NEW TRAPS article!

[FadedC]

Adjudicating incremental distance penalties isn't fun.

Agreed. More reasonable is a simple minimum distance to detect a trap, so that you aren't noticing that secret control panel from an entire football field away.

Or maybe something like no penalty from 5' feet away and -5 from 10' away with no check allowed beyond that.

 

[Thasmodious]

Some seem a bit stuck on thinking of traps with a 3e mindset (yes, I hate that phrase, too). Traps aren't something to do instead of an encounter, but are meant to most often be a dynamic part of an encounter. The article gives the option for very low xp minor traps to use as one shots, like the poison needle on the treasure chest trap, but in general, traps are a part of the encounter. A 4th level party wouldn't encounter just a kissing maiden, but rather a kissing maiden, 7 orc drudges, and three orc beserkers. The trap is an interesting part of the encounter, and a target for both groups to push and slide the others into. Its interesting when a group of monsters is using the traps to their advantage, and it is also interesting (and fun for the players) when the sonar bearing ranger notices a trap that the monsters don't know about, and suddenly its the PCs ally instead of the monsters.

 

[Syrsuro]

Well I knew there was some rule like that, but only getting a -2 to detect a trip wire 50+ feet away seems a little silly. So does having the same chance to detect a trap 45 feet away as 5 feet away.

True. But functionally how often will it come up?

How often do your characters have a 50+ foot line of sight to a trap, with good lighting (poor lighting will cause concealment and reduce the chance of seeing the trap) and no obstacles to block line of sight between them and the trap?

It can happen, but I doubt it will happen that often. At least not indoors. Outdoors in daylight, perhaps.

Carl

 

[Dausuul]

You know what makes me really, really happy about this article? The fact that the phrase "control panel" is completely absent. That's the one thing that really cheeses me off about the traps in the DMG - half of them have control panels for no discernible reason.

These new traps are much better designed. Instead of making Thievery checks against a control panel, you make them against the actual elements of the trap; trigger plates, falling doors, and so forth.

As regards Perception DCs, I tend to agree that they're too easy. As a general rule, I think the DC should be high enough that a character trained in Perception can succeed on a passive check, but most untrained characters can't. That rewards the PC who trained in Perception and makes him/her feel special, while at the same time not derailing the adventure if the party lacks a Perception-monkey.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

with a -1 penalty per 2 squares distance, DCs are quite ok... maybe +5 DC for some elements, which again leads to "should the old +5 DC for skill checks be restored and most difficulties reduced to easy... or instead having a 4th degree of difficlty: very hard (which includes the +5 DC)

and last but ot least: you should expect to encounter solo or elite traps when no monsters re around, or just taps which are so high in level that it grants xp as a solo monster (is it +8 Levels) Which then will adjust DC by 4

 

[Magus Coeruleus]

Traps aren't something to do instead of an encounter, but are meant to most often be a dynamic part of an encounter... The trap is an interesting part of the encounter, and a target for both groups to push and slide the others into. Its interesting when a group of monsters is using the traps to their advantage, and it is also interesting (and fun for the players) when the sonar bearing ranger notices a trap that the monsters don't know about, and suddenly its the PCs ally instead of the monsters.

Fair enough. Of course some traps can be stand alone but those might be better as skill challenges. Still, when integrating traps and monsters I find it much more likely that I would my players would face monsters that would use traps to help ambush them, i.e. the trap is sprung and then, while the PCs are discombobulated, they attack. There is a lot invested, for me anyway, in giving the traps a decent chance to catch PCs unaware. Otherwise why not just delete "traps" as such from the DMG and call them all "hazards" since they're just obstacle courses or even "terrain features" since everyone can so often detect and exploit them?

As regards Perception DCs, I tend to agree that they're too easy. As a general rule, I think the DC should be high enough that a character trained in Perception can succeed on a passive check, but most untrained characters can't. That rewards the PC who trained in Perception and makes him/her feel special, while at the same time not derailing the adventure if the party lacks a Perception-monkey.

This. If there are Easy, Medium, and Hard DCs my preference is that Easy = ~50/50 chance if totally unskilled and unexceptional in relevant ability; ~75/25 if skilled; approaching 100 if skilled and high ability etc. And then just shift those as you move up difficulty. Errata/Reworking notwithstanding, if you look at the set DCs for many Skills for comon actions like hearing a conversation vs. whispers, swimming in smooth vs. rough vs. stormy waters, etc., my general feeling is that skill checks are not supposed to be DC 5 even for easy.

So anyway, here's my current thinking: I like a "stealth" roll for the trap vs. passive perception to minimize rolls but not make trap detection a forgone conclusion. I worry about using a roll for the trap AND rolls for the party with active perception checks because that creates a LOT of variance, more than I care for. It may seem clunky but I'm thinking an active check for the trap vs. passive perception but a static DC vs. active perception rolls. My brain is addled right now but I also have the sneaking suspicion that the static DC shouldn't necessarily just be the active check mod +10 in order to the get the sorts of probabilities I'd like but I'll think on this.

 

[Stalker0]

So anyway, here's my current thinking: I like a "stealth" roll for the trap vs. passive perception to minimize rolls but not make trap detection a forgone conclusion. I worry about using a roll for the trap AND rolls for the party with active perception checks because that creates a LOT of variance, more than I care for.

Generally this is a hard problem to solve.

From a math standpoint, having the trap make one stealth roll vs the team's passive perception is quick, and scales very well. It is the ideal method from a mechanics point of view.

Its main drawback is that one player is always the star of perception. There's never a chance that a player with a weaker perception will see something you don't. That somewhat grinds on 4e's notion that everyone is skilled at everything, at least a little bit.

However, if you do it the other way, give everyone an active perception vs passive trap stealth, you encounter a different problem. Because only one party member needs to see the trap to inform the party, it is exceptionally hard to hide a trap. One example, if you have 5 party members on your team, and each has only a 30% chance to see the trap, the team as a whole has an 83% chance to see the trap. And of course, in most parties your going to have at least one guy that has a much higher number, which can bump it to about 90%. You could of course just bump the difficulty up to lower the party's chance of detection, but that kind of defeats the purpose of giving everyone a chance to see the trap.

The most ideal way mathematically to fix this problem would be to use the 3d6 rolling method instead of a d20, or some version therein. You still allow everyone to roll, everyone still gets the chance to be the "star" for that roll, but the variance is much lower. So even if you have a lot of guys spotting, it doesn't give you a huge chance to spot the trap. But since we are playing d20, that's not really a good option either

One idea I've toyed with is the idea of "random awesomeness". Basically you roll a party member randomly, and give him some bonus for that encounter or area or whatever. So in this case, a party member gets some bonus to detect the trap. That could allow a normally weaker perception party member to actually have the best perception...simply because he's in the right spot at the right time. Never put down any mechanics for it, but I thought I'd throw that at there as a compromise between the two main positions above.

 

[FadedC]

True. But functionally how often will it come up?

How often do your characters have a 50+ foot line of sight to a trap, with good lighting (poor lighting will cause concealment and reduce the chance of seeing the trap) and no obstacles to block line of sight between them and the trap?

It can happen, but I doubt it will happen that often. At least not indoors. Outdoors in daylight, perhaps.

Carl

Well actually in a recent adventure there were several pit traps outside of the gobline cave and by the letter of the rules the elven ranger should have seen them from way off in the distance.

But even entering a30x30 room and noticing every single secret panel, pressure plate and other hidden feature in the room immediately no matter how far away they are seems silly.

 

[Magus Coeruleus]

Generally this is a hard problem to solve...

That's why I'm thinking the best of both worlds may be to have an active check mod and a static passive DC for the trap.

Sure, active trap vs. passive PCs means you'll normally never have a less perceptive character notice the trap while the more perceptive one doesn't, but that's true for all uses of passive perception, insight, etc., and so totally consistent with 4e's design.

Once you get to active checks, if you use the static DC and active perception checks I don't think you need to worry about the fact that the probability of at least one person perceiving the trap gets very high given the number of attempts, because now you are assuming a party of PCs all spending actions to investigate the place, just like active checks for everything else. There is an opportunity cost involved in everyone making those checks, and I think they should earn the benefits.

I don't think it's much different than a scenario where a party ambles into a potential ambush (active stealth vs. passive perception) and gets into a fight with some stealthy foes who try to hide to get combat advantage or other benefits (active stealth vs. active perception). The only difference is that I don't I like active for both the trap and the PCs the way I'm okay with it for creatures using stealth, perhaps because I think there ought to be a bit more consistency in how effective a trap is at "hiding." A trap usually has one context and one set of circumstances that should prevent it from being exceptionally well or poorly hidden for a given encounter. I don't mind the roll for the passive scenario because really you're just throwing one d20 into the mix; doesn't matter whether you call it the trap's roll or a roll for the party as a whole. In fact, that's another idea. One could just use a static DC but instead of a passive check for the PCs or active checks for each PC, one d20 modified by each PC's perception. Again, 6 of one half a dozen of the other.

 

[Jhaelen]

One idea I've toyed with is the idea of "random awesomeness". Basically you roll a party member randomly, and give him some bonus for that encounter or area or whatever. So in this case, a party member gets some bonus to detect the trap.

Hmm, that's an intriguing idea. It's a bit like old-style action points, except the DM gets to decide when it's used by a player. Intriguing, indeed...