Design & Development: Traps is up!

[Steely Dan]

A thought just occurred to me; could this explain the Perception and Spot scores that appeared on the Spined Devil card?

I was wondering about that – maybe you can train in specific parts of Perception (Spot, Listen etc), but it could change come June.

 

[Intrope]

A thought just occurred to me; could this explain the Perception and Spot scores that appeared on the Spined Devil card?

I don't think so; Spiney's Perception is a +5, not a 15.

As for auto-search: to a great extent you can already do this in 3e, if you play a dwarf! And it does indeed make the game go much faster.

 

[Badkarmaboy]

I'd love it if they actually spelled it out some. Thats really a pretty vague statement. too vague to get excited about.

Other things- Perception radar. Hmm. On the one hand, I like it as a DC. Its straightforward and you don't have to tell players that they failed a spot check. On the other... if one member of the party has it maxed out (our elf with perception++, high wisdom and the alterness feat), is it an auto-pass for the entire party, or just for him? Does a party with maxed out perception auto-detect everything, and is therefor immune to traps?

Also, acrobatics skill ate the jump skill.


Not entirely convinced that this version of traps will be any better than any other attempt at them, but... it is better than the Tomb of Horrors, 'oh, you made a poor decision based on no information, so you're dead' approach.


And nothing was 'cool', so... progress.

Oh. Good catch on Thievery, Khuxan


Now, hopefully digging a pit will no longer cost 1000+ gp.

I'm excited because it's vague. I like latitude.

 

[Dragonblade]

I like the focus on what's actually fun: dealing with trap. As opposed to earlier additions, which put the focus on searching for the trap.

Remember that scene in The Gamers with the Rogue character? "Well of course my high level rogue would be searching for traps!". It's funny, and it's true. Forcing players to literally, specifically say "I search for traps" every time they take a 5' step... holy cow that's boring. That's not fun. Time is precious, and time at the gaming table is better spent on more fun activities.

As for the "but a character with maxed out Perception will auto-detect!" complaint: so what? If a player specifically builds his character to be the world's best trapfinder--taking every Perception-boosting race, skill, class, and feat--then that player should expect to see a return on that investment. Hell yes the character engineered to be a master trapdetector should auto-detect most traps. That's what his character is built to do. That's the reason his character exists.

Right on! I agree completely. As a 20 year veteran of D&D and dungeon crawling, I always HATED the fact that you literally had to say "I search for traps" every 5 FREAKING feet!! It should be just a passive perception check the DM does for you behind the scenes. This is fantastic news and really excites me more about 4e.

And if you make a character that is a trap expert, you should be able to auto-detect most traps. As long as the DMG has guidelines on what the trap DCs should be so that the DM doesn't just arbitrarily decide whether the players detect or fail when making the dungeon, then I'll be happy.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I likey.

This still leaves space for the one-shot "booby traps" that spit a poison dart or thrust spears, but this is more Temple of Doom style obstacle courses, and that's generally more entertaining and doesn't involve stopping the game to say "You take 5 points of damage," which seems arbitrary.

 

[Cadfan]

When I first started caring about D&D, there were these books, I believe 3rd party books but I'm not sure, that had a goblin (I think) trap designer who built ridiculously overcomplex traps to demolish the PCs.

I thought those books were awesome.

The fact that traps in actual gameplay were more of a minor hindrance to be suffered then forgotten was very disappointing to me.

Hopefully 4e will move closer to my ideal. I'm optimistic.

 

[catsclaw227]

When I first started caring about D&D, there were these books, I believe 3rd party books but I'm not sure, that had a goblin (I think) trap designer who built ridiculously overcomplex traps to demolish the PCs.

I thought those books were awesome.

Grimtooth's Traps. There's also a 3.x version of this book as well.

 

[Stoat]

When I first started caring about D&D, there were these books, I believe 3rd party books but I'm not sure, that had a goblin (I think) trap designer who built ridiculously overcomplex traps to demolish the PCs.

I believe you're thinking about Grimtooth, whose traps were indeed awesome.

 

[Arnwyn]

Ergo, a pit trap isn't really a trap.

Madness!

And what is worse is, if you look at other parts of 4E the solution seems obvious. Let traps make an attack roll against the character's Perception. Now you acheive the goal of assumed constant searching but retain the uncertainty that is essential to the concept of a trap.

Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

 

[Nikosandros]

I was wondering about that – maybe you can train in specific parts of Perception (Spot, Listen etc), but it could change come June.

Maybe certain creatures are better at a specific kind of perception.