Open lock & Disable Device Nessecary?

[Dandu]

Also, don't forget that melee classes are MORE gear dependant, requiring heavy amounts of +stats and +hit gear to be able to reliably deal with CR appropriate encounters, especially when circumstances are stacked against them.

To elaborate: In an AMF, a fighter is less screwed than, say, a wizard. That being said, fighting an CR appropriate enemy in an AMF is going to result in a dead fighter because the CR rating of an enemy assumes that the fighter will have a certain amount of magical gear backing him up.

It's not like AMFs are death to all caster parties but much less a threat to a traditional wizard, cleric, rogue, fighter party.

 

[GreyLord]

Actually, I wouldn't USE a caster...that's rather not dull and NOT devious. Using a caster would make the encounter a sure shot to kill all the PC's in first round. Caster's are obvious, why would I want to make it obvious. Much better when the PC's have NO CLUE WHY they can't use magic.

Of course AMF isn't the only way to take down a group of spellcasters, I'm merely going with the flow of one method someone believes is easiest. It is easy.

NOTE: I would ONLY do this if someone in the group was really being a munchkin and annoying, and we were going to kick them out anyways. I don't go out of my way to antagonize players at all, or I'd never play. Of course, I'd think it works the other way to, at least for our groups it does. Players who try to abuse the rules in ways that are obnoxious, typically don't get to play with us, we kick them out of the group.

THAT WOULD BE THE ONLY reason to really kill in a devious manner on purpose. If I used the AMF or other method to purposefully create an encounter to do a TPK normally would only kill that one annoying person's character. Using devious methods for an AMF relayal (of which I suppose I should be gratified that I must be much more devious by a matter of a thousand fold from indications above, since their extent of thinking an AMF delivery can be is actually not all that dangerous or devious) is probably NOT my method of choice at killing them either. There are easier and better ways.

No, I don't feel like making a list of a thousand ways to kill CoDzilla in this thread...but any player who thinks a GOOD DM can't kill CodZilla or a party of them in one encounter should...either become DM themselves since they can bend the rules the best and hopefully can become more imaginative in order to be able to kill said CoDzilla and create a good story, at least better then their DM who cannot...OR has severely under estimated the strength of the DM.

I was a severe munchkin in my early days once, that's when I learned from a pretty good DM the power of Mother Nature and Storm Giants. There's an infinite number of ways to destroy player characters if you REALLY want to...the question however, is why do you want to destroy the characters in the first place?

As I stated, the only reason to do so would be because a player was being disruptive and we were getting ready to get them out of the group anyways. An easier way sometimes is simply to tell the disruptive player to leave and please don't play with us again.

On being devious on the otherhand...that's much more fun. AMF...that's fun for an encounter, such as making casters wonder why they can't cast spells all of a sudden...and helping them figure out the puzzle...but even more fun are Wild Magic fields where what they intend to cast becomes something completely different!

 

[Dandu]

It's great that you have your opinions, but I'm really not sure what they have to do with the topic of discussion. You go off talking about munchkins and CoDzilla in a thread where they weren't even mentioned before you showed up. (Unless you consider someone mentioning a druid substituting for a fighter for those who want an all caster party as CoDzilla, which it isn't because CoDzilla involves taking a cleric or druid and surpassing the fighter, something that the mere mention of a druid taking the beatstick role fails to qualify for.)

That a DM can kill a party of spellcasters is not relevant. That CoDzilla is not invincible is not relevant. That you have a DMing style in which you do various things is not relevant.

Anyways, going back to the previous topic, I think that there are enough ways to counter a person with an AMF on him (the only way you can have an AMF active, by the rules) that an all caster party will not die when confronted with an AMF. This need not involve munchkinry, rules abuse, or whatever else you care to call it. It doesn't mean that an all caster party is unkillable. It just means that there are ways to ensure something other than instant death when AMFs come into play.

 

[HRSegovia]

What it really comes down to is "what YOUR game requires" and not "Does it belong in D&D at all".

Consider this:

In 1st Ed OD&D, the only class that could detect and disarm traps was the Thief (and it was only a 10% chance). At first glance, this did not seem fair. "My fighter has just as much a chance to see a tripwire as he does. Why can't I search for traps?"

Here's your reasoning:

Your standard fighter does not typically deal with traps. Maybe, once upon a time, a Thief friend showed him a few traps and how they work... and maybe he made an attempt to remember. But his lifestyle does not put it at the forefront of his mind.

Eventually, he walks into a corridor, remembers there's traps, looks for tripwires and plates for a few seconds and thinks all is good. His hand goes to his hilt awaiting ambush and presses-on. What he did not consider is the stream of air holding a metal leaf at bay. He interrupted the air and the metal leaf trips the rest of the trap.

- A Bard views the world as a stage and has his inner dialogue narrating his story in his head.
- A Ranger views the world as though he is the center dot in a target. He keeps his eyes on the tree lines watching for other center dots.
- A Wizard views the world around him through an imagined lens watching for magic. If it's mundane, it's exactly that. If it's magic, then, "Stand back and let me handle this. I'm educated and you're not."
- An Acrobat views the world as foothold, fingerhold, or hazard. "Anything but the ground like the rest of the world. I belong up there."
- ... and the thief? -- "Everything is out to get me. If I owned that book - If I needed that door shut - If I wanted an intruder dead - what would I do to make sure that happened?"

Where other classes are just as aware of traps and hazards as the thief is of ambush and magic, his bread and butter is intrusion.

How do YOU view the world?

You KNOW icy roads are dangerous. But often you think, "If I'm careful..." Then you find that your car starts spinning and there was nothing you could do about it, and our fellow gamer friend in the passenger seat says, "Fumbled your driving check"... When in fact, you are not a professional driver - but you know how to drive.

---

But what of wizards and magical traps?

Wizards traps are less "traps" and more "wards". Some may say they are the same, and I say, "you're right", but let's put definitions aside and view them more as intentions.

A trap is set to keep intruders from a physical structure or item. Often this is because they are set by mundane people to protect mundane items.

A ward is a spell set with the intent of protecting a wizard's belongings (often spellbooks and magic items).

In some cases, a Wizard may be under the employment of a mundane person to protect mundane things: important information, evil castles, etc. In which case a GM would rule one of three ways:
- A Thief would not know of magical traps and trip it.
- A Thief would notice a magical trap but accept that it is beyond his means of disarmament.
- A Thief would be quite familiar with magical traps and mundane means to disarm or avoid it.

For this reason, the party should be balanced. Magic and Thievery should work hand-in-hand... at least it was the original intention.

But then came the time when players forgot about the "spirit of the game" and it became a game of "us vs. the GM". Players started looking at the rules as obstacles to be overcome or circumvented, rather than a means to interact with the D&D realm. Defiance was mistaken for cleverness... and in some cases rewarded with XP. Good times and high-fives for odd ways to overcome, were soon replaced with common place expected results. From then-on it was how the game was SUPPOSED to be played.

So cross-class skills were introduced where ANYONE can learn a skill their class typically wouldn't know, "because I want a guy that knows how to do it... call it a hobby of his outside of his profession".

... but it was too late, and the spirit of the game was dead. In the spirit of Magic: The Gathering, it's all about finding loopholes in the rules in order to find the solution to the puzzle or trap in the game.

So in the end, it's all about what kind of game you are running. Personally, I think EVERYONE should spend a weekend or two playing OD&D to remember what it was like and why we played.

 

[Alexander123]

If my party has been neglecting certain skills and has been careless I don't see a reason why they shouldn't suffer the consequences for their neglect. There is a statement "if you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail." which sums this up nicely.

As far as an all caster party, I love playing in one although the beguiler is replaced by the artificer due to greater benefits which a party receives from having an artificer than a beguiler.

 

[Alexander123]

double post.

 

[SuperJebba]

Well said, HRSegovia!