Scout not having Disable Device is intentional

[MerricB]

I asked Andy if the Scout not having Disable Device was intentional.

From Andy Collins (this thread):

It's intentional. The scout's more about finding the traps and avoiding them than about disarming them.

That said, the scout who wants to disarm traps has a couple of options:

* buy cross-class. A smart scout with the right tools has a reasonable chance of disarming the simpler traps (such as the snares and pits found in a natural setting), and the scout has enough skill points that this isn't too tough an option. Throw in Skill Focus and/or Nimble Fingers and you're not far behind the rogue. And if you're a dwarf scout, you've got an edge on stonework traps (which constitute a large portion of the traps typically encountered in a dungeon).

* find a way to get DD as a class skill. Plenty of methods exist, from multiclassing to various feats.

 

[Darkness]

Is it intentional intentional or halfling outrider intentional?

Ah, well. I can deal.

Anyway, thanks for the heads-up, Merric.

 

[Gez]

Heh! The halfling outrider reference was also my first thought upon seeing that thread title. "We wanted to take the chance to be original!"

Still, it makes more sense than for the halfling outrider.

 

[Plane Sailing]

It's intentional. The scout's more about finding the traps and avoiding them than about disarming them.

Off hand D&D doesn't seem to give much consideration to how one avoids a trap without disarming it. How do you tend to handle this in game?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Off hand D&D doesn't seem to give much consideration to how one avoids a trap without disarming it. How do you tend to handle this in game?

Actually, it does mention it in the rules.

Ironically, it requires a Disable Device roll very much in excess of the trap's normal disarming DC.

Thus, you can spike a pit trap closed with a DC 20 Disable Device check, or you can determine a way to completely bypass it with a DC 30 Disable Device check (DC 20 + 10) (such that it is still armed behind you and your party).

Complete Adventurer recommends a DC + 15? 20? Disable Device check to not only bypass for this particular instance but to allow your party to bypass it permanently.

 

[Darkness]

That, or toss the dwarf in. Assuming it's a one-use trap.

Summoned monsters work, too.

Not to mention gnomes. I think the point of gnomes is being used to trigger traps.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Gnomes on ten foot poles.

 

[Jdvn1]

Off hand D&D doesn't seem to give much consideration to how one avoids a trap without disarming it.

Walk around the 5' square.

 

[Corsair]

Actually, it does mention it in the rules.

Ironically, it requires a Disable Device roll very much in excess of the trap's normal disarming DC.

Thus, you can spike a pit trap closed with a DC 20 Disable Device check, or you can determine a way to completely bypass it with a DC 30 Disable Device check (DC 20 + 10) (such that it is still armed behind you and your party).

Complete Adventurer recommends a DC + 15? 20? Disable Device check to not only bypass for this particular instance but to allow your party to bypass it permanently.

Different types of bypass. A bypass requiring a disable device would be like trying to open a trapped door, go through, and close it behind you without triggering the trap.

Simpler "bypasses" which wouldn't require DD are easy like "jump over the square that the rogue/scout just found a trigger in" or "lay a long plank/pole across the place where the dwarf things the floor will collapse into a bottomless pit". These aren't a question of skill checks, but simple creative adventuring. Maybe all the grodnards are right about this new fangled 3rd edition rules emphasis...

 

[IcyCool]

Gnomes on ten foot poles.

Bah! You people and your ten foot poles. Is every pit you come across nine feet wide? Are you using it to poke something nine feet away? No! That's why you need the eleven foot pole. See, it's better because it goes up to eleven.