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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Edgar Ironpelt" data-source="post: 9602442" data-attributes="member: 32075">OK, why?If the party is able to trigger the trap from a safe distance, by mage hand or any other means, then they have solved the trap. Good for them. The only way I can see this as a bad or worthless or ineffective trap is if it's immediately obvious as to how it can be set off at a distance. If it's not obvious at first as to how it can be set off at a distance, then that's where the challenge and effectiveness of the trap lies, not in it being trivial to disarm once uncovered. My own feeling on traps is to use them sparingly. There needs to be a reason why the trap-setting creature thought that setting up the trap was a good idea. And the trap-setter is not going to risk sacrificing himself to his own trap just for the chance of annoying some dratted PC in the future. So traps in my games are mostly alarms, or insult attacks not expected to kill, or both, possibly with a side of marking the unauthorized character. More rarely, they'll be traps for animals, or capture-traps, or traps set up in a place the trap-setter never intends to return to. And as for boring: Boring to the GM, or to the players? The two are not the same. I figure that as long as the players aren't bored by using mage hand to trigger traps, then the guy wearing the GM hat - me - has a duty to smile and take it. Now when I GM and see the players joyously knocking down the opposition I've set up, whether traps or combat encounters, there's sometimes a little voice whispering in the back of my mind: "I'm annoyed and bored by this, so the players must be bored too. Really, they must be. Even though they appear to be having fun, they must actually want more challenge. So go ahead and give that to them. Do it! They'll thank you for it."I do my best to ignore that voice, because I know it's the one on my left shoulder, with horns and a pitchfork.</blockquote>

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