D&D 5E Fire Trap

[jrowland]

I base my potions on the assumption that they are meant to be portable, and therefore, likely to be bumped, dropped, jostled, etc, and therefore more sturdy than one would superficially imagine. So based on that, I'd say the bottle falls, cracks, etc, but its contents remain to add a wee bit of tension to the scene and to draw attention to it.
[MENTION=22953]SteelDragon[/MENTION] is it not a trope for a "villain" to have the attitude "If I can't have it, no one will" and destroy his own stuff? Just food for thought.

 

[bganon]

It's D&D, and Wizards are odd to begin with; traps don't always need a logical reason to exist. Who can say why they'd trap their own office? In real life people booby-trap their own apartments for all sorts of paranoid reasons.

I'm more bothered by the idea that Shatter would destroy books - they're one of the objects that I'd think would be most resistant to loud noises.

 

[aramis erak]

I'm minded of a variant of one of the Factions. Remember: the Harpers are about keeping potent magic out of hands that will misuse it; some things are not destroyed, but stored in a place where, if someone comes barging in, one can presume them to not be the kind of folk you want getting them, and it's better you destroy the item than let it fall into inept hands.

 

[pukunui]

I'm more bothered by the idea that Shatter would destroy books - they're one of the objects that I'd think would be most resistant to loud noises.

Shatter damages all nonmagical unattended objects within its radius, not just ones made of glass or crystal or whatever.

EDIT: Furthermore, the definition of thunder damage (PHB, pg 196) is a 'concussive blast of sound'. That implies there's some physical force involved. Also, if a creature made of stone or metal has disadvantage on the save against the spell, what hope does a mere inanimate book have?

The name 'shatter' invokes high-pitched, glass-breaking frequencies, but the mechanics of the spell don't appear to be limited to glass and crystal. Anything can be concussively blasted into smithereens by enough thunder damage (even taking resistance to thunder damage into account; if a book has, say, 5 hit points, because it's big and bound in thick leather, resistance to thunder damage isn't going to matter much if the shatter spell deals 10 or more damage).

 

[Plane Sailing]

It looks as though the Fire Trap and Explosive Runes spell have all been rolled into Glyph of Warding, so it might be worth taking a look at that spell for ideas.

 

[Nebulous]

Cool. Thanks guys. I'm aware of shatter's limitations, and that's perfectly fine. I'm more looking to destroy most of the contents in the room so I don't have to try and figure out what all of it is ...

Does a healing potion count as a magic item for the purposes of being shattered, though?

What if you just forego any rules or hit points and just say it all starts burning up?

 

[pming]

Hiya.

My suggestion would be this: Stop trying to "play by the same rules the PC's play by".

NPC's don't follow the same rules (re: class, HD, abilities, etc) that PC's do. Monsters don't follow the same rules that the PC's do. Why should traps be any different? Just think about the situation, imagine what would "make sense" for this wizards trap, write down what you think would make the game interesting and fun, then assign a DC to detect and/or disarm based on the *guidelines* in the DMG (as someone laid out earlier in the thread). You don't have to "find a rule" or "find a spell" to do what you want, nor do you have to then figure out the specific AC and HP of every item in the room and if it is/isn't in the initial "blast radius". That's 3.x/PF/4e thinking. You should have left that kind of thinking back with those books.

So...just imagine what would be cool and make sense. Then write it down that way.

The wizard was a paranoid fellow, always seeing shadows out of the corner of his eyes. Convinced that someone...or someTHING...was waiting for the opportunity to steel his secrets, he placed a ward on his writing desk. It is crafty and hard to spot (DC 20), but if found, not difficult to remove (DC 10). If it is triggered, a magical blast of sparks, heat and a loud, thunderous BOOM erupts from the desk itself. All those in the room can make a DC 15 Dexterity save. Failure means they are thrown prone and take 2d10 damage. Success means they take half damage and are not thrown prone. The more fragile things in the room (loose paper/scrolls, glass bottles, feather pens, light clothing, etc.) will likely catch on fire as the heated sparks touch them. If not extinguished quickly the whole library will be engulfed in flame.

There. Simple, interesting and logical. How to handle the specifics like what exactly 'catches fire' or what can put out the fires and how many 'fires' are there? In the immortal words of Richard Carlson..."Don't sweat the small stuff". In other words, make it up on the spot. Stop just "running the game", and start "DM'ing the game". If your players dice have been rather cold and unforgiving that session, make it relatively easy to put out the fire with any reasonable idea (e.g., "I smother the flames with my cloak"). If they are a group who like to use their equipment a lot, let them use up all their water/wine/beer dousing the place. If they are dice-monkeys and just want to roll a lot of dice, pick a DC and have them roll some particular check each round, subtracting failures from successes, with whichever number (positive or negative) getting to 5 first, "winning" (e.g., if the success:failure ends up at 5:2, they put it out...if it ends up 2:5, the place is too far gone and is now an inferno).

Why do I suggest this way? Well, to quote the Famous Bard: "The play's the thing" (ok, so I'm using 'play' differently...sue me ). And with regards to running 5e the way it is intended to be run (heavily IMHO), fast and loose is ALWAYS the better road to travel. The DM needs to have fun too. I may be a bit different than other DM's, but I get immense enjoyment out of trying different ways of handling things "game mechanics wise". I've DM'ed Pathfinder multiple times, and after a certain number of games, without fail, I get bored as H-E-doublehockeysticks! I don't get to flex my DM'ing muscles. I don't get to really try new things. My players become used to the ho-hum drudgery of "Oh, ok. So let me guess...I roll a d20, add some stat/skill adjustment and have to beat some particular number? *yawn*..." If EVERYTHING in the game comes down to simply rolling a d20, with a binary "100% success or 100% failure", the game gets predictable and bland. Fast. So spice it up with a bit of unexpected "mechanics play"! Get creative with your chances! Turn a natural 1 into some sort of humorous (or disastrous!) result in stead of just the "OK, you don't do it". In short, surprise yourself with your creativity and give your players something a bit different. I bet you (and them) will find running and playing in a D&D session a LOT more entertaining!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[steeldragons]

[MENTION=22953]SteelDragon[/MENTION] is it not a trope for a "villain" to have the attitude "If I can't have it, no one will" and destroy his own stuff? Just food for thought.

I suppose. But I missed, in the initial post that this was "incidental" stuff and/or that the wizard was...gone, so to speak, and just trapped all over his lair to screw with "looters." I was, for whatever reason, presuming, the wizard was still alive and living there. In which case, why bother when he's there to protect it?

But yes, the "if I can't have it no one will" is a recurring attitude of the [demented/desperate] villain...if that makes it a "trope", then yes to that too.

 

[pukunui]

I didn't think that detail was particularly important. My apologies.

Basically, the wizard had set up shop in town, but it was temporary quarters - his plan was to usurp the town speaker's job and move into her palace. He'd put a glyph of warding (loaded with a shatter spell) inside the desk. You can set a password or whatever to make it so it doesn't trigger. Although his plans were foiled by the PCs and he fled to another town, he's the conniving type of guy who'd have all sorts of contingencies. He's probably got copies of any important documents he'd stashed in the desk somewhere else, and the books on the shelves were probably mainly just there for the look of the thing.

So blowing it all up with a shatter spell - along with any would-be thieves - makes plenty of sense in the context.

 

[aramis erak]

I suppose. But I missed, in the initial post that this was "incidental" stuff and/or that the wizard was...gone, so to speak, and just trapped all over his lair to screw with "looters." I was, for whatever reason, presuming, the wizard was still alive and living there. In which case, why bother when he's there to protect it?

But yes, the "if I can't have it no one will" is a recurring attitude of the [demented/desperate] villain...if that makes it a "trope", then yes to that too.

It's a common situation in real life, even. It's a case where a trope is actually reflective of a segment of reality. It's the underlying psychology of "family destroyer" type murderer-suicides. (I've known two such cases personally; only one succeeded. I've known family members of two others.) It's also related to the stalker-murderer transition — "If I can't have her, no one can!" I've known one of those, too.

And evil wizards in D&D tend to be cast as magic item makers — not as strongly as in Ars Magica, but still, a strong link — and can use the traps and themselves far better than either one alone.