Why would PCs wear capes?

[Keeper of Secrets]

A cape is just so studly. I mean, it must be the fashion equvalent of like a Mercedes or something.

 

[Templetroll]

In the Watchmen comic a character named Dollar Bill wore a cape and it got stuck in a bank's revolving door and the bank robbers killed him easily.

I think it was French police who wore capes with weights in the bottom edge to allow them to swirl it around and wrap a limb of a felon or cover the face to hinder them. At least a trick a rogue/swashbuckler could use.

 

[babomb]

Uh, because it's cool?

And it offers protection from the elements?

And, like BG said, you can use it to parry? That's where the phrase "cloak and dagger" came from, after all.

Now the question is, is flinging your cape at an opponent a full round, move-equivalent, or standard action? If its move-equivalent, I have an idea to both embarass and put some fear back into my overconfident PCs...

It's an attack. You can do this as a standard action or as part of the full attack action.

 

[sniffles]

A couple of people have already made good points about the historical uses of a cloak or cape. But they also make a handy makeshift bedroll/blanket, or a bag of sorts to wrap up objects that either need padding or need to be unseen, or a horse blanket, or blindfold, or a quick disguise if it's reversible or just removed... And you could probably give someone a pretty good whack on the head with a weighted cape. Or watch what Athos does with his in the 1974 version of "The Three Musketeers" when they're fighting in the laundry.

For those of us who don't wear them all the time they can seem unwieldly, but if you wore one regularly it would be second nature to avoid tripping over it on stairs or getting it tangled around your legs. And if you've ever been out in one, they don't really billow out behind you that much unless the wind is *very* strong.

 

[GMSkarka]

What an odd question.

 

[argo]

Now the question is, is flinging your cape at an opponent a full round, move-equivalent, or standard action? If its move-equivalent, I have an idea to both embarass and put some fear back into my overconfident PCs...

Treat it as a Feint with a +2 equipment bonus for the prop.

Later.

 

[kyloss]

I'd say attack action,usable as part of full attack with a rangeged touch to hit with 5' incrament(sp) thrown with called shot penalty (-4 I think) if aiming for head

 

[sword-dancer]

A cape, not a cloak, because it lookcool when you`ve light horse fighting.

 

[kyloss]

I Always thought of capes as at least top of the thigh or further, (anything shorter is a half cape) with the posibility of covering the sholders but not wrapping the entire body, and a cloak as mid knee or lower with the ability to wrap yourself up in, and usualy with a hood, but not nececarily- I guess to many comics and fantasy novels shaped my definition.

 

[Felon]

Of course, in D&D a cape, cloak, or mantle respresents one more slot for a magic item. The question then becomes "who wouldn't wear one"?