Epic Traps

[Trainz]

Ouch. That's all I gotta say.

I started creating epic traps.

I put the save DC's at more or less 30, the search and disarm at around 35, and for the damage, I use d6'es, divide the number of dice by 2, and that gives me the CR. If the trap affects more than one person, I add 2 to the CR.

Thus, I made a CR 25 fireray trap that deals 50d6 damage, reflex save 32 for half. In average 175 damage (87 on a successful save).

Nasty.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Wow. Sounds fun...now, to get my 17-18th level PCs up to that level of 'fun'...

 

[Trainz]

Do I smell 'sarcasm' ?

 

[hong]

An epic-level trap is a trap that costs 10 times the normal amount of gp to make.

Oops, I mean an epic-level trap is a trap that can only be killed by +6 weapons or better.

Oops, I mean an epic-level trap is a trap that goes up to 21.

Ah, screw it.

 

[the Jester]

Oops, I mean an epic-level trap is a trap that goes up to 21.

Heh! Nail on the head!

The problem with giving traps epic CRs is that there are so many ways around them at Epic levels. Your proposed fire trap doesn't hurt someone with fire immunity, does less to someone with resistance to fire, might not hurt someone with evasion/improved evasion, and can be cancelled by SR, a detect magic and a greater dispelling (or epic dispelling), or dozens of other ways I haven't thought of.

I'd give it a CR around 16-18, though- it is much nastier than a standard trap. Keep in minds that traps traditionally top out around CR 10, so 'epic' traps are probably in the CR 15-20 range (unless they're really crazy).

The last game I ran included a very fiendish trap that dealt 30d6 in one round to the guy who fell into it and would have done another 20d6 each round if he hadn't gotten out of the lava.

edit: which I rated at CR 16.

 

[Trainz]

Very interesting analysis.

They somewhat discussed the topic of epic traps in the ELH. I didn't like the treatment (too vague).

It is true that there are many ways epic dudes can whitstand a trap. I did consider that, but there's just no easy answer to deal with that. There are too many variables at epic levels.

How about a Fort. or Will save-or-die* type trap ? What would be the Save DC/ CR ratio of such a trap ?



* Not necessarily death, but any effect that effectively puts the character out of the game i.e. petrification, temporal stasis, sent to another plane, etc... because death is quite irrelevant with True Resurrection (which is readily available at epic levels, 25,000 g.p. being pocket change for an epic party).

 

[Trainz]

I'm gonna try to answer my own post above (I know, schyzo...):

I will assume that a save-or-die trap has the same CR as if a character saving against it has a 50% chance of saving.

(" Huh ? ")

O.K.. Assuming the above made any sense at all, lets take a 20th level character. An average S.T. base for such a character is +9 (Not good, not bad, average). Let's assume a +3 from the corresponding stat (again, some characters will have a bigger bonus depending on class and stats, where going for an average here). Let's give another +4 from a cloak, and another +2 from feats and/or special abilities and we're at +18, which means the character will save a DC 28 trap 50% of the time.

Thus a save-or-die type trap (based on Will or Fort., very rarely Ref.) with a save DC of 28 might be CR 20 (if it targets many characters. If not, maybe CR 18).

Does that make any sense at all ? ? ?