Rogues v. Traps

[DarkMaster]

He scans the floor visually, then moves some moss/mud aside to reveal a pressure plate, which he purposely activates by pushing down on it with the stick.

Purposely activating the trap would fall down to disable device???

 

[Belbarrus]

The kind the original poster asked about. The kind of large scale traps that go off if anyone walks into the trigger square.

Right, but the whole idea of "searching" for a trap is to find the trigger *before* walking into the trigger square. You are stating that one cannot search for a trap unless they actually walk into the trigger area. Which is like saying that someone cannot recognize that they walked into a house, until they were actually in the house.

For example, let's say a door opens to a 20'x20' room. The whole floor is the lid to a pit trap. If a Rogue searches the floor from the doorway, they could notice signs such as the seam of the lid or scratch marks or that the floor slightly dips in the center. These are clues the Rogue is trained to look for (hence Trapfinding being a special ability limited to the Rogue class) *without* having to actually step onto the floor. If the Rogue *failed* to find the trap, the trap does not *just go off* for no reason. It would still only activate when someone stepped on the floor. Also, even if you DID state that the person had to walk onto the floor to check for traps, the ACT of searching is *not* what triggers the trap, it is the act of 'walking onto the floor'.

Hope that makes more sense.

B

 

[Christian]

But here we are talking about a much smaller trigger than a whole 5 ft square. Not sure how I would handle it, but this definitely would be in house rule territory, because the rules do not cover it (unless I have missed something).

Um, yes, I think you have ...

You generally must be within 10 feet of the object or surface to be searched.

(PH 3.5 pg. 81)

To search an area for a proximity trigger, you don't have to be in the square. You don't generally have to be in an adjacent square. (Subject to line of sight, etc.) From 10' away, you can make as many Search rolls as you like trying to detect a proximity-triggered trap and stand no chance whatsoever of setting it off ...

 

[Christian]

BTW-I'd like to step back from the rules debate for a moment, and talk about the play concerns that (I think) lie at the root of this issue. Darklone is concerned that 'taking 20 with traps is not fun'. I think that the concern of many DM's is that if taking 20 on Search checks is allowed, the players of Rogues will take 20 on every 5' square and always find every trap, secret door, and hidden treasure that has a reasonable Search DC.

IME, this just isn't the case. Just for an example-I have a copy of WOTC's Sunless Citadel adventure sitting here. Counting squares, and taking walls into account where they exist, I reckon that there are ~250 squares that could be searched between the first encounter and the second. If the party rogue insists on taking 20 to Search every square before the party enters/passes it, he definitely will find every trap and every secret door in this area. This will take two minutes per square, or approximately eight hours ...

Nobody is going to do this. It's an unusually cautious party/Rogue that insists on even making one Search check on each square as they pass. In that adventure, one of the objectives is to try to rescue some missing adventurers. Even presuming they're not in any danger, one has to factor in their lifespans to the equation. They're not elves, and they'll be dead of old age long before a group that insists on constant Take 20 Search checks finds them.

What you'll find is that most parties (a) have members with decent Search check numbers split up most rooms for a cursory (one-roll) once-over, and (b) have rogues take 20 to Search specifically obvious sites for traps/secrets. When your locked treasure chests are trapped, the rogue will spend two minutes examining it and conclude that it's definitely trapped. So what? This is 'not fun' only if your idea of 'fun' is to never let characters demonstrate their superiority at their areas of expertise. A party with a cleric will handle undead with relative ease [barring the cleric being a dwarf with an 8 Charisma-voice of experience], a party with a bard will glide through social situations, and a party with a rogue will rarely have big problems with traps. Deal.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Well, two things, 1: does the ten foot search range strike anyone as reminiscent of the ubiquitous 1e and 2e ten-foot-pole?

2. I think Christian has the right of it. Rogues will have fun if they get to use their trap-finding and trap-disarming skills. If they find one trap for every two that hit them over the head, they'll start wondering why they didn't just take barbarian levels and set off traps the barbarian way...and have twice as many hit points to deal with the consequences.

And if you want to make the rogue's life really exciting, you can take advantage of his penchant for taking 20. He takes 20 and finds the trap but a gelatinous cube rounds the corner behind him. He's now got to disarm the trap before the cube reaches the party. . . and it takes several rounds per disarm attempt according to the PHB. If the rogue hadn't taken 20, he might not have found the trap and there wouldn't be any reason for him to make a pressured disarm roll or for the party to decide whether to risk the trap or the monster if he fails or takes too long.

 

[Vaxalon]

Perhaps a houserule then. Who cares. Taking 20 with search checks is simply NOT FUN.

Rolling over and over on search checks is simply NOT FUN.

Taking twenty short-circuits the dice rolling, that's all.

Taking twenty is an excellent way to speed up the game and make it MORE fun.

 

[James McMurray]

In my campaign we don't even have party rogues unless they are combat oriented or socially oriented. Sending someone ahead to scout means the rest of the party gets to sit around while the rogue's player explores. This is of course assuming they do what every good scout should do and go invisible / hide / sneak their way in and explore as much as possible to give their prty the lay of the land. We call this the "Decker Effect" because of a similar thing that occurs in Shadowrun when a Decker goes into the net to do his job.Instead, if the party wants a scout, they hire one. I can then take 2-3 minuts to decide what happens and what information he returns with (if he returns at all).

It saves a lot of out of game hassle.

 

[Vaxalon]

...Rogues will have fun if they get to use their trap-finding and trap-disarming skills. .... He takes 20 and finds the trap but a gelatinous cube rounds the corner behind him.

Rogues also have more fun if you don't play games with them.

In general, I like to have reasons for the party to want to have a certain amount of haste.

 

[Darklone]

Rolling over and over on search checks is simply NOT FUN.

Taking twenty short-circuits the dice rolling, that's all.

Taking twenty is an excellent way to speed up the game and make it MORE fun.

Sorry, Vax... a few posts later I wrote why it's not a problem... the players simply tell me where they search and I roll the dice for them hidden.

Once.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Sorry, Vax... a few posts later I wrote why it's not a problem... the players simply tell me where they search and I roll the dice for them hidden.

Once.

So how do they pay particular attention to a location? If they do KNOW that a trap should be somewhere, will you let them look at the same spot again?

Oh, and an interesting side-effect of "traps go off when you fail to find them" is that elves have an extremely short life-span all of a sudden (especially given that all kinds of natural hazards are classified as traps...).