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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Authweight" data-source="post: 6370546" data-attributes="member: 6693417">I don't think there's a single correct way of handling traps. The answer will always depend on what you're trying to achieve with the trap as a matter of adventure design.If you want a trap to serve as something to break up combat and draw players into interacting with the world beyond hitting the squishy bits, you want to use puzzle-style traps. A puzzle trap should involve a relatively easy DC to recognize that something is up, but the task of figuring out how it works shouldn't just be abstracted to a single roll. The trap should work in a particular way, and should have particular countermeasures to disable it or nullify its effects. Successful rolls should give the PCs hints, but will not solve the problem without the players describing their actions in more detail. There should be real consequences to failure (possibly story-altering) in order to match the expenditure of effort and time by the players.If you want a trap to be part of general attrition against the party's resources, it is best to handle it quickly and efficiently. A few rolls, then bad things do or don't happen. If you don't want to spend a lot of precious time on the trap, abstracting it is good. This approach is also good if the enemies would logically have a trap, but you don't really want it to be a big focus of your adventure.If you want a trap to add spice to a fight, then it should be approached as more of a terrain effect or an immobile monster. Figure out what role it serves in the combat and give it abilities and stats to support that role. Focus on creating interesting choices. A big part of this design can be about interacting with the action economy. DCs should be low, since checks to disable it already cost precious actions in a fight, and you want to encourage interaction rather than punishing it.</blockquote>

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