D&D 5E Mage Hand and Trap Avoidance

[Micah Sweet]

OK, why?

If the party is able to trigger the trap from a safe distance, by mage hand or any other means, then they have solved the trap. Good for them.

The only way I can see this as a bad or worthless or ineffective trap is if it's immediately obvious as to how it can be set off at a distance. If it's not obvious at first as to how it can be set off at a distance, then that's where the challenge and effectiveness of the trap lies, not in it being trivial to disarm once uncovered.

My own feeling on traps is to use them sparingly. There needs to be a reason why the trap-setting creature thought that setting up the trap was a good idea. And the trap-setter is not going to risk sacrificing himself to his own trap just for the chance of annoying some dratted PC in the future.

So traps in my games are mostly alarms, or insult attacks not expected to kill, or both, possibly with a side of marking the unauthorized character. More rarely, they'll be traps for animals, or capture-traps, or traps set up in a place the trap-setter never intends to return to.

And as for boring: Boring to the GM, or to the players? The two are not the same. I figure that as long as the players aren't bored by using mage hand to trigger traps, then the guy wearing the GM hat - me - has a duty to smile and take it.

Now when I GM and see the players joyously knocking down the opposition I've set up, whether traps or combat encounters, there's sometimes a little voice whispering in the back of my mind: "I'm annoyed and bored by this, so the players must be bored too. Really, they must be. Even though they appear to be having fun, they must actually want more challenge. So go ahead and give that to them. Do it! They'll thank you for it."

I do my best to ignore that voice, because I know it's the one on my left shoulder, with horns and a pitchfork.

To me, that puts the DM in the role of player's employee, whose job is to make sure the players have fun whether you're enjoying yourself or not. That doesn't work for me. The DM's enjoyment should not be subordinate to the players. IMO a campaign where the DM isn't having fun has a clock on it.

 

[MGibster]

That was certainly not my intention. Is it not possible to offer advice on how to improve at something without claiming that the person you’re offering that advice to is bad at the thing? Moreover, my advice was framed very explicitly in the context of what I, personally, think is interesting about traps. If you don’t agree with me on that matter, then my advice isn’t really going to be relevant to you.

Of course not. We must do battle in an arena packed with an angry audience. Once the bloody business has concluded, the victor will shout, "Are you not entertained?"

 

[MarkB]

What does that make an obvious trap? If it is not a trap, what is it?

A deterrent, or a hazard. Just like a barbed-wire fence is a deterrent. Cover it with leaves or vines so that you can't see the barbs and it turns into a trap.

 

[Reynard]

A deterrent, or a hazard. Just like a barbed-wire fence is a deterrent. Cover it with leaves or vines so that you can't see the barbs and it turns into a trap.

Fair enough. Is that a useful distinction?

 

[MarkB]

Fair enough. Is that a useful distinction?

If you want someone to understand what you're talking about when you say "trap", yes.

 

[Reynard]

If you want someone to understand what you're talking about when you say "trap", yes.

The characters turn a corner in the dungeon and they see an array or spears mounted on the ceiling pointed downward, with skeletons and even more recent corpses in the hall below them. The floor of the hall is coposed of obvious pressure plates.

Is this a trap?

 

[MarkB]

The characters turn a corner in the dungeon and they see an array or spears mounted on the ceiling pointed downward, with skeletons and even more recent corpses in the hall below them. The floor of the hall is coposed of obvious pressure plates.

Is this a trap?

If by "obvious" you mean that they'd have been easily spotted even without the corpses as a clue, then no, it's not a trap, it's a deterrent. The whole room is saying "you're not allowed to be here, and if you try to be here you'll die." If either the trigger or the mechanism would not have been obvious without the corpses then it's a trap, but one that's already been partially solved for you - the "find the trap and identify the triggering mechanism" parts have already been done by someone else.

 

[Reynard]

If by "obvious" you mean that they'd have been easily spotted even without the corpses as a clue, then no, it's not a trap, it's a deterrent. The whole room is saying "you're not allowed to be here, and if you try to be here you'll die." If either the trigger or the mechanism would not have been obvious without the corpses then it's a trap, but one that's already been partially solved for you - the "find the trap and identify the triggering mechanism" parts have already been done by someone else.

I think it is a distinction without a difference.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

<snip> the "find the trap and identify the triggering mechanism" parts have already been done by someone else.

So it was a trap

Past tense: trap
Present tense: hazard
Future tense: nothing

I think it is a distinction without a difference.

This

 

[Piperken]

I hear yah, but feel its more like that.s reason for the roll, its uncertain. Indianna Jones had the right idea, but failed his roll.

View attachment 398204

No, I contend this scene is at root of many decades of awful designed traps placed in awkward places in written adventures for decades.

Was it exciting to see as a young person in the theater? Yes!

But Mage Hand was always that bag of sand.