Disable device and contact poison trap.

[Lord Ben]

Okay, I used a contact poison trap from song and silence. It was just contact poison smeared on a doorknob. The PC spotted it and I asked him to roll disable device because it listed it as DC20 in the book. I didn't think anything of it, but he challenged me on that. All you have to do is wipe off the doorknob right? Maybe cover it in a cloth? Why is it DC20? Do masterwork theives tools really help in wiping off some grease?

 

[Darkness]

Maybe there's a special doorknob covering utensil in the mw thieves' tools.

 

[Crothian]

Ther trick is whiping it off without touching it and then safely dispossing of it.

As for the MW thieves tools, I allow them to always help because it's to difficult to judge what traps would be apply to them and what wouldn't.

 

[Dr_Rictus]

Ther trick is whiping it off without touching it and then safely dispossing of it.

And knowing whether whatever's on the doorknob has some sort of unpleasant reaction with the thing you plan to wipe it with, and when you've done a sufficiently thorough job that the door is now safe, or whether the residue should be neutralized with some other agent. You could actually make a fairly complicated trap out of this sort of stuff, come to think of it.

There's probably other issues, but in general I don't think it's inappropriate to claim that proper mediation of toxic sites and disposal of hazardous materials involves some kind of skill. I'm sure the people who do that in real life would agree.

 

[radferth]

A good response to the player would be, "Your character may indeed think that, please roll."

 

[doktorstick]

It's an acid based poison and eats through the cloth! You take 2d6 Con damage and 2d6 secondary Con damage! *bithir*

Seriously though. I would contend that most people don't know how most traps work. Disable Device is supposed to be used to disable them whatever that mechanism is.

Since the player gave a reasonable suggestion on how to disable the trap, I might give him a +2 bonus for being specific.

/ds

 

[Saeviomagy]

Note that it costs somewhere on the order of 500 gold to pay someone to put the poison on the doorknob in the first place (work out the cost of the poison, and compare with the cost to construct the trap).

Simply put - it probably shouldn't be listed as a trap at all. A lot of the traps make a very limited amount of sense (why is an immobile, single-direction crossbow firing device at a +10 to hit, when a mobile, sentient, aimable crossbow firing device - ie a peasant - at a +0? Shouldn't the trap be a reflex save instead?).

 

[gtJormungand]

Simply put - it probably shouldn't be listed as a trap at all. A lot of the traps make a very limited amount of sense (why is an immobile, single-direction crossbow firing device at a +10 to hit, when a mobile, sentient, aimable crossbow firing device - ie a peasant - at a +0? Shouldn't the trap be a reflex save instead?).

Maybe it has something to do with the trap being pointed in the almost exact direction that the trigger is placed, making it easier to hit the sorry sap who triggered it in the first place.

 

[Lord Ben]

Note that it costs somewhere on the order of 500 gold to pay someone to put the poison on the doorknob in the first place (work out the cost of the poison, and compare with the cost to construct the trap).

Simply put - it probably shouldn't be listed as a trap at all. A lot of the traps make a very limited amount of sense (why is an immobile, single-direction crossbow firing device at a +10 to hit, when a mobile, sentient, aimable crossbow firing device - ie a peasant - at a +0? Shouldn't the trap be a reflex save instead?).

Okay, sounds reasonable. Since I don't make my players pay 500gp and roll a craft poison when they want to smear contact poison on their doorknob I won't make a roll to disable either. But if it's something where they need skill in applying it then they need skill in disarming it too.

 

[Umbran]

But if it's something where they need skill in applying it then they need skill in disarming it too.

Except that applying it should be easier than removing it. Putting gunk on a thing is far, far easier than getting rid of all the gunk, especially without modern cleansers. Anyone worth their salt will use a poison that cannot be "just wiped away"...