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Message: <blockquote data-quote="5ekyu" data-source="post: 7588315" data-attributes="member: 6919838">This kinda ties in with a question I had before, about the use of traps, the examples bring put forth etc and it all ties back to the ABCD divide between "challenges" and solutions.In my games, the result of creating some massive IJones style shifting blocks massive multi-part mechanism at no doubt great effort and expense that literally anyone with a std adventurer's pack and kit under 50 gp can fool without need for proficiency or trainjng - well - would be the trap maker and his financial overseer getting to watch their families fed into its giant sliding blocks and then joining them as "the boss" searches for a better trapmaker.I mean, really, some expertise went into these at their construction. Someone went to a lot of time and expense to make them tough to beat, not something anyone can just get around.But, if instead there was no thought about "well, how could someone get around it?" when it was being built and so now it's a quick "look in your pack and let's just walk on thru simple then hey, it's a screen for on a submarine.Now of course, some of these no doubt are just fabricated examples not something anybody would use in actual play. But that's kind of the point.In play, is where ability scores and training and those choices matter. In play is where in-character choices matter. It's from those contexts that the "balance" between checks and no check required is seen and learned from.So, if you as a player describe what you consider fool-proof poison-trap defeating moves and expect the execution to go off as you describe it... are you going so because you are roleplaying a character who is a master poison trap beater and know they cannot fail? Or are you going it regardless of character skill because you the player"know" this will defeat such?This is where the concepts of "I dont think DC or solutions whrn i setup a challenge to me fails." Within the game world, someone did setup that scene, that challenge. Someone within the game world did think thru challenges and possible solutions in most of the cases we have here.So, "how hood were they at it, how much time, resource and planning went into it, etc should all be directly part of the setup and from that the difficulty. If the massive Indiana sliding blocks of doom are beatable by a squire with a crowbar, there is a terrible breakdown in the underpinnings. One that would lead my players' character to go "WTF" not start patting themselves on the back and checking their inspiration tallies.The DMG addresses this in its section on setting DCs by asking the GM to focus on how skilled someone would be who could beat it. They come up with some pretty basic divisions to get you to DC 10, DC 15 and DC 20. They leave room for higher and lower due to additional circumstances. This five tails with a practice that serves me well too, the reverse perspective - who set this up, why, how good were they, how much time and resource etc. Its really just the same decision making but when I have a "known" creator and intent I use that perspective.In the DMG, they do not however scramble this in the context of or confined by "but of course maybe a squire with a crowbar is the best answer so let's just skip past it."So, again it comes back to how many times does a GM show the players that their characters will be challenged based on their skills vs how many times its solvable by the players along, maybe just by thrir choice- to buy a kit with a crowbar st chargrn?For poison on door handle, I dont use that as a care really of "trap disarming" - because it is as much a trap as three guys at the end of an alley. Notice it and you avoid it easily. No real skill needed. No aptitude needed. It's more hazard than trap. And it's also not a trap someone who knew what they were doing would expect to catch someone who had any skill or caution, unless we have some major mystical poison that really is more than a contact poison. Like say, maybe it's a layer of contact venom over a layer of reactive gas or spores, so that "I wipe the handle off" or "I pour wine to wash it off" releases the threats just as much as a casual handle grab would. Of course, that is now describing a "trap" setup by someone with skill at doing this who did spend a few minutes thinking through what solutions there were and counters. It's like kind of some experiences in Vietnam and other wars, where ambushes were most effective when the seemingly safe place with cover (that was obvious once the shooting started) was Bobby trapped.So, no, I wont assign too much of "you were tired or counting your chickens" to the failure against the traps myself, instead I might describe a slip up, because like the fighter swing the player describes the attempt at the action not the success at it, but more likely I am describing a new wrinkle that was missed and already accounted for by the one who set it up.  Like I said earlier, few of my "challenges that matter" are of a type where they can be overcome without checks (even passive checks) at all. Most require checks to overcome with opportunities for advantage and disadvantage driven by choices and circumstances. Some can be overcome by checks (passive,  active, adv disadv chouces) or choices a- either one. Some can only be overcome by a combination of checks (passive,  active, adv disadv chouces) and choices both required. I find that those rough divisions and considerations  tend to provide a world in view to the players that remains consistent, rational in the action of its denizens and a playstyle that provides consistent and meaningful balance between choices made and results.I do acknowledge tho, it leaves out some old tropes of certain styles of fiction like the crowbar stopping the massive machinery "fix" - and that is  intended. So, its maybe not for everyone.</blockquote>

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