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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gort" data-source="post: 4424415" data-attributes="member: 11239">I ran a pendulum scythes trap as part of an encounter with a trio of spectres today, and it raised an issue that I think needs errata. It's really hard to disarm a trap using thievery now!To disarm a pendulum scythes trap requires first a DC 27 perception check to spot the control box, which is pretty tough at level 4 (the level of the trap). Once you've done this, your would-be trap disarmer has to disengage from the encounter and carry out a skill challenge, in which he needs 4 successes before 2 failures, at DC 22!Even if you're trained in thievery, and you have +4 dexterity (the highest the default array will allow at this level), you've only got +11 in thievery - chances are you're going to fail the skill challenge, after wasting about 4 rounds of the encounter.Then, to add insult to injury, the trap goes into some kind of overload mode, where instead of a single pendulum blade, you get between two and five instead! So not only did you waste at least one minor action to spot the control panel, then at least two entire rounds attempting to disarm the trap fruitlessly, you actually made your situation worse! How on earth does this system make any sense? Why do traps get worse when their controls are tampered with? Why don't they just go at the "overload" speed whenever they're triggered?My suggestions to fix this:Lower the DCs for the skill challenge - bring the challenges in line with the suggested DCs for a hard skill challenge elsewhere in the book (so this trap would become a DC 17). Possibly medium DCs for normal traps, and hard DCs for elite traps would work better. They're only supposed to be as hard to deal with as a monster or two, after all.Increase the number of failures allowed to 3, to bring the challenges in line with the normal skill challenge rules.Instead of having the normal trap speed up when the challenge is failed, have a secondary trap on the control box which targets the disarmer personally, such as a poisoned spike, or glyph of warding or suchlike. At least then his party don't pay for his bad luck, and it makes a bit more sense.As it is, there's not a lot of reason to attempt to disarm a trap using thievery - you're far better off using normal countermeasures, even if you're trained.</blockquote>

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