Is this fair? -- your personal opinion

[ThirdWizard]

That's funny because "pulling levers" among my players is proverbial for "acting carelessly". A lever, or any other object in a dungeon is as capable as being enchanted/trapped as any other object.

I can't possibly see how pulling a lever would be more dangerous than walking through a doorway.

In fact, in choosing to trap either a pile of swirling dirt or a lever, the smart money says to trap the lever because you know that people are more likely to pull it than they are to touch the dirt. By that reasoning, the lever is actually more dangerous than the dirt.

The swirling dirt wasn't a trap... And, that makes no sense to me whatsoever. You're saying a lever is more suspicious than an elemental supernatural effect? What? What if it were a swirling pool of black energy? Would a lever be more frightening than that?

 

[Raven Crowking]

Many DMs don't change something just becuase the PCs do something unexpected. Does the mysterious wizard informant suddenly drop 5 levels because the PCs attacked him? I don't play that way.

If this trap is equivilent, is not dropping the wizard 5 levels unfair?

Once I was playing a PC fighter named Cal. We beat down a veritable horde of undead and found ourselves in the basement of the keep of an ancient castle. In this room was a swirling pool of earth: rock, dirt, and all assortments of the element.

Cal put his finger into it.

It was actually an Earth Weird (MMII), and Cal had to make a saving throw or be turned to stone, fall into the rolling earth, and be crushed into a thousand pieces never to be seen again. The save DC was so high that Cal had to roll an 18 or better (I looked it up later, those Weirds are insane).

The DM never thought I would do something like that. I didn't expect the consequences of my actions to be so dire. But, he played them out exactly like the book said. Now, I rolled a natural 20, so I didn't get to test that, but I do believe that he would have killed my character.

Now a swirling pool of earth is a whole lot more of a hint of DO NOT TOUCH!!! than a lever on the floor. I realize that I shouldn't have touched the earthen pool that was sitting at the bottom of an undead infested keep. But, at the time it seemed like a good idea for some reason. Hey, hindsight is 20/20.

Wait a second here....Was this unfair or wasn't it?

RC

 

[ThirdWizard]

If this trap is equivilent, is not dropping the wizard 5 levels unfair?

My point is that the DM might see it as the equivalent. If this is the case the DM and Players aren't on the same page and need to discuss what they expect out of a campaign. If we assume that the DM and Players are both competant, then there is a playstyle clash that needs to be discussed.

Otherwise, the DM has thrown a trap out of nowhere in order to kill a PC. (or his pride wouldn't let him go back on a mistake)

OR

The Players have suddenly stopped being as cautious as they have been previously for no reason.

OR

A bunch of other reasons, I'm sure. I'm not a psychologist, after all.

Wait a second here....Was this unfair or wasn't it?

It's pretty borderline. But, its more fair than the trap example, that's for sure.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I can't possibly see how pulling a lever would be more dangerous than walking through a doorway.

A doorway implies a transition from one place to another. In general, it implies that one will transit from one area on one side of the doorway to the area on the other side, but it is this implication of transition that has made so many teleports operate in doorways/portals through the years. However, passing through a doorway does not inherently imply that something other than passage through the doorway will occur.

A lever inherently implies that something is going to happen when you pull it other than the lever simply moving. This could be something good, or something bad. If you don't know, you shouldn't pull the lever. This is as true in real life as it is in the game.

RC

 

[gizmo33]

I can't possibly see how pulling a lever would be more dangerous than walking through a doorway.

Because a monster has to live in his own dungeon. Granted, the DM can just handwave away the issue. But in terms of realism, if you trap a doorway in your house, one time you're going to forget and walk through it and get blasted by your own trap. It's a lot easier to remember not to pull a lever. So if you look at what's best to trap from a dungeon-dwellers perspective, IMO it tells you what's most dangerous.

The swirling dirt wasn't a trap... And, that makes no sense to me whatsoever. You're saying a lever is more suspicious than an elemental supernatural effect? What? What if it were a swirling pool of black energy? Would a lever be more frightening than that?

In a dungeon, a lever fits a number of purposes, some of them can be flat out harmful. The difference between a swirling pile of dirt and a lever is that you know that pulling the lever has to have some effect (or it's broken - which can also be bad). Levers do things. A swirling pile of dirt can just be some left-over telekinesis, or the outer-part of a gate to the Elemental Plane of Earth. In fact, touching earth pretty much has no harmful effect in the standard rules in terms of monsters and such. Meeting gazes, breathing in green gas, those things are a heck of a lot more likely to petrify you from a core rules perspective. And the "black energy" thing is another matter obviously. Touching fire burns, obviously, I'm sorry if I didn't acknowledge that before but I didn't know it was one of the situations under consideration.

And really, I wouldn't touch anything with my hands in a dungeon. I don't actually want to know what stuff feels like in a dungeon (except for gold). That's what they make 10 ft poles for. Or I'll find the arm of a skeleton of someone who didn't follow this advice further back in the dungeon and use that. I'm serious, I don't come from the "heroic" school of fantasy adventuring.

List of senses least likely to be used by me in a dungeon on purpose: touch, taste, smell.

Secondly, if you're dealing with intelligent dungeon inhabitants, you know that they know that people pull levers. If you're going to put a magical trap on something, you trap the lever, not the dirt. It's only when the inhabitants of the dungeon don't know I'm coming, and the lever is part of an obvious mechanism that the dungeon inhabitants use regularly that I'd feel comfortable in pulling a lever. Otherwise I'm ready to make a save, even if it's just to jump out of the way of a portcullis because the lever mechanism is broken. I'd probably use a rope, because even if the save is fair, I don't want to find out. I don't even like fair saving throws.

Neither do my players, using a rope or summoned monster to pull a lever is pretty standard operating procedure in my campaign.

So in terms of ranking the following:
> touching swirling pile of dirt
> touching a greenish colored slime
> breathing in a colored gas
> freeing an NPC captive in a dungeon
> kissing an attractive female met in a dungeon who has wings
> pulling a lever
> drinking/eating something you found in a dungeon
> walking into a room full of skeletons just "laying there"
> sleeping in a room of statues

I'd put the swirling dirt at the bottom of the list of risks. YMMV of course, but I just think it's the particulars of my experiences.

 

[ThirdWizard]

A lever inherently implies that something is going to happen when you pull it other than the lever simply moving. This could be something good, or something bad. If you don't know, you shouldn't pull the lever. This is as true in real life as it is in the game.

Suffice to say that I disagree with you here. A doorway is more likely to be trapped than a lever, so much so that expecting something bad to happen when pulling a lever moreso than when walking through the doorway to get to the lever is crazy.


By the way, I find the concept of the 10 foot pole abhorrent. It is the antithesis of everything I think adventuring should be.

EDIT: Nothing anyone can say is going to convince me to be more afraid of levers than doorways. Your attempts are doomed to failure, so you might as well not bother with that particular line of debate.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The Players have suddenly stopped being as cautious as they have been previously for no reason.

I have seen these players....and been this player....way too many times to think there is anything strange about that possiblity.

It's pretty borderline. But, its more fair than the trap example, that's for sure.

For what reason, exactly? Was it because the Save DC was 1 less? Was it because you made the save? Clearly it was no more obvious to you that you shouldn't touch than it was obvious to the monk.....

 

[ThirdWizard]

For what reason, exactly? Was it because the Save DC was 1 less? Was it because you made the save? Clearly it was no more obvious to you that you shouldn't touch than it was obvious to the monk.....

Because levers are innoculous objects that my PC is familiar with. There is little reason to worry about pulling it.

Supernatural effects are unknowns. Sticking your finger in it might not be a good idea.

EDIT: Stick a dead corpse grasping the lever, and the two scenarios start to look about equal to me.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Suffice to say that I disagree with you here. A doorway is more likely to be trapped than a lever, so much so that expecting something bad to happen when pulling a lever moreso than when walking through the doorway to get to the lever is crazy.

Even if no trap is involved, the lever is inherently more dangerous than the doorway. But as you say, "Nothing anyone can say is going to convince me to be more afraid of levers than doorways. Your attempts are doomed to failure, so you might as well not bother with that particular line of debate.", so I won't assume you have any illusions that your position is even remotely objective here.

By the way, I find the concept of the 10 foot pole abhorrent. It is the antithesis of everything I think adventuring should be.

Wrongbadfun?



RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Because levers are innoculous objects that my PC is familiar with. There is little reason to worry about pulling it.

Supernatural effects are unknowns. Sticking your finger in it might not be a good idea.

EDIT: Stick a dead corpse grasping the lever, and the two scenarios start to look about equal to me.

So, in other words, the reason that the trap is unfair is because it isn't designed specifically with you in mind? I.e., no matter what anyone says about levers, no matter what the real world implications of levers are, no matter what, levers are inherently innoculous, so any trap that assumes a different viewpoint is unfair?

I submit that the trap in the OP is nearly the same in terms of fairness as the earth weird encounter you described.

RC