Traps and randomness

[Silmarillius]

...and if you use less traps, it's also an elegant solution. Otherwise, if traps are used less, I think the rules to cover them are fine.

This I agree with, but traps are not totally useless. They add to the game like anything else and bring a sense of danger to the area your exploring. Yes, they should not be abused, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be in the game.

Look, whether or not you're going to add a trap, think about why the trap is there (ie who built it, whats it protecting, etc), what you want the trap to do and how your players are going to deal with it.

Silmarillius

 

[Desdichado]

Well, yes. That's more or less what I said too.

Traps simply as metagame challenges to the players are lame, same as any other metagame challenge that isn't internally consistent. In my opinion traps are way overused because there aren't nearly as many internally consistent ways to use a trap as there are traps in most adventures.

 

[Dog Moon]

Personally, I believe that wherever a character is likely to search for a trap, the trap should not be there. If the players believe that a trap will be on a door so they search it for the trap, the trap should be on the other side of the door and trigger once they step through the doorway. This way, I rarely have to worry about people searching for traps because they'll never be able to know where to search and they shouldn't be expecting them.

 

[Staffan]

I don't allow pcs to take 20 if there's a trap- there is a consequence of failure.

Usually, they'll trigger a trap that way.

By the RAW, that's part of the Disable Device skill. Searching can be done from a (short) distance, but in order to disable the trap you're gonna need to manipulate it. Missing that roll by more than 5 means you trigger the trap.

Have you ever thought of creating more difficult and challenging traps for the players?

I have, but I'm sorry to say that I don't do all that much adventure design on my own - I've been trying to do it recently though. But the problem with moving trap disabling out of the realm of skill mechanics is that it tends to screw over the rogue (and to a lesser degree the artificer) - why would he spend all those points on Search and Disable Device if he won't be allowed to use them? Of course, there's probably a middle ground there somewhere.

And now an idea pops into my head about putting an encounter in my next adventure where the PCs have to fight something in a room that's filling with water/sand (or some other "crap we're gonna die if we don't fix this" thing), which will prevent the party's artificer from taking 20 on his trap meddling rolls.

I have another solution: traps are usually boring, lame, and don't really make any logical sense. Use less of them.

You're right to a point. In most cases, you'd rather have guards somewhere than traps. There's also the issue of traps usually not being able to kill/incapacitate whatever triggers them (unless we're talking Grimtooth), which in turn means the PCs will just say "Oh, time to take out the ol' healing wand" and zap the trapee with some charges of CLW.
Oh, and traps make even less logical sense if you take the DMG trap rules at face value, which gives an 1,800 gp cost to a 10' pit trap, which in turn means that it takes almost a year to build one (45 weeks assuming skill +10), but that's a matter for another discussion.

 

[Slobber Monster]

I agree with what others have said - this is a problem of adventure and encounter design, not a rules problem. If a trap is in an obvious place, and there is no time pressure, then I don't think there should be any challenge in finding it for a group which includes a good trap finder. I could kinda live with the variable take 20 idea, but I don't really see how it makes things any more fun for anyone, except maybe the DM who just wants to see traps go off. As a DM I don't really get that either - oh you step there, roll some dice, you take damage, get cured. Ho hum.

I think adventures in general have to include some element of time pressure in order to be well balanced and interesting. The old school way to do it is with random encounters - which still works fine at lower levels as long as it makes sense for the environment. Taking 20 on every search suddenly looks a lot less attractive if a marauding band of ghouls shows up every half hour or so.

Random encounters don't work as well for this purpose as PC's get to higher levels, since they have access to magic which all but guarantees a restful sleep. But there are still plenty of scenarios left which enforce time pressure and can still be mixed with a dungeon crawl - race against the clock, pursuit, espionage, and assaulting an active defense immediately come to mind.

Lastly, combining traps with creatures who are aware of the trap is probably my favorite. It tends to make all kinds of skills useful in combat - search, disable device, jump, tumble, balance all have potential use if there's a nasty trap that must be skirted or disabled to reach the enemy.

 

[Li Shenron]

I rather think that traps are supposed to be found most of the times. Which is very different from saying that they are supposed to be always bypassed with no harm.

You put a trap where it makes sense, such as to prevent a door or a container to be opened, or to prevent a passageway to be walked.

A smart player will have the idea of searching for traps where it is more likely. It is always possible however that it doesn't come to the player's mind to search, in which case the player's mistake is paid by eventually walk into the trap.

Taking 20 on the search isn't a problem to me. Traps are usually always findable with Take 20 by a single-class Rogue who has (circa) maxed out his Search skill. If he decided instead to neglect the Search skill or be a multiclass, he knows that he won't be able to find some traps.

But once the trap is found it is not yet bypassed. Now is when Disable Device kicks in, and for our pleasure Disable Device does NOT allow to Take 20 because of the penalty failure (which is not part of Search).

I think this is intended by the designers: since you usually have to first Search and then Disable a trap, it would not be very fair if the Rogue had TWO chances of springing out the trap on itself.

There are of course situations (with specific traps) when Search is enough, when you don't need Disable because your party can teleport, fly, or other high-level stuff, but you in fact need to consider that it is not a bad thing and it is part of high-level play (apart the fact that if you still use traps in high-level games, they should be magic traps which can counter some of these tricks).
And of course you could try to spring some traps by sacrifing a summoned monster (or the party bard), but this can be done only if the trap is one-use only.

IMO Search & Disable are designed pretty well to work this way, and most of the problems arise because the DM plays them in a free-form way, or because the DM is very bad in placing traps where they shouldn't be.

 

[Raven Crowking]

While I agree that it is true, in principle, that the purpose of traps is more to create the illusion of danger than to pose a serius threat (since being killed by a spiked pit really is inherently less fun than being killed by an owlbear), the idea that there might be traps of which you are unaware is a good thing, imho, when creating this illusion.

Right now, the system is set up so that the DM basically chooses whether or not the trap is found (by determining location, describing clues, and setting the DC against the known "20 plus Search bonus" abilities of the PCs). The "Take Approximately 20" rule allows for trap DCs to be set in a grey region where it is neither absolutely certain that the PCs will find a trap, nor is it absolutely certain that they will not. Because of the DC system, the DM can still easily set up traps that the PCs absolutely will (or will not) find.

Remember, also, that we are not only talking about the kinds of traps people set. We are also talking about "natural" traps, such as decayed floorboards that give way, weakened support beams, and so on. I actually use far more "natural" traps than manufactured ones.


RC

 

[Iron Sheep]

You have to be careful modifying the way traps are discovered if you aren't going to nerf one of the major roles of the rogue. According to the search skill description, you only need to be within 10 feet of the area you are searching to search it. No touching is required, and except for unusual traps, searching alone, even taking 20, won't set them off, according to the rules as written.

The downside of taking 20 is the time required (2 minutes per 5 ft by 5 ft square). So a 50 ft by 50 ft room takes 3 hours and 20 minutes to search. Put the PCs in a time critical situation, or throw in some wandering monsters, and traps can be much harder to find because players won't be willing to invest the time.

Disarming a trap once discovered is another matter, and as a DM I think that you get better drama and suspense from a trap which is discovered and has to be disarmed or avoided somehow, than from a sequence of undetectable traps, which will appear random and arbitrary to the players. The threat of disaster from a botched disarm attempt is more compelling than the threat of falling into a pit at arbitrary points with no way of preventing it.

However, if you don't like the binary nature of take 20 searches, you could use the fact that if you were to roll 20 d20s, you only get a high roll of 20 about 64% of the time. Doing the math, you get:

Result   d100   d20    d8
  16      1      -     -
  17     2-4     1     -
  18     5-12   2-3    1
  19    13-36   4-7   2-3
  20    37-100  8-20  4-8

So if you want the added variability, just roll the appropriate dice (probably best if the GM does this secretly) to find out the "actual" result of taking 20. This way a rogue will get the trap that requires a take 20 most of the time, but they will fall 1 or 2 short enough of the time to make it potentially interesting.

Regards,
Corran

 

[Raven Crowking]

...than from a sequence of undetectable traps, which will appear random and arbitrary to the players.

Which rather agrees with my point that the DM should be able to make finding some traps difficult without their being undetectable, as opposed to the current "Find or Find Not, There Is No Try" system.

Also, placement of traps does not have to be "random and arbitrary" (or seem so to the players) even if the traps cannot automatically be found. (And please note that cannot automatically be found is not the same thing as automatically cannot be found!)


RC

 

[Silmarillius]

I think that you get better drama and suspense from a trap which is discovered and has to be disarmed or avoided somehow, than from a sequence of undetectable traps, which will appear random and arbitrary to the players.
Corran

This may be true in your experience, but my group has had quite a time dealing with our DM's "undetectable traps," for example some of the "natural" ones and fit well with the flavour of the game (such as a decaying floor board from a building long due for repair).

I would like to give 2 examples of "natural" traps I thought were pretty neat in some previous games our group has had in Raven Crowkings campaign. The first was when our group of 2 fighters, a druid and a cleric went into "The Dragons Lair," our first adventure to save this man Herbert Oarsman's son. At the time, I was playing one of my first characters a LG Half-Orc fighter named Hrum. Now, we had just fought our way through about 12 cultists of Mellythese (A spider Goddess who is a spider herself) and about 4 humaniod spiders, killing 3 and letting one go, and a giant spider the size of a horse. It was one of the groups more favourable battles and mine as well, due to the fact that this was the few times where our group really kicked ass and worked as a team rather than when our group extending and having us bickering, arguing, solo members going off from the group, help of a way too powerful magic item or simply being disorganised, plus the fact that our DM had expected that we'd need a group of imprisoned man at arms to fight with us.

Well, after that, all four of us were going to rescue the prisoners, myself leading, when we discovered what we believed was a sacraficial victim whose throat had been cut, but it wasn't. As we saved the prisoners and I led, I walked into a razor-thin strand of webbing. I was able to pull my neck back before it went too deeply, but I mean that was close!

Second story, it was about a year after this and we were going into this Tower owed by the wizard known as Amorath the Arcane. By then, my first character had died and I was playing a Gnomish Bard named Nift. Now, I belive it was the second level we got to before 2 characters went into a room ahead of us and ran into an animated stone guard. Now, the way this guardian would attack would be when the first person went into the room, and every other character who attacked him he would go after. In this room, part of the floor had been decayed. One character attacked who was on the other side, off went the guardian and smack through the floor.

So, natural traps can have a certain sense of "Drama" if you really put the time into thinking how they would fit into the certain scenario your trying to run than a let's say a triggered arrow that flies across the room where you stepped. So again, with any trap, there is always a reason that they are there, natural or man made. Traps shouldn't be made to be random, they should be made to make sense.

Silmarillius