Trap only encounter?

[the Jester]

I also like the encounter traps from the 3.5 Dungeonscape book. WotC dropped the ball not porting those rules more directly into 4E.

Yeah- Dungeonscape, in retrospect, was totally a test drive of 4e encounter (and trap) design philosophy. The encounter traps are basically solo trap encounters. Damn fine work.

I kinda wish they'd come out with a small supplement of traps and hazards, honestly.

This! A hundred times, this! A Tome of Traps or some such would be great- hell, make it the size of the Monster Manual, as long as there is a good variety and a lot of traps of every level 1-30+! I'd buy it in a second!

 

[chitzk0i]

There's an LFR adventure with an all-trap encounter, but you don't want to use it. It starts with a rolling boulder trap. If the boulder hits you, it hurts you, pushes you 2, and knocks you prone. The boulder herds you further along as hallway with 3 more traps, one targeting each of Fort, Reflex, and Will. All three are area effects that make you immobilized (save ends) on a hit. At the end of the hallway, you have to jump over a 15 foot long, 10 foot deep pit that catches the boulder. I think I'd walk out on a DM who ran that as written.

 

[Blackbrrd]

There's an LFR adventure with an all-trap encounter, but you don't want to use it. It starts with a rolling boulder trap. If the boulder hits you, it hurts you, pushes you 2, and knocks you prone. The boulder herds you further along as hallway with 3 more traps, one targeting each of Fort, Reflex, and Will. All three are area effects that make you immobilized (save ends) on a hit. At the end of the hallway, you have to jump over a 15 foot long, 10 foot deep pit that catches the boulder. I think I'd walk out on a DM who ran that as written.

Why?

 

[lukelightning]

Why?

Perhaps the boulder is undisarmable (undisarmable is a perfectly cromulent word).

The problem I have with all-trap encounters is that while every character has something to contribute to a normal fight, not everyone can realistically do anything to counter traps.

Sure, there are skills other than thievery that can be used, depending on the trap, but to have a trap that every character can be involved in defeating takes a bit of a stretch... e.g. a magically-aimed mechanical crossbow trap that fires imps at you... arcana can counter the magical part, thievery the mechanical, and religion the imps.... yeah this is a weak example but you get the idea.

So you end up with a party where one or two characters are involved, and the rest of the part is just passive targets.

Another problem is that depending on the DM, you may not know which skills to use until you try. While it is partly the player's responsibility to actively try things.. (e.g. asking the DM if your knowledge of dungeoneering can help), sometimes the RAW skills to use vs a trap are not obvious and can be inconsistent (perhaps in one LFR adventure you can use athletics to mangle a trap, but in another adventure it's only a strength check). So even if the trap can be defeated through arcana checks or something, unless the trap seems magical the player might not have any reason to even try the skill. And if in a previous LFR adventure arcana could not be used to defeat a magical trap, then why would the player even try in the next adventure?

 

[Turtlejay]

I played in an encounter that was all traps, and it did not feel at all like only one or two people participated. It was a pretty large room, and pressure plates released large sections of the ceiling, crushing you if you were caught. Once the first one fell, poison gas seeped down, expanding slowly around each of the holes above us.

The challenge was not so much to disarm the trap, but to aid each other in getting unpinned from huge blocks, and in getting to the other side of the room and through the door. It was tense and fun.

Jay

 

[the Jester]

There's an LFR adventure with an all-trap encounter, but you don't want to use it. It starts with a rolling boulder trap. If the boulder hits you, it hurts you, pushes you 2, and knocks you prone. The boulder herds you further along as hallway with 3 more traps, one targeting each of Fort, Reflex, and Will. All three are area effects that make you immobilized (save ends) on a hit. At the end of the hallway, you have to jump over a 15 foot long, 10 foot deep pit that catches the boulder. I think I'd walk out on a DM who ran that as written.

Why? Too challenging?

 

[lukelightning]

Why? Too challenging?

If it's LFR, then the party composition can be extremely variable. In a regular campaign, players tend to try to cover all the bases with their abilities, but in an LFR game you could easily end up with a party that has none of the skills needed to counter a trap.

 

[the Jester]

If it's LFR, then the party composition can be extremely variable. In a regular campaign, players tend to try to cover all the bases with their abilities, but in an LFR game you could easily end up with a party that has none of the skills needed to counter a trap.

Is that bad?

I mean, you might have nobody who is good for a given skill challenge too.

Is it worth walking out on a dm over?

That just sounds... kinda spoiled, imho.

 

[lukelightning]

Oh, I don't agree with walking out on a DM.... I took that as a bit of hyperbole. If it came to that I'd only walk out of the dungeon. "Screw this Dungeon of Doom. I'm going to kill rats in basements!"

 

[the Jester]

Oh, I don't agree with walking out on a DM.... I took that as a bit of hyperbole. If it came to that I'd only walk out of the dungeon. "Screw this Dungeon of Doom. I'm going to kill rats in basements!"

Now that is a perfectly reasonable response.