Is this fair? -- your personal opinion
- Thread starter Quasqueton
- Start date
Raven Crowking
First Post
Falkus said:
Every trap that has ever existed has required the target to play an active role in his own destruction. Even a bucket of water balanced on a door ajar requires the target to try to walk through the door. Are you seriously telling me that there are no trap triggers that involve opening doors, opening chests, etc?
If a trap requires you to step in a particular spot, you must step in that spot to set the trap off.
If a trap requires you to pull a tripwire, you must move in the area where the tripwire is located.
If a trap is hooked to a door, you must try to open the door.
If a trap requires you to pull a lever, you must pull the lever.
All traps, regardless of their actual mechanism, require some lure to make the being to be trapped enter the trap. A mousetrap is baited, and by eating the bait the mouse causes the trap to release. A sliding chute trap is hidden down a corridor, and by traversing the corridor a character causes the trap to spring open, sending him down to the garbage pit where the otyugh lives.
Smart trap-setters use a lure that will entice the desired target to engage the trap. Hence, you bait your mousetrap with cheese or peanut butter and not fluff from under your couch. A roach motel or fly strip offers a scent that roaches or flies are likely to investigate. A kobold puts an obvious "treasure" beyond the area with the spiked pit. In one dungeon, two identically dressed goblins wait, one to duck into a secret door around the corner, and one to duck around the corner when the party approaches, luring them into the spiked pit between the two locations.
Every trap everywhere. Mechanism and lure. Even when the trap is in an otherwise deserted hallway, traversing the hallway acts as a lure to a trap. Traps do not go out seeking adventurers. Traps do not wander the halls waiting to slide under people's feet. Traps are not creatures. If they were, they'd be monsters. Or hazards, like green slime and brown mold. Every trap that has ever existed has required the target to play an active role in his own destruction.
By its very nature, a lever implies that, by changing its position, you cause something to happen. This makes a lever very different from, say, a raised dias, a table, a torch, or a statue. All of those things might do something; it is a far more reasonable (and obvious) assumption that a lever or a switch will do something.
(It might not, of course. It could be a red herring. The mechanism could be broken. However, even if you see no obvious result, it is safe to assume that throwing the switch/lever has had some effect that you should, thereafter, keep your eye out for.)
In other words, a lever is automatically and (with very, very few exceptions) always a MECHANISM.
In the example room, there is a secret door. A secret door implies both a space beyond (although this may not be true; it may be a false secret door leading to a stone wall) and a means to open it (again, this implication may not be true; the secret door could be built in such a way that it has no regular means to open it, especially if it is intended as bait rather than as a door).
In the example room, we have a secret door with no means to open it, and a lever that does something that we do not know. So here we have two objects. One does something, the other needs the means to do something. The easiest solution to the problem is that the one object does the something for the other object. We do not think any further, throw the lever, and roll a saving throw.
In other words, the secret door is a LURE.
If you cannot put together MECHANISM + LURE = PROBABLY TRAP then it is your own fault, not the fault of the DM.
Some might say that there's a million and one different possible reasons for a lever to be in a room with a secret door. They might claim that only a small percentage of the suspicious and paranoid would say "obvious trap." However, to say so means you simply do not understand the nature of traps, in real life or the game. MECHANISM + LURE = TRAP.
You open the door. Beyond the door is a 30 x 30 room, empty except a big pile of gold coins in the middle of the floor. What do you do? Hmm. Can't see the mechanism, but that sure looks like a lure.
You see a big lever and find a secret door that you cannot find the way to open. Mechanism and lure. Hmm.
You are crawling along the kitchen floor when you find that someone has kindly left out a big piece of cheese for you. Hey, nothing suspicious here......
If one can say that the scenario in the original post wouldn't be unfair if it was an obvious trap, then let's see someone at least attempt to show where my reasoning falls down.
RC
Last edited:
Raven Crowking
First Post
Falkus said:
Please explain the difference.
Better, explain the difference between the lever and the mousetrap. I think, were 55-56% of all gamers on this thread mice, they'd be dead mice by now.
RC
Kamikaze Midget said:
Then why did the Rogue search for traps on the lever in the first place?
This is why this argument (that there's no reason to believe the lever is trapped) is ultimately flawed. The party is already taking precautions based on the suspicion that there IS a trap. They have the Rogue search. They have the person with the best saves pull the lever. Both of these actions have been lauded as "appropriate" in this thread.
I don't think the argument that "there's no reason to suspect a trap" meets the a priori conditions of the OP's post. It's obvious that the PCs already suspect a trap because they are taking precautions against the presence of one. As soon as the Rogue declares that he is searching for traps, the hurdle of suspicion has already been cleared and the question of whether the PCs should suspect a trap on the lever is moot. It's obvious they DO suspect a trap on the lever by the actions that are described in the OP.
The real question is "Did the PCs do a good job of investigating their suspicions?". IMO, having a single character make a single skill check isn't "adequate" by any means. Especially when that single skill check is meant to oppose the potential of a trap that could seriously harm or kill a PC. A trap is an "encounter" just like any other encounter. It has a CR and you get XP for overcoming it. A level appropriate encounter is, on average, supposed to consume 1/5 of the party's daily resources. A CR appropriate trap which is automatically detectable by the Rogue character taking 20 consumes close to 0 of the party's resources. It consumes time, but only a fractional amount of the time the party has available to them and nowhere NEAR enough to account for 1/5 of their daily resources. However, a party who does an adequate job of checking out THIS trap will almost assuredly consume somewhere around 1/5 of their daily resources avoiding the consequences of the trap. An Augury followed up by Mage Hand, Unseen Servant or Summon Monster I would be much more in line with consuming the appropriate amount of resources.
I have refrained from commenting on whether the "unfair" camp in this thread is arguing for a game that is "too easy", but having followed this line of reasoning to it's logical and numerical conclusion I will say that those arguing the "unfair" side are certainly arguing for a game in which traps do not present the same amount of challenge to a party that a monster encounter of similar CR would present. IMO the challenge level guidelines, at the very least, support the idea that traps which are undetectable by taking 20 are well within the range of level appropriate encounters for a group of PCs. After all, a creature of CR equal to the party's average level will almost never be defeated by a single action of a single character which receives the benefit of an automatic maximum on the die roll, so why should traps be any different?
Ridley's Cohort
First Post
With such a marvelous trap, why not just put it on a regular looking doorknob?
Ridley's Cohort
First Post
No, Ourph. You are thinking too narrowly.
Even if it were completely and unassailably correct that pulling the level is not a trap:
(1) The level may do some other useful thing, and there is a separate trap added to it to protect access to that useful thing.
(2) The lever may do some useful thing that could be dangerous to a normal humanoid adventurer who happens to be in the room.
Even if it were completely and unassailably correct that pulling the level is not a trap:
(1) The level may do some other useful thing, and there is a separate trap added to it to protect access to that useful thing.
(2) The lever may do some useful thing that could be dangerous to a normal humanoid adventurer who happens to be in the room.
Ridley's Cohort
First Post
Ourph said:
You are presupposing things that may not be true. Such as a trap being detected is effectively "defeated".
There are numerous reasons why Taking 20 may be impractical for a particular trap. There are numerous reasons why a detected trap, even one whose precise nature has been diagnosed accurately (something that may take a lot more effort than a simple Search), could still be a substantial obstacle.
And if we are bringing the "what is this thing's CR really" kind of argument, we must discuss the DC of the save in the context of the guidelines provided by the RAW -- that is not going to strengthen your position.
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