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Survivor Worst Spells: FIND TRAPS IS THE WORST!
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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 7175729" data-attributes="member: 6787650"><p>Noooooo...</p><p></p><p>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 <em>exactly</em> 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!</p><p></p><p>You and other posters keep raising the possibility that hey, that alchemy lab <em>could</em> 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.</p><p></p><p>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 <em>expect</em> from lowkey on a survivor thread--but it isn't a serious argument.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>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).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 7175729, member: 6787650"] 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 [I]exactly[/I] 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 [I]could[/I] 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 [I]expect[/I] from lowkey on a survivor thread--but it isn't a serious argument. 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). [/QUOTE]
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