Trapmaster Thief - Homebrew Rogue Build

[Camelot]

I like the idea of a rogue who has such a mastery over traps that he/she can use traps in the middle of a battle. So, I tried creating a trapmster rogue. Please critique, and thank you!

A trapmaster rogue needs a trap kit (superior weapon).

Weapon - Prof. - Damage - Range - Price - Weight - Group - Prop.
Trap Kit - - +2 - - - 1d6 - - 10/20 - - 15 gp - - 2 lb. - Light Blade - Light Thrown, Off-Hand, Load Free

A trap kit needs ammunition, specifically trap parts.

Item - - - - - - - Price - Weight
Trap Parts (15) - 1 gp - - 3 lb.

Instead of selecting Artful Dodger, Brutal Scoundrel, or Ruthless Ruffian for your Rogue Tactics class feature, you can select the followng option, Trapmaster Thief.

Trapmaster Thief: You are proficient with the trap kit. You gain a bonus to all defenses against traps and to Thievery checks made to disarm traps or pick locks equal to your Intelligence modifier.

Thusly, Dexterity should be your main ability and Intelligence should be second. Save some for other abilities, though, to boost your Fortitude and Will defenses.

NEW POWERS

Poisoned Dart - Rogue Attack 1
You have fashioned a mechanism that fires a poison dart when you simply release the trigger.
At-Will * Martial, Poison, Weapon
Standard Action - Ranged weapon
Requirement: You must be wielding a trap kit.
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage, and the target takes poison damage equal to your Intelligence modifier.
- Level 21: 2[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.

Vibrating Caltrops - Rogue Attack 1
These caltrops hop around because of tightened springs inside them, making a section of terrain particularly nasty to step in until the springs are all unwound.
At-Will * Martial, Weapon
Standard Action - Close blast 1
Requirement: You must be wielding a trap kit.
Target: Each non-flying creature in blast
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.
- Level 21: 2[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.
Effect: The power's area is filled with vibrating caltrops until the end of your next turn. Any non-flying creature that enters the area or starts its turn there takes damage equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum 1).

Shock Pad - Rogue Attack 1
You throw down a pad onto the floor. When a creature steps on the pad, you activate the trap and the creature is shocked with electricity.
Encounter * Lightning, Martial, Weapon
Standard Action - Close blast 1
Requirement: You must be wielding a trap kit.
Effect: The power's area is occupied by a shock pad. Creatures can occupy the power's area as normal. Make a Thievery check with a bonus equal to your Intelligence modifier. Enemies must make a Perception check against your Thievery check to notice the shock pad. Once during this encounter, you can make the following attack.
- Opportunity Action - Area occupied by the shock pad
- Trigger: A creature enters or starts its turn in the power's area.
- Target: Each creature in area
- Attack: Dexterity vs. Fortitude
- Hit: 2[W] + Dexterity modifier lighting damage.
- - Trapmaster Thief: You gain a bonus to the damage roll equal to your Intelligence modifier.

Air Gun - Rogue Attack 1
You pull out your pride and joy, a device that blasts extremely focused gusts of air, able to devastatingly injure an enemy, especially at close range. Unfortunately, it only has a few good blasts in it before the air needs to be recompressed into it, which takes many hours.
Daily * Force, Martial, Weapon
Standard Action - Ranged weapon
Requirement: You must be wielding a trap kit.
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
Hit: 2[W] + Dexterity modifier force damage. If the target is within 5 squares of you, the attack instead deals 3[W] + Dexterity modifier force damage.
Effect: Before the end of the encounter, you can make the attack two more times. The second time you make the attack, it deals 1[W] less damage. The third time you make the attack, the target must be within 5 squares of you and the attack deals 1[W] + Dexterity modifier force damage.

NEW FEATS

Open Opportunity
- Prerequisite: Int 15, Rogue
- Benefit: If you score a critical hit while you have combat advantage, the target gains vulnerable 5 to a damage type of your choice until the end of your next turn.

Forceful Toxin
- Prerequisite: Dex 13, Int 13
- Benfit: You gain a +1 feat bonus to damage rolls of powers that have the force or poison keyword. The bonus increases to +2 at 11th level and to +3 at 21st level.

So, how do you think it holds up compared to other rogue builds? Is having typed damage an advantage? Is the class feature only affecting traps and lock-picking a disadvantage? I'd love any constructive criticism, no matter how harsh! Thanks!

Like what you see? Critique more at The Dungeon's Dragon (see sig).

 

[Amaroq]

Oooh! I love the idea!

... Hmm - from a balance perspective, that looked/felt decent to me at first. The at-will's are very similar to existing powers of the same role at the same level, which is a very good sign ... though I think your Daily winds up doing 6[W] over three standard actions? Which makes it comparable to having three encounter powers for most characters, very unbalanced at Level 1 .. Typed damage means your rogue risks running into some opponents who resist poison, so it "nerfs" those a little bit to be typed, but not much.

But ...

Overall, this class felt a lot more like "skinning" existing powers than really building up new ones - I mean, call "trap kit" a "crossbow", and this starts feeling a lot more like an extension of a crossbow rogue than a really "new" option.

Personally, I'd have taken a very different overall approach.

Rather than trying to give "trap flavored" direct attacks, I'd have worked on building up two trap flavored options apiece at L1 Daily, L2 Utility, L3 Encounter, etc. I'd make the "choice" at each power be between something that does striker-ey amounts of damage, and something that sets up controller-ey zones and ongoing effects.

I'd have most of these create delayed effects which are triggered by any creature entering the square or squares in question (Special: a Trapmaster Thief can occupy a trigger square of his own devising without setting off the trap.) You probably define "Set a Trap" to be maybe Thievery vs Passive Perception to cause specific monsters to not-know that the square is a Trigger square?

Then I'd give the rogue a pair of L1 at-wills which were comparable to Footwork Lure in effect: less-striker-ey damage, but more tricksy and tactical thanks to the granted movement. (Your Trapmaster character likley takes one forced-movement at-will plus one of the existing Rogue at-wills for more striker-ey damage when he's too far from his traps to make use of them.)

You can start building out feats *for other characters* to let them move through your Trapmaster's trap squares without setting off the traps ...

A feat to let a ranged rogue set Trap Triggers up to range 10 using a crossbow ...

A feat to make Dailies some flavor of "Reliable" - say, if the Trigger effect isn't triggered .. Does that even need a feat or does one just build a trap-specific keyword that equates to that?

.
Anyways, here's some L1 Dailies I might have gone with: offering a choice between the striker-damage of a Dragonfang Bolt knock-off:

Poisoned Dart Trap * Rogue Attack 1
Daily * Trap
Standard Action; Ranged 1
Target: an unoccupied square. (Special: Trapmaster Thief, may create the trap in the square that he is.)
Creates a 5'x5' square which acts as a trigger for the following effect:
- Poisoned Dart * Implement, Poison
- Immediate Interrupt
- Trigger: A creature enters the square or begins his turn in the square. (Special: Trapmaster Thief does not trigger his own trap.)
- Target: The triggering creature
- Attack: Dexterity vs Fortitude
- Hit: 2d8 + Dexterity damage plus an ongoing 5 poison damage (save ends)
- Effect: Make a second Poisoned Dart attack
- - Secondary Target: The same creature or a second creature within 5 squares of the trigger square
- - Secondary Attack: Dexterity vs Fortitude
- - Secondary Hit: 2d8 + Dexterity damage plus an ongoing 5 poison (save ends)

versus the absolute area-control effect of a Grease knock-off:

Grease Trap * Rogue Attack 1
Daily * Trap, Zone
Standard Action; Ranged; Area burst 1 within 2 squares
Target: An unoccupied 15'x15' square. (Special: Trapmaster Thief may occupy one of the squares.)
Creates a 15' x 15' area which acts as a trigger for the following effect:
- Grease * Implement, Zone
- Immediate Interrupt * Area burst 2
- Trigger: A creature enters or starts its turn in the Trigger zone. (Special: Trapmaster Thief does not trigger his own trap.)
- Effect: The trap creates a zone of slick grease that covers all horizontal surfaces until the end of the encounter. The zone is difficult terrain. You can make the following attack, using a square within the zone as the origin square.
- - Free Action * Close burst 1
- - Trigger: A creature enters the zone
- - Target: The triggering creature plus any other creatures in burst
- - Attack: Dexterity vs Reflex
- - Hit: You knock the target prone.
- - Miss: You slide the target 2 squares.

That gives you two effects which are quite similar to existing powers, so you can be pretty sure that they're balanced .. they have "trigger" effects, so they really build a "trapmaster" feel because he's actually stringing out traps in the middle of combat .. they give his allies time to "escape" the likely zones he's creating .. and they create a lot of tactical sub-goals which will be fun for the entire party to try and push/slide/pull creatures into.

.
You can get some entertaining Utilities:

Re-set Trap * Rogue Utility 2
Encounter * Touch
Standard Action
Target: An adjacent Trap Trigger square or Trigger Zone which the Rogue created
Effect: Move the Trap Trigger to an unoccupied square or Zone adjacent to yourself - Special: Trapmaster may move the Trigger to his own square.)
Special: Trapmaster Rogue may perform Re-Set Trap as a Minor action.

Suppress Trap * Rogue Utility 2
Encounter * Touch
Immediate Interrupt
Trigger: A creature would Trigger one of the Rogue's traps
Effect: The trap does not trigger.
Special: For a Trapmaster Rogue, Suppress Trap is an At-Will power

Trigger Trap * Rogue Utility 2
Encounter * Touch
Minor Action
Effect: The Rogue triggers an adjacent Trap Trigger.

. . . .

From a design perspective, I tried to focus on things which don't feel over-balancing .. the "Trigger" requirement makes the powers a bit less powerful (because you have to get an enemy to trigger them) while making any shifty/slidey characters in the party feel more powerful.

For that flavor of trapmaster to really work, you need a very tactically adept player .. plus you need a DM who is good about walking into the traps when an NPC doesn't know they're there, and a very tactically astute player.

 

[eriktheguy]

I like it. The path itself seems a little weak (as any rogue could take a feat to gain the proficiency and still get the attacks). Scoundrels get some bonus damage, dodgers get occasional AC bonus, maybe you can think of a bonus for the trapmaster along these lines .

Kobold racial feat:
You gain proficiency with trap kits and gain a +2 feat bonus to damage dealt with these weapons.

 

[Amaroq]

Just to let you know, Cam, I'm still working on this - may have somethin' worked up a bit in a day or two.

Erik, I totally agree; I think I figured out the "key" there, as allowing the Trapmaster to pass through his triggers without triggering the trap turns out to be a huge advantage (and also opens up the "Footwork Lure" ability quite a bit).

I'm also working on a dastardly bad-guy NPC version of the same thing; I can't wait to see the looks on my players faces when I hit 'em with him!

 

[Starfox]

I like the idea, but a trapmaster seems more like a controller than a striker to me. I also agree with the pointers that traps should be more indirect than the OP suggests.

I did something along these lines for my Mastermind controller build - see my sig.

 

[eriktheguy]

NEW POWERS


Shock Pad - Rogue Attack 1
You throw down a pad onto the floor. When a creature steps on the pad, you activate the trap and the creature is shocked with electricity.
Encounter * Lightning, Martial, Weapon
Standard Action - Close blast 1
Requirement: You must be wielding a trap kit.
Effect: The power's area is occupied by a shock pad. Creatures can occupy the power's area as normal. Make a Thievery check with a bonus equal to your Intelligence modifier. Enemies must make a Perception check against your Thievery check to notice the shock pad. Once during this encounter, you can make the following attack.
- Opportunity Action - Area occupied by the shock pad
- Trigger: A creature enters or starts its turn in the power's area.
- Target: Each creature in area
- Attack: Dexterity vs. Fortitude
- Hit: 2[W] + Dexterity modifier lighting damage.
- - Trapmaster Thief: You gain a bonus to the damage roll equal to your Intelligence modifier.

This is too weak. 2[W] and you only get to use it once? Most rogue encounter powers do this much or more damage, don't require setup, and are used with better weapons equipped. Traps have the disadvantage of being difficult to use, but the advantage of doing more damage, feel free to ramp up the effects a little (ex 4[W] and the target is dazed), which sets them up for the next sneak attack.
I would also suggest using:
You can make a stealth check as a free action. Creatures whose passive perception you beat do not notice the trap. Opportunity attacks made with this trap have combat advantage against opponents who did not notice it.

Since stealth is used instead of thievery for hiding things, and because it is simpler to use passive perception. Note that my wording of the power also makes it clear that the rogue can apply sneak attack damage in certain cases.

Air Gun - Rogue Attack 1
You pull out your pride and joy, a device that blasts extremely focused gusts of air, able to devastatingly injure an enemy, especially at close range. Unfortunately, it only has a few good blasts in it before the air needs to be recompressed into it, which takes many hours.
Daily * Force, Martial, Weapon
Standard Action - Ranged weapon
Requirement: You must be wielding a trap kit.
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
Hit: 2[W] + Dexterity modifier force damage. If the target is within 5 squares of you, the attack instead deals 3[W] + Dexterity modifier force damage.
Effect: Before the end of the encounter, you can make the attack two more times. The second time you make the attack, it deals 1[W] less damage. The third time you make the attack, the target must be within 5 squares of you and the attack deals 1[W] + Dexterity modifier force damage.

I totally like the idea for this trap, and not the execution. Here are a few specific things:
Is the trap set up in a square, or does it travel with you?
When you make the attack two more times, does it require a standard action each time?
And a few general ideas I have:
Consider a few controller abilities that summon monsters until the end of the encounter, they are all dailies. I think you could balance this as one of those. You could set the trap up in a square as a standard action and it immediately makes one attack. Until the end of the encounter you could direct it to make attacks as a standard action, again, similar to summons. I was thinking that 2[W] is balanced, with the extra damage at close range.
Also, do you think this power should push?

NEW FEATS

Open Opportunity
- Prerequisite: Int 15, Rogue
- Benefit: If you score a critical hit while you have combat advantage, the target gains vulnerable 5 to a damage type of your choice until the end of your next turn.

You should specify a few energy types, namely those associated with traps (poison, electricity, thunder etc). You should at least specify that the player cannot choose 'untyped'.

Forceful Toxin
- Prerequisite: Dex 13, Int 13
- Benfit: You gain a +1 feat bonus to damage rolls of powers that have the force or poison keyword. The bonus increases to +2 at 11th level and to +3 at 21st level.

I like it, it's balanced, but 'forceful toxin' makes no sense :S...
keep it!

So, how do you think it holds up compared to other rogue builds? Is having typed damage an advantage? Is the class feature only affecting traps and lock-picking a disadvantage? I'd love any constructive criticism, no matter how harsh! Thanks!

Like what you see? Critique more at The Dungeon's Dragon (see sig).

Harshness delivered.

I strongly recommend that you turn daily abilities into permanent traps that remain for the rest of the encounter and can attack as a standard action by the player (similar to the summons of an invoker). Most specialized classes have some sort of theme to their dailies, bards have songs, barbarians rage, and a trap master should have traps! If you like the idea, I'll start you off
Keyword: Stationary Trap
When you use a power with the 'Stationary Trap' keyword, you place a trap in an adjacent, unoccupied square. This trap has defenses equal to your own, HP equal to your bloodied value, does not threaten a square, and is immune to disease, fear, poison, and sleep. You may only have once such trap deployed at a time. The trap acts on your turn when you use actions, or when an action it has is triggered. The trap cannot move. The trap has combat advantage against any foe you have combat advantage against. If the trap hits a foe it has combat advantage against, you are able to use sneak attack as though you had made the attack yourself. Making an attack with the trap while stealthed causes you to no longer be stealthed.
You need a trap kit to set up a stationary trap, but not to continue making attacks with it. Roll all additional attacks as though you still had the same trap kit equipped. These additional attacks do not consume ammunition.

In addition to its normal attack, I suggest giving the air gun the following
Opportunity action:
Trigger: an enemy moves into a square adjacent to one the air gun occupies.
Attack: Dex vs AC
Hit: 1[W] + Dex and the target is pushed 1 square
Trapmaster: The target is instead pushed a number of squares equal to your Int modifier (minimum 1).

Final note: Most of your traps target AC, this is good. Keep in mind that using a weapon attack against non-AC defenses is an advantage, they are easier to hit. Since traps are so hard to set up and execute, it makes sense that they target non-AC defenses and therefore hit more often. I suggest that you make DIRECT attacks target either AC or REF (as most rogue powers do) and make indirect trap attacks (such as your shock pad) target non-AC defenses for that boosted chance to hit! All of your current powers seem balanced in terms of which defense they target, so keep it up!

Final Final note: If you are still looking for a class feature that boosts the trapmaster's combat ability, how about this:
When you deal sneak attack damage with a stationary trap, an opportunity action, or an immediate action, add your Int modifier to the damage. (This works with the air gun, the shock pad, and even riposte strike).

 

[Amaroq]

This is too weak. 2[W] and you only get to use it once? Most rogue encounter powers do this much or more damage, don't require setup, and are used with better weapons equipped. Traps have the disadvantage of being difficult to use, but the advantage of doing more damage, feel free to ramp up the effects a little (ex 4[W] and the target is dazed), which sets them up for the next sneak attack.

Mmm... 4[W] + Dazed seems vastly overpowered to me for a Level 1 Encounter power. By the time you're into the Level 15 powers, yes, that feels right, but I actually very much liked "Shock Pad" as originally written. It affects every creature in the burst; with a defender appropriately clogging things up right on the other side of the burst you might well see multiple targets affected (its 2[W] per target, not 2[W]). You certainly don't want to gift somebody a "Daze multiple targets" as an L1 Encounter power!

Also, thinking of it as "difficult to use so I should up the power" misses the "its kinda controller-ey" aspect of it. Assume your enemies spot the Shock Pad when you set it up and avoid it as best they can. You've still set up a 3x3 square that has changed the dynamic of the combat: an obstacle keeping melee skirmishers away from the wizard, for example, or preventing the defender from getting flanked when outnumbered.

No matter how much the opposition avoids those squares, some fellow player is always going to find a way to push or slide them into them and thus trigger the trap .. probably right after taking damage from some other attack .. which highlights that the "delayed blast" effect of the trap gives it the possibility of a bit of "going nova" by hitting the target with multiple attacks on a single character-turn .. not to mention building traps that push somebody into other traps, etc ... that's an issue with, for example, Soldier types who have a "Heal while bloodied" power, or Brutes who have a special attack while bloodied - pile enough attacks on in a single turn and you can take them all the way from unbloodied to deal without using their power.

I think that "upping the damage" is something you'd only want to do after playtesting, if it feels like the power simply doesn't hold its own next to the other rogue powers.

Though, that said, 2d6 does feel a little wimpy for some things; when I started playing with writing Trapmaster powers, I found myself starting to write "1d8" powers instead of "1[W]" powers, and thinking of the Trap Kit as an Implement which enables the use of powers with the Trap keyword, rather than as a Weapon with its own die of damage.

Now dropping in "Dazed", "Prone", and "Concedes Combat Advantage ..." powers at Lvls 3-9 is a great idea, though - that will do really nicely at creating plenty of opportunities for a rogue to swoop in and do backstabs in the area his trap has just hit ... I also very much like the idea of some later Dailies functioning as summons that create a "Trap" that does more than just hit once, but again I'd say Camelot has the right basic approach as those summons are a bit powerful for a "Level 1 Daily".

You can make a stealth check as a free action. Creatures whose passive perception you beat do not notice the trap. Opportunity attacks made with this trap have combat advantage against opponents who did not notice it.

Since stealth is used instead of thievery for hiding things, and because it is simpler to use passive perception. Note that my wording of the power also makes it clear that the rogue can apply sneak attack damage in certain cases.

I was thinking of almost the exact same wording .. (yours is better than mine, tbf) .. and I suspect this might be a Feat, which the Trapmaster gets as a "Bonus Feat at First Level" for choosing the Trapmaster rogue tactics class feature.

How does that strike you, erik?

My thinking is it does address a bit of the "making the Trapmaster build a little more combat-powerful" while still giving other rogues access to a cool use of their Stealth if they're using the Trap keyword powers.

 

[eriktheguy]

Mmm... 4[W] + Dazed seems vastly overpowered to me for a Level 1 Encounter power. By the time you're into the Level 15 powers, yes, that feels right, but I actually very much liked "Shock Pad" as originally written. It affects every creature in the burst; with a defender appropriately clogging things up right on the other side of the burst you might well see multiple targets affected (its 2[W] per target, not 2[W]). You certainly don't want to gift somebody a "Daze multiple targets" as an L1 Encounter power!

It's a close blast 1, so it only affects 1 square and 1 target in an encounter (PHB 272). 4[W] and daze was my mistake. For some reason I thought that rogue encounter powers did around 3[W], but they do max 2[W]. The weapon is basically a short-sword with -1 to hit, but the attack targets fort, so it's okay. I would say that the damage/effect should be better than 2[W]. Daze is a little powerful, maybe 3[W] and stops movement is more balanced.

Also, thinking of it as "difficult to use so I should up the power" misses the "its kinda controller-ey" aspect of it. Assume your enemies spot the Shock Pad when you set it up and avoid it as best they can. You've still set up a 3x3 square that has changed the dynamic of the combat: an obstacle keeping melee skirmishers away from the wizard, for example, or preventing the defender from getting flanked when outnumbered.

No matter how much the opposition avoids those squares, some fellow player is always going to find a way to push or slide them into them and thus trigger the trap .. probably right after taking damage from some other attack .. which highlights that the "delayed blast" effect of the trap gives it the possibility of a bit of "going nova" by hitting the target with multiple attacks on a single character-turn .. not to mention building traps that push somebody into other traps, etc ... that's an issue with, for example, Soldier types who have a "Heal while bloodied" power, or Brutes who have a special attack while bloodied - pile enough attacks on in a single turn and you can take them all the way from unbloodied to deal without using their power.

I would agree if it could affect a 3x3 area, but blast 1 is only a 1x1, which is substantially weaker. Your post does give some insight thought. The text should say that the rogue 'may' roll a thievery or stealth check instead of requiring him to, so that the option to make the trap apparent is clear.

I think that "upping the damage" is something you'd only want to do after playtesting, if it feels like the power simply doesn't hold its own next to the other rogue powers.

Though, that said, 2d6 does feel a little wimpy for some things; when I started playing with writing Trapmaster powers, I found myself starting to write "1d8" powers instead of "1[W]" powers, and thinking of the Trap Kit as an Implement which enables the use of powers with the Trap keyword, rather than as a Weapon with its own die of damage.

Now dropping in "Dazed", "Prone", and "Concedes Combat Advantage ..." powers at Lvls 3-9 is a great idea, though - that will do really nicely at creating plenty of opportunities for a rogue to swoop in and do backstabs in the area his trap has just hit ... I also very much like the idea of some later Dailies functioning as summons that create a "Trap" that does more than just hit once, but again I'd say Camelot has the right basic approach as those summons are a bit powerful for a "Level 1 Daily".

I was going to recommend wording the indirect trap powers as implement abilities, and the direct powers as weapons. The weapon attacks would work against AC and the implement attacks would work against NAD, but it's just too tedious.

I was thinking of almost the exact same wording .. (yours is better than mine, tbf) .. and I suspect this might be a Feat, which the Trapmaster gets as a "Bonus Feat at First Level" for choosing the Trapmaster rogue tactics class feature.

How does that strike you, erik?

My thinking is it does address a bit of the "making the Trapmaster build a little more combat-powerful" while still giving other rogues access to a cool use of their Stealth if they're using the Trap keyword powers.

I think that my original proposal for the level 1 daily is overpowered (allowing a 2[W] attack every turn as a standard is a little too good). I'm not sure how I would do that, I guess I will leave creative licence on this to you and OP, but I want to see what he has to say on all our suggestions so far.
In any case, I think setting up a summon-like trap just makes sense for the flavor of this character. I find the rogue level 1 dailies a little lackluster.

 

[Camelot]

I have to say that I greatly appreciate the advice so far, and you all have really good ideas. I completely agree that the trapmaster should create traps rather than just use trap-like powers. I'll revamp the powers later to fit this idea.

Also, the ideas on the class feature are brilliant. I knew what I had wasn't good. I had the general idea of the build, but not the specifics to make it balanced while still interesting. What you propose is much better than mine, since it only applies in certain encounters.

I really wish I had thought of some of your ideas myself, but this is why I put my ideas on the internet! Thanks a whole bunch, and expect more later!

 

[Amaroq]

It's a close blast 1, so it only affects 1 square and 1 target in an encounter (PHB 272). 4[W] and daze was my mistake. For some reason I thought that rogue encounter powers did around 3[W], but they do max 2[W]. The weapon is basically a short-sword with -1 to hit, but the attack targets fort, so it's okay. I would say that the damage/effect should be better than 2[W]. Daze is a little powerful, maybe 3[W] and stops movement is more balanced.

I would agree if it could affect a 3x3 area, but blast 1 is only a 1x1, which is substantially weaker.

Blast! I read that as burst 1. D'OH!

In that case, I agree - affecting 1 creature for a delayed 2[W] is too weak. What if the "trigger" square stays a 1x1, but the effect is actually close burst 1, from that origin square, once triggered?

I was going to recommend wording the indirect trap powers as implement abilities, and the direct powers as weapons. The weapon attacks would work against AC and the implement attacks would work against NAD, but it's just too tedious.

Fully agree.

In any case, I think setting up a summon-like trap just makes sense for the flavor of this character. I find the rogue level 1 dailies a little lackluster.

Yeah, I loved that idea - the summon-like trap is pretty darn cool, and gives a mechanic I don't think either of us had thought of.

. . .

A "nerf" I'd been wondering about ...

What if "setting a trap trigger" were a Ranged 1 action?

In other words, doing it while in close combat would trigger an opportunity attack ..

But, you could pick feats to change that, such as

- Crossbow trapsetter - changes it to a Range 10 action

- Defensive trapsetter - changes it to a Melee 1 action