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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgbrowning" data-source="post: 1624653" data-attributes="member: 5724">If it's the word "trap" you're hung up on lets just get rid of it and use "alarm." Rogues cannot disable alarms? A rogue can't disable the above detection/information traps/alarms I mentioned? I think rogues can disable mundane alarms and they can also disable magic alarms just like they can disable magic traps.Trap means more that just what you're saying, however. It also means a stratagem for catching or tricking an unwary person. And to follow that thought some more, catching just doesn't mean holding/restraining, it also means to discover or come upon suddenly, unexpectedly, or accidentally.Ala, my alarm caught some thieves breaking into my house. The alarm is a trap to catch thieves, not to harm them or restrain them, but to simply prevent their success because their presence is now known. One could say that an alarm impedes their actions because they know the consequences of triggering it and once triggered they know that something that's more directly impeding is probably about to happen.When someone discovers sets of tripwires along a path that trigger flares they more than likely say something like:Person A: "Be careful! The path's trapped."Person B: "With what?"Person A: "Just some alarms, nothing dangerous, but we'll be better off if they don't know we're here."Alarms are traps just like a bucket of water on top of a partially opened door, just like a whoopie cushion in a chair. Just like people set traps to see if someone's performing a particular action. "I wanted to see if he was stealing from me so I laid a trap for him. The keys to the registar are out in the open and I have this camera recording what happens." There is no damage done by the trap directly, but there are consequences that can be avoided by disabling the trap/alarm. And a rogue could disarm this trap by searching to see the camera and finding a way to disable it.Summon monster magic devices are considered traps (but they don't impede or harm) that can be disabled, but you seem to be arguing that the magical alarm that summons help mundanely can't be disabled. The alarm spell that triggers a roof to open up and drop an ooze onto someone can be disabled, but the alarm spell that just wakes the ooze up can't be disabled.To me, it simply makes no sense. Regardless of what the "trigger/alarm" triggers/alerts, it's a trap, be it mundane, or magical. Alarms are a type of trap that (when triggered) cause non-mechanical/non-magical effects (and impede indirectly) while most traps (when triggered) cause a mechanical/magical effect (and impede directly).A main problem I see with treating alarm as not being able to be disabled is the following situation. If I create a trap that releases a toxic gas throughout my entire dungeon if a particular sound (that of an alarm spell) goes off, the rogue can disarm the alarm because it's used as a trigger for my toxic gas trap, but the rogue cannot disable the alarm when I flip a lever to turn off my toxic gas trap. I'm not buying this because there's no difference between the sound made when there isn't a trapped response to the bell and when there is a trapped response.In other words, the spell doesn't "know" that it's going to trigger a trap with it's bell sound and the rogue has no way of knowing the difference between a trigger alarm spell and a non-trigger alarm spell.If the rogue can disable alarm as a spell trigger, a rogue can disable alarm when it's not a spell trigger. I'm not a big believer in the schrodinger's alarm theory: to me, an alarm is not dependent upon what it alarms to determine if it can or cannot be disarmed. I find it odd to think that a rogue can disable magical and non-magical traps, and non-magical alarms (ala wire with bells), but somehow can't disable magical alarms.Just seems like a symantic arguement to me. I don't think rogues should be able to disarm any magic, but if they can, I think they can surely disarm alarms as well as traps. Because to me, an alarm is just a specific type of trap, like pit, arrow, water, acid.. etc.joe b.</blockquote>

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