Passive vs Active skill checks

[Pbartender]

I am going to go ahead and disagree here... If a character falls into a pit trap whose bottom is covered in a sticky, glue-like substance, or a slick oily substance... how is there no drama in trying to get out... especially if the PC's are pressed for time or threatened with danger the longer they stay here.

Another example... there's plenty of tension after the hidden needle sticks one of the PC's as he is trying to open a chest... some are trying to figure out what that rust colored subsatnce on the needle is... the stuck PC is worried about what it's affect will be, whether he can make the saving throw and so on. So no, I don't agree that there is no drama once the trap catches the PC.

There's quite a few ways to gets tension out of traps...

One can be finding the trap -- you know something's not right, but you don't know exactly what or where or how.

Another is in trying to avoid or escape the consequences of the trap after is has already been triggered -- the doors are locked and the ceiling is slowly lowering to crush you!

The trick is, using an active Perception roll as the first indicator of the existence of a trap often eliminates the tension entirely:

In the first instance, either failing or succeeding ruins the tension, because you know one way or the other... It's the not knowing for certain what's going to happen that provides the tension.

In the second two instances, a successful roll will completely bypass the trap... Since the consequences never come into play, the tension is bypassed as well.

Eh, I just don't think every trap is (or should be) some complex, esoteric device that must be studied to be understood. In fact I would argue that for some creatures this would seem highly inappropriate... and would border on ludicrous if every trap the PC's ever run into is like this.

Cool example, and yes this would make for an interesting encounter... but again... I can't see every trapbeing this mysterious, complex and esoteric?

Certainly not, but you can use the same technique even for simple traps, for example:

(DM checks Passive Perception) "As you approach the chest to pick the lock, you notice something odd about the engraving of a dragon that wraps around the keyhole."

(Player roll Perception) "Alright, what's so odd about it?"

(Perception fails, so DM feeds the player an irrelevant detail) "Perhaps it's just the styling... It has that whiskered and serpentine quality you'd normally expect only from the Empires of the Far East. It's rather unusual and elegant to see something like that adorning a pirate chest in the Western Isles."

(Perception succeeds) "The nostrils of the dragon flare into tiny dark openings that you can't see the back of... they'd be ideal for squirting acid or poison gas or something similar."

You can continue the same with the Thievery check to disable it... Success reveals the hidden catch that closes the nostril-spouts, or whatever. But it's not a terribly mysterious or complicated trap, it just spits a simple poison gas if you try to open the lock.

It's the extra ten seconds of added detail that make it more interesting than...

"I search for traps." (PERCEPTION ROLL!)
"You find a trap that spits a small cloud of poison gas."
"I try to disable it." (THIEVERY ROLL!)
"It's disabled."

Boring.

Especially if your traps are as uncommon as they are in the published adventures, you want them -- even the simple ones -- to be just a little more memorable than that.

 

[DracoSuave]

"I search for traps." (PERCEPTION ROLL!)
"You find a trap that spits a small cloud of poison gas."
"I try to disable it." (THIEVERY ROLL!)
"It's disabled."

Boring.

Especially if your traps are as uncommon as they are in the published adventures, you want them -- even the simple ones -- to be just a little more memorable than that.

Exactly. A trap that can be defeated that easily is a minion trap, and not a major threat. Traps that are equivalent to normal monsters and such should be more complicated, requiring skill challenges to crack, or problem solving skills.

Sometimes best traps are circumvented not by theivery, but by killing the monster playing with its control panel.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Right, and if you look at the (better) trap examples in various sources you'll see that they have been at least attempting to do that. A lot of the DMG1 traps don't quite make it, but at least they did cover the basics, which need to exist anyway (I mean we kinda did need rules for a pit trap even if it generally on its own isn't much of a trap).

The real stickers are puzzle traps and stress traps. Finding them definitely isn't the main point. In a lot of cases they definitely work better if they ARE found before they trip.

I know I've said it before but as it stands Perception by RAW gives you at least 3 options with things that are 'hidden'. They can be obvious (IE not really hidden, though they may require a nominal Perception check to spot), they can be non-obvious (requiring a somewhat higher Perception check which may preclude most PCs from spotting them instantly and thus sometimes may go unspotted if the party is lacking in Perception for some reason), well-hidden (stuff the DM would like the party to work to find, probably most traps in likely trap locations), or completely-hidden (nobody will find it, useful for plot devices now and then).

The art is in deciding where each trap goes in this spectrum. This requires the DM to really think through why the trap is present, what he wants to get out of it, etc. Traps are awesome but unlike the old 1e AD&D days of "Ohhhhh, too bad Mr. Bill, you didn't make your Find Traps roll in that empty hallway. Awe, he's all gooey now..." traps are more integrated into the overall story and have a variety of functions. Using them is a bit less rote, but RAW definitely gives you some good solid tools to work with.

 

[Chzbro]

Thanks to Pbartender, AbdulAlhazred, and DracoSuave for giving me a new (and useful) way to think about traps in the game.

I have to admit that my thinking to this point has been pretty old-school: either you find the trap and disable it or you don't and it chews you up. Of course, I've also always thought that was pretty boring and thus have never been much of a fan of traps.

I've had success in 4E using traps as a part of combats, but that's about it. This discussion however, especially the ideas you three have presented, has really made me re-evaluate and given me a fresh perspective.

It's funny, because in many ways what you're saying seems so obvious, but I never thought to look at it in that way.

Now that that's out of my system, we can get back to arguing and complaining about stuff.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Eh, I still find it tricky to make consistently excellent traps. hehe.

 

[Grabuto138]

I have a regular campaign so I know the passive perception scores of the characters. So I can pretty much guess how the trap etc. will play out. Basically, I know that the character with the highest perception will discover the trap or, depending on DC, I know that they will not. I therefore find myself just assuming that they are tipped off. To compensate I try to use the narrative to give undue attention to the relevant object rather than just telling them. "You notice the doorframe is covered with small, stylized bas reliefs of leering goblins" rather than "because of your passive perception you see a dart trap."

 

[Imaro]

Ok, here's a question for some of the others posting... at what point are you gimping the character with perception? I have read over the examples in the last couple of posts, and it doesn't seem like a high perception actually allows them to detect the trap, but instead hints that there might be a trap there... which is not exactly true to "detecting" a trap. I also wonder do the PC's then just make more perception checks to discover how a trap works... thus turning it into a string of dice rolls... I guess I would like to read how the detection, analyzation and disarming or avoiding of a trap goes in your games.

The way I'm reading it now seems like you all turn every trap into some kind of skill challenge... is this correct? If so, then what do you do for simple traps, like the pit ttrap in the FRCG adventure, where detecting or not detecting the trap is actually the point of the trap?

NOTE: I'm also noticing a trend where people are purposefully describing finding the actual trap in a blah, non-descriptive way... but that isn't actually a requirement for describing an actual trap (as opposed to hinting at a trap) when it is detected. This also brings up another point... finding and seeing a dart trap isn't the same as disabling it, IMO this is where the excitement of traps lies... finding a way to disable or circumvent a trap and/or finding a way to excavate or deal with the ramifications from said trap.

 

[Pbartender]

The way I'm reading it now seems like you all turn every trap into some kind of skill challenge... is this correct?

Kind of, but not exactly... It involves multiple checks, but they used a little differently and total success for failure does not necessarily hinge on accumulating successes and failure from those checks. Here's how I look at it:

The initial Passive Perception check: Tells the players there's probably a trap around somewhere. Now they have the option of A) searching for traps, B) moving forward without searching for traps and likely setting it off, or C) turning around an explore a different part of the dungeon.

The Active Perception check, should they choose to use it: Will tell the exactly what the trap does, where it is, and how it is triggered. Now they have the option of A) disabling the trap, B) moving forward and attempting to bypass the trap without disabling it, or C) turning around an explore a different part of the dungeon.

Then comes any appropriate checks they might use to disable it with the usual results.

So really, it's not that much different than how you would normally run a trap. Only, instead of requiring that the players continually make Active Perception check every five feet in order to find the trap, you use their Passive Perception to give them a clue to which areas they should be searching... and I try to use a little more in-game description for what the traps look like and do (and you're right -- that can be done even without suing Passive Perception for hints).

If so, then what do you do for simple traps, like the pit ttrap in the FRCG adventure, where detecting or not detecting the trap is actually the point of the trap?

Three options...

1) The players are paranoid and search everything in the entire dungeon. They probably find the trap and bypass it, but might get unlucky and miss it inevitably to fall into it.

2) The players aren't paranoid, and search only when they think of it. They almost certainly miss the trap and trigger it, but they might get lucky.

3) Passive Perception tells them, "This would be a good spot to place a pit trap." They search, and whether or not they find it actually depends on the Perception roll.

The first option is the non-combat equivalent of "grind", and any tension from finding (or not) the trap is diluted by the tedium and routine.

The second option also eliminates the point of finding the trap, because no one is really looking for it. You might as well give it an impossible Perception DC.

The last option gives the "There might be something there, but we're not sure" vibe. It's that uncertainty that gives tension to the search.

 

[Imaro]

The last option gives the "There might be something there, but we're not sure" vibe. It's that uncertainty that gives tension to the search.

This right here is where I am having the disconnect... How is there tension if every time their passive perception goes off... there is a trap? I guess I could see tension if they really didn't know whether there was a trap there or not (like maybe the first two or three times this happens)... but after that there really isn't any tension at all because they know their passive perception wouldn't alert them if there wasn't a trap.

 

[Pbartender]

This right here is where I am having the disconnect... How is there tension if every time their passive perception goes off... there is a trap? I guess I could see tension if they really didn't know whether there was a trap there or not (like maybe the first two or three times this happens)... but after that there really isn't any tension at all because they know their passive perception wouldn't alert them if there wasn't a trap.

Yup... It's kind of like the "If the DM describes it, it must be important" scenario. You do have to be careful about how you present it. I certainly don't tell them that they've successfully made a Passive check, but in the description of the area try to add in that extra detail or two that puts them on their toes.

It might be the difference between, "The door ahead is made of thick oak bound in iron, and below the handle has an iron plate with a large keyhole set in it. A well worn and recently used path leads up to the door." (Passive Fail)

And, "The door ahead is made of thick oak bound in iron, and below the handle has an iron plate with a large keyhole set in it. Though a well worn and recently used path leads up to the door, the door handle is rather tarnished -- with that much traffic, you'd expect it be be a little more polished from use." (Passive Succeed)

There is, of course, a poisoned needle hidden on the door handle.

The idea is to use the passive check to give an extra detail that will get the players to pay attention to the door handle and possibly search it, without actually telling them it might be a trap.

Besides, the trick works for a lot of things, not just traps... Insight checks are another great example. I use Passive Perception to give the players little details about the mannerisms of someone they're talking to, so the players can get clues as to when to make Insight checks to detect a lie.

Passive Perception checks to give clues that might lead to secret passages.

Passive Perception checks to give clues about where treasure might be hidden.

Passive Knowledge checks to give clues into possible lines of investigation or research.

Passive Perception checks to notice interesting little details that are fun to describe but don't always have any real importance to the adventure.

Thinking about it, it is, in a way, a means of determining when to give the players an extra detail or two that says, "Hey! This is interesting!" Even then, they don't always notice or pay attention to the relevant detail.