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Rogues v. Traps
- Thread starter Gizzard
- Start date
Belbarrus
First Post
Would you allow taking a 20 for searching for secret doors? It's the same thing. No penalty for not finding a secret door, no penalty for not finding a trap.
Back to the topic.....
When I run a game that has a Rogue PC, the players just inform me that the Rogue "is searching for traps". They travel at their normal speed, then if they encounter a trap, I determine if the Rogue had found it or not. I dont make the players actually tell me which squares they search on a square by square basis. If the players want to be really careful, then they will specify areas, such as doors, chests, crossroads and so on. If they are really, really suspicious of a trap, then the Rogue player will inform me that he is taking 20. I keep track of the time that passes.
With my own Barb 4/Rogue 9 character, my Search skill is around 16. So I can walk around taking 10 and find most mundane traps. If I want to be careful, but not take up time, I drink a potion of Vision (+10 to Search) and walk around taking 10 while searching, which gives me a 36 check. Then, if I want to be really careful, I will take a 20, giving me a 46 Search check. However, since this takes 2 minutes and the potion on lasts for 60, I do this sparingly.
B
DarkMaster
First Post
I agree a 100%.Belbarrus said:
I would only allow a take 20 if the Rogue was absolutely sure there was a trap there and kept looking.
Any other method actually is a house rule. Note that search does not have a Try Again line in the rulebook.
If you fail you don't set off a trap, you just don't see one. And the rogue doesn't know if that means they didn't find it, or there wasn't one. No matter what they roll.
Any other method actually is a house rule. Note that search does not have a Try Again line in the rulebook.
If you fail you don't set off a trap, you just don't see one. And the rogue doesn't know if that means they didn't find it, or there wasn't one. No matter what they roll.
tensen said:
Trying Again
In general, you can try a skill check again if you fail ...
(PH 3.5 pg. 64)
Being able to try again is the default-skills have entries under Try Again when there are restrictions to or consequences of multiple attempts.
There is the issue that the DM should be making Search rolls behind the screen. But that doesn't stop a player from asking for ten, or twenty, or fifty Search checks on a door, even if he's not absolutely sure there's a trap on it. Avoiding that annoyance is sufficient reason to permit a take 20-that's what that rule is there for in the first place ... Not allowing take 20 on a Search check is a house rule.
DarkMaster
First Post
I don't understand your point, If the rogue wants to spend 2 minutes searching the area to make sure he noticed all the detail that he cannot notice in 6 sec then fine.tensen said:
Otherwise your player will end playing a lot of dice.
Player I search 6 sec
roll 10
DM:you find nothing,
Player Ok I search again 6 sec
roll 20
DM you found a trap.
My example could have been longer but on average it should take a bit more than half the time to get the 20 and your PC would be winning time, but you would probably lose your group out of boredom.
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