How often do you use traps?

[Victim]

Not very often. Most traps are going to be a pain for the people/things living/working in that area and are expensive and time consuming to make. That being said, when circumstances do favor the use of traps, then there will probably be several of them, which skews things up a bit.

 

[WanderingMonster]

I like the trap-as-encounter concept, so I think I'll start throwing them in 30% of the time. I would definitely limit the surprise traps, or traps on doors and chests. I don't want to condition the party to have rituals everytime they come up to a door or a treasure chest.

 

[Piratecat]

Tonight was a giant ooze shaped like a floor, a frictionless room with a pit (cribbed right out of the S series!), a falling door, some magical force regions, and an umbral blot hiding in a vase. Good times.

 

[Klaus]

I'd have used more when I had a campaign going if there had been traps like the Encounter Traps (Secrets of Xendrik, Dungeonscape) back then.

Also, my group lacked a dedicated trap-dealer (that fell to my wife's wizard/rogue/battle dancer).

 

[Orius]

100%. Pretty much every single one of my dungeons has a trap somewhere. Areas used as a base of operations for stuff like humanoids or something naturally won't have traps in high traffic areas.

 

[Vegepygmy]

I don't know how to answer with a percentage.

I mean, a percentage of what? How much time is spent on them? Percentage of encounters? Does it count if the PCs completely avoid an area with traps? Etc. . ?

My answer would be I use them as often as it makes sense to the context of an adventure/area.

This.

 

[Numion]

A strange poll

I use them at least once a dungeon (is that 100%?) but usually in just a few rooms / encounters (is that 10-20%).

 

[cougent]

I answered 100%.

That is because I do use them quite often, but I want my players to suspect them _ALWAYS_ so I try to insinuate their are traps even in areas where there are none.

 

[Jhaelen]

Traps suck.

I've not yet seen any suggestions that made me change my mind (e.g. encounter traps).
I'll still use them sometimes if I'm using a module that contains some, so I voted 10% (whatever that percentage is supposed to mean...).

 

[DragonLancer]

About 25% so I voted 30%.

waving your fanny at the chained-up spider results in the chain snapping.

Ok, that almost coated the keyboard in cola! Fanny means something different over this side of the pond.