My edition ignorance is showing here: in 3E would a successful find traps roll by the party thief spot a magical trap (and I'm assuming a trap that disintegrates someone is magic-based)? Because in OD&D/1E it wouldn't -- to find magical traps you need magical means of detection. So, as a player, I'd never assume that there isn't a trap on something just because the thief didn't find one, even if he has a very good find traps skill.
Is this fair? -- your personal opinion
- Thread starter Quasqueton
- Start date
painandgreed
First Post
ThirdWizard said:
We don't know if the door beyond the McGuffin would only be accessable to the BBEG. In this case, the dungeon has already been cleared and we have no knowledge of where in the dungeon it is (except that it is in a back room in a corner) as far as importance or danger. For that matter, McGuffin's aren't always the thing most valued by the BBEG or the most valuable in the dungeon and we have no information about where in the dungeon it was or what importance was given to it.
In a high enough level dungeon I'd have no problem with such a trap, assuming it was detectable via the aforementioned methods (detect magic, find traps, true seeing, wand of secret door and trap detection, etc.) and that it could be triggered harmlessly remotely by throwing a pebble into the room, probing with a pole, or similar means. As a DM I'd probably never actually use such a trap because I know most players would throw a fit complaining about it, but as a player I've got no problem with it.silentspace said:
ThirdWizard
First Post
painandgreed said:
True. But, surely, whatever it is guarding is worth more than the trap costs itself, right?
The trap is most likely a triggered destruction spell. That would be a 4550 gp (364 XP) cost for a single activation or 45,500 gp (3640 XP) for automaticly reseting. It would also have a DC 20 Fortitude Save partial. In order to raise this, you'll need to Heighten the spell, raising the DC by a maximum of +3. That would change the cost of the trap to 7650 gp (612 XP) and 76,500 gp (6,120 XP) respectively.
ZSutherland
First Post
I voted other because there's a lot of information not present in the hypothetical. It sounds like it likely wasn't very fair (or more importantly fun), but it may have been fair. You lay out in detail how the saving throw went, but the information on the original search for both traps and a means of opening the door is very vague. Was the roll made in secret, in which case the result could have been abysmal, and other party members might have tried taking 20 on Search checks to find a way to open the door? Did the door actually open when the lever was pulled? If not, was there any reason to suspect that whatever BBEG controlled this dungeon and was guarding the McGuffin was the chaotic-crazy type that would go to the expense and trouble have having a very heightened disintegrate trap on a lever that served no other purpose than to insta-gib anyone who pulled it? Where they players made aware at the outset that this would be a very lethal campaign and/or has their prior experience borne this out?
On the whole, whether it's fair or not is irrelevant. It is generally inadvisable to put an save or die effect in the game that requires a natural 20 to avoid by the character with some of the best saves because it's just not much fun. The real question, assuming this really happened, is if the DM is relatively new (in which case it may just have been a bad decision/mistake on his part) or experienced enough to know better. Regardless, you need to have a talk with the DM about why you game and what constitutes fun, but if it's the latter, you need to ask some probing questions to try and decide if this is an adversarial DM or if he just made mistaken assumption (he assumed you would read the BBEG's journal which included the password to open the secret door in the back room) and simply applied the rules when you didn't do what he expected, in which case he may just have made a bad call. We all do it sometimes.
On the whole, whether it's fair or not is irrelevant. It is generally inadvisable to put an save or die effect in the game that requires a natural 20 to avoid by the character with some of the best saves because it's just not much fun. The real question, assuming this really happened, is if the DM is relatively new (in which case it may just have been a bad decision/mistake on his part) or experienced enough to know better. Regardless, you need to have a talk with the DM about why you game and what constitutes fun, but if it's the latter, you need to ask some probing questions to try and decide if this is an adversarial DM or if he just made mistaken assumption (he assumed you would read the BBEG's journal which included the password to open the secret door in the back room) and simply applied the rules when you didn't do what he expected, in which case he may just have made a bad call. We all do it sometimes.
Gold Roger
First Post
Imho it depends on how hard it was for the rogue to find the trap. If he threw a 1 or something simmilar it's still fair (though I'd question that absurdly high DC, it's still in the realm of possibilities). If the chance of him finding it was less than 50%, then that was a DM hellbend on killing a PC and imho not fair, unless that lever opens a secret vault with something appropiately big to follow (enough money to res the dead PC, real ultimate MC Gruffin).
MarkB said:
If this were a lever in the middle of some merchant's house I could see your point, but the situation described is in a dungeon controlled (before you defeated him) by a BBEG with a MacGuffin. IMO being "in dungeon" means some things (like levers) take on an entirely different character than they would in the "real world". If you're walking through a hiking area, a muddy footprint on the path doesn't mean much to you. If you see the same thing in the middle of a war zone behind enemy lines, the import is entirely disproportional to its meaning in the other context (for good reason).
The first thing I thought when I read the scenario was "Why are the PCs going around pulling levers after they have the MacGuffin? The first rule of successful dungeoneering is set a goal and stick to it. If the goal was 'bring the MacGuffin out of the dungeon' then the PCs were making a very stupid mistake by doing anything other than leaving by the quickest, safest route possible once they acquired their objective. If they want to figure out what the lever does or where the secret door goes, they should come back prepped to do that as their primary goal (with all the equipment and magic necessary to accomplish that goal in the safest manner possible).
A PC isn't "blowing" a True Seeing spell on the lever if he has come prepared to cast that exact spell on that exact area. He is only "blowing" it if he's unprepared for that expenditure of resources - in which case, IMO, he shouldn't be messing with the lever at all unless it's obviously necessary to accomplish his pre-established objectives (and in this scenario, it obviously isn't).
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
There is only a very limited number of situations I can think of in which it would be fair.
One would be if the rogue rolled low or decided not to take 10/20 on his Search check. Similarly, if the lever was magical and, though they checked for traps, they forgot to detect magic. If there were clues scattered about the dungeon, if the BBEG warned them about the door, if there were piles of dust all around the lever....if there were HINTS as to what it would do, so that a clever character could at least roll a quick check to put the clues together before they were vaporized, then it's fair. Harsh, but fair. The signs were there, and they either weren't found or were ignored. There is a penalty for rolling low, otherwise there wouldn't be a whole lot of GAME to this game. But there should be a fair chance to end the problem without the consequence, otherwise there still wouldn't be a whole lot of GAME to this game.
The other one would be if quick and easy resurrection from dust piles was available. If this was a 20th level game, I'd have no qualms about throwing one of these in there, even without much in the way of hints. I wouldn't spring it from them out of nowhere ("fair chance to end the problem without the consequence", remember), but they can recover from the problem handily enough, without loosing more than a few minutes of game time and a few seconds of real time. They'll loose some time and some treasure, but a quick mention of "I cast True Res" and they're on the way. I also wouldn't have that be the ONLY consequence -- the spell gives the critter in the other room time to prepare, or a wandering monster patrol finds them or something minor but notable that furthers the plot of the game, no matter how nebulous that plot may be. I'm not just syphoning rescources, there's a reason for it to be there.
Similarly, the mention about it being a "high death dungeon," or noting that the PCs will often meet challenges they cannot overcome is under this heading. It's about the tone of the campaign -- if it is somewhat expected, it's fair.
Outside of those two situations, I can't see it being fair. You just killed the character for no good reason. They took all normal precautions. It was obviously far above their level to deal with. they had no reason to expect it and they have no way to recover from it. What was the point of including it?
And because this is a game, it should be fair. I want heroics, not a "life's a crapshoot" lesson.
One would be if the rogue rolled low or decided not to take 10/20 on his Search check. Similarly, if the lever was magical and, though they checked for traps, they forgot to detect magic. If there were clues scattered about the dungeon, if the BBEG warned them about the door, if there were piles of dust all around the lever....if there were HINTS as to what it would do, so that a clever character could at least roll a quick check to put the clues together before they were vaporized, then it's fair. Harsh, but fair. The signs were there, and they either weren't found or were ignored. There is a penalty for rolling low, otherwise there wouldn't be a whole lot of GAME to this game. But there should be a fair chance to end the problem without the consequence, otherwise there still wouldn't be a whole lot of GAME to this game.
The other one would be if quick and easy resurrection from dust piles was available. If this was a 20th level game, I'd have no qualms about throwing one of these in there, even without much in the way of hints. I wouldn't spring it from them out of nowhere ("fair chance to end the problem without the consequence", remember), but they can recover from the problem handily enough, without loosing more than a few minutes of game time and a few seconds of real time. They'll loose some time and some treasure, but a quick mention of "I cast True Res" and they're on the way. I also wouldn't have that be the ONLY consequence -- the spell gives the critter in the other room time to prepare, or a wandering monster patrol finds them or something minor but notable that furthers the plot of the game, no matter how nebulous that plot may be. I'm not just syphoning rescources, there's a reason for it to be there.
Similarly, the mention about it being a "high death dungeon," or noting that the PCs will often meet challenges they cannot overcome is under this heading. It's about the tone of the campaign -- if it is somewhat expected, it's fair.
Outside of those two situations, I can't see it being fair. You just killed the character for no good reason. They took all normal precautions. It was obviously far above their level to deal with. they had no reason to expect it and they have no way to recover from it. What was the point of including it?
And because this is a game, it should be fair. I want heroics, not a "life's a crapshoot" lesson.
ZSutherland said:
I think Quasqueton may be intentionally limiting our knowledge about the situation to what a player at that table would know from the events transpiring in the game. For example, as a DM, I would roll the Rogue's Search check for him. The players at the table wouldn't know the result, so we don't know the result.
ZSutherland said:
But there are numerous ways to avoid the save or die effect besides making the save. The most obvious one is to simply not pull the lever.
