Caliban said:
That's a physical device. It can be disabled whether or not it's a "trap" or an "alarm". I don't think it's relevent to this discussion.
I wasn't aware of an actual list of spell traps. Just several spells that specifically identify themselves as magic traps, and of those that identify themselves as magical traps, they seem to have certain qualities in common, qualities that the alarm spell doesn't share (see below).
There is one under the search skill
Ok, I'll bite. How do you defeat an alarm spell without magic? (Unless you mean "knowing the password", which I wouldn't count as "defeating" the alarm spell.)
If the emanation of the alarm spell doesn't hit you, the alarm doesn't go off. So by surrounding the point of origin with a solid object (or by screening yourself from the spell with a solid object), you exclude yourself from it's detection area.
Could you explain your logic on this one? Because I don't see this contradiction.
Your original dictionary.com entry contains three possibly applicable entries:
"1 : a device for taking game or other animals; especially : one that holds by springing shut suddenly
2 a : something by which one is caught or stopped unawares
6 : any of various devices for preventing passage of something often while allowing other matter to proceed; especially : a device for drains or sewers consisting of a bend or partitioned chamber in which the liquid forms a seal to prevent the passage of sewer gas"
Number 1 only applies to traps which grab you and hold you, meaning sepia snake sigil (which has no trap entry) is a valid trap, and any of the damage-causing or hypnotising or otherwise non-immobilising traps do not fit the definition.
Number 2 covers alarm quite nicely, and also covers most of the other traps and trap spells due to the variable nature of the word caught (which includes meanings such as 'suddenly made aware of" - ie "I caught bob picking his nose"').
Number 6 could potentially be used to cover the traditional D&D traps, as well as alarm - they're devices intended to prevent adventurers from progressing further into a dungeon.
IOW - I can't see a definition which DOES fit all of the 'traps' in the book, but excludes those not specifically noted as traps, unless that definition is "only things specifically noted as traps are traps".
My main point is this:
All the spells that identify themselves as magical traps have a physical component to them (with the possible exception of Fire Trap). The Alarm spell does not. (For me this is the main point, and what made me start looking at it more closely.)
Unfortunately in the cases of explosive runes and the symbol spell, the act of percieving the physical component triggers the trap. So the thief must be detecting something else, or the trap is triggered by his search...
All the spells that identify themselves as magical traps directly affect whoever triggers it (they blow you up, they trap you, they cast a spell on you, they inflict a status effect on you, etc.) An alarm spell doesn't do any of this. An alarm spell has no effect at all on whoever triggers it. It's just a sensor that makes a noise when it detects something. It doesn't "catch" you. (Whatever responds to the alarm can "discover" or "catch" or "harm" you.)
But this isn't part of the 'trap' definition - demonstrated by the existence of the bell trap. It's a trap, but it doesn't do what you suggest a trap must do.
So the Alarm spell is different in two ways from all the spells that we know are magical traps. There are spells that count as magical traps but don't identify themselves as such in the spell description (Sepia Snake Sigil is one), but they should match up to the other aspects of the known trap spells.
Of course one of the reasons that it's different is because alarm covers all of the possibilities of the "sound an alert if someone enters this area" trap. Just like a teleportation circle is different to all the other trap spells because it covers all the bases of the "anyone stepping into the circle is teleported" trap category.
In general, if the spell doesn't identify itself as a magical trap, then it probably isn't (with certain exceptions, just like everything else in 3.5).
I simply don't buy the theory that any spell that has a "trigger condition" should count as a magical trap.
In a home game, my rule would be "any triggered spell with a physical component is a valid target for Disable Device" (and even that would probably have exceptions), because that is consistent and makes sens. But that is neither here nor there.
If it's got exceptions, then it's not really consistent, is it? The major one to my mind is magic mouth, which you argued against counting as a trap previously, despite the fact that it complies with your above ruling.
My personal take would be that if it looks like a trap and smells like a trap and feels like a trap, it's a trap, and search can detect it. Whether it then qualifies as a 'device' is another matter - if neither I nor my player can imagine a non-magical counter to the trap, then it's probably not disableable without magic. To my mind, only spike stones and spike growth fit this category, and even then I could see using disable device to defeat their effects, even if only in a limited way.
