How often do you use traps?

[The Eternal GM]

I don't like traps in 3.5 very much... I'd consider them for B/X D&D, but not 3.5. Don't quite know why that is.

As a rule though I dislike traps. Silly mechanisms, 'spot it or be screwed' annoyances, nonsensical placement in inhabited dungeons... Nah, not really for me.

Interesting environments? Sure... Unique, risky, dangerous areas? Absolutely... Ambushes combined with terrain or tactics? Yep... But pit traps and spears from the walls? Nah... I just don't enjoy them much.

 

[Pierson_Lowgal]

Since Eberron's Xendrik sourcebook introduced the room-as-trap concept, I try to incorporate a trap into each dungeon, though I don't use dungeons frequently. The old style of trap, roll save - take damage is totally boring and causes the game to slow down because of PC's searching every square. The room-as-trap conquers both these problems and is fun.

 

[Jackelope King]

10% if that. Probably closer to zero. Dungeon crawls bore me to death if used without very good reason, especially when the players think they need to play like Gygaxian expert dungeoneers to succeed. I'll occasionally have a trap or two strewn about, but more often than not, I like to use traps which are encounters unto themselves (like a swinging log trap in a dungeon that triggers a drop-away floor, hitting characters for damage and knocking them into the pit, where the kobolds who made the trap appear to pepper them with crossbow fire while supported by their sorcerer boss). If a trap doesn't somehow involve the entire party, it's going to be boring for 3/4 of the table.

More often than that, I'll use traps as little more than alarms (since we have a lot more urban adventures / infiltration missions than dungeon crawls).

 

[Thunderfoot]

I love traps! But that being said, traps should be more than the annoyance that 3.5 has made them. I break it down to the most basic of terms - 1) what must a trap do and 2) How much would it cost to install.

1) What should a trap do - a trap has two basic functions
. a) To alert someone of someone else's presence (w/ the second function of incapacitating people until they can be captured)
. b) Kill intruders

If your traps do anything else, you are wasting time.

2) How much would it cast to install - Why, because if it casts 20k gp to install a trap that just pisses off your intruders, you got screwed by your contractor.

There are some cases where real world mechanics should come into play - economics should ALWAYS be one of those cases.

 

[Random Axe]

I put 80%, because whenever I have a party running into a dungeon, I will "usuallY" put some traps here or there. It definitely won't work out to 80% of the sessions has a trap encounter, but I would say 80% of my dungeons will have a feature or 2.

 

[blargney the second]

Fairly frequently, but almost never on their own. If there's a trap, it's usually an integrated part of the defense system the inhabitants use. They'll stage a fight using it to their advantage, which also means the PCs can't take 20 to search for it because there are monsters already there.

 

[Evilhalfling]

another 10%-er
I run a fair number of dungeon crawls, but rarely consider traps worth it.
if the owner is a fairly powerful spell caster, I may throw in one or two.
usually on a private chamber that he does not wish anyone else to enter, never in high trafficed areas.

That said im building a tesseract dungeon where almost every doorway is traplike. The gravity changes will need to be handled with each room. I put a few traps in one room, but 2 of 3 were disabled by the inhabitants so are more flavor that danger. but after the party walks by 2 disabled traps I am bound by the Narrative Imperrative to hit them with a working one.

I considered taking the traps out, but where would the two trolls get the big scythe blade that allows them to leave their scattered non-functioning limbs all over the room?

 

[the Jester]

Yeah, I am not sure how to answer.

It depends on the situation. I do use traps on occasion, but mostly in dungeons. (Not always, though- a recent adventure had kobold-dug pit traps outside.) I don't use them all that much, but I recently tried out an encounter trap and loved it. I'm gonna use more of those, I tell you what! (I think that they're a precursor to how traps in general will look in 4e, actually.)

 

[Oryan77]

As a DM I love traps...it's a great way to make the rogue pc shine.

If they enter a dungeon, hideout, or anything where the bad guys might want to post extra security, then I stick traps there. It has to make sense though.

So I'd say I have traps in almost every adventure I run.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Voted 10%.

Don't much like them. Too cheesy. If I do use them then they're as part of existing defences and more along the lines of alarms etc. I will use magical traps for powerful wizards protecting their stuff.

Of course, that said: if I'm running a bought module then whatever traps are in it stay in it. Even the cheesy ones.