D&D 5E Traps and DCs

[slaughterj]

The "so what" comes down to the fact that switching the roll to the trap won't save it from being a poor encounter. Consistent mechanics don't suddenly make it fun, fair, or interesting.

A trap which can't be found is not fun, fair, or interesting. A trap which is automatically found is not fun, fair, or interesting. I merely proposed a simple solution to avoiding the aforementioned problems, which arise from a comparison of static numbers for passive Perception versus trap DCs. Instead, it makes any trap possible to be found by anyone (obviously the difficulty still varies based on the PCs' Perception scores) or even easy traps possibly not spotted and therefore still a potential threat.

You say switching the roll won't save it from being a poor encounter. Isn't auto-failing or auto-finding traps even worse than what I proposed? At least what I proposed is somewhat better, if traps are going to just be run purely mechanically. I get that they can run even more interestingly, like in the linked example above, but that is more than some people will get into for each and every simple trap, and even if you go through a more extended interaction with traps, a roll for the trap still seems better that comparing static numbers.

 

[slaughterj]

What I'm suggesting is RAW though. DM describes the environment, players describe what they want to do, DM determines success, failure or uncertainty. In the case of the latter, DM either asks for an ability check or uses the passive score (for tasks performed repeatedly). Once resolved, DM narrates the result of the adventurers' actions.

I think the problem you identify is because the DM is setting the DC before hearing the players describe what they want to do. The DM is jumping the gun here and creating the problem.

The DC is already set for the sample traps in the DMG, and likely already set in most adventures, rather than the DM jumping the gun.

Presumably the DM can vary the DC based on PC interaction, but let's face it, there are plenty of simple traps that a PC may well encounter and situation is pretty straight-forward, compare Perception to trap DC, and move on. No one wants to waste game time with in-depth descriptions of how you enter each and every room and how you travel the length of each and every hallway, to address the mere possibility of encountering a trap when none is there 95% of the time.

 

[iserith]

The DC is already set for the sample traps in the DMG, and likely already set in most adventures

A mistake, in my view. There can be no determination of uncertainty without hearing the PCs' goal and approach first.

Or at best, what's in the DMG or adventures is simply a suggested DC for a given goal and approach e.g. "DC 10 to find the tripwire when searching the ground between the two support beams." If you're not doing that specific thing, the DC might be some other value or there might be no DC at all since you automatically succeed or fail.

Presumably the DM can vary the DC based on PC interaction, but let's face it, there are plenty of simple traps that a PC may well encounter and situation is pretty straight-forward, compare Perception to trap DC, and move on. No one wants to waste game time with in-depth descriptions of how you enter each and every room and how you travel the length of each and every hallway, to address the mere possibility of encountering a trap when none is there 95% of the time.

Per the rules for finding hidden objects (Basic Rules, page 61), reasonable specificity is required to have a chance of success.

 

[slaughterj]

Per the rules for finding hidden objects (Basic Rules, page 61), reasonable specificity is required to have a chance of success.

Thanks for the reference, I'll check that out. But if you have no chance of finding a trap (i.e., passive Perception) without reasonable specificity, that will cause innumerable problems and run a game right into the ground. PCs simply going down a dungeon hall will not like getting hit with a trap without a chance of noticing, and would reasonably rely on their characters taking reasonable actions to look for them under the circumstances, without the PCs having to describe with reasonable specificity in each and every room, hallway, etc. how they are looking for traps. And if that standard if held up, then the game will grind to a halt with PCs over-searching for traps with great amounts of description, when 95% of the time there is not even one to find, wasting an inordinate amount of game time. As a result, that standard does not appear reasonably applicable to trap-finding.

 

[Ristamar]

A trap which can't be found is not fun, fair, or interesting. A trap which is automatically found is not fun, fair, or interesting. I merely proposed a simple solution to avoiding the aforementioned problems, which arise from a comparison of static numbers for passive Perception versus trap DCs. Instead, it makes any trap possible to be found by anyone (obviously the difficulty still varies based on the PCs' Perception scores) or even easy traps possibly not spotted and therefore still a potential threat.

You say switching the roll won't save it from being a poor encounter. Doesn't auto-failing or auto-finding traps even worse than what I proposed? At least what I proposed is somewhat better, if traps are going to just be run purely mechanically. I get that they can run even more interestingly, like in the linked example above, but that is more than some people will get into for each and every simple trap, and even if you go through a more extended interaction with traps, a roll for the trap still seems better that comparing static numbers.

Without adding further complexities or interactions to the trap encounter, the end results are roughly the same.

If the DM is assigning DCs to traps when the party's skill level is a known element, he's able to calculate the party's odds of being able to successfully detect the traps. Unless all of the traps are close to 50/50, the DM already has a good idea of which traps will be detected by the party and which ones will catch them off guard.

 

[iserith]

Thanks for the reference, I'll check that out. But if you have no chance of finding a trap (i.e., passive Perception) without reasonable specificity, that will cause innumerable problems and run a game right into the ground. PCs simply going down a dungeon hall will not like getting hit with a trap without a chance of noticing, and would reasonably rely on their characters taking reasonable actions to look for them under the circumstances, without the PCs having to describe with reasonable specificity in each and every room, hallway, etc. how they are looking for traps. And if that standard if held up, then the game will grind to a halt with PCs over-searching for traps with great amounts of description, when 95% of the time there is not even one to find, wasting an inordinate amount of game time. As a result, that standard does not appear reasonably applicable to trap-finding.

Reasonable specificity might include saying, "I keep my eyes peeled on the walls, floor, and ceiling as we slowly travel through the dungeon so as to pick up signs of traps." This is a task performed repeatedly and, if the DM decides that it has an uncertain chance of detecting a trap, he or she can resolve it with a passive Perception check.

The DC is set according to the player's stated goal and approach at that moment, rather than in a vacuum prior to play. Here the player is saying that his or her character is traveling slowly and is examining particular things. As the collapsing roof trap's triggering tripwire is 3" above the floor between two support beams, the DM might say that the player's stated goal and approach automatically succeeds on the basis that the floor is being observed and the PCs are traveling slowly enough with enough of a light source to notice it.

If, however, the players don't have a good light source or are hauling ass through the dungeon, for example, we might be in the realm of uncertainty or even automatic failure. As well, if the player decides to do anything other than look for traps as stated, the character might also have no chance of spotting that tripwire as the character is distracted. It could also be that the character searching for traps is in the rear of the party and the tripwire is in the front - again, no chance of success here, probably.

None of this need slow down play. What it does is put the players on the hook to describe what they want to do, which is step 2 of the basic conversation of the game (their only role in that conversation, mind you), and makes it so the DM doesn't have to presume any character actions or rely upon mechanical process to determine outcomes absent player input.

I could also get into discussing telegraphing of traps or the like which also helps avoid the perception of a trap as a "gotcha," but this is probably not necessary in this thread. Suffice it to say, it creates a situation where the players don't feel the need to be paranoid and unreasonably specific to avoid the DM's gotcha traps and keeps play moving forward at a good clip.

 

[slaughterj]

Without adding further complexities or interactions to the trap encounter, the end results are roughly the same.

If the DM is assigning DCs to traps when the party's skill level is a known element, he's able to calculate the party's odds of being able to successfully detect the traps. Unless all of the traps are close to 50/50, the DM already has a good idea of which traps will be detected by the party and which ones will catch them off guard.

There are no "odds" like you propose, unless there is a roll involved, and the end results are significantly different actually.

The DM knows the party's Perception scores, and if the trap DCs are static (e.g., the GM picks a pit trap or spear trap from the DMG), then the DM is basically just picking traps that either will be auto-found (boring/pointless) or auto-failed (annoying) by the PCs. And above I note the issues with an active Perception roll. Thus, instead, I suggest to make trap DCs based on a roll rather than static.

 

[Psikerlord#]

TL;DR Summary: If trap DCs are static and passive Perception is static, then you either auto-find (boring) or auto-fail (annoying) traps, so I reduce DCs of traps by 10 and replace with a 1d20 roll to allow for variability, which allows even low Perception PCs to possibility spot hard traps, and avoids the foregoing issues with opposed static numbers.

So I saw a recent thread about traps sucking (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?471800-Why-traps-in-D-amp-D-usually-suck), and thought it would be about my issue with traps in 5e, but unfortunately not, so here's my issue with traps in 5e.

Traps in 5e have a DC to detect them.

Traps are detected by Perception. Conceivably they could be detected by passive Perception (which takes no time) or making an active Perception check (which takes time, both game playing time rolling and in-game it takes an action).

If one detects Traps based on their DC, a flat score, by passive Perception, a flat score, then traps suck because either (a) your passive Perception is high enough and will auto-detect the trap, largely making the trap moot (yes, it takes time to disarm or avoid, monsters may wander by while you take the time, etc., but you get my point), or (b) your passive Perception is not high enough, you auto-fail to detect, and you will fall prey to the trap. The result is basically the DM, who knows the party's passive Perception scores, either sets trap DCs low so you will auto-find them and are basically a boring non-event, or or sets trap DCs high so you won't find them and fall into them, an annoying result.

So it seems to avoid the foregoing issue, that a roll should be involved. It could be a requirement for an active Perception check to try to find a trap, but that is a problem because (a) there will be an excess of time spent on constantly rolling and checking for traps, and (b) it seems like someone should be able to passively notice a trap, no different than passively noticing an imminent ambush and no being surprised, etc.

So instead of an active Perception check, I decided to instead rely on passive Perception, as it should be able to detect traps, and avoids wasting the time in-game and playing the game with constant rolling in places where there are no traps. But a roll still seems desirable, and I instead incorporate it on the trap DC itself. Basically take the static listed trap DC, reduce it by 10 and replace that with a d20 roll (i.e., a listed DC 15 trap would instead be a base 5+1d20 to be detected by a PC). That way there is some variability, and anyone can still detect (or not) an easily found trap or well-concealed trap (i.e., high Perception scores are still useful and are more likely to find traps, but don't auto-find easy ones or auto-fail hard ones).

PCs can still take an active Perception check when they would like, e.g., in an area that they might have reason to believe there is a trap, but this method (1) avoids the issue of auto-find / auto-fail with static passive Perception scores vs static trap DCS, and (2) avoids the issue of wasted game time with constant rolling for active Perception checks.

Any thoughts?

Imo ... passive perception is a broken mechanic and hopefully wont survive into 6e.

My advice is simply ignore PP and roll all the time. Worked well in prior editions. Change the observant feat to give adv on perception checks, done. Rolling works for everything else in the game, why should perception be any different? I cant think of another system that uses anything like the PP mechanic for spotting things.

It seems to me PP grew out of "taking 10" from 3rd edition, and wanting to avoid "take 20" (or the "I keep rolling till I get 20" syndrome). A better approach imo is to simply not allow multiple attempts at the same thing unless the circumstances have somehow changed.

edit - and sorry I meant to say, if you are going to roll for the trap DC (which I think is a good idea), you could just as easily go back to having the player roll perception (or you roll secretly for them).

 

[slaughterj]

Reasonable specificity might include saying, "I keep my eyes peeled on the walls, floor, and ceiling as we slowly travel through the dungeon so as to pick up signs of traps." This is a task performed repeatedly and, if the DM decides that it has an uncertain chance of detecting a trap, he or she can resolve it with a passive Perception check.

But again, traps have static DCs, so if you are resolving with a passive Perception check, you have the issue of auto-fail and auto-find.

As for your comment about keeping eyes peeled, that was my point that characters would be doing that by default, so no need to get into reasonable specificity.

The DC is set according to the player's stated goal and approach at that moment, rather than in a vacuum prior to play.

Then why are there static DCs listed in the DMG and adventures?

Ultimately sure if PCs are running, have bad light, etc., perhaps that warrants (a) disadvantage, (b) altering the DC, or (c) adjudicating auto-failure. (And vice versa, if they are in a treasure room and expect it to be trapped, and take extra caution and describe in particularity how they are exploring for traps, they might get advantage or alter the DC.) But there still needs to be a baseline DC to start with and work from.

 

[slaughterj]

Imo ... passive perception is a broken mechanic and hopefully wont survive into 6e.

My advice is simply ignore PP and roll all the time. Worked well in prior editions. Change the observant feat to give adv on perception checks, done. Rolling works for everything else in the game, why should perception be any different? I cant think of another system that uses anything like the PP mechanic for spotting things.

It seems to me PP grew out of "taking 10" from 3rd edition, and wanting to avoid "take 20" (or the "I keep rolling till I get 20" syndrome). A better approach imo is to simply not allow multiple attempts at the same thing unless the circumstances have somehow changed.

edit - and sorry I meant to say, if you are going to roll for the trap DC (which I think is a good idea), you could just as easily go back to having the player roll perception (or you roll secretly for them).

Passive Perception is an excellent mechanic and solves the problem that many game systems have, namely, if everyone in the party always rolls, then nothing will ever be hidden, as with the dice variance, someone will roll high. The hobbits can't hide on the mountainside if 1000 passing orcs each get to roll to check to notice them. It solves a lot of problems.