Have i or haven`t i disarmed that trap ??

[The Harlequin]

An interesting thing happened to our rogue the other day.

He was being extra cautious and decided to take a 20 on searching the door for traps. With his plus 11 to search he was able to locate the trap fairly easily. The DC for disarming the trap was 26 and he has a plus 11 to Disarm .

So i rolled his disarm to see if he succeeds and i rolled an 11 which gives a total of 22. He didnt succeed but he failed by less than five, so the trap doesnt go off.

So i assume that means he thinks he was succesful and i say so. Or does he know he didnt get it and has to try again.? He decides to be cautious and does a second search, taking a 20.

Now how am i supposed to determine if he knows that the same trap is still there considering he thinks he has already disarmed it ? And what about traps that re-arm themselves ?

A gas trap goes off and re-arms itself but it has no gas left. So in theory it will go off but it will not have any effect. Can you discover this when doing a search ?


The Harlequin

 

[twjensen]

Um, oops.

The DM is supposed to roll your disable device checks to avoid this exact situation!

The rule is a little ambiguous, but if I were the DM I'd tend to think that the meaning of the text is

"fail by up to 5, and you know you've failed, but nothing bad happens.

Fail by more than 5, the trap EITHER goes off, or does not go off but the character THINKS that the trap is disarmed!"

In any case, the DM should roll the dice and call whether you THINK the device is disarmed or not, or tell you that the trap went off.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

[Edit] Whoops! Re-read the thread. Deleted comment for being completely wrong.

 

[EOL]

Ideally yes, perhaps the DM should make all those rolls, but in the real world he often doesn't have the time. Plus it's fun for the player to make their own rolls. The real mistake the DM made was telling you the DC of the trap. If you don't know what the DC is then it's quite a bit easier to role-play your characters reaction. Now maybe you found out the DC later, but if you're sure you failed that makes it a lot tougher.

When you don't know the DC I would assume that with a 22 your character would probably think he had disarmed it, though it might be perfectly within character to say, "I think I disarmed this trap but I'm not sure, Hey you! Paladin! You're god seems to smile on you (good saves) you want to shake this door (take 0) and see if it's still trapped, we'll just stand around the corner...

 

[The Harlequin]

I guess i should have said that i was the DM

But i was wondering if there was a rule or if it is a DM call ?
It just seems a little confusing, thats all.....


The Harlequin

 

[EOL]

I guess i should have said that i was the DM

But i was wondering if there was a rule or if it is a DM call ?
It just seems a little confusing, thats all.....


The Harlequin

Well silly me...

I would say that you, as the DM, should be as descriptive as possible, and then let the player run with it. If it's a blade trap (think Indiana Jones III) you might say "You tie of the blade with a piece of cloth. It's a good job, but you're still a little worried that it might not hold."

If that's too much of a pain then you should probably just call it like you see it.

 

[The Harlequin]

Ok, thanks for the replies. Very appreciated

I think i will just keep the mechanic part of it simple and rely more on being descriptive.

The Harlequin

 

[Roland Delacroix]

By the way, is this my buddy Harlequin from the EN Board chat? I haven't been there in months but he was an aussie too.

 

[The Harlequin]

I dont believe so. I havent been to the EN board chat, hehehehe



The Harlequin

 

[Roland Delacroix]

Damn, we had a date to go to the last Michigan GenCon this year, get loaded and pick up slutty Vampire chicks. Oh well.