Is this fair? -- your personal opinion

[FrostedMini1337]

If a dungeon is full of kobolds and goblins, does that mean that there will not/can not be a disintegrate trap back in a corner room? If a dungeon is full of demons and devils, does that mean that there will not/can not be a sleep trap back in a corner room?

If I'm fighting Goblins and Kobolds (Under CR 1) and there is a disintegrate trap (CR 8?) there is a serious problem.

And if I'm fighting demons and devils and I still have 4 HD there is also a problem.

 

[Quasqueton]

It's such a stupid place to actually put a trap, because it screams trap. Hence logically it wouldn't be, if you are going to trap something you make it more subtle, you don't hang a neon sign over it saying trap.

Would "hiding" the trap make the scenario fair?

Quasqueton

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

There is at least a third group.

There are some among us (me included) who chart the middle path, and see an obvious lever implied to be the one that opens the secret door as a trap for SUCKERS, and would let someone else touch it...or let NOBODY touch it, depending upon what kind of info we had and how we read the situation.

The fact that it is completely obvious that a lever standing smack in the middle of the room is not going to open the secret door has absolutely no logical connection to whether the lever can reasonably be expected to be obscenely lethal or should be pulled.

In a real killer campaign, such sloppy thinking will get you killed.

 

[Rystil Arden]

If your job is to take RISKS (underlined, exclamation point) then shouldn't you expect the consequences of taking RISKS (underlined, double exclamation point) to be RISKY (underlined, bolded, quadrulple exclamation point) rather than just inconvenient or troublesome? You seem to be implying that adventurers should be the type who laugh in the face of danger, but what you're really saying is that adventurers in a D&D game are the type of laugh in the face of the thinly veiled illusion of danger because they know that no matter how incautious or unprepared they might be the danger will never be anything more than a temporary setback. WOW! How brave!

Going up against a DC 20 deathtrap when you have +6 to save is taking risks. Going up against a DC 42 deathtrap when the character in the party with the highest save has a +15 is a GM being cruel. Give this same scenario and say that the Wizard pulled the lever and failed on a 10 and I bet you that there is a huge swing away from unfair.

 

[Treebore]

Going up against a DC 20 deathtrap when you have +6 to save is taking risks. Going up against a DC 42 deathtrap when the character in the party with the highest save has a +15 is a GM being cruel. Give this same scenario and say that the Wizard pulled the lever and failed on a 10 and I bet you that there is a huge swing away from unfair.

Yep. Killing a character for being too stupid to tie a 50 foot length of rope to the lever and then pull on it from 45 feet away is very unfair. I hate it when DM's expect me to think.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Huh? I never thought to examine the DMG suggested wealth table when making out a dungeon that will be fun and challanging for my players. Thank god for that.

I don't follow them, but I also find it illogical to find a trap that costs more than the rest of the dungeon put together.

First, the destruction trap's DC is wrong. It should be 20 Fort, so the monk should have made the save. So, we're dealing with an even more powerful trap, with heightenings and some kind of insane DC boosting going on. Should the PCs expect anything like that? The DM is purposely raising the DC in order to increase the lethality of an already extremely lethal trap.

Second, the whole setup is completely metagamey. It's a lever in a room. Maybe it lowers the dumbwaiter. Maybe it signals for someone in another room to come attend to whomever is staying there. There are lots of reason to have a lever in a room that have nothing to do with the secret door and have nothing to do with traps.

That's what levers are for. To do things. Nobody sticks a randomly trapped lever in a room for the sole purpose of killing curious intruders. You put the lethal trap on a place they're sure to go/touch/mess with. To expect it to be trapped is completely metagaming, and I don't plan out dungeons based on metagame views and I don't take character actions based on metagame views.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Would "hiding" the trap make the scenario fair?

No. And, that's part of the entire point. For some of us, there is no difference between putting this trap on a doorknob and putting it on a lever. It's the exact same thing.

I've put death traps on doorways, of course. Once a gnome was tossed through one because he was playing a practical joke on another PC at the wrong time. But, they've always been able to be found with a Search check, and they've always been able to be passed with a successful save by the person with the highest save vs. the trap. And, they've always occured in groups that could raise their dead.

 

[FrostedMini1337]

Yep. Killing a character for being too stupid to tie a 50 foot length of rope to the lever and then pull on it from 45 feet away is very unfair. I hate it when DM's expect me to think.

If his DM wants to encourage the bold heroism of "We take 20 on all skill checks, cast every detection spell we have, avoid anything that looks even remotely dangerous, and assume that we could die with effectively no chance to save ourselves at any time," he's doing a wonderful time.

That's been QFT'd. It's also my new mantra for DMing.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I don't follow them, but I also find it illogical to find a trap that costs more than the rest of the dungeon put together.

First, the destruction trap's DC is wrong. It should be 20 Fort, so the monk should have made the save. So, we're dealing with an even more powerful trap, with heightenings and some kind of insane DC boosting going on. Should the PCs expect anything like that? The DM is purposely raising the DC in order to increase the lethality of an already extremely lethal trap.

Second, the whole setup is completely metagamey. It's a lever in a room. Maybe it lowers the dumbwaiter. Maybe it signals for someone in another room to come attend to whomever is staying there. There are lots of reason to have a lever in a room that have nothing to do with the secret door and have nothing to do with traps.

That's what levers are for. To do things. Nobody sticks a randomly trapped lever in a room for the sole purpose of killing curious intruders. You put the lethal trap on a place they're sure to go/touch/mess with. To expect it to be trapped is completely metagaming, and I don't plan out dungeons based on metagame views and I don't take character actions based on metagame views.

We metagame all the time I'd say. I like the challange the players as much as the characters. Different strokes and all.

 

[ThirdWizard]

We metagame all the time I'd say. I like the challange the players as much as the characters. Different strokes and all.

Yep. My way of challenging Players is to figure out when to use the Search skill, which this has only showed them is a useless thing to do.

Also, my character will die before I metagame.