Would You Allow Earplugs?

[Gale]

Question to DMs. As a player I've ever been tempted to buy earplugs as a way to protect myself from certain spells like Suggestion, or monster effects like a Banshee's wail. Essentially, I would be voluntarily giving myself the deafened condition in exchange for avoiding these things. Although, I'm not sure earplugs would actually be effective enough to count as being deafened.

I'm curious how people would rule this in their games. Would you allow earplugs at all? Could a player make some out of just wax? Would earplugs actually give the player the deafened condition, or just advantage and disadvantage depending on the situation? Would putting in earplugs require an action, or just a Use Object action?

[heavyfuel]

Unless they are magical earplugs or equivalent, I'm gonna say that you're not deaf. You are - at best - giving yourself Disadvantage on Perception checks that rely on hearing, and you're definitely not immune to effects that rely on you hearing stuff.

[PhantomSoul]

Unless they are magical earplugs or equivalent, I'm gonna say that you're not deaf. You are - at best - giving yourself Disadvantage on Perception checks that rely on hearing, and you're definitely not immune to effects that rely on you hearing stuff.

I've regularly worn earplugs, and this sounds about right. I've frequently had conversations wearing them with no one yelling (or frankly, speaking particularly loudly at all). Even good earplugs don't cut the volume by that much, and they don't even cut all frequencies effectively.

[stoutstien]

I'd make them a common magical item

I would say disadvantage on anything based on hearing and advantage on negative effects as well.

[Doug Lampert]

Unless they are magical earplugs or equivalent, I'm gonna say that you're not deaf. You are - at best - giving yourself Disadvantage on Perception checks that rely on hearing, and you're definitely not immune to effects that rely on you hearing stuff.

I'm going to disagree, sufficient wax in the ears can temporarily deafen you. Pour molten wax into your ears and let it harden, and you won't be hearing squat because the wax will stop the eardrum from vibrating. Quite possible you will never hear anything again because the wax will do damage going in and removing it will do more damage.

So I'd probably allow you to give yourself the deafened condition, but require magic to "cure" the deafened condition.

But if you are deafened, then significant actions become impossible, you don't just have disadvantage on perception checks that rely on hearing, those are all autofails. You have disadvantage on every other perception check (suddenly missing a major sense will give you problems on almost everything). You can't talk to others, or make joint plans with the rest of the party. I'd probably go out of my way to think of ways this will inconvenience your character (and it will). Even mundane activities like setting camp will be much tougher without being able to hear.

Does your character know sign language (drow sign language exists in my worlds)? Does anyone else in the party also know sign language?

[heavyfuel]

I'd make them a common magical item

I would say disadvantage on anything based on hearing and advantage on negative effects as well.

I agree that a Common item should be fine, but instead of disadvantage/advantage, I'd make it "effective deafness"/advantage

Checks that rely on hearing don't come up often, so getting disadvantage on them isn't a big deal. You still have at least 4 other senses to rely on.

[heavyfuel]

I'm going to disagree, sufficient wax in the ears can temporarily deafen you. Pour molten wax into your ears and let it harden, and you won't be hearing squat because the wax will stop the eardrum from vibrating. Quite possible you will never hear anything again because the wax will do damage going in and removing it will do more damage.

So I'd probably allow you to give yourself the deafened condition, but require magic to "cure" the deafened condition

Fair enough, but I say that's more akin to "self-multilation" than just "wearing earplugs"

I'd definitely allow something like that.

[stoutstien]

I agree that a Common item should be fine, but instead of disadvantage/advantage, I'd make it "effective deafness"/advantage

Checks that rely on hearing don't come up often, so getting disadvantage on them isn't a big deal. You still have at least 4 other senses to rely on.

I use hearing checks enough to make it a serious thing to consider but deafness would also work.

[MaxWilson]

Question to DMs. As a player I've ever been tempted to buy earplugs as a way to protect myself from certain spells like Suggestion, or monster effects like a Banshee's wail. Essentially, I would be voluntarily giving myself the deafened condition in exchange for avoiding these things. Although, I'm not sure earplugs would actually be effective enough to count as being deafened.

I'm curious how people would rule this in their games. Would you allow earplugs at all? Could a player make some out of just wax? Would earplugs actually give the player the deafened condition, or just advantage and disadvantage depending on the situation? Would putting in earplugs require an action, or just a Use Object action?

Sure, I'd let you deafen yourself with advance preparation. Inserting well-made earplugs into your ears is worth an action if you want to do it thoroughly enough to be deafened--if you just want to stash them somewhere convenient and earholes happen to fit, I'd let you jam them in your ears as an object interaction, like jamming something into your pockets. But you wouldn't be deaf until you did it right.

Cheaper/shoddier earplugs might take more than just an action to apply properly but would be correspondingly easier to create or improvise. E.g. trying to deafen yourself by wrapping cloths around your head might take 10 minutes.

Note that this would make anything you cannot see automatically Hidden (unseen and unheard--you don't know where they are) so you probably don't want to do it in a dark place.

[JoeJ]

I wouldn't allow characters to buy earplugs, but if they want to fashion some from beeswax from a candle, I would allow that. We know from Homer that wax earplugs will block the charm effect from the singing of sirens, so it probably works on other magical effects as well.

[Kane0]

I wouldn't allow characters to buy earplugs, but if they want to fashion some from beeswax from a candle, I would allow that. We know from Homer that wax earplugs will block the charm effect from the singing of sirens, so it probably works on other magical effects as well.

I was thinking of a different Homer for a few minutes there.

Anyways, maybe compromise with a consumable magic item that inflicts Silence or Deafness on the user?

[JoeJ]

I was thinking of a different Homer for a few minutes there.

Anyways, maybe compromise with a consumable magic item that inflicts Silence or Deafness on the user?

The other Homer had a different way of dealing with the sirens.

[DwarfFighter]

Question to DMs. As a player I've ever been tempted to buy earplugs as a way to protect myself from certain spells like Suggestion, or monster effects like a Banshee's wail. Essentially, I would be voluntarily giving myself the deafened condition in exchange for avoiding these things. Although, I'm not sure earplugs would actually be effective enough to count as being deafened.

I'm curious how people would rule this in their games. Would you allow earplugs at all? Could a player make some out of just wax? Would earplugs actually give the player the deafened condition, or just advantage and disadvantage depending on the situation? Would putting in earplugs require an action, or just a Use Object action?

I first thought this was going to be about players using earplugs at the table!

Anyway, these kind of "tricks" make me wonder how much thought players put into how their characters function in the game world: PCs in general must have a "SPECIAL!" quality about them.

* They will purposefully deafen themselves on the off chance that they are targeted with magic, where a HUGE handicap becomes an advantage.
* They will grow into adulthood, safely within the constraints of society, and when the adventure starts they suddenly become paranoid sociopaths. Now EVERYONE is a potential Vampire.
* They will cast free-to-use magics at consistent intervals to keep the effects "up", ignoring the fact that this supposed discipline is compulsive behavior other people will find deeply disturbing.
* They never go to the toilet. And if they do, it's always a big deal about checking for traps or pit lurkers.
* They spend most of the day sleeping.
* They never get bored while the wizard spends 10 minutes casting rituals at all to frequent intervals.
* After killing everyone in the room, the last thing they do is open the other doors to check if anyone heard them.
* Everything goes into the Bag of Holding
* The come back from killing the bandits that robbed the caravan, and insist on keeping all the gold that was stolen. That was somebody's property, dude!
* They loot the dead.

-DF

[MrStabby]

I think that I might just half the range for a lot of spells, coupled with a perception check from potential casters to see the plugs/see the PC failing to react to environmental sounds.

[KorvinStarmast]

Question to DMs. As a player I've ever been tempted to buy earplugs as a way to protect myself from certain spells like Suggestion, or monster effects like a Banshee's wail. Essentially, I would be voluntarily giving myself the deafened condition in exchange for avoiding these things. Although, I'm not sure earplugs would actually be effective enough to count as being deafened.

I'm curious how people would rule this in their games. Would you allow earplugs at all? Could a player make some out of just wax? Would earplugs actually give the player the deafened condition, or just advantage and disadvantage depending on the situation? Would putting in earplugs require an action, or just a Use Object action?

Wax. If we go back to Homer's Odyssey, the threat of the Sirens' song to his crew caused Odysseus to fill his men's ears with wax so that they'd be protected from becoming enchanted.
Being a thrill seeker, he had himself bound to the mast so that he could hear the song, and of course he was entranced and could not follow their song to them .

Bottom line: you don't need a magic item.
Use wax.
Sometimes, the old school solution is still a good one.

* The come back from killing the bandits that robbed the caravan, and insist on keeping all the gold that was stolen. That was somebody's property, dude!

Our party didn't. We returned some of it to the town where it was stolen from. And it took a bit of effort to find out where that was, which included our barbarian beating up the bandit chief until the guy explained the origin of the goods. (Though we did keep a few things)

* They loot the dead.

So did Gandalf and the dwarves and Bilbo.
The looted the trolls' cave and scored magic swords and loot.
The dead don't need that pair of earrings any more, right?

[BigRedJedi]

Since "Deafened" is an explicit condition in 5E, there's no reason that a common/uncommon consumable item cannot impose the deafened condition on a target. Any effect, e.g. suggestion, that requires the target to be able to hear you is automatically failed... nothing broken or even remotely too strong about this.

[Triskavanski]

Honestly this is a bit of the issue with a lot of the DnD games. The fact that mundane stuff is completely useless or forgotten, or never allowed to actually work. But like there is should be a lot of mundane tricks that fighters and rogues particularly employ.

Take for example, the castlevania series on netflix where normal every day soldiers don't need magic items to take on the hellspawn. Sure they're not as good a Trevor, but even he isn't using very much in the way of magic items and a lot of it comes from skill. They cover their swords with poop and salt, effectively forming a weapon blanch, that allows them to take on the demons. In games like pathfinder though, that weapon blanch costs you 50 gold pieces per use, can only be used once, and you have to roll a fort save to not disease yourself with the poop unless you have the disease/poison use ability.

[Tanarii]

No. But I don't allow PCs to close their ears to be blind either. And earplugs are about as effective as tying a single layer of bandanna (ie unfolded) in front of your eyes to "blind" yourself. At best they filter out high pitched noise and slightly dampen extremely loud ones.

* After killing everyone in the room, the last thing they do is open the other doors to check if anyone heard them.

The monsters are all wearing wax earplugs in case adventures invade, to protect themselves from their spells.

[Sigreid]

The idea of earplugs to avoid some magical enchantments is at least as old as the writings of Homer. As a DM I'd rule it depends on the nature of the charm/enchantment. With ear plugs in, you can totally hear well enough to be subject to suggestion. On the other hand, I'd let it change the sound quality enough that you either wouldn't be affected by a siren or harpy's song, or maybe would get advantage on the save.

[MustaKrakish]

Yeah sure, why not? as long as it counts that you are deaf I am game. Same with a blindfold. I like it when players think outside of their character sheet, and I usually reward it. And on the balance arguments, in my games PCs die on 0 hp. No death saves, so I don't mind them try and find ways to avoid bad things. I will try to make any cool idea work for them, knowing full well that the game is deadly enough.

[Aelyn]

Kinda tangential, but a while ago I was playing a homebrewed system where my character had the explicit ability to give commands that couldn't be resisted for around five or ten seconds (kinda like Code Geass). I found all kinds of fun and interesting ways to use it... and then, for the climactic battle, I discovered that some of the elite soldiers we were fighting had figured out my ability and wore earplugs by default (they had a simplified sign language for tactical orders). It was such a simple solution, but it caught me off guard, and definitely helped sell the verisimilitude.

On topic: I'd allow them. I'd even say there are two options - cheaper ones (2sp per pair) which muffle sound without blocking it entirely (disadvantage on Perception checks based on sound, advantage on saving throws against sound-based effects) and more expensive, more effective ones (1gp per pair, only available at a large town) which render you fully Deafened according to the condition while you're wearing them.

[da newt]

It's the equivalent of a 2nd level spell, so I'd make a similar $ cost for the earplugs, require an action to don/doff, while wearing them the PC would be 100% deaf, have immunity to anything that required them to hear for it to be effective, DISADV on all perception and initiative rolls, and only be able to communicate with the party via hand gestures.

While deafened their awareness of things outside their field of view will be zero, so facing becomes important as any attack from behind is unseen/unknown so made with ADV.

If the whole party is earplugged and deaf, and an attack comes from a direction some of the party aren't looking, they are not aware of it and may spend a couple rounds in combat unaware that initiative has been rolled ...


TLDR - heck yeah I'd allow it, but I'd make sure there was a cost for the benefit. I like to encourage creativity (yes and ...), but hate to give out cheap 'get out of jail free' cards.

[JackPhoenix]

But I don't allow PCs to close their ears to be blind either.

I doubt anyone would allow that.

[Tanarii]

I doubt anyone would allow that.

Isn't that how you keep the rags from falling out of the ears. Wrap cloth all the way around the head?

Also

[heavyfuel]

I don't allow PCs to close their ears to be blind

IIRC, you mentioned this in a discussion about the Lucky feat turning Disadvantage into "super Advantage". Is that the reason? If so, I think it would make more sense to simply not allow that interaction than saying people cannot choose to keep their eyes closed.

[Dienekes]

I actually generally encourage this sort of thing. Promoting a method of dealing with an issue through forward thinking rather than just relying on magic to fix your problems is good in my opinion.

Provided they understand the limitations of what they’re doing and accept the consequences. If they deafen themselves I would not allow them to plan amidst the combat and they’d have no Perception check allowed on anyone walking up behind them.

If they tie a bandana around their eyes to avoid looking at something with some effect they can’t look at. Good. Now the encounter is about maneuvering around blind.

It’s very Greek myth in style. Where Odysseus’ crew put wax in their ears to avoid the call of the sirens.

[KorvinStarmast]

I actually generally encourage this sort of thing. Promoting a method of dealing with an issue through forward thinking rather than just relying on magic to fix your problems is good in my opinion.

yeah, what players come up with can be a real joy for the DM.

[rel]

Mundane items should be useful.

The PC's should be able to make / improvise earmuffs about as easily as they make / improvise a blindfold.
improvised earmuffs should take a while to don / doff and can't be used in combat.
expensive purpose built hearing protection is probably and action to don (I might allow that action to include taking them out of your pack though)

Just make sure you consider the penalties of adventuring deaf.

[HPisBS]

I mean, it worked for Odysseus....

[Telok]

Do note that the modern earplugs we use are intended to reduce loud noises to physically safe levels without completely blocking sounds. This is because noisy work environments, the main earplug market, often have hazards where you want to be able to hear a shouted warning or a backup beeper on a forklift.

Do not base "jam wax and wool in your ears until you can't hear" effects on modern hearing protection equipment.