D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[kenada]

You have to remove gloves a certain way to avoid contaminating yourself with what they’ve touched. It seems like that would be a fair way to frame the saving throw. Sure, your gloves stop the poison, but can you remove them safely?

 

[Swarmkeeper]

"Alright then. The greasy substance soaks through these ordinary gloves to some extent. Make the save with Advantage."

 

[Charlaquin]

This is a case of miscommunication. The player assumed their character’s equipment included gloves and the DM assumed it didn’t, and neither thought that it was an important assumption to explicitly state until the point where it mattered. Neither are unreasonable assumptions to make given the fairly vague description of travelers’ clothes, nor was it unreasonable not to think it needed to be explicitly stated. Personally, I would assume good faith on the part of the player and move forward assuming the character had been wearing gloves. A couple of people have suggested that the contact poison may be transferred to the gloves, creating a risk that they will touch it when removing the gloves (requiring a saving throw to mitigate), and I kinda like that idea.

 

[aco175]

There is a lot of things that do not get into, or need, this amount of detail. The effect just happens. What about a PC wearing armor touching something like this. Anyone can be wearing gloves and suffer the same thing.

I kind of place this into the other small things we skip. Things like going to the bathroom or brushing your teeth are skipped. Same with repairing armor and sharpening your sword. Things mentioned earlier about putting the string on your bow every morning or saying you draw your sword when entering the dungeon- good thing you get a free draw now.

Are we going to try saying that wearing plate mail increases your falling velocity so you take more damage, but less damage since it prevents most of the pointy sticks at the bottom from penetrating. This is what to-hit and saving throws simulate.

 

[Umbran]

Gloves are commonly worn while riding horses and wielding swords (even in forms that don't use armor). Gloves are a reasonable idea for anyone going into rough-and-tumble situations.

So, I'm fine with giving the first player to mention gloves advantage on the poison save.

 

[billd91]

I haven't had a chance to really dig - but is there any place that breaks out what any of the clothing outfits include? I don't think it would be wrong to just go with whatever the player says they think would be part of the array as long as it isn't completely unreasonable.

I certainly wouldn't assume the outfit didn't include gloves just because gloves aren't on the buyable equipment list. I don't see trousers on the list either and that doesn't induce me to assume the PCs are Winnie-the-Poohing it around everywhere.

 

[Charlaquin]

Are we going to try saying that wearing plate mail increases your falling velocity

Why would it? The weight of a falling object doesn’t affect the speed of its fall, and I can’t imagine plate armor reducing a person’s wind resistance.

 

[bloodtide]

I ask for a detailed description of each character, including clothing. And I keep track of what a character is currently wearing. When a player wants to change something they need to get my attention, tell me, and watch me make the note. This is also true of spell effects, magic items and so on. And this is also true when taking things off.

I hate "takebacks" and a set group of players Always try this exploit as they say "Oh my character did this action and this action before they did that action....BUT I DID NOT TELL THE DM, YUK, YUC!" So, yea, I just go with nope: did not happen.

Also, I will typically slow down the game when something ;adventure worthy' happens. I don't like run out into the back yard and yell "just tell me whatever your doing and stuff" and have the player sit inside and say "Oh my character does random vague stuff and opens the chest". Not in my game.

I will slow it down. Describe the area and chest, then ask the player to describe what they are doing in detail. Some times even asking the player to repeat things: "Ok, you are going to touch the Vile Altar of Ultimate Evil with your bare hands and search for a hidden compartment?"

 

[J.Quondam]

The opportunity to avoid the poison came at the time of the detecting/overlooking it, imo. Since the PC interacted with the poison, they should suffer the effects, gloves or not. So I'd probably turn it over to the player: "Oh, you have gloves? In that case, you tell me what happened (scratched your eye? glove has a hole? etc) that forced the Con save." *



* If player doesn't come up with anything, obvious fiat is "poisoning by picking their nose".

 

[Vaalingrade]

The rules also dont say your bow needs a drawstring at all to fire arrows...

The cool ones don't need arrows either. They fire arrows of light or angry porcupines!