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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 6578607" data-attributes="member: 6778044">I think I'd start by asking why this bothers you?How many traps do you have? Why are they there? Who built them and what's their purpose?Depending on the placement and purpose, it's easy to place traps of all different types that will foil all types of possible attempts to disarm them. Plus, they still have to detect the trap in the first place. Then they still have to succeed at disarming it. For example, in one adventure I had a collapsing walkway outside the entrance to a small cave in a sinkhole. The 40' long walkway/stairs were on the side of the sinkhole down to the doorway to what used to be a gnome's home (now occupied by orcs). There was a disabling switch disguised as part of a small tree nearby, as well as a mechanism in a small room to set and disarm it on the inside, where there was also a peephole so he could investigate if he heard something outside (or when somebody suspicious knocked on the door).Careful inspection of the walkway showed that the supports had some play, and went into the side of the sinkhole through small holes slightly larger than them, rather than firmly attached as you'd expect. It was set off by a pressure plate in front of the cave mouth, which caused the spring-loaded supports to retract, and the hinged walkway to collapse. The gnome could arm the trap from the top or the bottom, or disarm it to use the stairs. Failure dropped anything on the walkway into the sinkhole.I generally don't use just a straight ability check, instead the PCs investigated the area (since they were naturally suspicious). If they didn't connect the dots themselves, I'd roll, possibly with advantage if they had found most of the important parts. If they detected the trap, then they'd go about trying to disarm it.Even if using mage hands from a distance, if they failed their disarm check and accidentally set off the trap, anybody still on the walkway would fall into the sinkhole. In this case, the characters didn't have an Arcane Trickster, so that wasn't an issue, but they did fail the disarm check. I gave them a Dexterity check to try to grab onto the wooden walkway that had collapsed on the side of the wall, but they failed that as well.The point is, I didn't have to go out of my way to build a punitive trap, nor one that was designed to specifically target those disarming a trap with magic or from a distance. But what if they did? It really doesn't matter. It still would slow them down and create an opportunity for them to be caught by the orcs. Maybe they just don't like the look of the walkway and decide to tie a rope to a tree and rappel down to the cave opening instead.If they didn't set off the trap, that doesn't mean that they'd remember it was there on the way back out, particularly if they were in a hurry (being chased). Of course, once inside they'd likely find the room with the mechanism and that's pretty cool too. There was an intelligent creature that once lived here and built a defense for his home, and we're awesome and didn't get fooled.Actually, the ranger (urchin with thieves' tools) did set off the trap, found themselves in the web of a group of spiders that had built their webs horizontally across the several hundred foot deep sinkhole shaft (incidentally making the use of fire against the webs a bad idea). They didn't figure that out either, but the druid had already shapechanged into a giant spider to get down to where the ranger was to rescue him and get back out. When they later discovered the mechanism inside the home, they set the trap, and later on the remaining orcs were fleeing the home and fell victim to it themselves, after having lived there for some time.Essentially, the idea of a trap for me is something that they will likely overcome. Think of the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. There are a bunch of cool traps, some of which he set off. Indy escaped damage from all of them so they 'failed.' Except that it increased the tension and created a very dramatic scene, and if it were me, would have increased the satisfaction of being able to get the treasure out without getting killed. He disarmed a couple of traps, and made a few Dexterity saves. Even if he had simply disarmed them all, they still serve the same purpose.If one catches them anyway, hey, cool. Incidentally, I also have old traps that don't function as they were originally supposed to. A poison dart or needle where the poison is long gone, a huge scything blade with a dry-rotted shaft that breaks on impact, etc. Something where you can create a really deadly trap, but because of its age the PCs are able to survive it. An already triggered trap serves a similar purpose.And by designing traps in an intelligent way, including some area type traps, or perhaps some traps triggered by other methods such as reading runes, or proximity of a specific type of creature, then they'll still get the PCs every once in a while, regardless of an Arcane Trickster.Ilbranteloth</blockquote>

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