How do you handle Craft (trapmaking)?

This is what I came up with, when I made my tripwire trap: Now available in general adventure shops everywhere (not available in some campaign worlds)

Using the 3.0 trap creation rules, I created a simple trap that cost 100gp (only because thats as cheap as they could be). The description is simply a string-trip wire connected through eyelets on tines to a bell.

Game statistics were Spot DC 29, Disable DC 1. Reset manual. Effect audible. In the 3.0 this came to 100 gp, same if you had spot and disable at 20. I find it hard to believe the 3.5 table the same trap comes to 100 gp. But I haven't had a need to look it up yet.

I think I had a limit, maybe 50' of string, so you could put 4 or more of them surrounding your camp about 4 inches off the ground. My character had to use craft trap, to set it up each night, but was a DC 20 check.
 
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MerakSpielman said:
So you think it's reasonable for it to take 13 weeks to create an alarm tripwire (assuming I lower the price to 500gp and successfully make my craft (trapmaking) check every week)?

When it only takes one day and 190gp to craft a Wand of Alarm, which is much more powerful?

i was just being ironic. of course it doesn't make sense. the rules are just guidelines. sometimes they make things easier, so we don't have to think about all the details. but sometimes, when you really get into them, or start extrapolating them to new circumstances, they are no longer reasonable. that's where common sense comes in. or 3rd party resources.
 

The rules on Trapmaking are for dungeon use. DO NOT use them for snares, pits, deadfalls, and nets. Only use them if a trap must actually be MADE (such as if your Rogue wants to hammer out a beartrap in the forge).

To find food in the wild is a DC:10 Survival check. Survival manuals are full of snares, pits, deadfalls, and other such mechanically-simple traps which can be easily set. Thus, I use a DC:10 Survival/Craft (Trapmaking), and no penalty for lack of crafting tools, so long as the PC has a knife (and handaxe, for some traps).

The prices for traps in the DMG are ridiculous. Remember: Time = Price = Quality. It takes very little time to make a crude trap, and it isn't worth much of anything, just like it is ridiculous to charge the same amount and length of time for a stone axe as for a metal one (no one would buy a stone axe at the same price, if the metal ones were available)!

I remember when I set my very first tree-branch snare... It didn't take anywhere near a half hour, and I wasn't even sure what I was doing! All I took with me was a piece of string, and a pocket knife. The rest of the things I needed I gathered from the tree that I used to set the snare! A few minutes later, I had a simple snare that, when some critter came and took the bait, would wrap around it and lift it off the ground, dangling from the end of a tree branch!

Cost? Maybe 1 CP for the string! Time? Maybe 10 minutes (much, much less, now). If realism interests you, a roll of snare wire, in real life, cost me 50 cents (under 3 CP), and had four colors of wire (Dark Grey/Black, Olive Drab Green, Sand, and Yellow), 40 feet of each color, for a total of 160' on the roll.

As for concealment, I make the PC Hide the snare, and then use their roll as the Spot DC. Disarming a snare (which can only be done once you've found it) is about DC:2. It's very difficult to fail!

Now all of this is based on REAL LIFE, not 3e...

As for your bell trap, as originally listed, boy would you be in for a surprise, first time you ever tried to use it! I'd check my Weather Table for the day, and on anything but a "Dead Calm" result, you'd find out - real quick! - that any little breeze would set a bell on a piece of wire rattling! If you have a bell handy, take it outside and hang it up. The bigger it is, the less you'll hear it, but small alarm bells are going to go off with ever little breeze!

What I used, once upon a time, was a series of small, clapperless bells, tied to the wire. They were far enough apart not to clang into each other when blowing about in the breeze, but were also close enough together to jangle loudly when the wire was run into. This worked well enough when one of my buddies ran into it.

Also, if you're going to go to this much trouble, you might as well make three or four traps, with different bells (one of steel, one of silver, one of brass, etc). Then, you can set one up on three or four sides, and the difference in sound will tell you which wire got hit (and thus which direction to look towards).

|-------l
| Camp l
|______l

Something like that...

Another good trick is to use some simple snare wire and a couple of screw eyes, loop them around some trees surrounding camp, and then attach them to your rings, at night. When something hits the wire, you'll feel a tug on the hand on that side, giving you a SILENT warning, and at least the hemisphere from which the intruder is entering...

Of course, in D&D terms, Beholders, ghosts, most serpents, flying/levitating critters, etc., are just plain not going to trip a tripwire (or a snare, or most other traps)! So... :]
 
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EXCELLENT reply, Stevearoo--now if we can turn this thread into something like 1001 simple trap ideas...one comment

stevearoo writes
Of course, in D&D terms, Beholders, ghosts, most serpents, flying/levitating critters, etc., are just plain not going to trip a tripwire (or a snare, or most other traps)!

*but here's one simple trap idea that might work--something along the lines of a mosquito net hung around the perimeter of the camp (sure, maybe not for ghosts, but if yr worried about them, shouldn't you be using strong ward magic?)
 

My suggestion would be:

ABUSE the trapmaking rules.

The number 1 suggestion I would have IS

Make the disable DC for your traps 1. This knocks 1900gp off the price. You can only disable a trap that you find.

next is

Make the search DC for your traps 21. This means NO non rogue can find the trap. Frankly if rogues are after you, don't try traps on them. Most things your DM sends after you will not be rogues, and the rogue ones will almost certainly disable your traps anyway.

Make it a repair reset. This knocks a further 200 off the price. After all, repair is pretty easy.

Don't bother with a bypass - you know the trap is there (and it's really easy to disable), and it won't hurt you anyway.

So - for your basic alarm-and-bell trap, you're looking at a price of -900gp. Since the minimum price for a trap is 100xCR, and this is a totally non-lethal trap, and therefore has a CR of 1/2 or lower. Persuade your DM to let it slide at 1/2, meaning it costs you 16gp to make.

In fact, if you make it a proximity trap, that still leaves you with a 100gp multiplyer, and therefore the same price.

And if the GM forces you to adhere to the rules which say that it has to be a minimum CR of 1, make it a ranged attack with a +5 bonus that does 4d6 damage (4 small crossbows - maybe even 4 seperate ranged attacks) AND sets off the bell. Then don't load it if you're not in hostile territory. And it still only costs 100gp, or 33gp if you craft it.
 

Look in the book from bad axe games Heroes of high favor: Halfling. There's about a dozen esay traps, with funny names.
 
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As an amendment to my previous post...

The craft rules are really stupid. My aforementioned minimum CR trap apparently takes two weeks for someone with a +10 modifier to build, which is clearly insane.

I'd suggest working out some rules which allow you to only craft the difference between what you spend and what you are producing. If, for instance, you had bought light crossbows to produce the trap I gave earlier, then you might spend as much as 70gp (two light crossbows) to make the trap. clearly then you only need to do 30gp of work to finish the trap. That means that you've halved the time to produce the thing. I WOULD allow this to apply all the way down to the level where the craft check is completing 0gp of work. Failure by enough would still break the stuff, but by that stage, you're really just assembling a kit. The only thing the craft check is doing is to stop you having to find someone who already sells the exact item you need.
 

If you used the Craft (Poison) variant rule in Complete Adventurer for that trap it would be:

3/4 Cost for materials (costly or elaborate components), which leaves 25gp for the labor.

Crafting for this (like poison) would be 20x20=400 gp (10 times faster than normal)


Time: 1/4 week
Cost: 75 gp
Trap Value: 100 gp
 

I guess the trap rules would be accurate if you had to carve all the space in the wall out of stone, and then conceal the trap in the stone wall...
 

I guess the trap rules would be accurate if you had to carve all the space in the wall out of stone, and then conceal the trap in the stone wall...

Great thread people.
 

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