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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 3038564" data-attributes="member: 18280">You’ve cleared out the dungeon and found the McGuffin you were seeking. Then you come to a room located in the back corner of the dungeon. In the room is only a large lever sticking up out of the floor. You search the room and find a secret door in one wall. You can’t find a way to open the door. The rogue searches the door and lever for traps, and finds none. The monk pulls the lever. He has to make a saving throw – he rolls a 19 on the die, adds in his mods, and fails the save. He turns into a pile of fine dust on the floor.a) We are not told where the McGuffin is, but it is not in this room.  So, it is reasonable to assume that the trap does not protect the McGuffin.b) There is a secret door, which the trap could be designed to protect.c) Clever creatures do not lay traps in the places they intend to go frequently; they lay traps in out-of-the-way areas tangential to those areas, or areas that they frequent infrequently.d) If you have stupid servants, it is easier to tell them not to pull levers than to come up with a code for every doorknob in the dungeon complex so that the minions can tell which are safe and which are not.e) If this trap was on the doorknob, and the door was not secret, would that make it fair?The only important criteria for a good trap are (a) it will be interacted with and (b) the interacting party will not know it is a trap first.  I agree that this is not an ideal trap -- it is way too obvious -- but the question posed is not "Is this trap ideal?"  The question is "Is this trap fair?"  The fact that the trap is more obvious than would be ideal, IMHO, makes it fairer, not less fair.  A lot of people have demonstrated why one might think this was a trap.  No one yet has come up with a logical line of thinking that concludes "This must be safe."The area behind your fridge is not all that important, but you trap it because you understand mouse behavior.  Or maybe you build a mousetrap into your TV remote because you use it more.....  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /> People trap areas based upon several factors:(a)  Convenience:  Is this trap going to hamper me?  Should I put hidden pits in the areas used by my warriors?(b)  Purpose:  I am trying to protect my vault; I am trying to kill intruders; I am trying to direct intruders to the killing pit; I am trying to make people believe that another area is more important than it is; I want revenge.also(c)  Cost Effectiveness:  How do I get the best bang for my buck?  This is what I think you are complaining about, but it is far less important than (a) and (b) when making initial determinations.  Since we have no other data about the dungeon, we have no idea how much or how little the creator could afford.  However, the cost of this trap is so minimal compared to the cost of digging a dungeon complex in the first place, that one can assume that this is not an issue.  Or, to put it another way, would the trap become fair if it were cheaper?and[d]  Style:  The creator's sense of personal style and preferences.What here is hard to believe?They can cast 1st level spells?  That requires, what, an Adept?  If we postulate more than one being ("Think of the children" remember) living in a place where such traps are possible, it is somehow ad-hoc hypothesis creating-fu to think they might have at least one spellcaster?That they have at least the minimum wariness of a successful mouse?  Should we assume that, having watched the monk fry, the rest of the PCs pull the lever one-by-one, or can't we take this as a given?  What communal creatures are you imagining here that would be able to make a mark to warn of the trap, yet cannot understand that the trap is there?That they know how to warn each other orally?  How many sentient creatures in the game don't have this capacity?That they just stay away?  We are told that (a) the room is located in the back corner of the dungeon, making it easy to avoid, and (b) that it is otherwise empty, so no one is using it to, say, store things.  No trash from sleeping there, no gnawed bones, nothing.If this is "ad-hoc hypothesis creating-fu" exactly how hard to you have to work to come up with an alternate, equally rational theory?  If no intelligent beings currently dwell here, the "No mark to warn us; think of the children" line of reasoning doesn't live here either.You are stretching so far to claim that this isn't fair that you're in danger of toppling over.   <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /></blockquote>

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