Search and taking 20: the problem

[Nail]

What? Someone else is going to post the last reply? How could this be?

 

[Majere]

If it is a hazard then it isnt a trap. So apparently you are argueing nothing at all

Wait, we arent supposed to reply anymore? all of these rules........

Im arguing you cant find any trap that may or may not exist from the side of the door you are on. all you can find are clues so you cant discount the fact that it might be a hazard.

 

[Scion]

Im arguing you cant find any trap that may or may not exist from the side of the door you are on. all you can find are clues so you cant discount the fact that it might be a hazard.

Of course with most hazards I would allow any number of checks depending on the hazard as well, even search checks

I would even let the rogue somehow know about the trap that goes off when you open the secret door if he rolled well enough. But if the search dc is 30+ then it isnt a low level trap in any event. If the search dc is infinite then it isnt a trap, it is a hazard. Which falls under completely different rules.

 

[DarkMaster]

"Oh, no, it's a 'hazard', not a trap, so your Search skill can't detect it. But it can detect this other room filled with poison gas, because that's a 'trap'." Uh-huh.

A room full of gass is a hazard, just like a room full of smoke or lava. The distinction is you can never disarm a hazard. Exaclty how are you proposign to "disarm" a room full of poisonous gass.
So no
You cant discount that.
And my point still stands, when the rogue searchs the door to my trap he can come to any number of conclusions. Now If I had a player who was new I might even suggest some of them to him. For instance I might say.
"After taking a few minutes to make a really top search you find there are very few cluss as to what lies beyond. The only hint it the smallest trace of grease at the door frame, it looks as if the door is air tight."

If you said you would disarm the trap I would ask you what trap.. there is nothing to disarm unless you want to take the door of its hinges.
You cant just "disarm with no effect", there has to be something you can see to disarm, otherwise you wouldnt bother with search cehcks and just try to "disarm the trap" on every door you met, because if there is no trap nothing happens. This is clearly a case where you are letting the rules do the thinking instead of employing your brain.

Id also point out with reference to the fire elementals, not matter how ugly or ineloquent you are, if you offer a lost fire elemental a way back to the elemental plane of fire, or you are going to cone of cold it to bits, then unless the fire elemental is very stupid it is going to agree. That isnt diplomacy that is playing the creatures intelligence. I dont care HOW ugly the demon is, if it offers to teleport me to the prime material plane from the depth of hell Im going to agree, I wont even ask it to make a diplomacy check against me.
Besides which, even playing by the rules as written all you can do is give the elemental a sense motive check at which point it discovers .. lo !! you really do want to help it.

Again, too many rules, to little brains.

Majere

Partly agree, Damn I promised that I would not reply anymore to this thread but since you are not Pielorinho...

I partly agree with you about the gaz. Yesterday I confronted my player with a similar trap but instead of gaz it was a huge water reservoir, the door was tight but the rogue (with the search skill) was able to figure out that there was water against the metal door (she didn't know how much) since there were in a sewer (tight space) they didn't take the chance of opening it(good call from them). And there was no way of disarming that trap and I didn't give any DC to hit (Maybe it is a mistake but my imagination was not able to figure out a way you could disarm this trap from this door. The solution was to go on the level above were there was a lever allowing the water to evacuate. As for the gaz already floating in the room I personnally don't see much solution other than piercing the door with a tiny hole and let the gaz slowly get out in a non-dangerous manner. According to me this is not really a trap, There is nothing activated, triggered or the like, The gaz is there, if you open the door it will go out. But I will still allow a search check. If the villain wants to go in his room he cannot unless using some kind of magic(player could do the same). The only thing I am questioning the potency of certain gaz after a hours in a room. your gaz has to be exactly the same weight as the air otherwise it will endup being all on the floor or on the roof reducing considerably it potency, Unless of course you have a ventilation system to keep it moving, without bring in new air(to prevent dilution).

As for the elemental example, I don't agree. You are telling me that you would trust the ugliest demon with your life? If I don't trust him, wouldn't I prefer dying, trying to fight, or accept my faith without trying anything. I personally have much more chances to be convinced by the high charisma character that if I provide him the with information he is looking for ,he will let me live, than by the low charisma barbarian. If I don't trust the person why would I accept to die without a fight?

 

[Nifelhein]

Darkmaster,

I promised to not answer but I think I have a good hazard from old Wake of the Ravager PC game, it passed in Athas, the world of Dark Sun. The mines sometimes have deadly gas in parts of it, one had to use ventilation fanes to make the air get to the place and dissipate the gas.

The gas would be undetectable because it was the same color of air, or no color at all, we had to carry some small cages with a canary in it, the bird was much more sensitive to the presence of the gas than humans or demihumans are, thus it would die long before you suffered any ill effect.

A clever hazard that one was and one that has been in my mind foir a long time, waiting for sometime to be used... the room there would be much like the same thing, so I think it is not a trap, as it was not designed to be there and surprise people while allowing others to bipass it.

Now I am happy I just added an idea for a good gaming session while avoiding the whole thread debate... I just don't think we are going anywhere anymore, but I am still reading... sometimes I don't quite understand my ownself...

 

[Pielorinho]

As for the elemental example, I don't agree. You are telling me that you would trust the ugliest demon with your life? If I don't trust him, wouldn't I prefer dying, trying to fight, or accept my faith without trying anything. I personally have much more chances to be convinced by the high charisma character that if I provide him the with information he is looking for ,he will let me live, than by the low charisma barbarian. If I don't trust the person why would I accept to die without a fight?

Not a bit of it. The elementals in this example were faced with one fact, prior to negotiations opening up:
1) Opponents that they couldn't touch were killing them, and the elementals had no way to escape the barrage of frosty death.

My PC in this example gave them another piece of information:
2) The untouchable opponents were offering them a way not only to survive, but to go to a warm place unlike the wintry foothills they were currently in.

The elementals accepted the possibility of life, given a very stark choice. Worst case scenario, on their end, they would've been able to attack us once we stopped holding up our end of the bargain -- after all, shadow walking them to their destination required us to get up close and personal.

A high diplomacy skill would've enabled me to get them to join our cause, maybe. Perhaps I could've persuaded them to give me information about the folks who unleashed them on the world (when asked, they categorically refused any such information -- and small wonder, given my low Cha). Maybe even a high diplomacy skill would've meant that they would've cooperated with the plan (suggested to them before initiative was rolled) without our having to do some 15d6 of cold damage to them first.

And that's how I like to play. Different skills enter into events, sure; they can make overcoming obstacles much easier; they can enable finesse instead of brute force.

But even characters without certain skills can sometimes find creative ways to use their strengths to achieve creative solutions. Just as a barbarian can "disarm" a trap by smashing a chest into flinders, this druid was able to "negotiate" a solution by offering a gigantic carrot and a nasty stick. Having appropriate skills would've gotten us something much better out of the deal -- as it was, all we got in exchange for blowing our daily spell allotment was that a swath of forest was protected.

But that was enough.

For myself, I'd have been very frustrated if the DM's elementals, confronted with an undeniably wise solution to their own problems, had played them in a (literally) suicidally stupid fashion just because the messenger had a low charisma.

Similarly, if another player with maxed-out diplomacy had managed to sweet-talk the campaign's nasty villains into giving up plans for World Domination in order to join the Lady's Sewing Society and Marching Circle, I would've been miffed.

Skills are great, but recognize that they have limits, and that they're not the only solution to problems.

Daniel

 

[DarkMaster]

Not a bit of it. The elementals in this example were faced with one fact, prior to negotiations opening up:
1) Opponents that they couldn't touch were killing them, and the elementals had no way to escape the barrage of frosty death.

My PC in this example gave them another piece of information:
2) The untouchable opponents were offering them a way not only to survive, but to go to a warm place unlike the wintry foothills they were currently in.

The elementals accepted the possibility of life, given a very stark choice. Worst case scenario, on their end, they would've been able to attack us once we stopped holding up our end of the bargain -- after all, shadow walking them to their destination required us to get up close and personal.

A high diplomacy skill would've enabled me to get them to join our cause, maybe. Perhaps I could've persuaded them to give me information about the folks who unleashed them on the world (when asked, they categorically refused any such information -- and small wonder, given my low Cha). Maybe even a high diplomacy skill would've meant that they would've cooperated with the plan (suggested to them before initiative was rolled) without our having to do some 15d6 of cold damage to them first.

And that's how I like to play. Different skills enter into events, sure; they can make overcoming obstacles much easier; they can enable finesse instead of brute force.

But even characters without certain skills can sometimes find creative ways to use their strengths to achieve creative solutions. Just as a barbarian can "disarm" a trap by smashing a chest into flinders, this druid was able to "negotiate" a solution by offering a gigantic carrot and a nasty stick. Having appropriate skills would've gotten us something much better out of the deal -- as it was, all we got in exchange for blowing our daily spell allotment was that a swath of forest was protected.

But that was enough.

For myself, I'd have been very frustrated if the DM's elementals, confronted with an undeniably wise solution to their own problems, had played them in a (literally) suicidally stupid fashion just because the messenger had a low charisma.

Similarly, if another player with maxed-out diplomacy had managed to sweet-talk the campaign's nasty villains into giving up plans for World Domination in order to join the Lady's Sewing Society and Marching Circle, I would've been miffed.

Skills are great, but recognize that they have limits, and that they're not the only solution to problems.

Daniel

I guess they couldn't run for a few minutes and you had some kind of wand of cone of cold. Sometime it is true, but quite rare since most of the time the adventurer are on the opponent ground.

 

[DarkMaster]

I guess they couldn't run for a few minutes and you had some kind of wand of cone of cold. Sometime it is true, but quite rare since most of the time the adventurer are on the opponent ground.

Also without charisma you have to convince using force. I would have the elemental not surender until they were sure that the player could dish out more than one cone of cold on them, using up a few charges from those wands in order to convince them that they are really dangerous.

 

[Pielorinho]

I guess they couldn't run for a few minutes and you had some kind of wand of cone of cold.

They were up to their waists in scraggly, ice-covered forests, hampering their movement rate without providing them access to full cover. As for the wand of cold, we had the next best thing: a sorcerer . Once she ran out of Shadow Evocations (I think), she had a ton of magic missiles to expend. My druid's few Ice Storms didn't hurt either.

Sometime it is true, but quite rare since most of the time the adventurer are on the opponent ground.

Yeah, and? I'm not claiming, as you notice in Big Red Letters Above, that all encounters are the same (all "traps" in the BRLA). It's the variety of encounters, solveable through different means, that makes the game enjoyable for me.

Daniel

 

[Saeviomagy]

There are some big red letters on the previous page, Saeviomagy; I encourage you to peruse them.

The "there are other types of trap out there"?

I understand that that was referring to there being traps which CAN be found by search, spot and listen, not necessarily to these skills being required to find a trap.

I also encourage you to reread this part of my extended example:

Even on this trap, in other words, a search check is necessary when approaching it cautiously.

Would you like to qualify the phrase "very easy". To me, "very easy" means "characters without ranks in the skill will usually succeed at this". If you meant "rogues with lots of ranks and boosts to their skill will usually succeed at this", then you and I have a real difference of opinion as to what "very easy" means.

For more evidence, I'll just requote another section of my previous post:

Evidence? Is this a trial?

Besides it doesn't really help your case - I'm trying to find traps without the skill, because you've instituted a "trap roleplaying" system that appears to seriously undermine the value of the search skill. As a hypothetical player, the fact that the skill will sometimes work doesn't comfort me when I suspect that the roleplaying solution will ALWAYS work. I've expended a lot of resources on making a character that can find traps, and now I'm finding that 3 ranks and some paranoid character description would do the trick.