D&D 5E New DMG Excerpt: It's A Trap!

[The Crimson Binome]

No, the accuracy will remain the same for 2/3 of the party on average, because no class gets proficiency to more than one of the three major saves (dex, con, wis) before very high levels. A level 20 fighter will be just as likely to pass that dc10 dexterity save as a level 1 fighter, unless he raised his dex or took a feat for it.

I get that, and I get that you're going to have the same range of bonuses to hit (or save DCs for) a party of any level.

I'm just noticing that a deadly trap for a low-level party would be +10 to hit for 4d10 damage, where a setback for a high-level party would be +4 to hit for 4d10 damage. If the DM creates a trap of a particular lethality for a party at one level, it won't cleanly fit into a consistent degree of lethality at another level.

Which is fine. Nothing really needs to be tailored to the party.

 

[Tormyr]

I am hoping what we see is a set of example traps with different save DCs, attack bonuses and consequences that we can choose from to fit the guidelines we have in the preview. That would fit with what we have been given in the way of monsters in the MM (here are the monsters, fit to your encounter budget).

 

[Minigiant]

Well isn't the most important part the effect not the accuracy. Doesn't matter if the trap is +3 or +10, if it deals 10d10 fire damage it hurts different to different level PCs.

At level 5, you might loss a PC. At level 20, 10d10 is nuisance damage by itself.

 

[Zoetrope]

That Wizard is proving that there is no minimum Int requirement for his class...

If someone had cut off YOUR ponytail, wouldn't you want to get it back??

 

[Psikerlord#]

I like everything except there is no mention of how to fix the problem of static DC vs static passive perception = auto detect/fail, which is very lame. I hope there is something about making "stealth" checks for traps, or some other variable, somewhere in there. I believe there was something like that in earlier play tests.

 

[Hussar]

I'm surprised there's no comments on the picture yet. I can't believe that guy's sticking his hand in there with all those warning signs! This is what you call evolution in action. A smart adventurer would be using his 10 foot pole.

A 10' pole is so yesterday. Today's adventurer uses an Unseen Servant.

 

[Zoetrope]

I like everything except there is no mention of how to fix the problem of static DC vs static passive perception = auto detect/fail, which is very lame. I hope there is something about making "stealth" checks for traps, or some other variable, somewhere in there. I believe there was something like that in earlier play tests.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here. You either manage to spot the trap (Passive Per >= Spot Trap DC) and can stop before triggering it (your foot hovers over the pressure plate), or you walk blindly forward failing to notice the trigger. You can't stealth your way past a mechanical trap, that wouldn't make sense.

I guess you COULD stealth your way past a magical trap, if the trigger was visual/light-based, of course....

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I'm not quite sure what you mean here. You either manage to spot the trap (Passive Per >= Spot Trap DC) and can stop before triggering it (your foot hovers over the pressure plate), or you walk blindly forward failing to notice the trigger. You can't stealth your way past a mechanical trap, that wouldn't make sense.

There was a previous suggestion that traps could make a check to not be noticed, rather than just applying its passive DC against the Passive Perception of the party. So, the trap would roll d20 + whatever, and compare that to the Passive Perceptions to see who would notice it or not.

 

[Leatherhead]

I hope there are tables like these for monsters.

 

[pemerton]

I find it interesting that this seems to be one place where they moved away from Bounded Accuracy's "Something is always the same whether you are 1st or 20th level. Two characters of vastly different levels would get vastly different damage from the same trap.

The chart is very similar to the charts in the 4e DMG: it gives damage ranges that are appropriate to achieve a given sort of outcomes (setback, deadly etc) against PCs of a given level.

The assumption is that the GM is designing a trap with a certain level of PC in mind as the targets.

The weird thing is that the save DC or attack bonus doesn't scale with level

a Setback trap is always 10-11 for the save DC +3 to +5 for the attack bonus, but it will do 1d10 for low level characters and 10d10 for high level characters.

this is the clearest demonstration of bounded accuracy we've ever seen. Save DCs and attack bonuses don't scale with level... much (theoretically), while damage and hit points do.

I think that occam is correct. This is bounded accuracy (ie only hit points/damage scale) in action.

The only little disappointment it's that it seems that they mainly present trap that do damage. I would have liked if they put some suggestion for trap that do different thing

This was an issue in 4e too. Eventually they posted an online article to cover this.