D&D 5E Traps and DCs

[Psikerlord#]

Hmmm, I think trap DCs RAW are set according to the DMG table p.121. What the player might do to help or hinder things, or circumstances that impact on the situation, just going on RAW, grants adv or disad only. It doesnt change the trap DC which is static.

Any kind of tinkering with modifiers other than adv/disad is houseruling. And I happily endorse such! 5e RAW only is too simplistic.

 

[iserith]

Usually yes, but not when role-playing. Then it should matter how well you play your role.

"Roleplaying is, literally, the act of playing out a role. In this case, it’s you as a player determining how your character thinks, acts, and talks." - Basic Rules, page 66

So it seems to me I can have my character do anything I want for any reason I want and still be considered roleplaying. Now, if I play to my established personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws, then I might get awarded Inspiration by the DM. That's a good idea because Inspiration is useful for getting advantage on a check when I'm called upon to make one. But I don't need to play dumber than I am to be considered to be roleplaying.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

"Roleplaying is, literally, the act of playing out a role. In this case, it’s you as a player determining how your character thinks, acts, and talks." - Basic Rules, page 66

So it seems to me I can have my character do anything I want for any reason I want and still be considered roleplaying.

Sure, you can, it's just not good roleplaying.

But I don't need to play dumber than I am to be considered to be roleplaying.

You sure should if you are smart in real life, but play a character that's dumb.

 

[iserith]

Sure, you can, it's just not good roleplaying.

Okay, good. I thought from the post I previously quoted that you thought doing smart things when you have a character that is established as "dumb" wasn't roleplaying at all. I feel like we're making progress here. I can accept that you don't like it, so long as you know it's still roleplaying.

You sure should if you are smart in real life, but play a character that's dumb.

This would seem to preclude situations where the dumb guy sees the simple solution that eludes all the smarter guys who make it more complicated than it is. Or when the dumb guy stumbles onto the solution out of pure dumb luck. Character actions are exceedingly easy to justify to make it consistent with established characterization.

 

[iserith]

But what's your starting point? What differentiates a "good" trap (one that's difficult to find and good at its job) from a "bad" trap (botched, obvious, easy to avoid) if you build you DC's from player narrative?

I decide this when I describe the environment. I'm always going to telegraph a trap to make it a fair challenge. A "good" trap won't be as obvious in the description. A "bad trap" will be. Once the players describe what they want to do, I can decide if what they want to do has an uncertain outcome and set a DC accordingly.

An ability check tests a character’s or monster’s innate talent and training in an effort to overcome a challenge. The DM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results.

For every ability check, the DM decides which of the six abilities is relevant to the task at hand and the difficulty of the task, represented by a Difficulty Class. The more difficult a task, the higher its DC.

I think the part relevant to my points in this discussion comes down to what the task is. The player is the one who describes the task that is undertaken and a DC is set according to that. A DM could write down a list of possible tasks and DCs for each, but this is a waste of time in my view since contingent prep is not all going to be used. I submit that this is what the example traps in the DMG or in modules are doing:

The trip wire is 3 inches off the ground and stretches between two support beams. The DC to spot the trip wire is 10. A successful DC 15 Dexterity check using thieves' tools disables the trip wire harmlessly. A character without thieves' tools can attempt this check with disadvantage using any edged weapon or edged tool.

The above excerpt from the collapsing roof trap shows what I'm talking about. Try to spot the tripwire requires a player to describe keeping an eye out for hidden threats, particularly on the floor (that's the task) and this specific effort is uncertain, but easy. Trying to the trip wire specifically using thieves' tools (the task) is similarly uncertain and of medium difficulty. It's uncertain and harder to avoid a negative outcome when trying to cut the trip wire with any other edged implement (the task).

If a player chooses to do none of these tasks, then thinking up all those tasks and DCs was in my view a waste of prep time. Therefore, I recommend leaving off on DCs and tasks when designing traps in favor of preparing how the trap works and how it is telegraphed, establishing DCs only after players have described what they want to do.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm not desirous of getting off-subject in this thread, so I'll just make the following comments about this subject. Rolling a group check *may* work for a group of Orcs spotting Hobbits, but it doesn't work well with a group of PCs with varying Perceptions getting ambushed by foes. I don't know how you would even roll, just one die for the whole party, and each apply a separate modifier? If you roll separately, nothing is hidden. Group check for the foes' stealth is necessary though (which is likely more uniform), else someone inevitably will roll low, and again, nothing would ever be hidden. But getting into groups makes it all more complex (more people maybe should spot foes more easily, but maybe they distract each other, and more people in an ambush group should be harder to hide, etc.), but passive Perception helps avoid the issue of too much rolling making hiding impossible.

Ambushes don't need passive perception at all. The DC of the ambush should have been determined before the group ever got there. Ask for a perception roll and 5 seconds later you know who is ambushed and who is not. The ambush is going to happen right in that moment, so it's not is if the roll gives anything away, and if the encounter jumps out at them before you have them roll, the tension will be there as they all roll.

 

[slaughterj]

1. Outside combat there is really no need to track of actions (it's said that one round should be around 1 minute in dungeons, so that would allow room for 10 actions anyway).

Traps often are set by creatures to provide them notice of invaders, so timing is often quite important actually. Plus, as many keep mentioning in the context of traps in various threads, timing for dealing with a trap often matters due to the potential for wandering monsters who may show up while you are spending time dealing with a trap.

3. Let's say a player doesn't have enough passive perception to notice the trap, you are already at a point where the trap would activate if it's not noticed. Even if you then ask the player to do a perception check, it doesn't matter if it makes him alert, because on a failed roll the trap will already go off and he has to do a saving throw.

What is your point with this? I don't ask for an active check, I use passive unless a PC asks to use an active.

4. Even simple traps can be narrated in an interesting way. Even if getting caught by it or not is just binary, you can still make a memorable moment out of it simply by narration and with the helps of your player it can lead to funny dialogues. And as explained earlier what you criticize about 5e isn't actually how 5e is supposed to be played, it's just your misinterpretation of what passive perception means and what finding a trap means.

How is there a misinterpretation? RAW, traps have set DCs. Traps are found by Perception (generally, some could be by Investigation). Perception is either passive or active. If someone is not actively searching, they are relying on passive. Seems pretty straight-forward to me.

 

[iserith]

What is your point with this? I don't ask for an active check, I use passive unless a PC asks to use an active.

Why is a player asking to make a check, passive or otherwise, at all? That's not their role. It's the DM's role to determine if a check is required after the player describes what he or she wants to do.

 

[Ristamar]

You sure should if you are smart in real life, but play a character that's dumb.

Character actions are exceedingly easy to justify to make it consistent with established characterization.

This is veering slightly off-topic, but I'm generally not a fan of players justifying dumb actions or poor tactics that are detrimental to the party in the name of "good" role playing for a variety of reasons.

• The players typically can't effectively role play being much wiser or smarter without significant DM adjudication, so they shouldn't be forced to play dumb.
• The players' senses and their respective characters' senses are already stymied by the medium of the game, even in the hands of a skilled DM.
• Encounter design is based on the assumption that characters are making effective and informed choices.
• The game thrives on a shared group experience, relying on a metagame social contract of cooperation and fairness.

 

[iserith]

This is veering slightly off-topic, but I'm generally not a fan of players justifying dumb actions or poor tactics that are detrimental to the party in the name of "good" role playing for a variety of reasons.

I agree, which is why I advocate taking as clever an action as you like, then (if desirable) fictionally justifying why your "dumb" character was capable of that. I see no value in reining in my hard-earned player skill when I can easily use it and justify why it jives with established characterization.