D&D 5E Survivor Worst Spells: FIND TRAPS IS THE WORST!

[FormerlyHemlock]

There are no instances of the words "appropriate challenge" in your posts or my posts since we began this discussion. We've never been discussing "appropriate challenges" vs "intelligent NPCs".

I've mentioned this distinction repeatedly, each time highlighting that Find Traps is useful only in the "intelligent-NPCs-trying-to-kill-you-intelligently" case. Enworld has some issues with post numbers, but for example in the post labelled #511 in my browser, I wrote the following:

So now, leave the library alone and go look for something that isn't trapped. Or if you're feeling lucky, exit the library and send in a skeleton or zombie or unseen servant to start pulling books off the shelves and piling them outside the library in hopes of breaking any glyphs of warding/Symbols/etc. cast on the books. If it weren't trapped that would be a waste of precious time.

Obviously, if your DM's world never includes genuinely deadly traps, Find Traps is a waste of time--just as Meteor Swarm is overkill in a campaign where the DM never uses hordes. My worlds typically include both the standard "fun" kind of traps (made by trap gremlins), and the genuinely deadly "security" traps (made by intelligent wizards who are trying to protect their stuff and kill those who would take it). If, while in sandbox mode, you decide you're going to sneak into Archer's tower while you hope he's away and steal some medium-value stuff like old magic items, you probably want all the advantages you can get, and that includes Find Traps.

The standard "fun" kind of trap, in case you've never been exposed to one, is designed NOT to provide security. It's designed to be a fun, appropriate challenge which amuses the DM and provides a good experience for the players. There's always some kind of way to potentially detect it, there's almost always a way to bypass or disarm it, often in baroque ways involving riddles or puzzles, and even if it isn't disarmed it is typically designed to merely hinder the PCs and suck up some resources, not TPK them. (In fact, TPKing the party with an undetectable "fun" trap would be a horrible failure on the DM's part--that trap is in no way fun.) It in no way resembles a trap that an intelligent PC wizard, for example, would use to protect his stuff.

Perhaps it's my fault that you didn't realize this was part of the discussion all along--I've attempted to make this point repeatedly but it doesn't appear I've been successful. Perhaps even after you read this post that will still be the case--but at least from my perspective, it's simply inaccurate to say that 'we've never been discussing "appropriate challenges" vs. "intelligent NPCs"'. That distinction is the core of what I've been talking about for several pages now.

In this post, you make the claim that 'Natural and accidental hazards are orders of magnitude less lethal than deliberate security features.' which is objectively false in the real world, and unknowable in a fantasy setting.

That post is a followup to #511. In context, I'm reiterating the point made previously, using different words because my words in #511 didn't seem to have gotten the point across: traps deliberately designed by an NPC to provide security are more deadly than traps designed by a DM to be fun for the players to experience.

Correct. In a fantasy setting where the DM can determine the elements and lethality of the trap, using his choice of natural hazards or designed security, the only thing that determines if one is more lethal than the other is the preference of the DM. And If you do not believe that a DM can create whatever content they want, then our viewpoints are so alien to each other that we probably cannot continue this conversation.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Three things-

1. It's not very nice to make a claim ("Natural and accidental hazards are orders of magnitude less lethal than deliberate security features,") and then when someone disagrees with the asserted claim, state that burden of evidence is on the person disputing the asserted claim by calling it a "counterclaim." It doesn't make for very efficient conversations!

See above post. I tried to ask you for clarification when you first interjected because I couldn't understand your argument; now I suspect that you and I have been talking about different things all along. It would have been nice if you had clarified your position back then but at least I think I understand it now--you're basically arguing that in the universe of "fun" traps, there's no reason to suppose a particular distribution for man-made vs. natural hazards. Since I'm explicitly not discussing the "fun" universe it's not surprising that we've been talking past each other.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

That's not my argument.

My argument is just that we all start with inherent biases ("common sense") that isn't, necessarily, so common.

For example, you keep referring to the specific example of the super-intelligent archmage trying to kill people. Which, okay, that's fine. But as I was trying to point out- that's kind of a tired fantasy trope. Obviously, if a superintelligent archmage was specifically trying to kill the people in the party, there'd be other ways to do it!

So I think you mean that the superintelligent archmage would naturally have deadly traps for people that come to his house.

Noooooo...

He'll naturally have deadly traps on his really good stuff (private spellbooks, which may or may not be in his house), and he may leave other areas completely untrapped and/or guarded merely by a djinn or two, precisely because some stuff ISN'T worth the hassle of having deadly traps on. For instance, if his alchemy lab is 5000 gp worth of stuff, but he's filthy rich and uses his lab regularly, it's quite likely that the lab won't be secured with elaborate traps. It might or might not have a basic, low-effort Glyph of Warding ("anyone who doesn't look like me gets True Polymorphed into a newt") but depending on who else frequents the lab it might not even have that. That is exactly the case where Find Traps is useful, if you're robbing the place while he's gone: if it registers positive for traps, leave the lab alone. If it registers negative, party on! Steal some stuff and make a run for it!

You and other posters keep raising the possibility that hey, that alchemy lab could theoretically be built on top of a pit which makes you accidentally fall into a black hole, because everything in D&D is created by a DM and a DM could theoretically put anything he wants anywhere. I consider that vacuously true: it's technically true but says nothing interesting about the game or the value of Find Traps, because it will never happen. You'll never get a DM who is simulationist enough to include traps of the kind I've been discussing, but ALSO whimsical or stupid enough to put naturally-occurring black holes even more deadly than deliberate security features inside of archmages' unsecured alchemy labs and have those archmages NOT MOVE THEIR LABS. Any DM who thinks in those terms won't have the archmage designing rational security measures in the first place.

By that metric, there are no good spells and bad spells, because everything is arbitrary, at the mercy of the DM's whim. That's not a serious argument. It is the type of argument I'd expect from lowkey on a survivor thread--but it isn't a serious argument.

*Common sense can change. When was the last time you designed a dungeon with bathroom facilities? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The last time I designed a dungeon with a kitchen and sleeping quarters. Typically bathroom facilities involve either running water or some kind of sub-subbasement with oozes (not oozes as large or deadly as those found in the MM).

 

[Iry]

The standard "fun" kind of trap, in case you've never been exposed to one, is designed NOT to provide security. It's designed to be a fun, appropriate challenge which amuses the DM and provides a good experience for the players.

There's nothing about the phrase standard "fun" kind of trap that suggests to me anything about appropriate challenge. They can certainly overlap on the previously mentioned Venn Diagram, since you generally want a game of D&D to be fun, but when you say standard "fun" kind of trap I think of wacky gremlin silliness that has nothing in particular to do with appropriate challenges. Pies in the face, and not 10d6 damage for example.

This explains so much! I've been wondering why your replies have seemed so bizarre and off-topic. You're having a completely different conversation with me, than the conversation I'm having with you. It also explains why you said you had trouble following the line of argumentation, and why you thought my replies were flippancy that did not address your concerns (instead of flippancy that directly addresses your concerns).

Perhaps it's my fault that you didn't realize this was part of the discussion all along--I've attempted to make this point repeatedly but it doesn't appear I've been successful. Perhaps even after you read this post that will still be the case--but at least from my perspective, it's simply inaccurate to say that 'we've never been discussing "appropriate challenges" vs. "intelligent NPCs"'. That distinction is the core of what I've been talking about for several pages now.

At this point, it's clear to me we've been miscommunicating. I have never been talking about appropriate challenges, and never responded to your posts in the context of appropriate challenges.

I mean, we still have a fundamental difference of opinion when it comes to the usefulness of Find Traps. But at least we're no longer having two different conversations and talking past each other.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

There's nothing about the phrase standard "fun" kind of trap that suggests to me anything about appropriate challenge. They can certainly overlap on the previously mentioned Venn Diagram, since you generally want a game of D&D to be fun, but when you say standard "fun" kind of trap I think of wacky gremlin silliness that has nothing in particular to do with appropriate challenges. Pies in the face, and not 10d6 damage for example.

Oh, I see. All I mean by "appropriate"/"fun" here is that the players will not have fun if they turn a corner leading to the treasure vault and suddenly, without warning, all instantly die from the magical equivalent of a claymore mine strong enough to kill Tiamat outright. (Say, 5000 gp worth of stacked Glyphs of Warding with Meteor Swarm: 500d6 magical bludgeoning damage and 500d6 magical fire damage, saves for half.) That's exactly the way a smart, wealthy wizard (PC or NPC) will set up his defenses in a universe where D&D rules apply... but it isn't any fun for players to experience. As some posters have said, it turns the game into a form of Fantasy Vietnam, complete with paranoia.

I don't mean that "fun" traps have to be silly and non-lethal. Everything in Grimtooth's Book of Traps, even the most diabolical and deadly of them, is a "fun" trap by my standards because it's designed to provide a fun experience for the DM and the players--or at least, I don't know what to call these traps besides "fun".