including potential trade-offs, just because contact poison might show up on some chest somewhere?

Let's just split the difference and give up on contact poison.

The closest I've come to a reasonable deployment that's not just an unreasonable gotcha is literally just making Poison Ivy the BBEG.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I would still go with "what is your character wearing?"

This... this is begging for Instant Regret...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I see the bomb expert is not wearing gloves. To be fair though, he is not expecting contact poison, but he is protecting everything else.

Sure but this one is:

To be clear I can find plenty of gloves on and gloves off pictures for bomb disposal guys. I can even find gloves on in a hot climate, and gloves off in a cold one.

 

[Seramus]

I assume everyone is wearing light gloves. You want to be wearing gloves just handling horses, rope, setting up tents, and holding your weapons. Meanwhile, I imagine spellcasters need mild protection from caustic components and sizzling energy. This feels like a GAG issue, where we don't usually wear gloves so we assume adventurer's don't either, but I think it would be a bog standard expectation that they are wearing gloves most of the time, like any construction worker wearing PPE. Even Bards have justification to always be wearing gloves, since musician gloves are a fairly common thing for high-frequency performers.


The only times you might NOT be wearing gloves are during big social events requiring you to dress up, and even then a player could imagine themselves wearing a soft fancy pair if they wanted.

 

[Voadam]

setting up tents,

I have gone camping plenty of times and the only time I wore gloves in setting up tents was when it was cold enough to normally be wearing gloves outside.

I expect people's experiences on wearing gloves are going to vary.

 

[tetrasodium]

Sure but this one is:

View attachment 270732

To be clear I can find plenty of gloves on and gloves off pictures for bomb disposal guys. I can even find gloves on in a hot climate, and gloves off in a cold one.

Sure but there's a big difference between the two pics & it's not the presence of gloves. One of them is military EoD, the other looks like someone with a police union rep to get him gloves It may very well be that gloves are not part of the standard EoD equipment loadout.

 

[Celebrim]

This feels like a GAG issue, where we don't usually wear gloves so we assume adventurer's don't either, but I think it would be a bog standard expectation that they are wearing gloves most of the time, like any construction working wearing PPE.

As I noted, my assumption tends to be that you are wearing gloves unless otherwise stated, because it's a very strong assumption in most games that the character is wearing armor. (Even the least interested persons in this thread in tracking equipment seem willing to track what sort of armor they are wearing.) And in D&D post 3e it's a very strong assumption that a suit of armor comes with corresponding boots, gloves, and helm and beyond that I would have a very strong idea what the implications of a glove suited to that sort of armor actually were in terms of thickness, mobility/stiffness, protection, etc. just by imagining that sort of suit of armor (to say nothing of the fact that there are generally actual rules to point to).

The situation arises because we have an adventurer that is explicitly not wearing the standard adventurer PPE, but rather wearing civilian "travelling clothes" which have a vague description and are probably intended only as "color" in most games, and which do not in their description mention gloves as a definitive part of the outfit much less describe what those gloves are (satin, knitted wool, fingerless, calfskin, fur lined suede, etc.). Given that the character is explicitly out of the standard adventuring PPE, and given that the GM has already given a ruling on this, and given the lack of detail, the question is "Should the GM overturn themselves just because the player now says "Stop! Don't my travelling clothes have gloves?"

 

[Vaalingrade]

"You seem to really, really want me to get got by this poison. Okay. So unless otherwise noted, my character is completely naked and rubbing up against every surface of every room, making loud and absolutely obscene noises. I'll just set my CON to 1, my HP to half and we can just get on with it, okay?"