Easier Trapmaking?

[D.Shaffer]

I have a little bit of an issue that I was hoping people could help me out with.

When I created my current character for a campaign I'm playing in, I gave him ranks in Craft (Trapmaking). He was a scout and his backstory was that he was a trailblazer, and that trapmaking was the way he actually utilized his Survival skill to provide food for himself and the rest of the party. And then I looked at the actual stock rules for creating traps.

Are there any feats/alternate abilities that make traps easier to construct, possibly without the GP in materials component. (Why a simple pit trap with a tarp covered with dirt requires something like 100 GP in material components, I'm not sure.) It doesnt have to be anything game breaking, I would just like to be able to create some snare/deadfall traps without bankrupting myself in the process (Or having to spend 2-3 weeks to create a snare trap)

 

[D.Shaffer]

No one huh? :\

 

[Pinotage]

I can't think of anything. Fantasy Flight Games' Traps and Treachery series might have something in, but that's 3e. Traps are unfortunately one of those areas 'underdeveloped' in d20. Maybe simply because most DM use Grimtooth's traps.

Pinotage

 

[Kerrick]

I'm working on a traps book (it's mostly finished, just sitting in a backlog behind several others), and I dealt with wilderness traps a little bit. I agree that the pricing system shouldn't be applied to wilderness traps, so this is what I did:

Someone can also scrounge the materials to make a wilderness trap with a DC 17 Survival check, spending 10 minutes per size category of the trap above Tiny (10 minutes for Small, 20 for Medium, etc.) to gather all the necessary materials. Since the materials for wilderness traps can be gotten for free, no market prices are attached; the DM can use his own discretion as to how long it would take to actually make one (a good guideline is 10-20 minutes for a small trap, 30-60 minutes for a medium trap, and 1d6 hours for a large trap.

 

[Infiniti2000]

When I created my current character for a campaign I'm playing in, I gave him ranks in Craft (Trapmaking). He was a scout and his backstory was that he was a trailblazer, and that trapmaking was the way he actually utilized his Survival skill to provide food for himself and the rest of the party.

I think the problem is that you are taking ranks in a skill that is not useful for your background. You don't need Craft (Trapmaking) to hunt for animals. In fact, Craft (Trapmaking) has nothing explicitly to do with the Survival skill and in particular hunting for animals. This is analogous to not require you to have a combat encounter and make attack and damage rolls to kill a rabbit. You make a survival check and you can then use whatever flavor you want to describe how you provide food for the party, be it hunting with your bow or creating snares or fireballing a family of deer.

And then I looked at the actual stock rules for creating traps.

Are there any feats/alternate abilities that make traps easier to construct, possibly without the GP in materials component. (Why a simple pit trap with a tarp covered with dirt requires something like 100 GP in material components, I'm not sure.) It doesnt have to be anything game breaking, I would just like to be able to create some snare/deadfall traps without bankrupting myself in the process (Or having to spend 2-3 weeks to create a snare trap)

The trapmaking rules are clearly not for survival purposes. They are for defeating intruders, killing enemies, etc. There's no correlation with, say, a box of brown mold trap and obtaining a brace of bunnies for a stew.

I think once you separate the concepts of Craft (Trapmaking) and Survival, your issue will be 100% solved. Then, if you want your character to be an expert in actual traps like the box of brown mold, you can consider changes to the trap rules.

 

[D.Shaffer]

I think the problem is that you are taking ranks in a skill that is not useful for your background. You don't need Craft (Trapmaking) to hunt for animals. In fact, Craft (Trapmaking) has nothing explicitly to do with the Survival skill and in particular hunting for animals.

I think once you separate the concepts of Craft (Trapmaking) and Survival, your issue will be 100% solved. Then, if you want your character to be an expert in actual traps like the box of brown mold, you can consider changes to the trap rules.

Well, yes. I know you dont really require it to actually trap animals for Survival purposes (That's just a survival roll). However, I was hoping to apply some of those same 'skills' for larger traps (Using crafting). Linking it to Survival was just for flavor purposes. The same techniques used to, say, drop a deadfall trap on a deer would work on a human too. Nevermind simple traps like punji sticks or snares. Its just that the way rules are now, making such relatively quick and easy traps really ISNT quick and easy.

Oh well, thanks for the help, guys.

 

[Infiniti2000]

The same techniques used to, say, drop a deadfall trap on a deer would work on a human too. Nevermind simple traps like punji sticks or snares.

Ah, see, but obtaining food like that is 100% flavor. I could just as easily say that my ranger "hunts" deer bare-handed. It makes no game difference.

Its just that the way rules are now, making such relatively quick and easy traps really ISNT quick and easy.

Exactly, because making any kind of traps that are useful in terms of combat mechanics is a whole other story. Such things need to be balanced, fair, etc. Whether the trap rules meet this criteria for you and your group remains to be seen. I'm not sure if they meet my needs quite honestly, because I've never used them from a PC perspective and never worried about the costs from a DM's perspective (I'm not sure who does).

I suggest working it out with the DM (or the player), perhaps by modifying the trap rules based on some sort of synergy for varying levels of ranks in Survival. Maybe reduce the time/cost for simple, natural traps. If the purpose is not to abuse anything, then such a decision could be satisfactory. Hope this discussion helps some more.

 

[argo]

House Rule Alert! You've been warned!

So what you are looking for is a set of rules to emulate the stuff you see in movies like Rambo, Predator, and The Hunted where the hero takes some time to set a wooden stake on a spring-loaded branch to harry his presuers right?

I had the same thought and like you I haven't found any published rules for that sort of thing. So I wrote up the attached file. I have only playtested it in a few sessions but so far it has worked out fairly well.

Hope that helps.

 

[Bloodstone Press]

You might want to check out Wilderness Traps. Available at EN World Game store and RPGnow.

It covers about a dozen simple traps that can be used for both hunting and killing enemies. Most can be built quickly and at little or no cost. They are laid out in 3.5 trap format and include suggestions on how to make them more deadly.

 

[Jubilee]

There are 3 artisan feats in the Eberron campaign setting book that give a person a 25% drop in money/exp/time, respectively, for crafting magical items. I don't think it'd be that hard to convince your GM to let you take that feat, and apply it to crafting traps instead.