Disable device - making it "more fun-er-er"

[nittanytbone]

Time pressure is the only way to discourage Taking 20 for Search checks.

Any decent rogue will ALWAYS take 20 to search every suspicious surface if there's no reason not to.

One idea to speed things along might be wandering monster checks. Every 10 minutes of game time or so roll a D6, and if it comes up "1" then a wandering monster encounter occurs. Wandering monsters are a punishment, so they should have little treasure but suck resources away from the players. When the players see that wasting time results in unfavorable encounters they'll move along.

Of course, Disable Device is something you can't take 20 on, so that has the potential to be more dramatic.

 

[Artoomis]

You can certainly take a 20 on a Search check to *find* the trap.

You can't take a 20 on the Disable Device check to disarm it.

Maybe. If the trap is the sort that if you don't find it it triggers, then you cannot take 20. Many traps can go off while searching for them, f you don't find them.

This was once the subject of much debate and I don't recall how it turned out, but I'd say you could play it either way and be justified.

 

[Nail]

Maybe. If the trap is the sort that if you don't find it it triggers, then you cannot take 20. Many traps can go off while searching for them, f you don't find them.

This was once the subject of much debate and I don't recall how it turned out,...

You ain't just whistlin' Dixie, brother.

Played (and DMed!) properly, you don't activate traps (even Explosive Runes, etc) by searching for them.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Maybe. If the trap is the sort that if you don't find it it triggers, then you cannot take 20. Many traps can go off while searching for them, f you don't find them.

Not any in the DMG.

 

[KarinsDad]

One idea to speed things along might be wandering monster checks. Every 10 minutes of game time or so roll a D6, and if it comes up "1" then a wandering monster encounter occurs. Wandering monsters are a punishment, so they should have little treasure but suck resources away from the players. When the players see that wasting time results in unfavorable encounters they'll move along.

Player: "I'm doing something intelligent by taking 20 on my search."

DM: "Ok, I will punish you for doing that by rolling for wandering monsters."

Player: "Wandering monsters? Are these new monsters that you never even had in the adventure, or does this mean that when we get to that further room, the monster that was there will no longer be there because it is dead."

DM: "Err, ah, these are new monsters."

Player: "What did they do? Teleport in?"

DM: "No. They came in from outside."

Player: "We locked the only entrance to prevent this, remember?"

DM: "Err, ah, they teleport in."


Wandering monsters are a lame DM crutch.

The real issue is the Take 20 mechanic (which always lets you get a 20, no matter if you are having a bad or a good day) and that is where a DM should resolve this. Not all WotC rules are good (Take 20 mechanically is terrible).

If the adventure is designed by the DM to have a few wandering monsters or time pressures, fine. If not, let the Rogue Take 20 all s/he wants.

 

[Dracomeander]

Sweet. I just thought of that one myself, a few minutes before I read your post. I actually have a small army of undead that I can use for this in my upcoming game. Sadly, my PCs are currently unarmored and unarmed.....so they're going to have to slay some zombies in order to get weapons, while also disabling traps! Thanks!

Hope they have spells to do that with. That or they have Improved Unarmed Strike or improvised weapons available. Undead are not subject to non-lethal damage which is what unarmed, unarmored characters are limited to without those other conditions.

 

[Wolfwood2]

I find the Disable Device skill to be kind of boring, to be honest. I'd like to do away with it entirely. Here's how it would work.

If there's a built-in way of bypassing the trap, then you'd find it on a Search check. Like, if there's a drawer that shoots poison bolts at anyone who opens it unless you press a hidden latch at the same time, then you'd find the latch on the search check. (You'd also find the hole the darts shoot out of, so you could plug that up if you want to.)

If there's not a built-in way of bypassing the trap, then the DM just describes it and lets the players figure out how they want to bypass it. "Okay, so your Search check reveals the entire bridge has been rigged to collapse if anyone gets on it. There's no switch or anything. Apparently the beholders float across, and their slaves never come this way."

Or they can walk around the pit trap, or not step on the stones that will trigger the axe pendulum.

I don't see what value Disable Device adds to the game. 9 times out of 10, I can't even picture in my head exactly what the rogue is doing to disable the device.

 

[Artoomis]

You ain't just whistlin' Dixie, brother.

Played (and DMed!) properly, you don't activate traps (even Explosive Runes, etc) by searching for them.

Even at that remember that you only search a 5' x 5' area at a time. That means take 20 on a 10' corridor floor 10' section takes 8 minutes.

If you keep that in mind it should keep this under control.

 

[Slobber Monster]

Take 20 is an excellent mechanic. It models reality reasonably well and it speeds up play by eliminating pointless dice rolling. It's a great way to handwave through something that will always be accomplished given enough time and dilligence.

I think the above take on wandering monsters is a strawman. In the manner it's framed then of course it's a silly crutch, but adventure design can easily include random encounters and remain logical. They're particularly useful in large site-based adventures with multiple paths of access to a given area. Wandering monsters aren't the only way to provide time pressure, but they're often a useful and sensible way to do so. If the PC's figure out a way to avoid them by blocking paths of access or remaining undeteced - then good for them.

The bottom line is that without time pressure Searching just isn't likely to require die rolling or induce much excitement. Heck, it's not exactly a fun task in real life ("I know my keys are in this house somehwere! Just have to keep looking until I find them..."). When designing adventures I always assume that the PC's will find everything so long as they look in the right places. After all there's no drama in the failed Search roll from the players perspective - only the DM knows that something was missed. The trick is to give them reasons to think about where they should bother to look, and then give them interesting decisions to make about whatever they find.

 

[mvincent]

Wandering monsters are a lame DM crutch.

Wandering monsters can be an excellent way to simulate a dynamic environment. If some territory is populated at all, there is a decent chance that the residents are going to wander around during the course of their daily activites. If such wandering residents encounter strange noises, PC's, locked doors, bodies etc., then they are likely to do something about it.

Unlike video games, RPG's have an opportunity to simulate this fairly realistically. Because of this, players should know better than to waste time* taking 20 on search checks in populated territory. Eventually something is going to happen, and the residents could establish some decent plans given time.

* A couple minutes per door and a couple hours per room to take 20. As opposed to taking 10, which is 6 seconds per door and several minutes per room.