Ever done a part of your game where your players have their gear taken away and they have to fight with only improvised weapons and armor?
I think it sounds like a fun thing to do in a game but have never tried it myself.
I might do it the next time someone bitches about fighting 20 meerkats
>>46663606
As a forever GM, I very much enjoy doing plot arcs like this as an alternative to death when my players fuck up or get unlucky.
Players lose an encounter with bandits, those bandits drag them back to their camp and try to ransom them back to whatever city they came from or sell them as slaves.
Of course this almost always ends with the players slipping free and fighting their way out with whatever they can come across (or if they're smart, they sneak to wherever their gear is being held and get it back first, but that's not really the point of this topic).
But yeah, seriously, if you want an alternative to super lethal lethal games, it's really easy to come up with loss-scenarios in which the party is stripped of their gear. Just be sure to give them a way to get it back later if they're invested or the stuff has emotional significance to the characters.
>>46663606
Why does the gear have to be "taken away"? Simply catch the characters with their pants down, so to speak. Unless you're playing with min-maxy autists, most characters generally aren't going to sleep fully armored with their weapons in their hands. You could also just throw the characters in a situation such a high-class party or event with lots of nobles and upper-class people attending, where it would be socially improper or flatout disallowed for them to show up armed and armored.
>>46663606
This happened a few times to my group. We had the good version, where our stuff's been impounded because we're in a city and customs wouldn't let us carry enough weapons to raze a small town into a civilized area, and we've had the bad version where my character got hit with an epic-level disjunction that destroyed all his magical gear during the final boss battle of a campaign arc.
Fortunately, I was a monk. I took Vow of Poverty and called it a day. Our gear didn't get confiscated much after that, strangely enough. Or maybe it did...I stopped keeping track.
>>46663606
Yes and no.
Their gear was stolen, they've tracked people who did that and next 4 scenarios went Breaking Bad-style.
No idiotic shit about improvised weapons, since they didn't need them at all to get by
>>46668034
When you don't have any perks for improvised weapons, it is a sure loss.
>>46663606
I did it for session 1, the party were co-opted into a sewer jack work detail and had only shovels and basic leathers.
They got pretty torn up by rats.
>be me
>be monk
>get tricked by a fairy and lose all my items
>down to rags and a dagger
>we were in this cave system faced with a large bugbear
>retreat to a previous room and find a chain that held one of the guard wolves
>take chain, tie dagger to the end of it with a piece of the rags I was wearing
>ended up turning it into a legit weapon/tool
>suprisingly useful
However you do it, make sure the reason they get their gear taken away makes sense. In my inexperienced days I thought it would be a fun idea to have a whole city where weapons were outawed. All the PCs weapons were "peace-tied" so they could not use them effectively. It turned into a mess as the PCs tried to use the weapons as clubs or remove the magical restraints, instead of just trying to solve issues with their brains for a change.
I like the idea of them going to a high class function or something where carrying weapons would be inappropriate. It probably boils down to how well you know your players. Mine don't like their shit taken away from them. Partly because they have to recalculate a lot of stats in case they get in combat.
Know how your players will react and make sure the method of how their gear is removed isn't an obvious plot device.
>>46668081
If I get to DM, I'd allow players to use improvised weaponry, so long as it's close enough to an actual weapon they have proficiency in, without penalty. I mean, stuff that functions and acts similarly to the weapon in question, not chairs and shit.
Most of the time it should be simple enough to forgo crafting checks as well.
>sharp piece of metal with some torn cloth around it for a handle; shitty dagger
>rolling pin; wooden club
>sturdy mop; improvised quarterstaff
Purpose-build stuff like swords might be harder, but maybe if he spends a while whittling a boat oar I'd allow it to count as a masterwork bastard sword.
>>46668034
>>46668207
I don't know if it counts, but my cleric didn't start with any weapons or armor (he was just a simple farmer) and ended up getting simple leather armor from a local militia, and he picked up a shoddy crossbow that he stole from a wooden golem.
>>46668525
>>46668034
>>46668704
Every time I see that I always think she's having a stroke.
>>46668525
I don't get it.
>>46668034
Kek'd
