D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[Vaalingrade]

Well, you are clearly behind on the latest fashion trends among the nobles of [insert city]

Doesn't work here. Player said 'traveler's clothes'.

Though it is amusing that only nobles have mastered Glove Technology.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Thinking about this further, I'd probably say the gloves protect the character, but they're now ruined, and have to be discarded (or risk being poisoned later). It's basically one free do-over.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Bit of a tangent, but has anyone specifically made a PC in common garb go shoeless? Are your commoners running around with cloth wraps on their feet?

Because the world actually portrayed in the core flavor text is kind wild.

 

[Umbran]

1. normal leather gloves are not completely waterproof. They would have to be rubber for that.

"What is this 'rubber' of which you speak, time traveller?"

Rubber and plastics are hardly the only waterproofing available - oilcloth, waxed paper, and so on, existed before rubber.

 

[Celebrim]

I can't disagree with this, but it rubs me the wrong way. The characters live in the world, but there's only so much bandwidth through the DM about it. I don't want to specify that I put on my shoes in the morning, I expect that to be the default.

I understand the complaint, but that's why I began with listing what I think reasonable implied defaults. D&D doesn't have hit locations, so it has to be assumed that if the PCs are wearing armor, then they are wearing armor that relatively equally protects their body - including for example gloves, helmets, and boots. But, conversely, since normal clothing doesn't provide any particular protection to their body, there is no reason to assume that normal clothing provides any particular protection to any part of the body.

Likewise, in most versions of D&D armor provides certain penalties to skill usage whereas normal clothing does not. It's reasonable to assume that something like wearing gloves would make certain tasks more difficult - ask anyone that has had to wear gloves. Any glove that offered no penalty at all on tasks would either have to be of such extraordinary quality that it should be listed on the character sheet and listed as worn ("masterwork surgeon's gloves (worn)" or some such), or else it can be assumed that it's of insufficient protective capacity to provide any meaningful protection against a contact poison or anything else for that matter.

What you very much want to avoid is fiction that is malleable to whatever would be useful at the moment. Trying to retcon the blank spaces in the fiction is a very rules lawyer-y sort of thing to do.

That said, in practice this would very much depend on the trust that a player has built up with me to that point. If this was the sort of player who had frequently in the past made negative calls of his own initiative reminding me of things that a munchkin would rather say silent about in hopes I'll forget them, I'm going to be much more lenient with them making reasonable but convenient positive call outs about the fiction. If they are the sort of players that seems to have 5 different utility arms for holding all the things that it would be convenient to hold - weapon, missile weapon, shield, light source, 10' pole, and a free hand to grab falling colleagues - and who always stays silent about fictional positioning that would negatively impact them, then I'm not going to have the slightest mercy here.

And even if they do convince me that a traveller's outfit has lightweight gloves because they are the sort of player that I do feel is scrupulously fair, it's probably going to knitted wool gloves and I'm just going to give them a circumstantial saving throw bonus and remember that the next time they want to do something that depends on sense of touch or fine motor skill those yarn gloves are going to apply a similar circumstance penalty.

 

[Voadam]

Can anyone point out where the clothes descriptions are in the PH? I only see the price lists on page 150.

 

[Voadam]

Whether a PC has gloves is normally something I leave up to a player. If I was thinking it through I would ideally ask first if the player is wearing gloves. If they said but I am wearing gloves, and it had not been established before hand I think I would generally go with giving them the benefit of that doubt.

 

[Voadam]

Also I would assume gloves generally in winter, unless they are a teenager or younger. Then I assume just a hoodie as the heaviest gear with no gloves on out in the snow even after their mother told them specifically to put on gloves.

 

[Reynard]

"What is this 'rubber' of which you speak, time traveller?"

Rubber and plastics are hardly the only waterproofing available - oilcloth, waxed paper, and so on, existed before rubber.

Rubber has been in use for thousands of years. It comes from trees.

 

[Lojaan]

I would say "give me a roll". The roll high then they detect the poison and realise they need to take off their gloves before the poison seeps through the material.

Roll middling, they notice the poison but the character doesn't think to take the gloves off. Pay special attention to what they touch next and hit them with poison effects after a while.

Roll bad: "yep definitely poison. Good thing you were wearing your gloves you think as you absent mindedly scratch your nose..."