D&D 5E Mage Hand and Trap Avoidance

[Charlaquin]

Ooooh if you hate that, wait until they get arcane eye.

It just kills dungeon exploration. Had a player use it to map out an entire dungeon, and then afterwards he said, "this kinda feels like I'm cheating".

I don't think it's cheating, but it is incredibly boring. Why is this spell in the game?

Maybe I’m missing something, is using arcane eye to map out an entire dungeon not in and of itself an act of dungeon exploration? Yeah, it’s less risky than physically exploring the dungeon, but… that’s the point of the spell.

 

[aco175]

Ran an event at the convention last weekend and ran into the part of being trained with Thieves Tools and Sleight of Hand to gain advantage on locks. Turned all the doors into nothing problems.

Mage hand seems to do the same thing to a lot of traps. The 10lb thing is overcome with just placing 10lb bricks on the trap one at a time (if a pressure plate or such). Older editions just had time wasting disarm traps SOP #4 that involved a rope and standing behind the chest. I mean once you know there is a trap there is no big deal.

I lie the trap signal themselves sometimes. I like the point of the goblin being caught by the trap to let the players know something. I might place a dead body or skeleton body to signal something. The mage hand problem might be countered with setting off the trap and opening a secret door filled with zombies. If they knew, then disarm trap would be better than sitting it off.

 

[Charlaquin]

In this case the trap was actually really dangerous (1st level PCs, 2d10+4 damage no save) so I put the killed goblin there to telegraph it.

Just to reiterate: the interaction with the dead goblin and the presence of the trap was fun, between them trying to figure out what killed the goblin and then how to potentially get into the treasure chest.

I found the "mage hand" solution to be a boring let down. That's all.

If I use traps at all, I almost always use them as encounters, making them complex and dangerous and engaging. This was the first time i have run a low level dungeon with a "classic" trap in literal years, so I kind of forgot how boring they can be. Consider me reminded.

But I still wanted to rant about it. because those kinds of traps are dumb and they deserve it.

I don’t mean to take the wind out of your sails by saying this; your frustration is valid, and you have my sympathies. For me though, this sounds like a 100% successful and fun instance of a dealing with a trapped chest. I think I’d have walked away from this exact same scenario thoroughly satisfied.

 

[TiQuinn]

What I mean is that for me it’s about having a clearly stated goal and approach, not about having any particular level of descriptive detail. A very simple, to-the-point declaration like “I visually inspect the room for signs of a mechanism the pressure plate might trigger” is just as good as a more elaborate, detailed one like “I use my keen elven eyes to scour every inch of the floor, walls, and ceiling, taking notice of every brick and the mortar between for even a dust speck out of place, to determine what devious trap might be set off by the pressure plate being depressed.” In fact, I think the former is kind of preferable because it communicates the information I need to determine the results more clearly and efficiently than the latter does. As long as I understand what you hope to achieve if your action is successful, and what your character is doing to try to bring that about, the description itself is immaterial.

Ha, yeah, I've seen the latter as well, and reached the point where I had to reject that as an answer. In a way, saying "I search everything" is the same thing as saying "I don't really want to engage with this." You as a DM may have set up 3 separate objects of interest in a room for the PCs to interact with in some way, but sometimes a player just wants that shortcut.

 

[Charlaquin]

Ran an event at the convention last weekend and ran into the part of being trained with Thieves Tools and Sleight of Hand to gain advantage on locks. Turned all the doors into nothing problems.

I don’t think simple traps and locks are really meant to be something problems. If you want getting through a door to be a something problem, it should be sealed by more elaborate, difficult to bypass means than a lock that can be picked with thieves’ tools. Make it some kind of complex mechanism or magical seal that needs a specific key or more complex sequence of actions to undo. Likewise, if you want a trap to be a something problem, make it an elaborate puzzle encounter like the aforementioned sealed room slowly filling with water or sand or something like that. Basic padlocks and pit traps serve a different purpose, they’re not real challenges, they’re minor speed bumps, and their periodic occurrence changes the way players have to approach the dungeon environment.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It is kind of concerning the number of people to whom the problem of "this trap was boring" is solved in the single most boring way possible, ie "just make the trap impossible to trigger with the spell".

Making the treasure chest lid weigh 15 lbs so that mage hand can't lift it and trigger the trap is not a solution to the boring trap problem. It just reinforces the boring trap.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I like traps that are set pieces. Any simple attrition trap resolved in a single attack/save is a bad trap. Honestly, any unsprung trap is a boring trap.

I don't want to see Indiana Jones fart around in a tunnel for 30 minutes poking floor tiles with long sticks. I wanna see him race the boulder.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Oh, ok. See, to me finding the trap and examining the corpse would be the main point of the trap. Once they’ve done that, it doesn’t really matter to me how they deal with it, or if doing so costs them anything. Whether they disarm it with thieves’ tools, or spring it from a safe distance with mage hand, or drop the whole chest into a portable hole so they can take it to a trapsmith back in town, it doesn’t really matter, the point is that the existence of the trap and the dead goblin indicating its presence got the players to engage with the dungeon environment. If they picked up on the hint in the description, asked follow up questions to help them make an informed plan of action, and then described something their characters did in response to the situation, I’d say the trap did its job perfectly.

Very much this. Let the party have their victory of safely triggering the trap after having figured out the clues.

 

[Distracted DM]

Aaand we come back to the idea that maybe limiting Utility cantrips would be a good idea.

 

[grimmgoose]

Maybe I’m missing something, is using arcane eye to map out an entire dungeon not in and of itself an act of dungeon exploration? Yeah, it’s less risky than physically exploring the dungeon, but… that’s the point of the spell.

You're right, it's the point of the spell.

I'm saying it's a bad spell, because that's a bad point.

Arcane Eye gives one player the spotlight, and the gameplay looks like one of two ways:

Option 1:

• DM: Okay, you see a long hallway, with one door at the far end, a hole in the wall on the left, and a door on the right.
• Player with Arcane Eye: Okay, I go through the door on the right. Through the key hole.
• DM: You see x, y, z, plus a, b, c.
• Arcane Eye: Okay, now the hole on the left.
• DM: You see a trap. Also d, e, f.
• Arcane Eye: Nice. Now the door in the center.
• DM: [to the rest of the party: "yeah, go ahead and grab some snacks. We'll be here awhile"]. This looks like an armory. You see g, h, and i. Opposite this room are two more doors...

ad infinitum until the player gets bored, the party (or the DM) revolts, or the dungeon is fully mapped out.

Option 2:

• DM: not this again. Look, here's the map. Let's just say you know where everything is. Let's move on.

Fundamentally, it's a spell that encourages boring gameplay. The fact that boring gameplay 'is the point' doesn't make it any better.