Is this fair? -- your personal opinion

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Are you seriously suggesting that PC's should pull every door in the dungeon open at the end of a 50ft length of rope or burn through scrolls of Telekinesis to pull every lever and open every door?

Nah. Generally they take a captive and make it open the door for them.

Should they levitate down every corridor just incase the next 5ft has an undetectable trap?

Usually they probe ahead with spear-butts.

 

[Cadfan]

I would have pulled the lever. If a trap had gone off and my character injured, I'd have sucked it up and made fun of the rogue for not finding the trap. If the trap had gone off and my character rolled low on his save and died, I'd have made fun of the rogue's player out of character for not finding the trap, and rolled up a new character. If my monk (good fort save) rolled a 19 and failed and then died as described, I'd have rolled my eyes and quit playing the game.

I hate campaigns where everyone has to sit around and spend 15 damn minutes opening every freaking door you see. I'm more of a "doors are boring, just open the damn thing" kind of player. If the DM is willing to use a trap this deadly on a stupid lever in a room with a door, then I probably will hate his DMing style and his campaign. At the very least, I will hate the hours we spend next session every time a door is found, and we all spend ages trying to investigate it from every angle before we open it. Once burned, twice shy, and the campaign is thereafter screwed.

That has nothing to do with whether the trap is fair. It has to do with how much of my game time I want to spend on some damn door.

It has to do with whether the trap is fun.

 

[Bagpuss]

Nah. Generally they take a captive and make it open the door for them.

LOL. I'll suggest that to our Paladin...

Usually they probe ahead with spear-butts.

You see to me that's the sort of stuff you are doing with a rogue's search check, hence it ain't going to help you any. Undetectable, even to your spear's bottom.

 

[Ourph]

Except that's entirely unrealistic for even the REAL WORLD, let alone for a game of heroic fantasy.

I think the disconnect here may be partially due to the fact that you seem to see the dungeon as part of the normal structure of the fantasy world, whereas I look at it as the fantasy world equivalent of being in a warzone or a police raid. No, I don't swim in a cage when I'm at the beach, but I would definitely not swim without a cage in shark-infested waters full of fishblood. IMO entering "the dungeon" in a fantasy world is the equivalent of swimming in shark-infested waters full of blood.

I certainly would if the DM started throwing random deathtraps on odd levers. Fortunately, my DM's enjoy a world that makes sense and pit my characters against challenges that they have a fair chance to overcome by their own abilities, so it often doesn't become an issue. I know a bad choice will hurt me, but I can recover from it. If a bad choice would just make me generate a new character, I'd definately be more pro-active about NOT making that bad choice.

I don't understand, are you saying that last sentence is a bad thing? Why is being more pro-active about not making bad choices bad? That's all I'm saying about this scenario. If the PCs had been more proactive about avoiding the bad choice of touching the lever themselves rather than using an easily available proxy (summoned monster, unseen servant, mage hand, rope, etc.) they'd be fine.

No, my problem is largely with the fact that the choice was arbitrarily and randomly declared WRONG, and THEN punished so harshly. "Oh, you walk out the left door to the tavern? You now have AIDS." "Oh, you use the word "Sword?" You explode." "Oh, I see you're waring a gauntlet. Your hand falls off."

It takes no imagination to be random and petty.

Again, I'm not understanding. Do you have a problem with the trap being there at all or do you just object to the fact that it's a save or die effect. The choice is only arbitrary if there's no excuse for a trap of any kind to be there. I understand, but disagree with, the idea that the consequence is "too harsh" but I can't understand at all the idea that the DM has no right to place a trap on the lever at all. I simply don't understand how anyone can argue that the PCs weren't wrong at some level when they could have easily avoided triggering the trap so directly. Is it REALLY that much of a burden to avoid directly touching a potentially dangerous mechanism in the dungeon with an expedient as simple as using a rope rather than your hand. I'm not saying the rope would definitely save the PC but when something like that is so easy to do and it might save the PC, why not do it?

They also assume there will be an internal logic to the game, that the traps will be commesurate with the encounters faced, and that something beyond their ability to beat or circumvent will declare it's unbeatability.

No, it is arbitrary, and the key word before skill that you are missing is "character". The character's skills should have an effect on the outcome.

OK, look at those two statements. To me, you're contradicting yourself. You're saying that if there's an unbeatable challenge the PCs are facing there should be clues to its unbeatability around to discover. Then you say the character's skill has to have an effect on the outcome. But an unbeatable challenge with interpretable clues that give warning about the challenges unbeatable nature inherently ISN'T something that character skill effects. It's up to the players to recognize the clues for what they are and interpret them correctly. There is no mechanic for characters to think on their own. YOU are supplying any "clue interpretation" involved in avoiding that unbeatable challenge. Please explain to me how that is any different than YOU the PLAYER being required to make the choice between pulling or not pulling a potentially trapped lever.

It does not follow logically from the course of events. If there is no reason to EXPECT a trap, then a trap is arbitrary. And there is no reason to expect that the lever would be horribly destructive given in the OP, so it is, as far as we know, arbitrary.

I still don't understand the argument that there's no reason to expect a trap. Why would you NOT expect a trap when you're in a dangerous environment like a dungeon? This just makes my question above even more pertinent. Do you object to this trap or do you object to the presence of a trap on the lever period?

The point is that it is paranoid and unnatural to avoid something that doesn't pose an obvious threat. People don't always walk around wearing surgical masks, and I doubt you boil your water before you drink it every time. Why should PC's do that? They're not SUPPOSED to be affraid of the dangers lurking unseen around the corner. They're supposed to BEAT UP the dangers lurking unseen around the corner.

This leads me to believe that you really are opposed to the idea of traps period. Because traps by definition are threats which do not pose an obvious threat. If a trap is as obvious as a squad of orcs or a red dragon it poses no challenge whatsoever. If I'm misreading this, please explain how you're OK with traps but you believe that threats that aren't obvious are somehow unfair of unfun, because I'm really confused about this point.

I'm not saying anything should always be anything. You're leaping to far too many conclusions to make a cogent argument for your case, i'm affraid. If I wanted to play a game where danger was in waking up in the morning and walking out my front door (which could have been trapped by ninjas in the middle of the night!), I wouldn't play D&D.

I think you may also be drawing way too many conclusions to make this a useful discussion. As I said before, there's a huge difference between being "in dungeon" and being in your own home. I haven't once made the argument that PCs should have to live in hermetically sealed chambers to avoid death in a D&D game. It seems like an unreasonable stretch to take the statement "Levers in a dungeon can be dangerous, it's best to be very careful and use all the safety precautions at your disposal before touching them." and make it mean "PCs should treat every door as if it could explode and every commoner as if they were a polymorphed great wyrm and ever horse turd as if it was a land mine.".

Which seems to me to be the way a game in which a randomly and arbitrarily trapped levers would be full of.

If you could just explain as plainly as possible what exactly about having a trap on a lever in a dungeon is arbitrary I think that would seriously help me understand your point. Are you honestly meaning to say that levers in dungeons should never be trapped (because that's what I'm getting) or are you saying this specific trap is arbitrary. If its the latter, could you please explain what makes it arbitrary. I understand you think it's not fun and unfair, but the word arbitrary is confusing me. Are you applying that term to the placement of the trap, the difficulty of the trap, both? Are you sure arbitrary is the word you're looking for? I just don't get it. :\

 

[painandgreed]

So the salient points are
1 - There's a lever in the room.
2 - A search of the room found a secret door, and no other possible means of opening it beyond the lever.
3 - A search of the door and the lever by a rogue for traps revealed no traps (we'll assume that the rogue took 20, and has search maxed out; competent trapfinding rogues do this; also note that the search skill, when used by characters with trapfinding, does reveal magic traps)
4 - Given no other way to open the door, the monk (who presumably has the best all-around saves in the party, and evasion) pulls the lever, and has to make a saving throw. He rolls a natural 19, and dies, turned into dust (i.e. can't be revived with anything short of Resurection, and possibly not without True Resurection).

You make lots of assumptions I don't think can be taken from the given text. You assume they take 20 in searching. You assume the player of the rogue is competent. You assume the door has no other possible means of being opened. You assume the monk is of a level appropriate for the dungeon and has best saves of the party. For that matter, you assume that pulling the level causes the monk to turn to dust. Nowhere are we given this information and I don't think we can assume it for this Gedankenexperiment.

 

[MarkB]

Should they levitate down every corridor just incase the next 5ft has an undetectable trap?

If it's cheap enough, yes.

My Fell Flying warlock in a tabletop campaign never touched the ground once whilst in dungeons (we slept in Rope Tricks).

My Spiderwalking warlock in an online campaign spent most of his time on the walls, even though we had a rogue doing trapfinding nearly every step of the way.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Ourph, I think you're missing the focus on the 19 roll on the save from a person with all good saves.

The death trap, was in effect a no save death. That is generally going to be frowned upon nowadays.

 

[Ourph]

The PCs took reasonable percautions; they had the rogue search for traps, and had the character most likely to make his saves pull the lever.

To me, having the character with high saves pull the lever isn't a reasonable precaution. Having an expendable proxy pull the lever is a reasonable precaution. If the party is having the person with the best saves pull the lever it's obviously an admission that they suspect the lever may be trapped. If you suspect the lever may be trapped a "reasonable precaution" is to make sure no one in the party directly pulls the lever. You either 1) use a proxy or 2) if you don't have a proxy leave and come back when you do or 3) don't ever pull the lever.

Having the monk pull the lever seems like the equivalent of a group of people in the real world who want to find out if a handgun is loaded with blanks or real bullets selecting the person who is in the best health to get shot in the stomach because he has the best chance of surviving if the bullets are real. Yeah, you've made some effort to mitigate the danger of someone dying while figuring out the question at hand, but I'd hardly say you've taken "reasonable precautions".

 

[ThirdWizard]

Logically, the lever is less likely to be trapped than the doorknob leading into the room where the lever was found.

I have to wonder if you take all these "precautions" at every doorknob. That certainly doesn't sound fun to me.

EDIT: I think the monk was chosen in the example not because the Players wanted the one with the highest overall saves to be the one to pull it, but more for the sake of the example, to showcase that the save was in fact high. In other words, to keep people from debating whether or not another character would have more easily made the save and keep the discussion on the topic the OP intended.

 

[Ourph]

Ourph, I think you're missing the focus on the 19 roll on the save from a person with all good saves.

The death trap, was in effect a no save death. That is generally going to be frowned upon nowadays.

Listen, I understand the argument that something with such a high save and such a severe consequence is unfun (with which I agree) and unfair (with which I don't agree) I just don't get the idea that it's arbitrary.

Yeah, the saving throw doesn't mean much, but as I say above, it's obvious from the setup that the PCs involved suspect there is a trap on the lever, otherwise they wouldn't have the person with the best saves of the group pulling the lever. No one is forcing them to pull the lever. Nothing is preventing them from using a proxy. Nothing is preventing them from using their resources to further examine the lever before acting. Nothing is preventing them from simply walking away and leaving the lever alone altogether.

Personally, I would MUCH rather have a trap that's as easily avoidable as this one with some reasonable player choices rather than one where I'm left with little choice as to whether I actually activate it or not and a reasonable save DC. I would much rather my character's welfare rest with my decision-making ability as a player than a random roll of the dice.

In my opinion, if you're making the saving throw you've already screwed up. The way to avoid death isn't to have a high save bonus and roll well, the way to avoid death is to not put yourself in the position of making the saving throw in the first place.