D&D 4E Traps in 4e?

[Rechan]

So they repair the floor afterwards. And maybe they repaired it beforehand as well, after the last wandering monster came by. For heaven's sake, it's not like a hole in the ground disguised with some dirt, rocks and planks is a difficult thing to conceive of.

Then it's not an encounter for Heaven's sake.

What?

The way you are presenting your examples, it implies a lack of internal consistency.

Nobody said anything about a pistoning ceiling. It can be as simple as a cavity in the ceiling filled with rocks and held up by some planks, which is activated when someone yanks a rope or trips a tripwire. And after the goblins get rid of whatever got crushed, they just load the rocks back into the cavity and reset the tripwire.

Then it isn't an encounter.

A trap is a self-contained encounter in 3E. This may or may not continue to be the case in 4E. I am all for treating them as just components of an encounter, as said previously.

No, in 3e, Traps aren't encounters. An ENCOUNTER is something that threatens the entire party. It's not 'I peg one character for some damage and now the cleric has to waste a cure spell'. A trap that is an encounter is something that lasts for several rounds and is a danger to everyone.

Up to 4th level in 3E, a wizard can't cast fly. Are they not a wizard? Up to 8th level, they can't cast teleport. Are they not a wizard?

I'm sorry. I misread your initial comment. I thought you were saying that a wizard may not get those spells in 4e.

Even so, I don't see Fly and Levitate being regulated to tenth level abilities.

Besides, fly and levitate affect one person only.

You must have missed where I said the wizard ferried people across. Hand wizard rope, hand rope to rogue, have wizard fly and trail rogue underneath. It's not hard. Especially since the Fly lasts for a while, so this can be repeated for several hazards.

No, I pointed out that traps/encounters that just sit there waiting for the party to come to them are, by their nature, of limited use past a certain level. This has exactly nothing to do with whether those traps/encounters are reasonable things to meet in the course of the adventure.

This doesn't make any sense as a response to what I've previously said. Either you misunderstood what I said, or I don't understand what you're saying at all. It feels like we're having two different discussions.

 

[hong]

Then it's not an encounter for Heaven's sake.

Your point is...?

The way you are presenting your examples, it implies a lack of internal consistency.

The examples were of passive hazards that could plausibly be encountered in locales other than artificially constructed dungeons. Building a framework of internal consistency around them is an exercise left to the reader.

No, in 3e, Traps aren't encounters. An ENCOUNTER is something that threatens the entire party. It's not 'I peg one character for some damage and now the cleric has to waste a cure spell'. A trap that is an encounter is something that lasts for several rounds and is a danger to everyone.

A trap is an encounter in 3E. It has a CR, ergo if met it gets an EL. It uses up resources just like other encounters do. Just because traps are often trivial to deal with doesn't mean they're not encounters. And besides, if someone fails their save against a finger of death trap, that could require a bit more work to fix than just wasting a cure spell.

I'm sorry. I misread your initial comment. I thought you were saying that a wizard may not get those spells in 4e.

Even so, I don't see Fly and Levitate being regulated to tenth level abilities.

A signature of the progression from low to high level in D&D is the progressive accruing of game-changing abilities: raise dead, teleport, fly, etc. They seem to be wanting to reduce that somewhat, so we may see such magic being toned down -- or at least made less convenient to use. Eg maybe now it takes 10 minutes to cast fly, or something.

You must have missed where I said the wizard ferried people across. Hand wizard rope, hand rope to rogue, have wizard fly and trail rogue underneath. It's not hard. Especially since the Fly lasts for a while, so this can be repeated for several hazards.

And if the hazard (call it a trap, call it an encounter, call it whatnot; the point is we're talking about something dangerous that doesn't move around) is supplemented by people wanting to make life difficult for the party, then all of a sudden this becomes exciting and interesting, rather than just a boring delay.

This doesn't make any sense as a response to what I've previously said. Either you misunderstood what I said, or I don't understand what you're saying at all. It feels like we're having two different discussions.

Possibly.

As I understand it, you were saying that complex and elaborate passive hazards didn't make sense in a cave or other non-extensively-constructed locale. I was saying that you could still have passive hazards like quicksand, cave-ins, etc. It's also not too difficult to integrate these hazards into the rest of the environment so that they both make sense, and become exciting instances of play.

 

[Rechan]

As I understand it, you were saying that complex and elaborate passive hazards didn't make sense in a cave or other non-extensively-constructed locale. I was saying that you could still have passive hazards like quicksand, cave-ins, etc. It's also not too difficult to integrate these hazards into the rest of the environment so that they both make sense, and become exciting instances of play.

Ahh.

I'm not talking about passive hazards at all, but 4e encounter traps.

It would be easier if I give you a concrete example.

WotC has said to get an idea at how traps are to be treated in 4e is like traps in Secrets of Xen'Drik.

The first example of an Encounter Trap is a Spear Gauntlet trap, a CR 2. In a 40x40 room. Pressure plate activates. Once the trap is activated, a spear shoots up from each 5 foot square every round for 5 rounds. Each spear emerges from a slightly different hole, so you can't just step between them. Each spear has an attack roll. The trap gets an initiative roll and every spear gets an attack roll.

To disable the trap, you can either disable (or destroy) each square individually (DC 17), or you have to disable the central control mechanism on the opposite wall of the pressure plate activator (DC 19).

What I'm driving at is:

Do you see how elaborate this Encounter Trap is? Its construction requires engineering from the ground up. It is complex, and intended to be a very active obstacle. Thus, I find it hard to imagine such an Encounter Trap fitting in a cave, a forest, or any other place where the inhabitants didn't build the place with a Huge Honkin' Trap in mind.

If traps are no longer 'it's a pit in the floor or rocks fall on your head', then I don't know how humanoids would have crudely designed encounter traps in their lairs.

 

[hong]

Right. I agree, such a trap would be out of place in a more primitive locale. Still, you could have something like the ewok snares in Return of the Jedi: if you get caught, you're stuck 10' above the ground and it's the party's job to get you out. Meanwhile, an alarm goes off somewhere else alerting the ewoks/goblins to your presence. It would be less elaborate than the spear trap, but still a passive hazard of sorts. That kind of thing is what I had in mind, especially how it would be used in combination with the inhabitants of the dungeon.

 

[Rechan]

Right. I agree, such a trap would be out of place in a more primitive locale. Still, you could have something like the ewok snares in Return of the Jedi: if you get caught, you're stuck 10' above the ground and it's the party's job to get you out. Meanwhile, an alarm goes off somewhere else alerting the ewoks/goblins to your presence. It would be less elaborate than the spear trap, but still a passive hazard of sorts. That kind of thing is what I had in mind, especially how it would be used in combination with the inhabitants of the dungeon.

I just question whether traps will be Passive or if they will be Active, requiring you to engage them fully. To put it another way, a Passive trap is just "Hey it's a fast moving river, we must cross"; an Active trap is "Holy crap the stream's been diverted and it's coming right at us".

 

[hong]

I just question whether traps will be Passive or if they will be Active, requiring you to engage them fully. To put it another way, a Passive trap is just "Hey it's a fast moving river, we must cross"; an Active trap is "Holy crap the stream's been diverted and it's coming right at us".

I wouldn't mind either, as long as they get away from the idea that traps are basically things that can be disposed of with a single die roll. IME, few people like playing the bomb disposal guy, so if traps can be made to be more dynamic, all the better.

 

[Jhaelen]

Traps suck. 'Nuff said.